Macedonia to George Soros and USAID: Go Away

Small but mighty Macedonia is the mouse that roared this year, declaring war on George Soros, 86, and his US Government handmaidens, who, incredibly, have financed a left-wing agenda to divide the nation and bring a socialist-Muslim coalition to power.

It was the kind of Obama Administration manipulation that was so routine that it passed unnoticed in 2012, when USAID/Skopje selected Soros’ Foundation Open Society Macedonia (FOSM) to manage $2.5 million in taxpayer dollars earmarked for oxymoronic “democracy building,” an amount increased to $4.8 million two years later.

As we speak, and yes, I mean currently, Macedonia’s Open Society Foundation is a USAID partner recruiting candidates for “Youth Engagement Support (YES) grants” — concept papers were due five days after Donald J. Trump’s inauguration. It’s some part of a $9.5 million, five-year “civic engagement” boondoggle kicked off last year, which surely would be squelched if the Tillerson State Department were running on all cylinders.

Collusion between the Hungarian-American billionaire and the US against Macedonia’s national interest is outlined on the website, StopSoros.mk, launched in late January by journalists in Skopje, the capital city and, incidentally, birthplace of Mother Teresa.

Over the last three weeks, inspired by the Trump Revolution, tens of thousands of Macedonians have held peaceful rallies for national unity, an end to chaos-creating Soros/USAID largess, and the removal of the US Ambassador. One of the most common posters is a black and white, “No Soros Government.”

Macedonia’s plight has caught the attention of Capitol Hill: six Republican House members wrote to US Ambassador Jess Baily on January 17, quizzing him about “disturbing reports” that the US Mission “actively intervened” in domestic politics to promote “parties, media, and civil society groups of the center left.” They followed up with the Government Accountability Office, requesting an investigation. Last week, six Republican Senators directed a similar letter to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

Unfortunately, conservative Members of Parliament from Macedonia have trouble finding Administration interlocutors to listen to their complaints — though several have flown to D.C. over the last three weeks to brief anyone who will listen. (USAID, they consider an utterly lost cause.)

Paging Mr. Trump

“Soros was Clinton and Clinton was Soros in the Balkans,” explained an agitated Macedonian MP, member of the Christian democratic VMRO-DPMNE party (commonly known as VMRO, pronounced VOOM-row), cooling his heels last week in a Dupont Circle cafe.

“Soros was Obama and Obama was Soros,” added the MP, who asked not to be named.

He fanned a stack of papers on the table before me, eager to make two well-documented points: First, Macedonia, the only nation to escape Yugoslavia without war, has been led by VMRO’s pro-growth, low-tax, family-values government for the last 11 years.
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[As] the MP’s file demonstrates, rather than applauding Macedonia’s progress — or at least, leaving it alone — US-funded programs have provoked Saul Alinsky-style violence and ethnic division, inspiring a political crisis since 2015 as well as the empowerment of VMRO’s only political rival, the Social Democratic Union of Macedonia (SDSM), a socialist party led by Zoran Zaev, who has close ties to the Soros network extending beyond his homeland.

“It’s still going on, despite the new Administration!” the clean-cut, 40-something, MP exclaimed, waving a copy of the Soros/USAID YES grants Request for Proposals in my face.

“Awaiting Hillary Clinton’s coronation, they extended this fusion between Soros and the US Government through 2021!”

Inviting me to consider what it means to pour $6-$7 million, Soros’ estimated annual budget for Macedonia, into a country of some two million people, the distraught man attracted attention from neighboring tables when he bellowed, “They are destroying my country!”

Hoping my new friend was exaggerating, I contacted several smart, reasonable, conservative analysts in Macedonia and a few in the US who travel there frequently. All agree: Not only has the US played negative, counterproductive games in Macedonia, they report our foreign policy has destabilized the country and promoted Islamic extremism.

US goals are so unsavory to the majority Orthodox population that many are beginning to look toward Russia as a more sympathetic — not to mention Christian — ally.

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