Balkan Conspiracy Theories Come to Capitol Hill

Balkan Conspiracy Theories Come to Capitol Hill

NEWS: goo.gl/a3kAcQ



secretary of State Rex Tillerson is mulling how to respond to a letter delivered March 14 by six senators urging him to investigate the activities of U.S. embassies, USAID missions, and diplomatic outposts working to support democracy around the world.



Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), the lead signatory, and his fellow senators unquestioningly spread false allegations made in a pamphlet distributed to Congress by a Macedonian group, Stop Operation Soros, which was set up by Cvetin Chilimanov, the editor of Macedonia’s state news service and a former employee of the president’s office. The letter focuses on the efforts of two career U.S. ambassadors to support democracy in Macedonia and Albania, implying that their missions meddled in local party politics to “invigorate the political left.” It alleges that the Foundation Open Society Macedonia and the Open Society Foundation for Albania, which are supported by billionaire philanthropist George Soros, acted as middlemen in this endeavor.



Tillerson should ignore the letter, because there’s nothing to investigate. In addition to being littered with inaccuracies about the foundations’ work, the senators echo Kremlin talking points and support the agenda of corrupt and undemocratic elements in the region.



I know this because I am the director of the Open Society Initiative for Europe, which Soros founded. I am also Macedonian. In 2015, my country was thrown into political crisis after an opposition party published a series of intercepted audio conversations. One appeared to show then-Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski encouraging election officials to invalidate ballots cast against his party. Other recordings revealed rampant corruption and a mass surveillance program targeting 20,000 people. In response, hundreds of thousands of protesters against the government took to the streets across Macedonia in 2015 and 2016 and a special prosecutor launched an investigation against Gruevski, who was encouraged to step down by the European Union. Elections late last year left no party with enough seats to form a new government; Gruevski remains the most powerful force in a divided Macedonia.



Faced with a potential prison sentence, Gruevski is unwilling to admit responsibility for the crime and the political crisis caused by the ongoing investigation. Admonished by the EU and eager to shift the blame, he appears to be taking his lines from Moscow. He has parroted Kremlin propaganda that labels critical voices as enemies of the people. Soros, who co-funds independent organizations with other private donors and the EU, has become a convenient scapegoat.



It has been widely understood in the U.S. Congress that support for civil society organizations around the globe was not a partisan affair. Since the days of President Ronald Reagan, both parties have overwhelmingly supported work to help countries transition from communism to democracy. Yet in their letter, the senators ask Tillerson to shut down democracy promotion that is “disrespecting national sovereignty.” Such an interpretation assumes that governments are sacrosanct and sovereign, not the voters who elect them, and that a healthy civil society undermines a country’s development.



In pushing these claims, the senators have unwittingly ushered Russian President Vladimir Putin’s authoritarian narrative straight into the Capitol. In wording akin to Russian state media’s depiction of the crisis in Ukraine, which branded all popular dissent as fomented by the West, the letter accuses USAID of destabilizing Albania, a former communist state turned NATO ally, by pushing for justice reform there. They offer no proof to substantiate their claim beyond USAID funding the work of the Open Society Foundation for Albania, and even this is incorrect.



Contrary to the allegations leveled in the letter by unnamed “respected leaders from Albania,” the Open Society Foundation for Albania has never accepted or administered USAID funding. It did not create the Strategic Document for Albanian Judicial Reform as the letter claims; Albania’s multiparty parliamentary commission for judicial reform did. The foundation supported the process by f