Soros, NGOs and Western/foreign meddling in Macedonia

[Soldier of Macedon]

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017...in-europe.html

Lawmakers probe US funding for Soros groups, left-wing causes in Europe

February 17, 2017

George Soros' alleged meddling in European politics has caught the attention of Congress. Concerns about Soros' involvement most recently were raised by the Hungarian prime minister, who last week lashed out at the Soros "empire" and accused it of deploying "tons of money and international heavy artillery." But days earlier, Republican lawmakers in Washington started asking questions about whether U.S. tax dollars also were being used to fund Soros projects in the small, conservative-led country of Macedonia. Rep. Christopher Smith, R-N.J., led a group of House lawmakers in writing to Ambassador Jess Baily -- an Obama appointee -- demanding answers. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, also expressed concerns about USAID money going to Soros' Open Society Foundations as part of a broader concern that the U.S. Embassy has been taking sides in party politics.

“I have received credible reports that, over the past few years, the US Mission to Macedonia has actively intervened in the party politics of Macedonia, as well as the shaping of its media environment and civil society, often favoring groups of one political persuasion over another,” Lee said in his letter. Together, the concerns reflect growing conservative pushback against Soros' operations in Europe. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban last week ripped the Hungary-born billionaire's "trans-border empire." Orban has been one of the central European voices speaking out against the push by E.U. leaders to absorb Syrian refugees and has been criticized for his hardline stance.

Soros' Open Society Foundations -- one of the billionaire's biggest groups operating across the globe -- fired back, saying Orban was trying to deflect attention from other issues. “The Open Society Foundations for over 30 years have supported civil society groups in Hungary who are addressing profound problems in education, health care, media freedom and corruption," Laura Silber, the organization's chief communications officer, said in a statement to The Associated Press. "Any attacks on this work and those groups are solely an attempt to deflect attention from government inability to address these issues." The group's stated goal is “to build vibrant and tolerant democracies whose governments are accountable to their citizens” but critics claim it's a front for Soros’ hard-left political maneuverings.

Former Macedonian PM Nikola Gruevski says Soros has a "decisive influence" on his country’s politics. “If it were not for George Soros behind it with all the millions he pours into Macedonia, the entire network of NGOs, media, politicians, inside and out ... the economy would be stronger, we would have had more new jobs,” he said in a recent interview with Macedonia’s Republika newspaper. Macedonia, while small, is a broadly conservative country. It has a flat rate tax of 10 percent, a small-government philosophy and a ruling conservative party (VMRO-DPMNE) that has greeted the election of President Trump warmly and pledged to work with him. Lee’s staff recently met with Macedonia lawmakers, who also passed on a white paper from a citizen’s initiative called “Stop Operation Soros” which alleges U.S. money has been funding hard-left causes in the country -- including violent riots in the streets, as well as a Macedonian version of Saul Alinsky’s far-left handbook “Rules for Radicals.”

In an extensive 40-page dossier, the group alleges USAID money is being used to fund activists and exclusively left-wing media groups as a way to sway the country’s politics. The Open Society Foundations did not respond to a request for comment from Fox News. On the Soros connection, Lee’s letter asked if the Mission has “selected the Open Society Foundations as the major implementer of USAID projects in Macedonia” and if the group has been perceived to have political bias in Macedonia. In a reply dated Feb. 9, the State Department told Lee that the Mission in the country has worked to advance U.S. interests “in a non-biased, non-partisan, objective and transparent manner.” The letter claimed U.S. government assistance has not funded partisan political activities in Macedonia, but noted that from 2002 to the present, USAID had provided three grants to Foundation Open Society – Macedonia (FOSM).

One of these grants is outlined on the USAID website. Between 2012 and 2016, USAID gave almost $5 million in taxpayer cash to FOSM for “The Civil Society Project,” which “aims to empower Macedonian citizens to hold government accountable.” USAID’s website links to www.soros.org.mk, and says the project trained hundreds of young Macedonians “in youth activism and the use of new media instruments.” The letter from the State Department to Lee said USAID also recently funded a new Civic Engagement Project which partners with four organizations, including FOSM. It was not clear how much this project would cost, but Smith put the figure at $9.5 million. “The money is very significant, in fact there is still money in the pipeline, from 2017 to 2021, 9.5 million,” Smith said in a recent radio interview with the Family Research Council's Tony Perkins. “It’s one thing to do election monitoring, which is a very noble cause to make sure there’s free and fair elections, but it’s quite another thing to be backing parties that Soros and his gang want to see in control of that country.”

It isn’t the only time Soros has worked with the State Department. Among the emails of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta released by Wikileaks was one from 2011 in which Soros urged Hillary Clinton to take action in Albania over recent demonstrations in the capital of Tirana. Soros asked Clinton to “bring the full weight of the international community to bear on Prime Minister Berisha and opposition leader Edi Rama to forestall further public demonstrations and to tone down public pronouncements” and appoint a senior European official as mediator. Within a few days, an envoy was dutifully dispatched. Former Macedonian PM Gruevski cited the WikiLeaks emails as proof “[Soros] can go visit top leading American officials whenever he wants to, arranges meetings day in day out and has significant influence.”

