Usually international organizations (and Diasporan ones, for that matter) fund local NGOs for, shall we say, more political activities on the explicit instruction that nobody knows where the external support comes from.

This is especially common in the local media where I now have a hard time working out what articles have been commissioned by international (or Diasporan organizations), and which haven’t.

Regarding any opposition coalition, there isn’t one.

However, there are smaller fractured groups within what can be considered an “opposition” who are working together. However, their combined numbers are small as we could see with the demonstration in question.

What is interesting, however, was that despite being small, it involved a small grouping of what I consider to be the “radical” part of civil society, some Impeachment guys, representatives of a USAID’s civic awareness program and also the Diaspora.

Of course, all of these guys have personal as well as professional links, but regardless, that’s got to be a first.

That one’s easy: USAID and RFE have the CIA in common. From wikipedia’s USAID page:

USAID has been accused of relationship with the CIA. Some claim that there was, but no longer is, a relationship between both agencies. Others disagree.

Eva Gollinger, for example, writes that USAID “functions as an instrument of CIA penetration into civil society” and maintains that the USAID was being used by the CIA as recently as the 2002 attempt to bring down the government of Hugo Chávez in Venezuela [4]”

Onnik said: “It was all totally out in the open unlike many other organizations.”

Who? I’m having a hard time understanding you here. The demonstrations were rather lam…um, I mean small. What “many other organizations” are you talking about? If you are right, then that suggests that there is some sort of opposition coalition. But in your other posts you lament the fact that there is no viable opposition coalition. So are you just engaging in Armenian hyperbole here?

Onnik said: “RFE/RL and EurasiaNet provided the most comprehensive and credible coverage of the last election in my opinion, and I daresay will do so again early next year. And yes, it should be pointed out that I was working for the latter during the election period, but consider my work to have been pretty objective and something that I stand by.”

I actually agree with you about RFE having access to large amounts of information. After all, its tied to an intelligence service. All they have to do is vet the information they collect and broadcast it. Journalism and intelligence gathering have historically gone hand in hand: They do the same thing.

That doesn’t change my belief that they should broadcast on a private channel, but it is worth acknowledging.

However, my experience from that time was that USAID/CASP was very cautious about not funding partisan, i.e. pro opposition projects, and the matter of impartiality was frequently raised by them. Again, it was worth pointing out that when two organizations were rejected, the orgs accused USAID/CASP of making a political decision in favor of the government.

On the other hand, I was surprised to discover that USAID/CASP participated in what quickly became an anti-government demonstration in support of RFE/RL at the beginning of the month. Indeed, one blogger says that Counterpart was one of the organizers, although I’m still confused as to why USAID did something as blatant as that rather than do something from the sidelines.

Still, full marks to them for being open about it, although I’ve noticed that Counterpart International’s name has now been removed from the original post although no correction or comment to the contrary was made either on that blog or on mine. Besides, Counterpart staff were clearly visible attending the demonstration during work hours and did nothing to conceal the fact.

It was all totally out in the open unlike many other organizations, but perhaps something that journalists should have picked up on, in my opinion.

Anyway, all I can say is this. Most of the NGOs that receive funding for election related projects and which might have a colored revolution in mind, lack the organizational skills, support, ability or even ideas to actually bring anything like that to fruition. Instead, they end up polarizing society or only addressing the same small group of supporters they’ve always done. Other NGOs without a political axe to grind do only enough to justify their funding — and that basically isn’t much and is usually half-hearted at best.

Otherwise, many of your points taken on board although I will once again state for the record that RFE/RL and EurasiaNet provided the most comprehensive and credible coverage of the last election in my opinion, and I daresay will do so again early next year. And yes, it should be pointed out that I was working for the latter during the election period, but consider my work to have been pretty objective and something that I stand by.

Basically, although we can argue that every single media outlet in the world has some kind of partisan agenda, it is a journalist’s professionalism and the extent of editorial control that determines whether, how and to what extent that is reflected in the story. From my own experience, I was never subject to any interference from my editors during the period of the parliamentary election, or indeed at any time before. I also consider the same to be true for RFE/RL’s English-language web site.

The mystery (or “irony,” as you call it) can be cleared up in two short steps. 1) The US and Europe have tried to legitimize the government because it has been amenable to their interests, and 2) It has been amenable to their interests partly because it’s had the threat of a color revolution hanging over its head.

I don’t know how to put that more clearly. You brought up the same point with regard to the IMF/WB praising Armenian policy, and I told you the same thing: The Armenian government has been doing what it’s been asked to do by them. I’ve made this point twice already, I hope I don’t have to repeat myself again.

The mobilization of Armenians against their own government is obviously not not meant to be consummated through a revolution: If you have a gun to a person’s head who’s cooperating with you, you know that shooting him will result in a dead person who did what you wanted him to; shooting him will mean that you have to go in search of another person who will cooperate with you.

You see? No irony.

As for Alex Sardar, you point out that he’s “actually” a Diasporan Armenian. And? He’s a Diasporan Armenian, so what? Are you saying his identity has some
bearing on politics? I’ll see your Alex Sardar and raise you a thousand Fouad Ajamis, a thousand Abbas Milanis, a thousand Saudis, for that matter, literally, in the latter case.

