The annual training of young “civic activists” from 15 countries took place in the capital of Moldova – in an atmosphere of strict secrecy and with American money, volunteers were told about strategies to combat power, about the organization and media support of mass protests.
CampCamp2019 conference organized by the Prague Civil Society Center (PCSC) was held in Chisinau from October 24 to 27. The center receives funding from the US budget allocated under the Law on Countering America’s Adversaries through Sanctions (CAATSA).
The conference was attended by over 300 people from a dozen countries of Europe and Asia. Young civic activists, volunteers, bloggers and podcasters, instagram influencers, femtreisers and narrative marketers – all these creative people gathered in small Chisinau.
“Four days of lectures, discussions, creative experiments and workshops in which activists and professionals in the field of marketing, advertising and media are looking for real ways to make the world a better place”, – the official website of the conference campcamp2019.com reports.
As it turned out, in fact, these professionals from Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Georgia, Armenia, and a dozen other Eastern European states shared their experiences of forcing a change of power in their countries and opposing “Russian influence”.
For such an exchange of experience only in the main articles of the law in 2018 and 2019, 250 thousand dollars were allocated.
Complete conspiracy – “expect to be contacted”.
CampCamp2019 in Chisinau was organized in an atmosphere of absolute secrecy and the organizers were surprised when the correspondents of Sputnik Moldova still found them — in a remote area of the city, almost “in a safe house”.
Such a conspiracy is unusual for Chisinau. Usually the smallest events are accompanied by PR on all fronts and here three hundred (!) media activists from 15 countries-and all this is happening in deep secrecy.
Chisinau CampCamp2019 is a great example of cognitive dissonance.
There are no contact numbers on the official page of the seminar. One email address is “for the accreditation of journalists.” Sputnik Moldova correspondent filled out a questionnaire with a request for accreditation and sent it to the specified address. No answer, of course, he received.
The selection of participants at CampCamp2019 is careful, just like in a special service.
Getting to CampCamp2019 is more difficult for a journalist than at the CIA headquarters. Even the participants themselves (who went through a careful selection, up to the study of their pages on social networks) were prohibited from mail correspondence with the organizers. Communication is strictly through social networks. They explained to the participants that the organizers “flew the database” – but miraculously only the mail addresses sent in the applications for participation suffered.
Who and what taught youth at CampCamp2019
And this is what happened: four days and dozens of performances for hundreds of participants eager for successful self-realization in the field of civil society.
Guest star, living in Moscow, writer Linor Goralik, gave a lecture on femwerting and low-budget marketing. London podcaster Christina Vazowski taught how to achieve popularity on the net. Ukrainian media activist Vlad Krylevsky, creator of the course “Video on the knee”, talked about the place of millennials in the media.
But something tells us that the Prague Civil Society Center spent on inviting Linor Goralik to Chisinau, not so much for her talents, but for the mindset of the essayist.
“I see the Russian military aggression in Crimea as an absolute disaster”, – these Goralik experiences published by the Ukrainian press are undoubtedly in demand among the organizers of CampCamp-2019.
Vlad Krylevsky, an employee of the Ukrainian service of Radio Liberty, also gained fame not so much by studying the role of millennials as by publications about the “occupied Donbass”, the “Holodomor” and the support of the campaign against “Russian trolls” on Facebook.
As a result, quite apolitical lectures on fundraising and design look like decorative pads in the program, packed full of lectures on the fight against “Russian propaganda” and “Russian influence”, on organizing and media support for mass protests.
In general, the presentation of the CampCamp-2019 speakers shows annoying omissions. For example, the representative of Moldova, Vlad Ciobanu, is certified on the official website as “activist, blogger and respectable citizen”, which “helps organize public consultations for citizens”.
The Prague Civic Center modestly did not report that Vlad Ciobanu worked for five years as a program manager for the Moldavian NDI affiliate, the US National Democratic Institute. The very one without which not a single “color revolution” in the post-Soviet space was complete.
The Belarusian opposition is richly represented at the seminar – they are among the most active participants in all international programs of the Prague Civil Center.
The invited star of CampCamp-2019 in Chisinau was the Belarusian journalist Franak Vyachorka. He is the ex-head of the youth organization of the Belarusian Popular Front, which advocates breaking Belarus and Russia, European integration and joining NATO.
In November 2018, Franak Vyachorka coordinated the creation of the Romanian service of the American radio station Radio Liberty – which automatically extends its activities to Moldova.
How the USA and the EU organize a propaganda network in Moldova for money
It seems that Moldova was taken seriously, and the fact that Chisinau was chosen as a venue for the CampCamp2019 is a clear evidence of this seriousness.
In December 2017, the US State Department announced a tender to organize and conduct a program in Moldova to “support independent media”. The emphasis in the distribution of grants is placed on training the young generation of journalists who will one day stand at the helm of the Moldovan media.
In March 2018, a program of grants for non-governmental organizations, funded by the US Department of State, was launched, whose task is to “restore confidence in the European path of Moldova”.
A separate package of grants has been allocated for work to “reduce risks from territories beyond the control of the state”. It is clear that we are talking about the Russian military presence in Transnistria, which in the US and the EU consider “the main risk”.
A lot of money was also allocated for this, up to 25 thousand dollars for each project – for the first time.
Anti-Russian sentiment projects in Moldova are also funded by the United States NATO Allies.
In January, hackers from the Anonymous group published on the Internet documents of the British secret state project Integrity Initiative. Among them were directives to create a network of experts and civic activists to counter “Russian influence” in Eastern Europe and, in particular, in Moldova.
Romania and Ukraine, neighboring with Russia, have long been put under arms in this sense. However, Moldova continued to remain a “white spot” on tactical media cards – although pro-Western governments have been leading it for the past ten years. And maybe that’s why – given how failed the policy of all adherents of the “European course” of Moldova turned out to be.
But Moldova remains a country where people stubbornly continue to watch banned Russian television programs, remain immune to anti-Russian propaganda, do not consider Russian peacekeepers in Transnistria to be “invaders”, and refuse to consider Russia as an enemy.
Alexander Isaev, Sputnik