Russian Democracy NGO Opens in New York City
Back in October I noted a story where Putin announced he would seek to establish NGOs in Europe and the United States that would work to promote democracy and human rights. In today’s Moscow Times a story covers the registration of the Institute for Democracy and Cooperation in New York city.
The group, which claims to be completely independent from the Kremlin and is funded by private Russian businessmen, will work to improve the reputation of Russia in the U.S. and provide analysis of democracy in the U.S.
The director couldn’t help himself in taking a swipe at Freedom House who recently rated Russia as “not free” in their annual report on the state of freedom in the world. Money quote:
“I have no desire to copy the behavior of organizations like Freedom House,” Kucherena said. “We have completely different tasks. … Freedom House has only one goal: to publish data, which was assembled using methodologies that nobody understands, in order to draw attention to themselves.”
The organization is also planning an office in Paris with perhaps additional office in other European countries and some former Soviet states. According to the article, they are currently hiring staff for their NYC office. Time to dust off that resume.
Grigorii Golosov on 01 Mar 2008 at 9:04 am #
I believe that the following information is important for understanding the context within which the ‘Institute for Democracy and Cooperation’ was established. The initial impulse for creating this institute came from Vladimir Putin’s comments made at Russia – EU conference in Portugal in October 2007. In his comments, Mr Putin referred to EU-funded advocacy of democracy in Russia as to something that should be matched by Russia’s similar activities in Europe and elsewhere. When explaining these comments, Putin’s aide Sergei Yastrzhembsky said that Mr Putin meant the European University at St. Petersburg that received a EU grant to implement a project on election monitoring in Russia. As a director of the mentioned project, the Inter-Regional Electoral Network of Assistance (IRENA), I would like to draw the attention of your readers to the following facts. Starting with June 2007, the IRENA project experienced continuous harassment from the Russian authorities. After a series of inspections that did not prove anything illegal in project-related activities, the Russian authorities attacked the recipient of the grant, the European University at St. Petersburg. In February 2008, the European University was closed by the authorities on a ridiculous pretext of ‘fire safety violations’. At about the same time, the ‘Institute for Democracy and Cooperation’ started to operate in Paris and New York.
Tim on 20 Mar 2008 at 8:28 am #
Since when has Russians became experts in democracy? They have not been democratic that long, How would they even know what that is? It is a typical ploy that muddles the facts and brings confusion regarding the existing democracy that they have labeled sovereign or managed democracy. I would think thst a country that is still developing its democracy would be glad to accept suggestions onj how they could include its citizenry and improve its democratic development. The fact may be that Vladimir Putin served in the FSU and his pride has not been able to stomach the west’s development governmentally. Supportinmg fact: he has retained many of his old KGB pals and the FSB has become more and more authoratative.