In short, the contradiction that you’re trying to point out in my argument is the direct result of you forgetting a point I stated a short time ago, and my criticism of institutions like USAid, RFE/RL, Eurasia, Inc., for that and other reasons still stands on rock-solid ground. Better luck next time.

I welcome most of your other insights.

Certainly, the last round of grants appeared to have no impact on the conduct and result of the election and from my own dealings with CASP I will say this. The head responsible for disbursing the election-related grants is actually a Diasporan Armenian who served as the Executive Director of ANCA (U.S. Western Region), a Dashnak lobbying group, until 2002.

Anyway, I remember him quite clearly stressing that the grants for the parliamentary election must go for non-partisan projects, and on the whole I think they did (I only know of one project that was hijacked for political purposes (i.e. to support the radical opposition and planned street protests) and as a result, it was duly terminated although I think Counterpart still support that particular organization).

Anyway, although I am quite critical of the way civil society works here (or doesn’t as the case may be), I have no reason to consider that the way grants are disbursed for the presidential election will be any different. Indeed, it’s looking as though the US in particular is interested in continuation in Armenia and not revolution, so this is quite the opposite situation to what you suggest.

Basically, there is no genuine pro-Western opposition to speak of and the government, including Serzh Sarkisyan, are doing quite nicely in working within the rules set by Europe and the US. Indeed, Serzh has made a particular point of trying to appease Washington, and specifically the US military with regards to Iraq and Armenian-American military cooperation.

As for NDI and IRI, the latter isn’t really doing anything here apart from the occasional poll, and many anti-government activists are critical of the former because they say they’ve done nothing of note in the past 10 years. On the other hand, it is rumored that the government is trying to kick NDI out of the country so they might be doing something that we don’t know about. Anyway, one of the acting heads of the organization I asked about this wouldn’t answer any questions, but certainly didn’t deny they were under pressure to leave the country.

Actually, one thing that does concern me about NDI is that for all its talk of democratic and open societies it is one of the most closed and secretive organizations that I’ve encountered here. Again, you can’t preach democratic standards and values when you yourself don’t practice them. Anyway, it might interest you to know that NDI privately supported Kocharian’s victory in the 2003 election although I don’t know if this was a personal opinion expressed by the senior member of staff I spoke to, or one representative of the organization.

Basically, the US appears quite happy with how things are developing here in Armenia although they obviously do need more democratic elections to “legitimize” any decisions or policies made by the government and president. This is especially true when it comes to the Nagorno Karabakh conflict.

Probably my main concern with regards to all this money flowing in for NGOs at times such as elections is that these guys appear to do something only when they’re paid to do so. Otherwise, they don’t seem to care at all about such matters in between elections or if it means they have to use their own resources or do something voluntarily. That’s the biggest problem of all that faces civil society, in my opinion, and especially when there’s an urgent need for perpetual civic education in the country.

It’s why many people here — including some activists themselves — consider that there is actually no real civil society at all in Armenia. Indeed, as one (perhaps I can say pro-government) individual of note told me recently, the problem is that civil society has grown too “comfortable” in Armenia. Usually, most NGOs are engaged in fierce battles with rival organizations for scarce resources, and that’s pretty much their main preoccupation. One organization even tried to stop me writing about another less radical rival organization because they weren’t involved in their project, for example.

So, whether these guys get money or not, and whether they have genuine democratic intentions or not, the last parliamentary election showed that they really have very little influence on matters. As I said in the opening paragraph of this post, elections in Armenia simply represent unprecedented opportunities for receiving extra funding. Politically, when CASP turned down two organizations (although one later received a smaller grant) probably because they were pro-opposition, both instead accused USAID of making a political decision and supporting the Armenian Government.

So, nobody seems too happy with the US at present and USAID can’t win — everybody is accusing them of everything even if all the accusations are contradictory and come from both sides of the political fence. There are those ready to accuse them of wanting to ferment revolution in Armenia, while the opposition and civil society accuses them of wanting to support Kocharian passing on power in order to maintain continuity in reforms, negotiations over Karabakh, and Regional/European integration projects.

Ironic.

Anyway, although I don’t agree with your argument as it relates to Armenia for now at least, thanks for expressing your opinion and providing links to related information so that readers can decide for themselves or even offer their own opinion on the matter.

Here is the proof, from the London Guardian:

“The Democratic party’s National Democratic Institute, the Republican party’s International Republican Institute, the US state department and USAid are the main agencies involved in these grassroots campaigns as well as the Freedom House NGO and billionaire George Soros’s open society institute.

US pollsters and professional consultants are hired to organise focus groups and use psephological data to plot strategy. ”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1360080,00.html

How USAid really works:
http://exile.ru/feature/feature8.html

USAid is all about getting average people to believe that privatization is “good,” that unbridled capitalism means “freedom.” It is all about teaching people that if they are poor and hungry, its not because everything has been sold to oligarchs and corporations, its because they, the people, are unskilled or have something otherwise wrong with them.

Here is USAid doing just that in Lebanon:
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article6474.shtml

And there’s plenty more proof where those came from.

Hmmm… locals paid by USAid to “help” “secure” free elections. Sounds kind of familiar.

Don’t listen to these liars. Armenians are perfectly capable of ensuring the fairness of their own elections. These people want to turn Armenia into a sweatshop. They hire psychologists to do country profiles, then create advertising campaigns accordingly. It’s brainwash, really.

If you help them, then to them you are a useful idiot. Wake up, already.