Posts Tagged ‘golos’

20
September 2012

Putin Does His Own ‘Reset’

Wall Street Journal

Democrats and the media who love them have ridiculed Mitt Romney for saying Russia is America’s “number one geopolitical foe,” and Vladimir Putin recently all but endorsed President Obama for re-election. But the Russian President keeps behaving in ways that prove the Republican had a point.

In the latest slap to America, the Kremlin announced this week it is expelling the U.S. Agency for International Development. The aid arm of the State Department has spent almost $3 billion in the last two decades to feed and modernize Russia and, in recent years, promote human rights and free elections. The relatively small $50 million annual program will close October 1. Justifying the move, the Russian foreign ministry on Wednesday accused the U.S. of trying “to influence political processes, including elections of various types.”

Among the groups that get American assistance is Golos, which has exposed the Kremlin’s electoral fraud. Golos and other NGOs will be hard-pressed to find new funding. Russians are reluctant to support democratic groups, lest they end up like oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky in a Siberian prison.

Stunned by large pro-democracy protests in Moscow and other cities last winter and spring, the Kremlin has cracked down. Anyone who takes a penny from an outside source is now branded a “foreign agent.” Penalties for public protests are stiffer. Prosecutors are dredging up criminal cases against activists, and more show trials are coming.

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20
September 2012

U.S. should redouble effort to boost Russian democracy

Washington Post

In what has been a steadily escalating campaign to shore up his power after a bumpy return to Russia’s presidency, Vladi­mir Putin has delivered an audacious double blow. By ending cooperation with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), he has deprived a host of Russian pro-democracy organizations of critical funding — and administered a sharp rebuff to the United States, which he portrays as an adversary. This coup, delivered in a diplomatic note on Sept. 11, was, as Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) aptly put it, “a finger in the eye of the Obama administration.”

You wouldn’t have known that, however, from listening Tuesday to the State Department. In announcing the Russian decision, State carefully avoided criticizing USAID’s eviction from Moscow. Asked whether the administration was disappointed, spokeswoman Victoria Nuland repeatedly described the cutoff of $29 million in funding for democracy and civil society programs as “a sovereign decision.” When asked if it affected the administration’s much-promoted “reset” of relations with Russia, she said: “When we talk about the reset, we talk primarily about global and regional foreign policy issues on which we work together.” (On Wednesday, after the Russian foreign ministry claimed that USAID had been shut down for meddling in elections, Ms. Nuland called the decision “regrettable.”)

Perhaps this laconic response can be attributed to the administration’s election-eve unwillingness to acknowledge a setback in one of its signature foreign policies; challenger Mitt Romney has been a trenchant critic of the “reset.” Still, it’s disheartening to hear officials describe support for democracy as marginal to U.S. relations with Russia, at the very moment when pressure for political change there is greater than it has been in more than a decade.

Since announcing his return to the presidency last year, Mr. Putin has faced a swelling opposition movement. In its attempt to squelch it, the Kremlin has concocted legal charges against leaders, ramped up penalties for participation in “illegal” protests and rammed through a law requiring non-governmental organizations that receive foreign funds to register as “foreign agents.” Its booting of USAID will strip funding to groups such as Golos, an independent election monitoring group that publicized fraud in Mr. Putin’s reelection as president last March.

This is a time for the United States to redouble its support for Russian democracy, rather than quietly accepting the shutdown of its programs. Officials say they will try to provide funding by other means; one way of doing so would be to create a new $50 million fund to support Russian civil society organizations. The Obama administration proposed this initiative to Congress last year but met resistance from Republicans.

Similar shortsightedness by House Republicans recently prevented the passage of the Sergei Magnitsky bill, which would punish Russian officials guilty of human rights abuses by freezing their U.S. assets and banning them from receiving visas. The Obama administration long resisted the bill but now is prepared to accept it if it is linked to legislation that would remove restrictions on trade. Passage of the Magnitsky bill and the new democracy fund would be an appropriate response to Mr. Putin; Congress should make those a priority. займ онлайн на карту без отказа займы онлайн на карту срочно zp-pdl.com https://zp-pdl.com/get-a-next-business-day-payday-loan.php займ на карту срочно без отказа

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20
September 2012

Russia says USAID ousted for meddling in elections

LA Times

Russia’s Foreign Ministry on Wednesday said that the U.S. Agency for International Development was being barred from operating in the country beginning Oct. 1 because it had meddled in elections.

The statement followed a State Department announcement the day before that USAID had been ordered out after operating in Russia for two decades.

The U.S. agency had strayed from “the declared goals of assisting the development of bilateral humanitarian cooperation,” Alexander Lukashevich, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, said in a statement posted on the ministry’s website. “We are talking about attempts via distributing grants to influence political processes, including elections of various levels and civil society institutions.”

The government of President Vladimir Putin had previously accused Western governments of trying to influence the parliamentary elections in December and subsequent protests calling into question the results of that balloting and Putin’s own election in March.

One of the first victims of this week’s order will be Golos, an independent Russian organization whose monitors reported massive violations during the elections. The group was one of the key recipients of USAID grants.

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03
July 2012

Foreign-Funded Nonprofits in Russia Face New Hurdle

New York Times

In the latest move to rein in dissent, Russian authorities have introduced a draft law that would require nonprofit organizations that receive financing from outside Russia to publicly declare themselves “foreign agents” — a term that, to Russians, evokes cold war-era espionage and is likely to discredit the organizations’ work in the eyes of the public.

Lawmakers from United Russia, the governing party, have accelerated work on the bill and are scheduling the first of three readings on Friday. If passed, the bill would complement a new law penalizing Russians for taking part in unauthorized protests, which was rushed through Parliament at a similar pace last month.

The bill would also put new burdens on nonprofit groups with foreign financing that are judged to be involved in politics, including annual audits and unannounced checks for the use of “extremist speech” in published materials. Organizations could face fines of as much as 1 million rubles, or $30,000, for violations.

Rights activists have excoriated the proposal as an attempt to discredit their work, arguing that Russian donors are afraid to support organizations that criticize the government, which then leaves them dependent on foreign sources for money.

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08
December 2011

Re-run election, says Gorbachev; support Russia’s democrats, says bipartisan group

Democracy Digest

The United States must speak and act in support of Russia’s pro-democracy forces, a bipartisan group insisted today.

Passing the Sergei Magnitsky Act “would send a clear message to Russian Prime Minister Putin and his United Russia party that those guilty of human rights abuses will not be able to travel to the United States or protect their corrupt gains in our financial institutions,” said a statement from the Russia Working Group.

“The Magnitsky case is one of the most emblematic examples of the breakdown of law in Russia,” says William F. Browder. “Unlike many other murder cases, where there is some plausible deniability about who pulled the trigger, here we have in such granular detail who was responsible and a chain of command that goes right up to the cabinet. Because of that, this is like a cancer that they don’t seem to be able to get rid of. And the more they try to cover up, the more this becomes the Watergate of Russia.”

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