January 21, 2009
Human Rights and Foreign Policy: The Need to Elevate the Involvement of Human Rights
and Religious Freedom NGOs in Foreign Policy Goal-Setting and Implementation
for Russia, Ukraine and Belarus
by Micah H. Naftalin, National Director
These policy recommendations have been prepared on behalf of a transformative and truly unprecedented coalition of nearly 50 courageous and embattled human rights and religious freedom NGOs, based in the Russian Federation, Ukraine and Belarus. Notwithstanding our varied interests and agendas, we hold common concerns about the lack of rule of law, a key bellwether of which is the failure of these governments to combat effectively a dangerous rise in antisemitic and xenophobic hate crimes and propaganda, and broad discrimination against religious and ethnic minorities. (All citizens suffer from denial of these fundamental human rights while the principal “at risk” beneficiaries include migrants from Central Asia and the Caucasus, black African students, Armenians, Muslims, Roman Catholics, Evangelical Christians and Jews – the ethnic groups vilified by nationalistic extremists who proclaim the superiority, respectively, of “true” Russians, Ukrainians or Belarusians.) These failures, which even Russia’s president and prime minister have acknowledged, not only empower authoritarian rule but present important substantive foreign policy challenges and opportunities that have been largely ignored heretofore and which rely on an improved strategic partnership of governmental, non-governmental and public opinion players. In this connection it is clear that a first cousin to promoting or tolerating racist xenophobia is the Kremlin’s KGB-inspired propaganda campaign to paint America and the democracies as pursuing a CIA-inspired conspiracy to marginalize Russia, employing antisemitism as a proxy for anti-America and anti-Israel propaganda, and increasing the campaign against espionage to include NGOs and their foreign supporters. Beyond concerns such as rampaging neo-Nazi skinheads, the assassination of more than a dozen human rights lawyers and journalists in Russia in recent years with no arrests – one each just last week – it is understandable that no human rights activist feels safe and all require the active support of every Western democracy.
The “Coalition Against Hate,” and its bilingual blog CoalitionAgainstHate.org, was initiated in early 2007 by my organization and established in coordination with the historic Moscow Helsinki Group (MHG) and the burgeoning human rights youth network. All 50 NGOs agree that rule of law has special resonance as the ultimate guarantor of civil society and democracy without which governments evade accountability to their people. While Russia’s failure to insure rule of law (and other human rights as well) is a universally understood violation of internationally accepted standards of governance, it equally constitutes a profound foreign relations challenge. In the absence of rule of law, the Kremlin is empowered to intimidate its neighbors, blackmail international consumers of its oil and gas, and provide military, economic and political support to such enemies of democracy as North Korea, Syria, Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas.
In this post-Soviet era, American foreign policy has celebrated human rights among its foreign policy goals but it has failed dismally to make human rights issues or activists an integral part of its bilateral or multi-lateral statecraft. Our foreign policy must be reformed to balance means for strengthening opportunities for key cooperation (for instance, in respect to terrorism and nuclear proliferation) with strategies for pressing – bilaterally and through international venues – for human rights reform by Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. It did this effectively during the Cold War in partnership with a mobilized public opinion that supported the human rights efforts of dissidents and Soviet Jews. Orchestrating a complementary strategic partnership of courageous human rights activists, the support of a brilliantly mobilized international public opinion campaign, supporting public diplomacy including overseas broadcasting, providing strategic foreign aid to NGOs, and conducting intrepid bilateral and multilateral diplomatic interventions – all in combination – contributed importantly, perhaps decisively, to the collapse of the Soviet Union. This foreign policy triumph of the 20th century was made possible by the strategy we are here proposing: raising human rights from mere “feel good” status to near-parity with other foreign policy subjects at the bargaining table. This is especially important when the diplomats lack bargaining leverage, to make as part of our foreign policy strategic thinking the complementary values of NGO opinion and the tools of human rights monitoring and campaigning, augmented by mobilized public opinion and well targeted public diplomacy.
We are speaking here not only to the need to correct this foreign policy and foreign aid failure but, importantly, to how to accomplish it. Supporting, and listening to the advice of, the human rights NGO grassroots leadership, and explicitly taking into account the complementary role of a mobilized public opinion, are vital missing links in the conduct of foreign policy, foreign aid and public diplomacy. For example, during the Yeltsin period, the combination of academic economists, Treasury, World Bank, et al fatally compromised USAID’s democracy, civil society and human rights objectives by being too focused on the goal of converting Russia to a market economy. Largely ignored were those of us in the human rights NGO community who argued for resources and political support to institutionalize reform of the civil society, especially rule of law, without which market reforms alone could not lead to sustainable democracy. Hence, the demise of the chance for pro-American democracy and the entrance of Vladimir Putin’s more competent but authoritarian and America-bashing rule. The Coalition Against Hate offers a new, unprecedented and broadly representative partner for returning to such an important, reforming enterprise.
Notwithstanding the Kremlin’s hostility to the human rights community in Russia, and to all international criticism of its internal governance, messrs Putin and Medvedev have nonetheless found it necessary, at least rhetorically, to condemn publicly precisely the failures addressed by the Coalition Against Hate: Russia’s corrupt and dysfunctional justice system, antisemitic and xenophobic hate crimes, as well as discrimination and violence targeting religious and ethnic minorities. What’s more, these leaders presumably recognize that these circumstances also present a constraining influence on Russia’s attractiveness to foreign trade and investment, especially in these times of faltering economy and such extreme demographic challenges as high unemployment and mortality, AIDS, alcoholism and tuberculosis. These issues, which raise the risk of scape-goating minority populations, also present an opportunity for US-Russian cooperation, given our country’s experience in combating racial discrimination and hate crimes. The opportunities for foreign policy progress through human rights advocacy, though currently downplayed, are apparent.
Over the past quarter century I have been privileged to work full time and collegially with and for Holocaust Survivors and then, for the past 22 years, with Soviet dissidents, Jewish Refuseniks, Prisoners of Conscience, and current human rights and religious freedom activists in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and elsewhere in the former Soviet Union. Having studied the behavior of Nazis, neo-Nazis, Communists, Islamists, nationalists and other extremists – and the West’s varied responses to them -- I have internalized a number of lessons:
- The over-arching lesson is: More strategic attention to the civil society institutions and grassroots NGOs must be paid by our diplomatic, defense, justice, intelligence and financial agencies alike.
- It should be beyond question that human rights advocacy through monitoring and a mobilized public opinion can spotlight, and thus protect, the victims of hate crimes and their champions, promote reform of corrupt and dysfunctional rule of law systems, complement the strategic limitations of diplomacy, strengthen the positive resolve of democratic governments and international bodies to intervene and, as well, undermine the confidence of repressive regimes.
- Such are not mere “feel good” or politically correct behaviors, as is too generally believed; they involve strategic considerations, including realistic, complementary tools of effective statecraft that today are woefully under-funded and recognized mostly in the breach. And –
- They must not only be appreciated but effectively managed.
Since the fall of the USSR, UCSJ has been the principal monitor of antisemitic and xenophobic hate crimes across the former Soviet Union. Now its work is amplified and strengthened by the Coalition Against Hate. In recent years, the Moscow-based SOVA Center for Information and Analysis, which is a partner in the Coalition, has added a distinguished hate crime research dimension. The INDEM Regional Foundation “Information for Democracy,” and the Committee for Economic and Financial Research (CEFIR) are independent economic research NGOs that are assisting UCSJ in assessing the business risks and drag on foreign investment and trade in Russia occasioned by the presence of hate crimes and a dysfunctional justice system. The American NGO “Human Rights First,” pursuant to its “Fighting Discrimination Program,” has begun preparing annual country reports, most recently its “2008 Hate Crime Survey,” a useful compendium of hate crimes across the 56 countries of the OSCE, based on published reports, including recommendations for government action. Finally, in the early 2000s, assisted by substantial grants to UCSJ and the Moscow Helsinki Group (MHG) from the MacArthur Foundation, NED and USAID, MHG was able to morph from a historic, Moscow-based dissident advocacy NGO to a full-fledged human rights monitoring and advocacy movement, comprising hundreds of local NGOs, across the full extent of the Russian Federation. Similarly, UCSJ integrated its antisemitic and xenophobic hate crimes monitoring network into the Russia-wide movement as well as to Ukraine, where antisemitism has surpassed Russia in number of incidents, and Belarus, the last bastion of dictatorship in Europe.
The “gold standard” for such reporting are the State Department’s two annual country reports, on human rights and religious freedom, based on reports from diplomatic posts and NGOs. This publishing success is the high point of our foreign policy’s campaign for human rights; rather, it should be the platform for effective and well orchestrated and coordinated statecraft comprising diplomacy, NGO monitoring and advocacy, public diplomacy, including broadcasting, and a mobilized public opinion. In this last connection, recognizing the importance organized public opinion played in supporting the success of advocacy for Soviet Jews and dissidents, we are now organizing a “leadership committee,” with Elie Wiesel as its honorary chairman, in support of the Coalition Against Hate that will help to mobilize international public opinion in behalf of the coalition’s goals and those of American foreign policy.
