U.S.: NGO Says Focus On Foreign Spending Shifting

Is Ukraine seen by U.S. policymakers as no longer needing democracy support? (file photo) (RFE/RL)

WASHINGTON, April 20, 2007 (RFE/RL) -- The human rights group Freedom
House has praised the Bush administration for requesting a 17 percent
increase in funding for programs that promote democracy around the
world. But its report, "Supporting Freedom's Advocates?" also complains
that Washington seems to be shifting its emphasis away from individual
leaders and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that promote
democracy. RFE/RL correspondent Andrew F. Tully spoke with Amanda
Abrams, Freedom House's director of communications, about this apparent
shift.

RFE/RL: If it were up to Freedom House, where would the U.S. government be focusing its efforts to support overseas democracies?

Amanda Abrams: In repressive societies, and in those that are becoming increasingly repressive, the real way to attack what's going on is to support the NGOs and the human rights activists, because these folks are really the substance of the movement that can maybe reverse things.

RFE/RL: How has the United States shifted its focus?

Abrams: For example, they are working with the judiciary -- which of course is worthwhile -- working with legislatures, working with the legislative branch. So, sort of going more from the top down and looking more at governance issues. Which are certainly quite valid, but they're only part of the picture.

RFE/RL: Your report expresses concern about the need for U.S. aid to individuals and NGOs in the former Soviet Union, particularly Russia. Can you elaborate?

Abrams: It definitely seems that President [Vladimir] Putin has done -- is doing -- what he can to stifle independent voices. And there have been increasing restrictions -- particularly the NGO law and other activities -- so that even with [the presence of] opposition parties, there's been less and less freedom for opposition voices to be heard. This, we think, is really not combating the issue at all.

RFE/RL: Does Freedom House have any other special concerns in the former Soviet Union?

Abrams: In Uzbekistan, for example, Umida Niyazova is a journalist and human rights activist who's been in custody since mid-January. She's somebody who could get up to 30 years [in prison]. Her charges are illegal border crossing and possessing illegal literature, which is essentially Human Rights Watch documents, and another charge that's very similar.

And basically she's just a human rights activist who's, we think, being targeted specifically for those activities. So, someone like her -- there are various things that she might need, and certainly before we even get to the point of someone like her being arrested, these folks need our support. And often that support is monetary or in resources.

RFE/RL: Had the U.S. government supported Niyazova until now?

Abrams: I think off and on. I know she [Niyazova] had worked with international human rights groups. I don't even know, frankly, if the infrastructure exists yet [in the U.S. government] to really reach out to human rights activists to the degree that we could and on, sometimes, an emergency basis. There are some funds that are there for working with human rights activists on an emergency basis, but often it may be limited just to legal defense funds. So if this [Niyazova case] was seen as important [to the U.S. government], we would want to see a lot more flexibility in some of the funding tools for these human rights defenders.

RFE/RL: So far, we've focused on Freedom House's concerns about the proposed U.S. budget for promoting democracy. Are there any positive elements in the budget?

Abrams: In a general sense, yes. We're seen an increase in democracy funding around the world, which is great, and we're also seeing increases in certain regions, but the former Soviet Union isn't one of the regions that's really receiving an increase, I'd say, generally speaking.

Central Asia, for example, has been sort of overlooked and is generally going down [in terms of funding]. The Caucasus -- we're urging more funding in a general sense, not so much [for] Armenia, but [for] Azerbaijan and Georgia. Even Ukraine -- we're saying, "Don't forget about it."

So each country has a different situation, but in a number of cases, either they're being seen, we think, as lost causes, like Uzbekistan, or political issues, like Russia, or already have graduated [viewed as already have graduated to democracy], like Georgia and Ukraine. And with those two, we don't think they have quite graduated yet, and they're not quite ready to be left alone.

RFE/RL: Do you mean to say that the United States, in a way, is shifting its focus away from the former Soviet Union on human rights and democracy issues?

Abrams: Perhaps. It seems they have done some reprioritizing. There's been increased democracy funding for Africa, and we very much congratulate that. But perhaps they've decided to consolidate a bit their funding and their programming to some of the countries that maybe matter more or that there's a better chance of affecting. So that may be, to some degree, why there's been a bit of a shift.