While Soros has often been a bogeyman for the American right, the liberal businessman has kept a steady pressure and funding of left-wing causes within America as well. “This guy is a spider with lots of webs,” GOP strategist Brad Blakeman told Fox News' "Strategy Room." “He controls numerous third-party groups, where he uses his influence. We’ve seen it internally with Black Lives Matter, the demonstrations taken place after the inaugural -- this is what he does.” After violent left-wing activists rioted at Berkeley in protest of a lecture by Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos, The Daily Caller reported that the main group behind the protests -- Refuse Facism -- was backed by The Alliance for Global Justice -- which in turn is backed by The Tides Foundation, a Soros-funded group. Soros also has donated to Media Matters and has been a major financial contributor to the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank founded by Podesta.

http://www.breitbart.com/radio/2017/...payer-support/

Chilimanov: Far-Left ‘Soros Army’ Invades Conservative Macedonia, Contributes to Migrant Crisis with U.S. Taxpayer Support

17 Feb 2017

Cvetin Chilimanov, vice president of Stop Operation Soros, called into Friday’s Breitbart News Daily from Macedonia to discuss billionaire George Soros’ efforts to influence Macedonian politics. Chilimanov noted that Macedonia gained its independence from the defunct Soviet Union in 1991, making it relatively young as a free nation despite its ancient culture. [Correction: Macedonia seceded from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1991, not the Soviet Union.] “Unfortunately, what was waiting for us as soon as we got out of Yugoslavia was that the Left regrouped” with the help of Soros, who is “funding all sorts of outfits throughout Eastern Europe,” according to Chilimanov. “His main base is in Hungary. He’s active in the Ukraine now, in Poland. He’s organizing protests all throughout the Balkans, from Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia. He has one of the highest per-capita expenditures in Macedonia,” Chilimanov said.

SiriusXM host Lee Stranahan assured his guest that Soros is well-known to conservatives in the United States as “one of the big funders of the institutional Left,” including unions, think tanks, and media organizations. Chilimanov described Macedonia as a “country which re-asserted its independence after being partitioned by neighboring countries, with the usual Balkan arguments over identity, over religion with everybody around, but we were at least hoping we were putting socialism to bed after we split from Yugoslavia and tried to rejoin the Western world.” Stranahan clarified for the U.S. audience that Macedonia is also “a very conservative country in the American political sense of the word, in a lot of ways.” He offered the strong pro-life movement in Macedonia as an example. “That’s correct,” said Chilimanov. “We are conservative in social outlook. We have adopted some American-style conservative policies in economic outlook,” such as “a low flat tax rate of ten percent, tax-free zones to spur up manufacturing, easing of the labor laws to make it easier to hire and fire people, and cutting regulatory burdens.”

He was proud to report that “just a few days ago,” the Heritage Foundation “declared us number thirty-first in the world in economic freedom.” (The United States is ranked Number 17 on that list, putting it in the “mostly free” category along with Macedonia. The only five “free” nations in the world are Hong Kong, Singapore, New Zealand, Switzerland, and Australia.) “Not only in social outlook, but also in economic outlook, we have tried to – whenever conservatism was given a chance to run the country, we have tried to follow the U.S. example, the U.S. conservative example, and it just worked well,” Chilimanov said. “We have slashed unemployment, we have doubled the economy over ten years, just by introducing free market reforms. In many ways, we have been inspired by the U.S.” “The voters generally vote for the conservative party and give it wide mandate to rule the country, but this is where Soros comes with his attempts to help the former Communist Party, now the Social Democratic Party, take over power. And now, they do this pretty regularly,” he said.

Stranahan pointed out there is even a street in Macedonia named after Ronald Reagan, wryly noting “they wouldn’t allow that in many American cities at this point.” Chilimanov confirmed Stranahan’s report of seeing activists in the streets of Macedonia wearing “Soros Army” T-shirts: “These are the activists from this former Communist party, which has essentially merged with the sprawling Soros Foundation here,” Chilimanov said. “There is the old Communist party, and there are dozens and dozens of what they call ‘non-governmental organizations,’ NGOs, which are funded by Soros to the tune of about $5 million a year. This is supplemented by several million, up to $5 million a year additionally, coming from the coffers of the United States, usually through USAID.” He added that several other countries help to finance these left-wing activists, who “like to organize protests which would be not out of place to an American who has seen the Black Lives Matter protests.” These protests have targeted the office of the president, the Justice Ministry, the Parliament building, and other government offices, often with enough violence to injure police officers.

“They were receiving implicit support from the U.S. Embassy here, considering how the State Department was politicized and controlled,” he complained. “This is the most important thing here. The listeners obviously realize how IRS or the EPA were politicized under Obama, but I don’t think a good grasp of the extent to which the State Department was politicized, and USAID, which is the international development agency.” “USAID, the U.S. development agency, and the U.S. Embassy here have given tens of millions of dollars over the past several years to George Soros-led groups in Macedonia,” he elaborated. “They don’t give anything remotely similar to conservative groups. They’re essentially supporting only one side of the ideological divide in Macedonia. And they were doing this at a time when these groups were organizing violent protests, attacking the police, doing all they can to bring down the conservative government in this country.” “They keep the money for all sorts of activities. That includes media development, so the U.S. is paying for a long list of far-Left TV programs and news sites in Macedonia. They even pay for, several hundred thousand dollars have gone to essentially a copy of Saturday Night Live going on Macedonian television with similar talking points and similar jokes against conservatives and lionizing the Left,” he said.

