Eight years have passed since the eruption of “Color Revolution”. During this period of time, Western NGOs which once trained pro-Western political forces in the name of human rights and democracy seem to have vanished. Nevertheless, they have not stopped their activities in CIS states in reality. It is just that they have changed their usual practices of preaching democracy, granting dollars and supporting the opposition, i.e. they have shifted from the foreground to the background, from specialization to generalization and from open public shows to hidden network initiatives. In response, in recent years, some CIS states began to monitor Western NGOs once again. Taking various preventive measures, these CIS states managed to bring Western NGOs into “State Controlled Zones”, but without essentially sacrificing their “evolution towards democracy”.

　　I. Recent Development of Western NGOs in CIS States after the “Color Revolution” 

　　The after-effect of the “Color Revolution” has always been aconcern to Western NGOs, as it decides their survival in CIS states. On a hearing called “US Policy in Central Asia: Balancing Priority” after the “Color Revolution”, Boucher, the US assistant Secretary of State, reviewed the failures of Washington’s Central Asia Policies, drawing the conclusion that Western countries’ Central Asia policies shall inevitably enter a period of readjustment in which the West’s relations with CIS states shall be defined more by “carrot” than “stick” and more by “gradual evolution” than “Color Revolution”. This largely outlined the general direction in which Western NGOs in CIS states shall change and develop in the future.

　　Currently, there are eight types of Western NGOs identified in CIS states, namely 1) religious organizations; 2) humanitarian aid and development organizations; 3) private foundations; 4) advisory and project-related non-profitable organizations; 5) advocacy agencies; 6) political think tanks; 7) special associations; 8) self-help groups. Without organizational, staffing and financial supports from the West, these NGOs in CIS states could not have survived, even though their growth strategies have become more practical and varied.

　　1. Increasing economic aid to achieve long-term goals. 

　　Since the eruption of “Color Revolution”, Western countries have more or less increased their economic aids to CIS states, especially CIS states in Central Asia. Their purpose is to achieve their long-term goals in these countries, namely seizing these countries’ strategic resources while encouraging their governments and societies to evolve along the American path for easier integration into the Western system. Western NGOs related to Western governments have therefore become Western countries’ pioneers in carrying out the above strategies. It was against such a backdrop that some hidden plots were devised. For example, to promote social development, private entrepreneurship and public administration in Central Asia, the US-based Eurasia Foundation of Central Asia (EFCA) invested more than 40 million US dollars in Central Asia in form of technical assistance and donations. Likewise, European NGOs provided abundant economic aids to CIS states too. “Development of Central Asian economic and energy market” has not only constituted the core function of TACIS (Technical Assistance to CIS), but also fueled the growth of miscellaneous European NGOs in CIS states. To implement the new strategies adopted by EU in June 2007, many large European NGOs (such as VSO, a British volunteer organization) launched cooperative initiatives in the region, in areas such as economy, transportation, energy, environment, education, humanitarian aid, etc. For example, ECHO (European Commission Human Aid Department), responsible for EU aid programs and with an annual budget of more than 5 billion Euros, managed to channel two thirds of its annual budgets into NGOs in recent years. A number of other foundations followed suit by injecting funds into CIS NGOs too. These include social welfare NGOs operating in UN frameworks (e.g. UNCTAD, UNESCO, UNDP, UNEP, UNIEM, WAWONs and WSSD), NGOs for environment protection (e.g. Heinrich B.ll Foundation and the Stefan Batory Foundation) and NGOs focusing on sex discrimination (e.g. WIDE). Like American and European NGOs, Japanese NGOs represented by the Nippon Foundation also tried to play a role in the region through Japanese Government’s ODA program. Besides financial aids, Japanese NGOs such as the Sasakawa Peace Foundation and International House of Japan even tried to provide training and system construction support to Central Asian countries to help with their economic transition and social administration. In summary, rendering assistances through NGO channels epitomes the very principle of contemporary aid practices, i.e., raising aid-recipient states’ sense and awareness of their ownership of aid projects and aid funds so that they shall act more in line with their responsibilities in relation to the aid projects and aid funds. In this sense, the practices described above are quite consistent with the approaches defined in the UN Millennium Development Goals, as it encourages consultation between recipient states’ NGOs and their governments, ensures consistency between NGO actions and governments’ development strategies, and consequently secures NGOs’ funding within the framework of national indicator projects.

　　2. Reducing strategic uncertainties by targeting new states and markets. 

　　Cooperating with governments has become an important approach in which Western NGOs exercise influence and win support from indigenous organizations.

