VZCZCXRO3879
RR RUEHDBU RUEHLN RUEHVK RUEHYG
DE RUEHMO #3092 3601515
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 261515Z DEC 06
FM AMEMBASSY MOSCOW
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 6067
INFO RUCNCIS/CIS COLLECTIVE
RUEHXD/MOSCOW POLITICAL COLLECTIVE

UNCLAS MOSCOW 013092 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
SENSITIVE 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREF PHUM EAID KDEM PGOV RS
SUBJECT: NGO RE-REGISTRATION UPDATE: BACK TO WORK IN THE 
NORTH CAUCASUS 
 
REF: MOSCOW 12784 AND PREVIOUS 
 
¶1.  (SBU) The Federal Registration Service (FRS) has 
re-registered 192 foreign NGOs as of December 22, including 
all of those providing aid in the North Caucasus.  According 
to UN sources, the re-registration of International Rescue 
Committee (IRC) and World Vision, along with the French NGO 
Action Contre la Faim (ACF), completed the re-registration of 
all those aid agencies working in the North Caucasus. 
According to our contacts, Ella Pamfilova, chair of the 
Presidential Commission on Human Rights and Development of 
Civil Society Institutions, recently raised the status of 
registrations for NGOs working in the North Caucasus with 
FRS, asking that they be re-registered as soon as possible. 
 
¶2.  (SBU) Aid representatives told us that assistance 
programs suspended while awaiting re-registration will resume 
in full.  World Vision Country Director Siobhan Kimmerle told 
us that World Vision will resume its operations, which have 
been suspended since October, by mid-January, following the 
end of official Russian holidays.  IRC and ACF will likely 
resume work about the same time.  (NOTE:  The French NGO 
Medicines du Monde is re-registered but is awaiting 
clarification on the terms of its re-registration before 
restarting its activities.  END NOTE.) 
 
¶3.  (U) Of the 29 NGOs USAID has tracked, 25 have now been 
re-registered.  In addition to IRC and World Vision, Doctors 
of the World and MiraMed were registered during the past 
week, leaving ABA/CEELI, Johns Hopkins University, Foundation 
for Russian-American Economic Cooperation, and Eurasian 
Foundation awaiting re-registration. 
 
¶4.  (U) To our knowledge, no U.S.-based NGO has been refused 
following the initial rejection of Doctors of the World, 
which subsequently submitted a new application and was 
quickly re-registered.  Galina Fokina, the acting chief of 
FRS' Department for Political Parties and Public, Religious, 
and Other Organizations, said at a December 22 press 
conference that FRS was considering applications from 12 
other foreign NGOs, had returned 20 applications for 
revision, and had refused 25 organizations.  She did not name 
those NGOs that have been refused, nor did she clarify 
whether the refusals incuded any foreign adoption agencies, 
but said that some of the refusals might be reconsidered. 
BURNS