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Media outlets in Macedonia are publishing reports on USAID spending in the country, on politicized, left wing programs and media outlets supportive of the SDSM and DUI parties. The data set includes over 50 million USD for projects awarded after the 2015-2016 Colored Revolution, starting with 2017, with some of the programs still on-going. Earlier disclosures about USAID funding for the period in the run up to the Colored Revolution between 2012-2016, that were provided with the use of a FOIA request, showed about 45 million USD that went to highly poltiicized programs in Macedonia.
USAID has other programs in Macedonia, but the list that was published today by outlets such as Denesen.mk, focuses on the politicized USAID projects that have usually drawn the most criticism in Macedonia. One of the programs in the latest disclosure that jumps out is the “USAID Macedonia Civic Engagement Project C-1676” awarded in 2016 and implemented until 2021, for 1.19 million USD. It was awarded to the East-West Management Institute in New York and the Foundation Open Society – Macedonia, better known as the Soros Foundation. The project cites FOSM director Fani Karanfilovska – Panovska as its implementor. Karanfilovska was recently named Vice President of the SDSM party – after a career in managing dozens of ostensibly non-governmental left wing groups that fall under the umbrella of the Soros funded FOSM group. Her decision to formally took a position in the social-democratic party, added to the widespread allegations that the NGO sector in Macedonia, which was long dominated by FOSM, is a thinly disguised partisan operation.
The contract awarded in 2016 seems to be a continuation of a number of previous USAID contracts that went to the Soros Foundation in Macedonia, especially in the run up to the Colored Revolution. One significant such contract was awarded by USAID to FOSM in 2012, again in cooperation with the East-West Management Institute, but also with the participation of the well known pro-censorship group Metamorphosis and several other organizations – the contract was worth almost 5 million USD.
Conservative activists in Macedonia at the time called out the contract as funding provided to directly support the activities of one of the two main political parties in the country, as SDSM was openly coordinating its activities with the so-called NGO sector, and as interference in Macedonian political affairs. Another contract, a two year “civil society” project, was awarded by USAID to the Soros Foundation Open Society in Macedonia in 2012, and was worth 2.54 million USD. The project includes broad goals such as ‘addressing civil society organization weaknesses.. building constituency support and encouraging civic activism and participation”, and was implemented in the run up to the Colored Revolution.
Another particularly large project, for “encouraging constructive political engagement and respect for democratic values” was awarded in 2015. This project, worth even 8 million USD, was awarded through USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives – OTI. Critics of this project, but also of this group, saw it as overt funding for regime change – in support of the already on-going colored revolution.
East West Management Institute, which includes in its staff Delina Fico, the former wife of Albanian Prime Minister and another Soros confidant Edi Rama, has won a number of other contracts from USAID, for “civic engagement”. The largest such project was also awarded in 2016 and is worth 3.44 million USD, and a smaller ““USAID Macedonia Civic Engagement Project C-1675” awarded the same year is worth 254.000 USD, citing the National Youth Council of Macedonia as its implementer.
These and other projects cited in the newly released list seem like a continuation of the practice of USAID to support left wing, Soros and SDSM tied projects in Macedonia that was prevalent in the period between 2012 and 2016, and greatly contributed to the Colored Revolution, the collapse of the Nikola Gruevski Government and the imposed name change. Claims from Macedonian activists that USAID and the US are picking a side led to an audit of the embassy, which concluded that about 45 million USD were spent “for democracy assistance” between 2012 and 2017. The GAO report did not include political and ideological qualifications of the recipients and their obvious bias, but merely noted that the agency “generally complied with operational policy intended to ensure a fair and transparent selection process”. The claims of political bias by USAID in the run up to the Colored Revolution were also echoed by a number of GOP congressmen and the Heritage Foundation.
Significant USAID funding in Macedonia also went to prominent pro-censorship groups. The largest of them, Metamorphosis, was co-implementor of projects with the Soros Foundation and the East West Management Institute. A 2012-2015 project awarded to Metamorphosis worth just under 200,000 USD was meant for “media fact-checking”, as was a 2012-2016 project worth 485,000 USD. Activists from the group are well known for their extreme political and ideological bias, but Metamorphosis was never the less named a Facebook fact-checking partner.
Metamorphosis has established a Macedonian version of Snopes – an absurdly biased “fact-checking” website called Truthmeter that would frequently “debunk” claims from conservative politicians and commentators in Macedonia and abroad, while insisting that, for example, the numerous videos showing President Biden being incapable of performing his office, are digitally altered or fake news.
Critics of Truthmeter would also warn that the site frequently went after news outlets who would criticize the SDSM – DUI Government, but chose to “verify” medical articles, especially articles on Covid, that the sites would usually carry from foreign sources that are often impossible to verify. This led to the creation of a dossier that the news sites are unreliable, and given Metamorphosis’ role as Facebook partner, sites were concerned that this leads to reduced viewership of their reporting on domestic politics when it was critical of the SDSM – DUI led Government. Most recently, this organization signed on to a letter addressed to the European Union leadership, urging them to fully enforce their regulatory policies against US companies such as X and Meta/Facebook because of Meta’s changes in content moderation policies as well as how “Musk and his oligarch allies use the platform for anti-democratic political propaganda, lies, and targeted harassment, is a serious threat to our democracy and political discourse in Europe”.
While the latest disclosure of politicized USAID funding in Macedonia published by Denesen.mk does not include current receipts for direct funding to Metamorphosis, the group continues to list USAID as donor on its website, next to the Open Society Foundation and other American and European governments or government funded institutions. The wife of Metamorphisis’ best known activist Filip Stojanovski, Kristina Hadzi Vasileva, is listed by Denesen.mk as implementor of a nearly 800,000 USD project for “business support organizations – champions” awarded to the Consulting for Strategic Development association.
Other pro-censorship activists have been receiving USAID funding. Project C-1674 worth a little over 300,000 USD is awarded to East West Management Instiute as well as Lulzim Haziri from the ADI – association for democratic initiative. This group, which was co-recipient of USAID funds in the run up to the Colored Revolution, is seen as close to the DUI party, and Haziri himself was the key member of a media watchdog set up under US pressure ahead of the 2016 elections. His votes in the narrowly divided watchdog body were often crucial in approving decisions to issue fines to media outlets for alleged violations of “balanced reporting” rules, and the practice was effective at threatening and silencing TV stations which later faced criminal charges under the Zaev regime.
On the media side, the list of USAID projects cited by Denesen.mk includes 360 Degrees, a TV show and news site edited by Vasko Popetrevski, that was awarded 1.44 million USD between 2016 and 2019, as well as Telma TV, that was given 542,000 USD for its debate show “Top Tema” between 2016 and 2018. 360 Degrees has received additional funding and along with Telma TV, was notable in the run up to the Colored Revolution in supporting SDSM and their positions. While generally far less activist now than during the Colored Revolution days, 360 Degrees, which is seen as the main outlet for US and other diplomats to state their positions in Macedonia with little pushback, ran an interview with US Assistant Secretary of State James O’Brien ahead of the crucial 2024 elections. In the interview, O’Brien endorsed SDSM in no uncertain terms, as he urged Macedonian voters not to vote for VMRO-DPMNE: “..you wouldn’t buy a car from from that person, so I don’t think you should vote for them either”. His request failed spectacularly and VMRO-DPMNE won the elections in a historic landslide.
While the initial project for 360 Degrees has ended, the outlet is a co-implementer of a new 4.8 million USD project that began in 2023 and ends in 2028, awarded to the Macedonian Center for International Cooperation, the Center for Civic Communication, and several other news outlets widely seen as politically biased – IRL and BIRN. 360 Degrees has been awarded 501,000 USD, IRL has 655,310 USD and BIRN – 417,291 USD through this project that amounts to USAID funding media outlets. The motto of the project is “Citizens against corruption”. From the Denesen.mk disclosure, it can be seen thta media related groups such as the Institute for Communication Studies and the Macedonian Institute for Media shared a project worth 4.42 million USD that is still being implemented. Both groups are known to have positions supporting stronger media regulation under the guise of “fighting misinformation” or enforcing “balanced reporting” in the past, leading to allegations of restricting of free speech and censorship by the Zaev regime, which persecuted journalists and empowered “factchecking” groups to go after citizens posting on social media.
The FOIA provided disclosure of USAID funding in the run up to the Colored Revolution shows a number of projects going toward “judicial reform”, such as a 6.2 million USD contract awarded to DPK Consulting in 2007, and a 4.48 million USD contract for “judicial strengthening” that went to Tetra Tech DPK in 2011. US ambassadors in Macedonia would frequently boast about the enormous levels of USAID funding for judicial reform projects, but would also acknowledge that the results are nowhere to be seen, in fact the judiciary continuously receives exceptionally bad grades from the public for its reliability.
During the Colored Revolution USAID funded groups in Macedonia as well as US diplomats were on the forefront of insisting that the office of Special Prosecutor is created and that all support is given to prosecutor Katica Janeva to go after allegations of corruption on the part of the then VMRO-DPMNE led Government, while allegations of corruption on the part of the SDSM leader Zoran Zaev and his inner circle were ignored. Janeva was appointed and launched dozens of charges exclusively aimed against VMRO-DPMNE officials, paving the way for SDSM to grab power. The Zaev regime moved quickly to rename the country, dropping a decades long struggle against Greece to preserve Macedonian national identity and pride, which was seen as a major goal of US foreign policy toward Macedonia, as Greece was blocking Macedonia from joining NATO. Outraged Macedonians largely boycotted a referendum on the name change, but it was rammed through with systemic arrests of opposition VMRO members of Parliament, who were then forced to vote in favor of the name change – further eroding any belief in the rule of law as practiced by the US supported SDSM – DUI Government. Ultimately, the extent of prosecutor Janeva’s personal corruption – on top of her naked political bias, was revealed when an oligarch recorded her asking for bribes through intermediaries, and the once much lauded anti-corruption fighter featured in USAID funded media outlets in the region is now serving a prison sentence for racketeering.
Not only did the promised EU membership, that has polled well among Macedonian citizens, not materialize even after the imposed name and identity change, but Macedonia faced a different veto, this time from Bulgaria, which demands additional historic and national identity concessions, which SDSM agreed to. USAID funded media outlets such as 360 Degrees strongly supported the pressure on VMRO-DPMNE to provide the votes for this new rounds of concessions (without the need to go to the length to arrest VMRO members of Parliament again). Assistant Secretary O’Brien’s comment that he would not vote for VMRO was made in this context. 360 Degrees would label critics of the call for making concessions to Bulgaria as pro-Russian activists. For example, a Macedonian – Canadian diaspora group, the Macedonian Human Rights Movement International, which financially supports the Macedonian minority in Bulgaria, was named as “anti-American” and an organization with a “notable pro-Russian sentiment” for funding the opening of a Macedonian club in Bulgaria. Polls consistently showed that this position, to reject the historic concessions demanded by Bulgaria, was supported by large majorities of ethnic Macedonian voters, and it was an important factor in the 2024 landslide election victory of VMRO-DPMNE, but USAID funded media would consistently attack this position and label politicians and activists who held it.
Supporters of USAID are currently hard pressed to find examples of cases where USAID actually funded some conservative cause. Municipal development programs that often include “capacity building” or preparation for documents for projects that would be funded by other parties, went to VMRO-DPMNE led municipalities, but considering that the party often dominates local elections, it is only to be expected that some projects will go their way. VMRO-DPMNE has held power in a vast majority of municipalities in Macedonia since 2021, when SDSM’s leftward lurch, often under the influence of its USAID funded leaders, made it removed from the Macedonian mainstream and made the party sink in the polls.
Criticism of extremely ideological USAID projects in Macedonia goes back decades – conservative activist Kerri Toloczko wrote about this as far back as 2004, in the National Review, alerting the Bush administration that then Ambassador Lawrence Butler, busy wrapping up another regime change operation aimed against VMRO-DPMNE, was funding pro-LGBT billboards. Since then, not only that these ideological projects continued, but they were made were a recognizable staple of USAID public diplomacy in Macedonia. And during the Colored Revolution, journalist Rod Dreher wrote extensively on this issue, labelling USAID and grant recipients “America’s Culture War Mercenaries“, while pointing to grants that the US awarded to LGBT organizations in Macedonia.
Other major contracts contained in the Denesen.mk disclosure include one awarded to Arlington based Cardno (now DT Global) for 6.42 million USD for “Strengthening Resource Mobilization Activity” with several local subcontractors. Washington DC based groups that have been awarded contracts include IESC (Improving Economies for Stronger Communities – formerly International Executive Service Corps) that was given just under 7 million USD in 2023 for an on-going project for to have “Youth Actively Create Opportunities”. Politicized youth activist groups were widely used to drum up support for the Colored Revolution. Several Roma organizations were awarded contracts for building “a prosperous community” (1.43 million USD) and Roma inclusion (934.728 USD). The Soros Foundation Open Society has implemented large Roma engagement projects in the past, and they were often criticized as having an element of vote buying among this disenfranchised community.
Lesser projects that USAID awarded during the Colored Revolution included a 373,000 USD award to the Macedonian Young Lawyers Association in 2016, to assist migrants crossing through Macedonia with their legal issues. At this time Macedonia was a key country on the route taken by estimated 2 million migrants from Turkey to Germany in a span of two years, and twinned USAID and Soros projects in the region were seen as helping keep the border open and the migrants flowing. The VMRO-DPMNE led Government closed the border in 2016, while it was facing the growing colored revolution protests, and put an end to this major migrant crisis with the help of central European countries such as Hungary, Austria and Slovakia.
In 2016, USAID funded a TV sitcom called the Markovski Family, that included very clear references to the political events of the day and portrayed the sympathetic characters as aligning with SDSM, while painting pro-VMRO-DPMNE characters in the negative light. The show is now best remembered for the fact that its main star, actress Silvija Stojanovska, was arrested in 2019 for her role in organizing a large shipment of cocaine with the help of a submarine from Latin America to the United Kingdom.
As in other countries across the world, USAID Macedonia has suspended its activities following a decision by the new Trump administration and its website leads to a notification that direct hire personnel will be placed on administrative leave.
