The Latent Fraud of Global Aid

A noble cause of human rights has often been marred by enterprising characters, who mislead general audience with pompous talk about democracy. One of the convincing examples of such disparity between proclaimed lofty principles and their mediocre implementation is an Amsterdam-based entity Free Press Unlimited. As a maverick journalist, I face economical and psychological pressure from pro-Russian authorities of Kazakhstan. Thus, I naively hoped to get some assistance from the aforementioned organization.

True, the Dutch folks owe me nothing. I also ain’t no obligations whatsoever before ’em. However, I would like to express my deep concern as for their negligent approach towards applicants. As a Kazakh citizen, residing in Kazakhstan, I was surprised to learn that they had confused me with someone from Latvia. Well, from time to time, intentionally or not, I have been mistaken for a person from Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, etc. Because, frankly speaking, the Kazakhs have many things in common with these ethnic groups. But, the misattribution of me as a Latvian is rather gross. I have very little in common with the Baltic state I have never been to. Moreover, they distrustfully didn’t disclose the full name of a person, who ostensibly replied to my application. Perhaps, it wasn’t actually a living person, but a bot. Anyway, it doesn’t really matter whether it was Patricia or Patrick, Patrizio, Fabrizio, and so forth. The point is that, as a rule, they don’t care about their formal agenda.

In a way, this situation reminds me the Almaty office of the Reuters news agency at the beginning of 2000s. It was led by a Russified businessman Dauren Daukeyev, who is a descendant of the wealthy family. Another key figure at the office was equally pro-Russian Larissa Kokovinets — the elder sister of a rich Kazakh TV-announcer Svetlana Kokovinets. Mr. Daukeyev and Ms. Kokovinets are lousy journalists, who know little about core values of Kazakhstan, its native language, and history. But, the characters in question are affluent and well-connected ones. That is why, in this particular case, the Reuters news agency’s official stance as an equal opportunity employer sounds quite far-fetched.

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