Monsters, Inc.

TV preacher Pat Robertson says he’s ending his relationship with the Christian Coalition to "focus on those things that will bring forth the greatest spiritual benefit." But it’s more likely that Robertson is dropping the declining organization to gain other types of benefits, too. In recent months, the Virginia Beach, Va.-based religious broadcaster has been involved in several high-profile -- and controversial -- business transactions.

Robertson has entered into a partnership with brutal Liberian dictator Charles Taylor to run a gold-mining operation in that war-torn African nation, hopes to become the main Internet provider in communist China and is trying to open an oil refinery in a poor neighborhood near Los Angeles. If successful, these ventures could produce billions of dollars for Robertson, a man whose net personal worth was recently estimated at $150 million.

As a businessman, Robertson has a mixed record. A multi-level marketing scheme he founded in the early 1990s called Kalo-Vita went belly up in 1995, leading Robertson to sell the company to an unnamed investor for the grand sum of one dollar. The Virginia Beach televangelist has had better luck with broadcasting ventures. In 1997 he sold his cable concern, the Family Channel, to Fox’s Rupert Murdoch for just under $2 billion. (Fox later sold the channel to Disney/ABC, and Robertson retains the right to broadcast his "700 Club" program, the cash cow for his nonprofit religious empire.)

Two of Robertson’s most recent profit-making ventures -- the Liberian operation and the oil refinery -- have difficulties. He may be stepping down from the Christian Coalition partly to devote more time to shoring them up.

Robertson’s investment in Liberia through a company called Freedom Gold has sparked a string of negative columns from Colbert I. King, a writer with The Washington Post. Since Sept. 22, 2001, King has written five columns for The Post blasting the TV preacher’s partnership with Liberian strongman Taylor -- and he doesn’t appear to be planning to let up anytime soon. Other writers have since joined the anti-Robertson chorus.

Robertson’s Liberian deal calls for 10 percent of the profits of Freedom Gold to go to Liberia -- not including royalties and rental fees the Taylor regime will earn if the mines become productive. Robertson insists the money is going to the country, not Taylor personally, but King remained unpersuaded, noting that Liberia has been described by critics as "Charles Taylor Inc."

Under Taylor’s regime, Liberia totters on the brink of chaos. Racked by civil war, the nation is poor and close to anarchy. Thousands have been killed and tortured by Taylor’s troops, police and security forces, and Taylor is accused of backing rebels in neighboring Sierra Leone, spawning more death and destruction there.

In a Nov. 3 column, King wrote, "The international community has received a steady stream of reports detailing police floggings, kickings and burning of a detainee’s skin with hot plastic to extract confessions; victims stripped naked, made to kneel on iron bars and whipped with belts and cables; the jailed people lying face down on the floor while police walk on their wrists and forearms."

On Nov. 30, Robertson replied to King’s columns, asserting in a letter to the editor that he has never met Charles Taylor and insisting that his employees there have "found freedom of religion, freedom of movement, freedom of expression and what appears to be a judiciary dedicated to the rule of law."

King responded the next day, pointing out that the only reason Robertson hasn’t met Taylor is that last year he was warned by State Department officials not to travel to Liberia. That same year, Robertson’s plan to bring Taylor’s wife, Madam Jewel Howard, to Norfolk was cancelled after Taylor’s vice president was murdered.