“I want to make sure people get this,” Stranahan interjected. “Tens of millions of dollars in U.S. taxpayer money, correct? You’re saying that money has gone to George Soros to promote a culture of leftism, leftist groups in the country of Macedonia. Is that correct?” “Exactly,” Chilimanov agreed. “One of the Soros groups receiving U.S. funding is fighting to make abortion more easily accessible in the country. Other groups are promoting progressive economic policies, discussing inequality, or asking us to make our labor laws more strict or reintroduce progressive taxation. Another group is working on a media forum which is very anti-First Amendment. They’re promoting media regulation which will lead to setting up a committee which is going to evaluate whether you are spreading ‘fake news’ and essentially close down your media outlet if they decide you are.” “Maybe one of the worst organizations they’re funding, which is receiving U.S. funding and is set up by George Soros here, it’s a group of young lawyers who are very active in the migrant crisis, which Europe experienced in 2015 and 2016, during which Macedonia became essentially the external border of Europe. So the U.S. government was paying a group of lawyers to go to the border every day and to help people from Pakistan, Afghanistan, all over the world cross the border more easily, and apply for documents which will allow them to continue traveling through Macedonia toward Germany,” he said.

Update: Macedonia seceded from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1991, not the Soviet Union. The error has been corrected above.

[Amphipolis]

Soros is also very active in Thessaloniki, he's associated with our Mayor John Boutaris and his network of organizations was responsible for Boutaris being awarded... best Mayor of the World in 2014. Not kidding. I remember wondering "How does the world know about Thessaloniki?".

http://www.worldmayor.com/contest_20...-boutaris.html

[DraganOfStip]

Known Grujovist supporter and propaganda journalist Cvetin Chilimanov in one of his latest blogs talks about one of the founders of modern Macedonian poetry Koco Racin as "the dwarf from Veles", whose "only good thing he did was dying on time", and that he was "killed by one of the beasts he had inspired in looting".
He also added that his influence in our collective psyche was "toxic, harmful and unacceptable", and that his poetry was "selfish, vengeful" etc .

This has stirred a great revolt in the poetry circles in Macedonia and triggered an internet avalanche of disgust aimed at this DPMNE agent who isn't worthy of even mentioning Racin's name.
Racin's nephew from his sister's side, Zoran Sinadinovski, also came forward with a statement, saying that "my uncle gave his life for the freedom of Macedonia. His entire life was devoted to the struggle for a better and more just world, a society of freedom, equality and brotherhood in which there will be justice and solidarity. He strongly believed in the future and freedom of Macedonia where all citizens regardless of religion, gender, ethnic and social backgrounds and political persuasions will live free and equal without divisions and hatred. His life and his deeds speak who was and is Racin".

Chilimanov was a member of the counter-protest movement GDOM and now the Stop Operation Soros NGO, he was employed by DPMNE in the cabinet of president Ivanov and now he's an English language journalist in the government agency MINA.

http://iportal.mk/makedonija/cvetin-...mrel-na-vreme/

http://iportal.mk/makedonija/vnukot-...na-makedonija/

[DraganOfStip]

Citizens of Veles gathered yesterday in the local gymnasium that bears the name of Koco Racin as an act of protest against Chilimanov's offensive words against their fellow citizen and founder of modern Macedonian poetry written in his blog a few days ago.
The citizens demandеd a public apology from Chilimanov and called upon the local authorities to publicly condemn the act and proclaim Chilimanov a "persona non grata" in the town of Veles if he doesn't issue an apology within the next 72 hours.

-It is an insult to a person that Veles is especially proud of. In his home town there are monuments and an institution, the oldest Macedonian High School, that bear his name. Certain characters, who do not deserve to be called gentlemen, afford to spit on Racin as well as on the partisans who created this country of ours, to call them "packs of wolves". It deserves the greatest condemnation, regardless of political affiliation, religion or nationality. I think the people of Veles are deeply offended and the least these people that spit on our history can do is to be ashamed and publicly apologize to the people of Veles and to all Macedonians that feel offended.- a revolted citizen said.

The people later left flowers in front of his statue in the gymnasium and paid their respect to Racin with a minute of silence.

http://www.duma.mk/index.php?option=...eles&Itemid=48

[Redsun]

http://www.economist.com/news/europe...ict-macedonian

Scared in Skopje
A Macedonian breakdown gets Europe’s attention

Tensions with the country’s Albanian politicians could deteriorate into conflict

IN NORMAL times, the world tends to ignore Macedonia and its 2m people, a quarter of them ethnic Albanian. But the world is not ignoring Macedonia now. Western politicians are rushing to Skopje, Russia is issuing warnings and Serbian newspapers proclaim that war is coming. “Geopolitical relevance is returning to the Balkans,” laments Veton Latifi, an analyst.

The Macedonian crisis started with a coalition dispute. To preserve ethnic peace, governments consist of the winning Macedonian party and an Albanian one. Elections last December gave the incumbent Macedonian party, the nationalist VMRO, a slight edge. But after talks with the VMRO failed, the leading Albanian party, headed by Ali Ahmeti, opted for the Social Democrats. On March 1st Macedonia’s president refused to ask the Social Democrats to form a government, saying Albanian demands would “destroy” the country. The Social Democrats called it a “coup”.

Every weekday since, thousands of Macedonians have demonstrated in support of the president. The European Union’s foreign-policy chief, Federica Mogherini, along with the head of NATO and America’s State Department, have pleaded with him to reverse his decision. VMRO has staunchly supported joining NATO, but in this crisis it is backed by Russia.

At a deeper level, the conflict goes back to 2015, when the Social Democrats began releasing tapes of conversations (tapped by the intelligence services) which implicated Nikola Gruevski, the VMRO prime minister at the time, in corruption. Under EU auspices, a special prosecution office was set up, but VMRO now claims it is packed with Social Democrats. Lately VMRO supporters have accused George Soros, a philanthropist named in many potty conspiracy theories, of plotting against them. Ms Mogherini has been attacked in the press as a “fascistic Sorosoid bimbo”. American congressmen sympathetic to VMRO have attacked the American ambassador to Macedonia as a tool of Mr Soros.

At the centre of the crisis is Mr Ahmeti, a former guerrilla leader. Sharing power with Mr Gruevski since 2008 cost him support. He says Mr Gruevski would not agree to extend the mandate of the special prosecutor investigating him. Meanwhile, Albanian parties asked the government to keep its agreement to widen the use of Albanian as an official language.

According to Radmila Sekerinska, deputy head of the Social Democrats, Mr Gruevski instigated the crisis when he realised that he might lose power, which would leave him exposed to the special prosecutor investigating him. Not so, says Nikola Poposki, Macedonia’s foreign minister and a VMRO official. The Albanian language demand accepted by the Social Democrats “endangers the unity and sovereignty of Macedonia”, he says.

Mr Ahmeti warns against turning the crisis from a political one into an ethnic one, saying he has a tough job keeping his side’s own nationalist radicals in check. He disclaims any plans for a Greater Albania. Russia, he says, is stirring the Balkan pot; the best way out is to accelerate Macedonia’s accession to the EU and NATO. Good luck with that.

[Redsun]

https://www.rt.com/usa/380886-senato...nia-macedonia/

Senators ask Tillerson to probe US 'fomenting unrest' in other countries


Six Republican senators are demanding a State Department review of US taxpayer money being spent on meddling in foreign countries’ politics via NGOs run by billionaire George Soros, citing Macedonia and Albania as the most recent examples.

In a letter sent to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Tuesday, the lawmakers express concern over reports that US foreign aid has been channeled to support “left-leaning parties” and the “progressive agenda” in places like Albania and Macedonia. The two Balkans countries are just “timely examples,” with reports of similar US meddling coming from Africa and Latin America as well, the senators wrote.

The letter was signed by Senators Mike Lee (R-Utah), James Inhofe (R-Oklahoma), Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina), Ted Cruz (R-Texas), David Perdue (R-Georgia) and Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana).

"This includes reports of diplomats playing political favorites, USAID funds supporting extreme and sometimes violent political activists, and the US government working to marginalize the moderates and conservatives in leadership roles,”said Lee, adding that “this behavior is unacceptable and must be halted immediately.”

As examples of US interference, the senators cite the situation in Macedonia, a landlocked Balkans country once a part of Yugoslavia and currently in the throes of a political crisis featuring a restless ethnic Albanian minority.

“We have received credible reports that, over the past few years, the US Mission there has actively intervened in the party politics of Macedonia, as well as in the shaping of its media environment and civil society, often favoring left-leaning political groups over others,” the letter says. “We find these reports discouraging and, if true, highly problematic.”

Macedonia currently has a caretaker government, as no party has being able to form a majority coalition following the December 2016 election. Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski (VMRO-DPMNE) is accusing the US of pushing an alliance between Zoran Zaev’s Social Democratic Union of Macedonia (SDSM) and the ethnic Albanian Democratic Union for Integration (BDI).

Earlier this month, President Gjorge Ivanov vetoed the proposed coalition between Zaev and ethnic Albanian parties, on grounds that it could potentially “destroy” the country. As a condition of their participation in the government, Albanians are insisting on a seven-point platform – co-written by governments in Albania and Kosovo – that includes a demand to make Albanian an official language in Macedonia.

‘Macedonia not a country – sorry’ US Congressman says it should be partitioned by neighbors such as Kosovo &Bulgaria https://t.co/nOpdaolTfU
— RT (@RT_com) February 9, 2017

US meddling in Albania “appears to follow a pattern of alarming activity in this volatile region,” the senators wrote, pointing to Soros organizations in that country promoting specific reforms ahead of the June 18 general election, which the opposition is threatening to boycott as unfair. Such activity is even more concerning “in light of international reports of increasing government corruption in Albania and the renewed power of drug trafficking and organized criminal groups in the country,” the letter said.

Back in 2011, Soros himself wrote about unrest in Albania to then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, saying, “My foundation in Tirana is monitoring the situation closely and can provide independent analysis of the crisis.”

