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Macedonia was among the topics mentioned at the US Oversight Committee hearing yesterday, on the activities of the DOGE agency that largely focused on the political and financial abuses of the USAID. One of the speakers, Heritage Foundation researcher Tyler O’Neil, submitted in his testimony a reference to a 2017 attempt by USAID to attack critics of its activities by labeling them “pro-Russian”.
USAID and the US diplomats in Macedonia were deeply involved in funding and supporting the 2015-2016 Colored Revolution that caused a major political crisis in the country and eventually removed the Gruevski Government to install the Zaev regime. After President Trump’s victory in late 2016, a number of US conservative members of Congress, such as Utah Senator Mike Lee and NJ representative Chris Smith, were calling on the just formed Trump administration to revoke the ambassador to Macedonia Jess Baily because of his interference and blatant favoritism of the SDSM party. This was coupled with criticism from both Macedonian and US sources, including from the Heritage Foundation, of the politicized USAID programs that were used to finance groups active in the Colored Revolution. Additionally, the critics of this interference, such as Heritage’s Mike Gonzalez, pointed to the coordination and coupling of USAID programs with groups and programs funded by the George Soros Open Society Foundation.
In response, as O’Neil noted in his prepared remarks, one influential USAID/Soros funded news outlet, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), published a report attacking Lee, Smith and Gonzalez of engaging in an “anti-Soros crusade”.
Why am I paying through my tax dollars for a foreign operation to attack me? Why is a foreign operation attacking domestic political actors on behalf of the US Government, Gonzalez is quoted as asking.
The OCCRP article in question, written by Aubrey Belford and Saska Cvetkovska, claimed, without evidence, that the critics of USAID/Soros programs were advancing Russian interests.
All this has pushed Macedonia onto the agenda in DC. Most recently, it prompted U.S. conservatives to join in on an anti-Soros line of attack favored by Russia and Europe’s authoritarian nationalists. This friendly attention has, in turn, been picked up by media loyal to VMRO in Macedonia, as well as by Russian state media, OCCRP reported. After six US Senators wrote to Secretary Tillerson asking him to take action with regard to the interference of US diplomats in Macedonia, OCCRP quotes the fact that, as Macedonian and US media reported on this, Russian media also reported on this letter, to allude that the criticism of USAID/Soros activities somehow fits the Russian agenda. O’Neil noted that OCCRP cites both USAID and the Soros foundation as its financial supporter. This organization was not chasing after “Russian ties” in Macedonia alone, OCCRP was very prominent in spreading the Russian collusion conspiracy theory against President Trump, and its reporting on this issue, and particularly the fact that it was receiving Government funds while propagating this conspiracy theory, is now receiving renewed attention.
The OCCRP article was preceded by a similarly framed article by Politico – a commercial news outlet that was recently revealed to have been receiving millions of dollars from USAID through exceptionally high priced subscription models that were bought by USAID and other US government agencies. The Politico article repeated the same smear – “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”.
Even David Stephenson, political officer at the US Embassy who was deeply involved in pressuring the conservative VMRO-DPMNE party to accept election terms favorable to the leftist SDSM party, shared the Politico article at the time – a US Embassy official spreading allegations that legitimate criticism of USAID programs and their coupling with the Soros Foundation activities by a US Senator is somehow advancing Russian interests in the region.
Instead of addressing the criticism of politicized USAID activities in Macedonia raised by more than competent US legislative officials and the Heritage Foundation during President Trump’s first term, the entrenched bureaucracy used USAID/Soros funded media outlets to smear the critics. Many of these media and politicized NGO activism programs have remained in place in the 7 years of the Zaev regime, its activists frequently cooperating closely with the regime and supporting its positions – a marked change from their protest oriented and activist past under the VMRO Government. The programs are now coming to an end, as the second Trump administration decided that shutting down USAID will be one of its top priorities.