　　Western countries used to think that Turkmen NGOs were difficult to seed and Western NGOs must resort to alternative approaches to get legally established in the country. However, in recent years, Turkmen NGOs experienced robust growth and they normally maintained good relations with their government. This somewhat created a favorable condition for Western NGOs to penetrate into Turkmenistan. Take the US funded “Turkmenistan Youth & Civil Values Foundation” (TYCVF) for example. TYCVF as a NGO was founded in late 2006 by six ex-US Peace Corps members. Every year, TYCVF distributed in Turkmenistan some small grants (ranging from 50 dollars to 1,000 dollars) to develop American cultures and expand US influences. In 2010, the organization even started to introduce American students to study in Turkmenistan. Anara Musabaeva, a consultant to International NGO Research Center’s Turkmen project, believed that the increased coordination among Western sponsors was a good thing, as it allowed Western NGOs to build track records with local performances. By encouraging local governments to accept NGOs, Western NGOs have so far successfully penetrated into a number of sensitive projects in the areas of drug fighting, AIDS prevention and refugee support. As Turkmen NGO members are mostly young people who lack social experiences and care primarily about their survival and employment, Turkmen NGOs are under less pressure to compete for Western funding when compared with their counterparts in neighboring countries. In other parts of Central Asia, since there are already a large number of NGOs, relations among NGOs are usually characterized by competition and rivalry. In contrast, relations among Turkmen NGOs are generally amicable. This encouraged Western sponsors to grant more supports to Turkmen NGOs. By funding Turkmen NGOs, Western governments aspire to integrate this oil-rich country into the West and thereby make it a strategic bulwark against Russian influences.

　　3. Launching a “Grand Union for Democracy”. 

　　It is a Western belief that NGOs can perform functions and gather information in ways impossible to governments. As cooperation between the US and NGOs had been sporadic and imperfect, the US and other Western states planned to set up a “grand union for democracy” between Western governments and NGOs. According to their plan, to promote the concept of “Western democracy” effectively in the complex and changeable Central Asian environments, this union should be structured geographically with regional sub-units, but must remain integrated and coordinated on matters of media interaction, election, supervision and political organization. In light of this, a “Community of Democracies” was created in 2007 to support “democratic institutions and the value of democracy” through a series of projects. Following its founding, the “Community” soon dispatched an international delegation made up of “democracy fighters” from several countries to Moldova, a CIS state, to introduce the “best practices of democracy” to Moldovan officials. Meanwhile, out of concern for political situations in Eurasia, the West also launched an “Organization for Democracy and Economic Development” (GUAM) among Baltic States to influence Central Asian NGOs. Member states of GUAM called on NGOs, opposition parties and citizens in Central Asian states to fight for more governmental accountabilities. For example, to influence the 2012 Uzbek presidential election, they criticized the Uzbek Government for banning opposition parties. Because Central Asian states did not follow the Ukrainian and Georgian suits to tolerate “Color Revolution”, they also accused these countries of impeding democracy and suffocating “civil society”.

　　4. Integrating blogs and other modern media/network resources. 

　　After the “Color Revolution”, NGOs used blogs to spread thoughts and comments on Central Asia. Launching sub-group blogs on well known Eurasian blog websites, they focused on CIS issues in the fields of economic reform, environmental protection, social development, international relations and military activities. This attracted a large number of officials, media people and ordinary citizens from former Soviet countries to engage in discussions. According to statistics, as of August 8th, 2007, there were a total of 3,009 blog groups distributed across and devoted to the following topics: academic (20), declarations (12), Armenia (15), Azerbaijan (11), blog space (86), Caucasia (2), current events (20), development forums (17), economy (8), energy (6), environment (1), emergencies (17), Georgia (18), history (16), international relations (4), internet (6), Kazakhstan (497), Kyrgyzstan (166), media (2), military (11), Mongolia (59), new Eurasia blogs (16), Central Asia and Caucasian news (2), old version general reports (13), education (6), politics (22), religion (17), general reports (1366), Tajikistan (254), pan regional (35), Turkmenistan (126), special types (3) and Uzbekistan (155).

　　Of the blog groups listed above, the most famous is one called “Central Asia Democracy Project” hosted by Alan Cordova. Founded in late 2007, the project targeted theoretical justifications for the promotion of American Democracy and democratic values in Central Asia. The project called on the US to reflect on its “relative failures” in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan by comparing with its successful experiments in Mongolia. In Tajikistan, he wished to see the implementation of just and fair election procedures, as he believed the intervention of external forces (Russian primarily) and the pressures of Machtpolitik and Realpolitik had impeded the country’s political processes; and in Kyrgyzstan, the author aspired to investigate the operations of Internews (a media organization with US background). In his blogs, the author not only examined American governmental and non-governmental organizations’ successes in Mongolia and their failures in Kyrgyzstan, but also speculated on how the experiences of the former case can be effectively transplanted to the latter. Having interviewed many Central Asian officials and local residents, Alan Cordova aspired to usher in more changes to Central Asia through his blogs.

