Groups paid by the US to promote democracy in Central Asia are under sustained assault, not only from those governments but also from Russia, which is locked in conflict with Washington for dominance in the region's former Soviet republics.
The US needs military bases and permission to use the airspace in the region to service its forces in Afghanistan, and it holds large oil and gas investments in some of the countries.
But the US also pays a handful of organizations to aggressively promote democracy in Central Asian nations, many of which are ruled by longtime presidents who do not allow competitive elections. Several also have close ties to Russia.
The nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) -- and US diplomats supporting them -- are under near-constant harassment from their host governments and from Russia.
Russia has always looked askance at democracy programs, but following popular uprisings that led to changes of government in Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan over the last year, it began inveighing against them, saying the US was trying to create "franchised revolutions," as Tass, the Russian government news agency, put it recently.
The US spent US$75.6 million on programs promoting democracy in Central Asia in the most recent fiscal year for which figures are known. In Kyrgyzstan and Ukraine, US-financed groups gave training and assistance to opposition groups that ousted leaders.
In Moscow, the lower house of parliament gave preliminary approval late last month to a law that would, if put into effect, severely restrict, if not close down, many NGOs working in Russia, including the pro-democracy groups. US officials and other experts said Russia was pushing Central Asian states to enact similar laws.
As a result of these and other pressures from Russia, said Nelson Ledsky, a former US State Department official who now leads the Central Asia programs for the National Democratic Institute, "we have run into considerable difficulty in the last six to eight months, everywhere, because the Russians have mounted an organized campaign wrongly accusing" the US of working to foment revolution.
The institute is a government-financed agency established by Congress and often working under government mandates. In many foreign countries, it is regarded as a branch of the US government.
Russia places accusatory news articles and commentaries in Russian-language newspapers across the region, US officials and officers of the pro-democracy groups said. One in Kazakhstan asserted recently that Ledsky's organization, and others like it, "are like secretive, revolutionary spies."
Many of those working for the groups are under constant scrutiny of their host governments, which harass them to show their displeasure. In Kazakhstan, as an example cited by nongovernmental groups, tax authorities conduct surprise week-long audits that paralyze operations. Immigration officers sometimes seize workers' passports.
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