The new Trump administration should seize the moment “to review how our tax dollars are being utilized in order to halt activities that are fomenting political unrest, disrespecting national sovereignty and civil society, and ultimately undermining our attempts to build beneficial international relationships,” says the letter.

The six senators are asking for an investigation that would review “all funds associated with promoting democracy and governance and review the programs, accounts, and multiplicity of US entities involved in such activities.”

Soros’s Open Society Foundation, along with USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy, have been accused of fomenting “color revolutions” from Serbia in 2000 to Ukraine in 2014, in order to install in power governments friendly to Washington.


Senators' letter to Secretary of State Tillerson

https://www.scribd.com/document/3419...son#from_embed

[Tomche Makedonche]

http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/arti...ety-03-22-2017

‘Patriotic’ NGOs Crowd out Macedonian Civil Society

A clutch of new ‘patriotic’ NGOs, whose proclaimed goals are the protection of Macedonia’s integrity and unitary character, is changing the shape of civil society - in line with the ruling party’s wishes.

In the space of only a few days, three new patriotic civic associations have been added to Macedonia’s national registry of organizations, “Lavovi”, [Lions], from Bitola, “Metodija Patce” from Ohrid and the “Nepokor” [“Unbowed”] association from Struga.

“Metodija Patce”, for example, besides standing for the preservation and affirmation of the legacy of Ottoman-era Macedonian revolutionary Metodija Patce, writes in its statute that it stands for “the complete continuity of Macedonia’s history” from the time of Alexander the Great to the medieval king Samoil and so forth.

The association also stands for affirming and honoring persons tried in communist times for their VMRO ideals, referring to the Ottoman-era clandestine organization, the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization, or VMRO.

The emblem of the association, which has already been promoted on social networks, contains the historic VMRO slogan, “Freedom or Death”, alongside an intercrossed rifle and a spear, a hand grenade and a human skull.

Social networks on which this emblem was published are abundant with comments like “Death or freedom for the damned enemies and freaks [among the] Macedonian people”.

Links lead right to the ruling party:

The emergence of a clutch of new “patriotic” NGOs comes directly after the former Prime Minister and leader of today’s VMRO DPMNE party, Nikola Gruevski, in December called for a fight to “de-Soros-ize” Macedonia, referring to liberal, centrist organizations actually or allegedly funded by US billionaire financier George Soros.

The party, which has been in power since 2016, now also bitterly opposes the announced formation of an opposition-led coalition government under the Social Democrats, SDSM.

It says that if the SDSM comes to power, it would spell disaster for Macedonia, owing to the opposition’s alleged acceptance of a package of ethnic Albanian demands known as the “Albanian Platform”.

The Struga-based “Nepokor” was formed by Ivica Tomovski, Rade Sajnoski, Antonio Meckaroski, Nikola Pentidis and Bojan Blazeski.

Most of this group, as far as information on social networks suggests, are members of the “Union of Young Forces” of the VMRO DPMNE party from the same town.

Even before their association was added to the central registry, all five founders had posted the emblem on their Facebook profiles.

It, too, is reminiscent of the historic VMRO emblem, containing its trademark crossed revolver and dagger, with a slogan, “Always for Struga, Always for Macedonia”.

Like their lookalikes from Ohrid, this association states that it stands for the affirmation of persons who were neglected or abused by the old Yugoslav communist regime as well as those who were tried by the communist regime for their fidelity to the ideals of VMRO.

The statute of the third association, “Lavovi” from Bitola, which was added to the central registry on Monday, says it stands for “the preservation of the territorial integrity, unity and unitary character of Macedonia, the preservation of Macedonia’s national integrity, of Macedonian genes from antiquity to modern days, of the national linguistic, cultural, religious and traditional Macedonian hallmarks and characteristics”.

This association states also that it will stand for the protection of the rights of the “defenders” - meaning the police and army veterans from the 2001 conflict with ethnic Albanian rebels - the preservation of the gains made from the NOB [the National Liberation Fight during WW2], as well as for the creation of strong Macedonian lobby aimed at protecting Macedonian interests.

One of the founders and its president is Petar Hristovski, a former police employee from Bitola and now an employee in a private security agency.

“We are a purely civic association, a patriotic association. We have no connection with any political party. I was long time ago a member of a party but I am now outside politics,” Hristovski told BIRN.

In addition to these three associations, on Monday the public was also stirred by the reported statement of an alleged trade union of the now disbanded police rapid deployment unit, called the Lions, which was formed in the 2001 conflict and disbanded shortly afterwards.

This statement, shared on social networks, calls on President Gjorge Ivanov to demand an apology from the Albanian Ambassador to Macedonia for Tirana’s alleged “interference in [Macedonia’s] internal affairs” and for him to publicly denounce the so-called “Tirana Platform’”.

This statement also demands that the ethnic Albanian parties in Macedonia “give up the utopian idea of a greater Albania”.

“We send a message to the politicians that we will prevent a fratricidal war and the dissolution of the country for political goals and interests,” the statement of the so-called “trade union of the Lions” said.

It remains unclear how a police unit that was disbanded shortly after the 2001 conflict now has a trade union, or who is running it.

The “Albanian platform” contained a list of demands agreed by Macedonia’s Albanian parties and announced after the December 11 early elections as a condition of their support for any future government.

When Gruevski’s party initially negotiated a new possible alliance with the Albanian parties, the platform was barely mentioned as a problematic issue.

But, after Gruevski failed to forge a new government, his party suddenly accused its rivals in the SDSM of giving in to Albanian demands and of endangering the country’s national interests.

The Macedonian President then blocked the formation of opposition-led government on the same grounds.

Enough of Soros-funded associations:

Macedonian news portal Nova TV reported in early March that two other associations, the “National Front”, from Prilep, and the “Macedonian Heritage – Todor Aleksandrov” foundation, were also formed.

The authorized representative of the Prilep association, BIRN has found out, is Jane Cento, while the representative of the foundation is Dijana Trntalovska.

Apart from Trntalovska who is a member of VMRO DPMNE, one of the founders of the foundation is the history professor Violeta Ackovska, a firm supporter of the ruling party and a participant in the recent street protests against the formation of an opposition-led government.

“We have had enough of only associations financed by [George] Soros which are destroying our country. We need Macedonian associations who will work for the affirmation and protection of the name, tradition and Macedonian history,” Ackovska recently told a pro-government TV station.

Talking about the motives, she recalled the Civic Movement for the Defence of Macedonia, GDOM, which was formed in 2015 to echo the stands of the VMRO DPMNE party immediately after the eruption of the illegal surveillance scandal.

Ackovska insisted then that the GDOM was “a non-formal association” like the current “red and yellow initiative” that is currently staging protests against the formation of new opposition-led government.

Another founder is Bosko Nelkoski, who when he headed the National Agency for European Education Programmes and Mobility, was investigated for wrongdoing over the distribution of EU youth funds in Macedonia.

His name caught the spotlight in 2010 after the daily Nova Makedonija wrote that, when heading the National Agency, he awarded EU cash to a project run by an NGO from Struga that he had previously managed.

The newspaper said officials from the agency who managed the European funds, along with their relatives and associates, were involved in the suspicious distribution of money to NGOs.

After these reports, the European Commission investigated whether Nelkoski had awarded funds to associations run by relatives and associates and suspended the award of funds by the Macedonian agency for two years.

Nelkoski then had to resign but is now resuming his career in the “Macedonian Heritage – Todor Aleksandrov” foundation.

Another founder is Lazar Popovski, a former employee in the National Youth and Sports Agency who since the start of this year has worked for Macedonian Telecom.

Just like Gruevski predicted late last year, when he promised to drive out the influence of Soros from the NGO world in Macedonia, “patriotic” associations have started to multiply and crowd them out.

The movement organizing daily street protests against the SDSM was launched also just one day after Gruevski on February 26 said that the country was “under attack, only the people can protect it”.

“Those who plan to sit at home in their slippers and watch TV believing that someone else will do their job to protect the country, are deluded,” he warned.

[vicsinad]

I've seen some video of these protests. My favorite is the "Trump is our hero" posters that a few people have been holding up.

[Albo]

In depth look at the whole Soros argument..

This type of of in depth analysis on situations is what balkan media is severely lacking!

GOP Takes Up Russia-Aligned Attack On Soros

[i]How Russian propaganda on the Balkans found its way onto congressional letterhead.
By ISAAC ARNSDORF, ANDREW HANNA and KENNETH P. VOGEL March 22, 2017[/l]

A group of congressional Republicans is teaming up with Russia-backed politicians in Eastern Europe with the shared goal of stopping a common enemy: billionaire financier George Soros.

Led by Rep. Chris Smith of New Jersey and Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, the conservative lawmakers have signed on to a volley of letters accusing Soros of using his philanthropic spending to project his liberal sensibilities onto European politics. As Lee and other senators put it in a March 14 letter to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Soros’ Open Society Foundations are trying “to push a progressive agenda and invigorate the political left.”

It’s an accusation that’s being fomented and championed by Moscow.

Soros, who survived the Nazi occupation of his native Hungary and fled after World War II when it was under Soviet control, has been long a bête noire of the Kremlin, which sees his funding for civil society groups in former Soviet satellite states as part of a plot to install pro-Western governments.

For years, those complaints had generally fallen on deaf ears in Washington.

While Republicans have long regarded Soros as a mortal enemy when it comes to domestic politics (where he has spent tens of millions of dollars backing Democratic candidates and liberal causes), their politics were more aligned on the international stage. Soros’ efforts to boost democracy and root out corruption in former Eastern Bloc countries dovetailed with traditional Republican foreign policy objectives.

But things may have started changing after Donald Trump’s stunning victory in a presidential campaign during which he emphasized nationalist themes. Politicians with nationalist constituencies in several former Eastern Bloc states have become increasingly aggressive in seeking international support for their crusade against Soros, and they seem to have found at least some takers in the GOP.

The particular focus of the letters from Lee, Smith and their cohort is spending by Soros’ foundations in Macedonia, a former socialist republic in the throes of a two-year political crisis, and to a lesser extent in its neighbor to the west, Albania. In the former Communist country, which has struggled with allegations of corruption, one letter expressed concerns that “Soros-backed organizations” are pushing reforms “ultimately aimed to give the Prime Minister and left-of-center government full control over judiciary power.”

The letters, which ask the State Department and the Government Accountability Office for information about U.S. foreign aid funding for Soros groups in the Balkans, came after lobbying from the right-wing party clinging to power in Macedonia, VMRO-DPMNE.

Chris Stone, president of the Open Society Foundations, suggested that autocratic regimes see Trump’s rise as giving them carte blanche to resist reforms, and to dismiss those proposing them.

“Authoritarians, branded today as ‘illiberals,’ have long opposed George Soros and the vision of an open society, but they have been emboldened by Trump's victory to go even further,” Stone told POLITICO.

So far, the Republican lobbying against Soros’ efforts in Macedonia has not resulted in much. But the involvement of several high-profile Republicans, including Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, is raising eyebrows within the U.S. foreign policy community, who see the baleful influence of Moscow making inroads on Capitol Hill.

Russia is trying to exploit the crisis in Macedonia to sow distrust of the U.S. and pull the right-wing party into its orbit, regional analysts say. And the Republican lawmakers’ concern — that the U.S. is, in the words of Lee’s letter to Tillerson, “fomenting political unrest, disrespecting national sovereignty and civil society” — handed Moscow a major propaganda coup, they warn.

Russia’s state-controlled English-language websites rushed to trumpet Lee’s and Smith’s letters, holding them up as proof that the U.S. is guilty of exactly what it accuses Russia of doing in 2016 — interfering in another country’s politics.

“Senators ask Tillerson to probe US ‘fomenting unrest’ in other countries,” RT blared.

Sputnik News reported on Lee’s letter under the headline “Tables Turned: Have Obama and Soros Hacked Foreign Elections?”

The claims have been echoed in right-wing U.S. outlets, from the conspiracy website Infowars to Fox News.

“It’s straight from the Russian playbook — the idea that some American NGO is fomenting the demonstrations is like ascribing to the CIA mystical powers that don’t exist,” said a policy analyst with knowledge of the Balkans. “The Russians have been using all tactics at their disposal, and it’s a very inexpensive way to stir the pot.”

The Macedonian politicians and an allied group known as Stop Operation Soros deny any direct Russian role in their efforts. But they acknowledge that Moscow has taken an interest. One of the founders of Stop Operation Soros, Cvetin Chilimanov, noticed a virtual army of bots and trolls posting about mass demonstrations against Soros that never actually happened.

“I’m not naïve,” said Chilimanov, who granted several interviews with RT and Sputnik News. “I understand they would be happy to use this.”

Macedonia, a small and ethnically diverse former socialist republic that seceded from Yugoslavia in 1991, became a new front in the geostrategic power games in Congress when a member of parliament from the ruling VMRO-DPMNE party named Vladimir Gjorcev brought the Soros issue to the attention of Smith, according to Aleksandar Nikoloski, a party spokesman. Gjorcev and Smith know each other from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, a regional security forum, and bonded over shared commitments to traditional values, such as opposition to gay marriage and abortion. Gjorcev routinely meets with Smith when he visits Washington, as he has three times in 2017.

Smith has been an outspoken critic of the Obama administration’s international development efforts, which he accused of seeking to spread liberal ideology. Gjorcev’s case against Soros also resonates with Republicans who see the megadonor as a boogeyman, some of whom have recently accused him, without evidence, of bankrolling anti-Trump protests.

“The whole ‘George Soros is the root of all evils’ story has great appeal to some folks,” a former Senate Republican aide said.

Smith and five other Republicans first sent a letter on Jan. 17 to the U.S. ambassador to Macedonia, Jess Baily, accusing him of favoring the left-wing party. Unsatisfied with the State Department’s Feb. 6 response, the lawmakers asked the Government Accountability Office on Feb. 24 to investigate USAID funding for Soros’ Open Society Foundations. The lawmakers say USAID is funding a “progressive agenda” in the Balkans through Soros’ foundation and accuse the ambassador of “actively intervening in the party politics of Macedonia … favoring left-leaning political groups over others.”

Those complaints appear to be drawn from a document prepared by Stop Operation Soros that was distributed to members of Congress, including Senator Lee, in January. The 38-page dossier contains a number of implausible claims, including that USAID and Soros are aiming for “complete control over the media … with the final goal of establishing complete control over the country for Soros [sic] own benefit and implementation of radical policies.”

Smith’s office didn’t answer requests for comment, but he expanded on his concerns during a recent radio interview with Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, a Christian conservative pressure group. “We’re not supposed to be taking sides,” Smith said. “There needs to be a top-to-bottom review at the State Department to ensure this kind of aggressive partisanship doesn’t take place.”

The State Department denies any such favoritism. Baily, a career Foreign Service officer, said his role in the country, which has involved helping to mediate Macedonia’s political crisis, was neither unusual nor biased.

“We were invited and welcomed by the parties to [mediate],” Baily said in an interview with POLITICO. “Political crises have usually been resolved with a fairly significant involvement from Europe and the United States.”

According to the State Department, USAID provided just three grants to Foundation Open Society-Macedonia over the past 15 years, primarily for education initiatives involving the country’s ethnic Roma population. “Funding for Foundation Open Society-Macedonia for the Civil Society Project represents just 8 percent of our total assistance over the past five years,” said USAID Mission Director for Macedonia Jim Stein. “There’s a lot of exaggeration and distortion in that document.”

A Feb. 9 letter from the State Department to Lee pushed back against the accusation in greater detail, defending the U.S.-EU mediation efforts and noting the growing concerns about Macedonia’s deteriorating political climate.

For its part, the Open Society Foundations says it has been working with independent organizations that support “good governance, human rights and accountability” in Macedonia since the early 1990s, and has partnered with the U.S. government to administer grants to such groups under presidents of both parties.

The dispute comes amid a deepening political crisis in Macedonia, following the release of wiretapped conversations that showed government officials abusing their power, while other revelations showed the illegal wiretapping of journalists and political opponents of the government. The leader of VMRO-DPMNE, Nikola Gruevski, resigned as prime minister last January amid pressure from the U.S. and the European Union, but his party remains the largest faction in the parliament. In December, Gruevski blamed Soros for the ongoing unrest and called for a process of “de-Soros-ization.”

Officially, VMRO-DPMNE is pro-Western, but Gruevski has welcomed Russian support in response to what he perceives as the U.S. Embassy siding with the left-wing opposition. On Feb. 1, he met with the Russian ambassador to Macedonia, who alluded to unnamed forces “spreading instability and uncertainty in the country”—presumably a reference to Soros. The Russian Foreign Ministry issued a statement a day later warning about “continuing foreign influence in Macedonia under pseudo-democratic slogans,” and expressed support for VMRO-DPMNE. Russia recently added personnel to its embassy in Macedonia.

“Gruevski’s strategy is to bring Russia around on his side, figuring that the Americans will be on the side of the Social Democrats,” said Daniel Serwer, a regional expert at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. “He says, ‘We’re not Russophiles,’ but what he’s doing is looking for support wherever he can get it.”

“It’s kind of a broader indication of an attack on think tanks, nonprofits and civil society in Macedonia,” said Sarah Bedenbaugh, associate director of the European Union and Special Initiatives at the Atlantic Council.

Taking their cue from Gruevski, Chilimanov and two other right-wing media personalities formed Stop Operation Soros in January, receiving extensive coverage in Russian media. Chilimanov was a member of VMRO-DPMNE until 1999, when he became a journalist. At one point he was a correspondent based in Washington, but is now an English-language news editor at the state-controlled Macedonian Information Agency.

Chilimanov said the group, which he described as a shoestring operation with no significant expenses and no outside funding, has no affiliation or coordination with VMRO-DPMNE. “I’ve been going on about this for a long time, but I guess now the moment is also good in U.S. for people to get involved,” he said.

Around the same time Chilimanov sent his dossier, Macedonia’s defense minister, Zoran Jolevski, visited Washington for Trump’s inauguration and met with senators including Lee, Cruz and Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, who also signed Lee’s letter to Tillerson. (Chilimanov also met with John McCain, who did not sign the letter.)

A spokesman for Lee said the senator sent a mid-January letter to Baily and the March letter to Tillerson based on “personal briefings from Macedonian leaders” and information received from Stop Operation Soros. He declined to say who wrote the letter. The other senators’ offices referred questions to Lee.

Besides the congressional letters, in February, the conservative activist group Judicial Watch sought records under the Freedom of Information Act about U.S. funding for Soros’ activities in Macedonia, citing “high-level sources in Macedonia and the U.S.” The organization’s president, Tom Fitton, declined to say who brought the issue to his attention.

Nikoloski, the VMRO-DPMNE spokesman, disavowed all external efforts to exploit Macedonia’s political crisis. “We have a problem with one foundation and one person, and it’s not good that it’s being abused in a strategic game that Russia is playing or someone else is playing,” he said.

But the anti-Soros movement already extends beyond Macedonia. In a nationally televised address in February, Viktor Orbán, the pro-Russian far-right leader of Hungary, blamed Soros for allegedly meddling in his country’s domestic politics. “Large-bodied predators are swimming here in the waters. This is the trans-border empire of George Soros, with tons of money and international heavy artillery," Orban said. “It is causing trouble ... that they are trying secretly and with foreign money to influence Hungarian politics.”

And last weekend, far-right leaders convened in Budapest to launch their own chapter of Stop Operation Soros.

The event featured Nick Griffin, the former leader of the British National Party, who has said it’s now “Russia’s turn” to lead the world; the right-wing religious group Knights Templar International; Macedonian journalist Ljupcho Zlatev; and several Hungarian politicians from the far right, which has drifted toward Russia.

One of them, Imre Téglásy, head of the pro-life Alfa Alliance, in his remarks noted the presence of a Russian camera crew and praised Vladimir Putin’s regime.

“I would like to express my respect my dear friends to Russia,” he said. “God save Russia, which has returned to its national and traditional roots. God save the U.S., which under the leadership of President Trump may return to its original, God-respecting American values.”

http://www.politico.com/magazine/sto...blicans-214938

[DraganOfStip]

A great read indeed.
Like I had stated earlier - Grujo is our Don Quijote and Soros is his windmill.