　　II. CIS States’ Control over Western NGOs after the “Color Revolution” 

　　The “Color Revolutions” in Ukraine, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan put other countries on high alerts. As a result, these countries intensified their control over West-backed NGOs accordingly.

　　1. Shutting down Western NGOs’ local branches. 

　　In April 2007, in retaliation of opposition’s demonstrations in St. Petersburg, police from Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs raided a US-backed reporter-training NGO in Russia and took away some files and data. In July 2007, Russian law enforcement department officially shut down a “Media Education Foundation” (aka. “Russian Division of International News”), accusing its leader of foreign exchange smuggling. Thereafter, in February 2008, Russia successfully prevented Roth, a leading human right observer, from attending a new conference in Moscow where he intended to release a 72-page report criticizing the Putin government’s crack-down on NGOs. Meanwhile, Russia tightened control over social and corporate sponsors too. For example, Russia cracked down on an anti-Russia illegal organization called “Voice” when it found Voice was in close contact with “Pora!”, the organizer of Ukraine’s “Orange Revolution”. Voice’s action plan was later found to be almost identical to those of “Color Revolution” organizers in Georgia and Ukraine. It intended to take actions during the Russian parliament election by announcing massive frauds and then organize street demonstrations. This event sounded an alarm for the Russian Government which had moved on to the crack-down of anti-governmental organizations in Russia since then. For instance, when the Russian Ministry of Justice discovered the relationship between human right organizations in Russia and their sponsors which were mostly pro-West or Western foundations in support of “Color Revolution” (including Boris Berezovsky’s International Foundation for Civil Liberty), it revised Russian laws to restrict sponsor activities and empower the state to investigate NGOs’ funding sources.

　　Soros Foundations were key supporters of the so-called “democratic reforms” in Eastern and Central Europe. Out of concerns for “Color Revolution”, Uzbekistan shut down the Soros Foundation in the country. Soon, a number of other large-scale NGOs funded by the US Government were also shut down. These included “National Democracy Foundation”, “National Democracy Institute” and “International Republican Institute” whose targets were “promoting democracy” and “funding opposition forces”. Alert over Soros Foundation for a long time, the Kazakh government issued warnings to the organization too. And in a Kyrgyz “political turmoil” in April 2010, the local branch of International Republican Institute in Kyrgyzstan was completely destroyed. It was later rumored that “there was possible governmental involvement in the attack”.

　　2. Introducing NGO Law to control Western NGOs. 

　　Russia believes that British and American spies and spies from other Western countries often use NGOs as disguises to overthrow Russian Government. Putin, who has always been strongly against foreign funding of Russian social entities, has therefore repeatedly stressed that political activities in Russia should be kept transparent and political organizations with foreign funding should be kept under state surveillance. On January 26th, 2006, at the joint initiative of United Russia Party, Russian Communist Party, Russian Liberal Democratic Party and Motherland-National Patriotic Union (Rodina), the Russian State Duma passed a new Russian NGO bill. Aiming to make transparent Russian NGOs’ funding and prevent “Color Revolution”, the bill stipulated that (1) all NGOs and non-profit organizations must be registered at state departments; (2) government agencies have the right to check NGOs’ activities and audit NGOs’ financials at random; once misbehaviors are identified, the misbehaving NGO shall be shut down; (3) NGOs engaging in activities not in line with their corporate charters shall be shut down; (4) the State has the right to monitor any cash flow into NGOs exceeding 500,000 US dollars. These measures enabled Russian Government to monitor Russian NGOs closely and thereby prevent the penetration and influence of Western powers. In the opinions of foreign NGOs, this bill, once made a law, could mean the de facto termination of NGO activities in Russia.

　　Like the Russian State Duma, Kazakh Parliament also passed laws to monitor and control NGOs. As Nazarbayev, the Kazakh President, said, ”Kazakh Parliament has already noted the danger of instability in our neighboring countries caused by foreign NGOs.” On a meeting on April 1st, 2005, Nazarbayev explicitly expressed his support to the creation of a “Confederation of NGOs of Kazakhstan” (KNOCK, or “КНОК” in Russian, i.e., Конфедерации неправительственных организаций Казахстана), stressing that in order to maintain order and stability in Kazakhstan the government should play a bigger role in providing legal frameworks and state budgets to facilitate NGO participation in social affairs. This actually means that control over NGOs should be strengthened by means of governmental intervention. In light of this, an organizing committee for the launch of KNOCK was created, under which a public organizational committee was established to launch the Leaders’ Commission and the largest NGO in the world. Soon, the Leaders’ Commission elected B. Sivryukova to the position of KNOCK’s chairwoman.

　　3. Controlling internet to restrain Western NGOs’ communication power. 

　　On July 10th, 2009, irrespective of opposition, Nazarbayev signed a bill to restrict internet activities. The bill provides that internet websites, including news websites, forums, blogs and even online shops and libraries, are all classified as traditional media. Accordingly, internet media professionals are equated to traditional media professionals. Since Kazakhstan already has many restrictions over traditional media (including legislations prohibiting traditional media from disseminating information on assembly, demonstration and protest, the violation of which shall result in severe punishment and even criminal penalties), this new law is virtually prohibiting people from disseminating information on assembly, demonstration and protest on the internet. A second characteristic of the law is that it empowers the authorities to shut down foreign news websites. According to Kazakh law, Kazakh courts have the authority to adjudicate the closure of foreign media’s websites in Kazakhstan, even in the absence of their representatives actually showing up on the court.

　　4. Opposing foreign NGOs with governmental NGOs. 

　　One of the measures taken by CIS states to check the influence of Western NGOs was to create their own youth organizations. The so-called GONGOs (governmental NGOs) are actually very common in the US and other Western countries. They did not catch much public attention primarily because of their ingenious disguises. Funded by governments, these organizations are tools to carry out governmental strategies and policies. Since most of these organizations carry out their duties in the globalization era in the name of democracy and human rights and they are sometimes intertwined with the international community, CIS states worry that suppressing them by force to keep domestic stability could lead to strong reactions from the international community. Therefore, “to refute someone with his own argument” could be a better choice in this case, that is, to counterbalance anti-governmental NGOs with governmental NGOs.

　　“Nashi”, the Russian youth movement organization, was launched after the “Color Revolutions” exactly following this logic to fight against the encroachment of Western ideologies on Russian youths. Putin and other Russian leaders hoped to make Nashi an effective youth organization to counterbalance opposition forces. According to the plans of Russian Government, Nashi should attract 200,000 to 300,000 members and set up branches in big cities (Moscow, St. Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Rostov, etc). As a corps of “young guards” for the protection of Russia, it should be put under the direct leadership of President’s office and funded by Russian Ministry for Education, Science and Technology. Recognized by the Ministry as “a youth organization with positive social significance”, it should not only fight against anti-governmental youth movements, but also guard Russia against any threat from potential “Color Revolution”.

　　In addition, Russia launched on February 18th, 2008 an “Institute for Democracy and Cooperation”. As Russia’s de facto advocacy toolkit and a shield against Western criticism, this organization soon launched its branch in the US to monitor and criticize Western political and election processes, which effectively retaliated the West for criticizing Russia.

　　Russia’s efforts to fight against anti-governmental NGOs with governmental NGOs naturally invited criticism from the West. Ivan, the media secretary of Nashi, responded to the Western criticism this way: “In my opinion, what had happened in Ukraine shook Russia. Young people began to think about Russia’s forward direction. It has therefore become a primary task of our organization to publicize the concepts of modernization, democracy and patriotism.” Tarasov, director of the Centre for New Sociology and Study of Practical Politics in Moscow focusing on youth movement studies, also made some comments: “To withstand the attacks of such radical youth organizations as Pora!, a country has to own youth organizations of its own, similarly radical but in support of government.” No wonder Nashi, opposing to anyone who dares to challenge the Putin Government, chose to adhere to the principle “whoever is against the government is against the Motherland and therefore must be stricken back by force”.

　　III. Conclusions 

　　After the “Color Revolution”, the momentum of Western NGOs’ penetration into Central Asia has somewhat weakened, but their approaches have become more diversified and localized. The activities of Western NGOs in CIS states are targeted at protecting the West’s interests in the region, i.e. 1) helping CIS states to achieve the so-called “political democratization” and promoting general public’s awareness and acceptance of such concepts; 2) creating environments favorable for the West to acquire and seize oil, gas and other natural resources in the region; and 3) making the region a buffer zone between Russian and the West in case of confrontation. In general, the West hopes to control the direction of CIS states’ political and ideological evolutions to protect their strategic interests in the region.

　　Active as Western NGOs are, their activities put many countries on alert and caused them to adopt restrictive measures as a result. Key countermeasures taken by CIS states include: 1) restricting the use of internet by passing stricter laws; 2) prohibiting NGOs from talking on media; 3) launching competing institutions and advocating nationalism to neutralize foreign influences.

　　In summary, the ultimate strategic goals of the West in CIS states remain unchanged, and Western NGOs’ aspirations to instill Western values and beliefs in the region remain unchanged. It is only that their approaches have grown more flexible, their measures more advanced and their organization more coordinated. With the number of NGOs growing at an annual rate of 10% globally, it is very critical that people can distinguish angels from devils among the NGOs. How to effectively manage domestic organizations while dealing with Western NGOs deftly remains indeed a great challenge. It is therefore no exaggeration to say that when monitoring and dealing with Western NGOs, it is always wise to adopt stricter registration controls and take preventive measures in order to keep safe.

　　Li Lifan is Associate Research Fellow at Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences.