Subject: NGO Re-Registration in Russia--Threat to Civil Society?
From: Center for Civil Society International (ccsi@u.washington.edu)
Date: Tue May 25 1999 - 18:54:26 EDT
The following essay written by Paul Goble for RFE/RL is cross-posted from
the Sister Cities International list. It was posted there by:
Alexander Gorev <agorev@sister-cities.org>
Regional Director, NIS and Eastern Europe Program Manager
U.S.-NIS Municipal and Community Problem-Solving Program
Sister Cities International <http://www.sister-cities.org/>
'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
Russia: Analysis From Washington--A Threat To The Growth Of Civil Society
By Paul Goble
Washington, 24 May 1999 (RFE/RL) -- A Russian government program to
re-register the country's non-governmental organizations appears likely to
deprive many of them of the legal standing they need to continue to
operate and to weaken one of the main institutional supports for the
development of civil society there.
In an interview carried by the Moscow newspaper "Nezavisimaya gazeta" on
Friday, Russian Federation Justice Minister Pavel Krasheninnikov said that
his country now has approximately 100,000 NGOs. But he noted that only 25
percent of them had re-registered with the authorities and that only 25
percent more were likely to do so by the July 1 deadline.
Without such registration, these groups will not be able to participate in
elections. They will not be able to own property or maintain a bank
account. And they will not be able to act as legal persons for purposes of
contracts or in court cases. In the justice minister's own words, those
that do not register will simply "fall out" of the civil and legal order.
Krasheninnikov attempted to portray this in the best possible light. He
said that a higher percentage of the 3500 such groups which operate on a
country-wide basis would in fact re-register. He suggested that many of
the 100,000 are currently more or less inactive and that their names might
be misused by others. And he claimed that the re-registration process
would give Moscow greater control over those with extremist agendas.
Even if all of Krashenninikov's arguments are correct, both this process
and the outcomes he suggests inevitably cast a chilling shadow over the
development of this key element of civil society, of a space between
individuals and the state that serves to maximize the power of individuals
and to limit the power of governments in modern democracies.
For many democratic and human rights activists, the emergence of NGOs in
the Russian Federation and other post-communist countries was a major
reason to expect that these countries [would] be able to escape their
authoritarian pasts. Until the Gorbachev era, public organizations were
invariably controlled by the Communist Party and the Soviet state and were
often dismissed by both Soviet-era activists and Western organizations as
oxymoronic GONGOs--that is, Government-Organized Non-Governmental
Organizations. And even under Gorbachev, only a few groups successfully
escaped state tutelage and control.
After 1991, the number of genuinely non-governmental organizations grew
rapidly. Some of them flourished; some did not. Some advocated democratic
positions; others, anti-democratic ones. But virtually all of them
provided an opportunity for Russians and others to act without constant
supervision from the authorities. And that in turn contributed to the kind
of individual self-confidence on which democracy depends. But over the
last several years, the pendulum has begun to swing in a very different
direction, with the state insisting on having an ever larger say over the
activities of these and other groups and thus reducing their effectiveness
as schools of democracy.
Like Krasheninnikov, Russian officials often insist that they are doing
nothing more than regularizing the situation and that a requirement for
registering in order to rent property or have a checking account is
neither onerous not dangerous. But there are three reasons to be
skeptical about such arguments.
* First, recent experience suggests, Russian officials carrying out this
program are unlikely to register all those who apply, thus opening the
door to blatant favoritism for those the officials approve as well as
discrimination against those they dislike. And that in turn opens the way
for various kinds of corruption.
* Second, the re-registration process is almost certain to create two
classes of NGOs: those who continue to operate with the government's
blessing and those who continue without it or who are forced to go out of
business as a result. Not only does that undermine the purposes of such
groups, it may lead to the radicalization of those who believe they have
been excluded.
* And third, this process suggests that at least some Russian officials
are anything but committed to the principles of democracy that are
proclaimed even by the December 1993 Russian constitution. And
consequently, democrats--Russian and otherwise--are likely to see this
re-registration process as portending even more restrictions against
public activism in the future.
Such people will certainly not be reassured by the title "Nezavisimaya
Gazeta" gave to its interview with Krasheninnikov: "The Justice Ministry is
Involved in a Cleansing of the Political Field."
*----------------------------------------------------------*
| CivilSoc is an electronic news and information service |
| provided free of charge to 1,400 subscribers worldwide. |
| CivilSoc is a project of CCSI--Center for Civil Society |
| International (ccsi@u.washington.edu) in Seattle, in |
| association with Friends & Partners. For more informa- |
| tion about civic initiatives in nations of the former |
| USSR and elsewhere, visit CCSI's web site at: |
| |
| http://www.friends-partners.org/~ccsi/ |
*----------------------------------------------------------*
This archive was generated by hypermail 2a22 : Tue May 25 1999 - 18:54:36 EDT