Overall, UCSJ’s principal recommendations for human rights within the Obama Administration foreign policy in the former Soviet Union include:
- First and foremost, at a time when the level of U.S. foreign aid for human rights and rule of law has been dropping toward the vanishing point, and the intimidation of the NGO sector by the Russian and Belarus governments is rising dangerously, the financial support, political recognition and empowerment and policy-making collegiality of the NGO leadership is required both in their own right and to provide needed complementarity to American pro-democracy foreign policy goals and strategies.
- Recognize the important foreign policy dimension of the accelerating antisemitic and xenophobic hate crimes as a measure of corrupt and dysfunctional rule of law; and the importance of harmonizing human rights monitoring and advocacy, together with mobilized public opinion and targeted public diplomacy, as strategic complements to bilateral and multilateral diplomacy.
- Increase visible support of the NGO leadership through embassy meetings and formal meetings with visiting members of congress and high profile government officials, including the president and vice president. This recommendation goes to the broader concern that NGOs, and the public at large, are in increasing danger, requiring the public support and protection of the United States and its officials.
- Increase public diplomacy efforts, including for VOA and Radio Liberty broadcasting.
- Provide for regular foreign policy strategy conferences that include human rights and religious freedom NGOs.
- Elevate human rights and rule of law to the status of a primary foreign policy goal and develop strategic policymaking methods to embrace the NGO leadership, and supporting public opinion efforts, as integral and complementary to formal governmental foreign policy activity.
- Insure that the intelligence community be kept separate from the NGOs but that they take into account the public reports of the NGO monitors.
- Increase financial support of NGOs through heightened USAID budget allocations for human rights and civil society. (In this connection, change the policy that excludes UCSJ as a primary grantee on the false premise that it is not an indigenous NGO.)
The last recommendation requires elaboration: The USAID component of our foreign policy in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus has by no means lived up to the challenges documented by State’s excellent human rights and religious freedom country reports; the principal explanation is the woeful lack of budgetary resources for human rights in the region. State and USAID policymakers in Washington agreed with UCSJ’s analysis and modest $2.5 million operational proposal supporting the work of the Coalition Against Hate, as did the Moscow embassy which, however, could only find $50,000 in response. (Key Congressional committees have been far more responsive.) In part, too, there are indications that Russia’s hostility to human rights advocacy is seen as an impediment to USAID’s need to use Russia as a transit site for funds destined for Afghanistan. Finally, we are concerned about the endemic danger of “clientitis.” We were appalled that, notwithstanding USAID’s positive response to our proposal, staff members felt constrained to urge us to revise the proposal to omit the word “monitoring” as being seen by the Kremlin as “too political.” To what extent does the Kremlin get to review proposals? Monitoring, of course, is the essence of human rights advocacy, so well defined in the Helsinki Final Act.
UCSJ is in a unique position to assist in making arrangements for State-NGO collegiality – especially on behalf of the 50 NGOs of the Coalition Against Hate – both with respect to policy development and at FSU posts. We are pleased to hereby volunteer to be of maximum assistance.
Attached is my briefing paper of a year ago to the congressional Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (the Helsinki Commission): “Hate Crimes, Rule of Law and Foreign Policy Concerning the Russian Federation, Ukraine and Belarus.” I am also attaching a copy of the March 2004 address in Moscow of Ambassador Alexander Vershbow who keynoted our public conference announcing our two-year project to combat antisemitism in Russia, funded by the European Commission. Toward the end, he noted:
The current weakening of civil society is coupled with another disturbing trend that helps fuel xenophobia and
anti-Semitism: an increasingly nationalistic tinge in Russia's political discourse. That trend, which emphasizes
the fault lines in Russian society, could weaken Russia's internal security and it can ultimately also complicate
relations between our two countries. Moreover, in a country as diverse as Russia, discrimination against one's
fellow citizens is itself a profoundly unpatriotic act. Accordingly, the United States remains committed to the
elimination of racism everywhere, through free and open discussion among individuals and organizations and
through the rule of law, consistently and firmly applied.
His entire address provides an exemplar for the human rights/rule of law foreign policy partnership of government, NGOs and a mobilized public opinion. Needless to say conditions in Russia have worsened since 2004.
The author has been the CEO of UCSJ since 1987. UCSJ, established in 1970, was a leader of the “activist” branch of the Soviet Jewry Movement until the fall of the USSR; its mentors included Senator “Scoop” Jackson, Anatoly Scharansky, and Leonid Stonov who, in the 1980s, was a principal spokesman for the Refuseniks in Moscow, and now, working out of the offices of Chicago Action for Jews in the Former Soviet Union, coordinates the work of UCSJ’s human rights Bureaus in seven countries of the FSU. Previously, Naftalin was acting director of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council during the chairmanship of Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel.