03 AUGUST 2009 CORRUPTION AND CIVIL SOCIETY IN RUSSIA

Russian Anti-Corruption Civil Society Center “Clean Hands” conducted the independent monitoring of present position of Russian civil society.
According to the monitoring, one of the evils corroding not only state bureaucratic system but also civil society is corruption.
Corruption in civil society is due to the same reasons as in State bodies - socio-economic, cultural, political reasons.
We remind that the following grants of various Russian and foreign sources have been provided in 2009 to develop democracy and human rights in Russia:
- European Commission - 4 684 557 euro;
- Public Chamber of Russian Federation - 1 billion 500 million rubles (50 million $)
- United States - 29 million dollars.
There is a fundamental difference between funding of foreign and domestic sources: ratio of funding of Russian sources and quality, efficiency of the real civil activities is easier to control, in this case theft up to one third of grants. Grants provided by foreign organizations are much more complicated to control. As a result, theft of foreign financial grants up to 90% and foreign (International) organizations receive regular standard reports of pseudo activities, actions, pickets. “Grant thieves” that specializing in getting foreign grants is easy to detect. Such organizations are noisy with comments about little reason and safe reasons, participate at conferences where only invited members of these organizations.
Practically all of their proposals and initiatives are populist - the real work is not done.
Another distinctive feature “grant thieves” - the member of such organizations spend almost all summer, and sometimes years, in international travels, put reports of impressions and volume of drunken alcohol in the Internet. Audacity of “grant thieves” does not have any borders: they order expensive room in prestigious hotels, luxurious banquets and expensive souvenirs, expensive cars. Moreover, grant thieves write off several grants for single event. One grantor may not be aware that the event is already financed by another grantor.
Often it use counterfeit cash receipts and other expenditure documentation: commercial firms are attracted to sign  bogus contracts, to get other expenditure documentation for non-existent payments. After such events “Grant thieves” make expensive purchases make repairs and purchase real estate.
Several questions rise: Do they have time to help really, if they are so “busy” how to find the time to listen people to understand the situation, go into the details of the case?

The selection of members is questionable, among them there are almost no specialists in legal sphere and there are cases when organizations that oppose racism and xenophobia attract nationalists for this work.
Often “grant thieves” fear that the real results of their work may be known by foreign colleagues, international organizations and the funding may be stopped.
According to unofficial information, among the grantees there is tough competition.
In this case the best defense is attack: there are false accusations of incompetence of colleagues, personal insults, spreading disinformation for international organizations in order to discredit colleagues depriving them of support.
There are cases where “grant Mafia” use illegal methods of eliminating competitors: falsification of criminal cases, falsification of documents, information attacks.
However, a lot of social, human rights organizations provide real assistance and free support for people among them are Moscow Helsinki Group, “Public Verdict”, movement “Resistance”  “Center for International Protection”,  “Memorial”, etc.
Another problem of Russian civil society is the division of civil society into two parts.
The most recent example of this “confrontation” - the lack of attention to the death of Vyacheslav Yaroshenko a human rights defender from Rostov-on-Don and active attention to the murder of Natalya Estemirova. There are no mentions about murder Andrew Kulagin an activist of the NGO “Spravedivost” in Karelia.

So, what cost first - the number of certificates of the victim, his personal relationships with the media or the life of a person? Some NGO’s representatives have felt themselves as privileged layer of society, like a corrupt officer bureaucracy, who has power to define - what public figures, media representatives, who killed in connection with professional activities, are worthy to support of civil society and whose lives do not have value. This layer identifies only themselves as representatives of civil society and creates barriers for other organizations.
We remind that civil society is a system of independent civil institutions and relationships that are aimed to provide the convenience  for self-realization of individuals and teams, realization of personal interests and needs. Civil society consists of different groups and communities: family, church
political parties, trade unions, associations of interest (business centers, clubs etc.), schools (private), etc.
Thus, the promotion of international rules and standards, using of international mechanisms of protection of human rights and freedoms remain verbally.
Victims of confrontation – are real people with real problems, real activists of various civil movements.

Value is human life, when the value of grants and privileges are lost. The death of human rights defenders and journalists is a reason to join efforts to stop new killings to develop civil society and civil institutions to protect human rights and freedoms in Russia.
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