Washington, D.C.
IASPS Policy Briefings: Geostrategic Perspectives on Eurasia
Date: November 10, 2003 Number: 36
MAASTRICHT MUST NOT BE ANOTHER PORTO -- NOR A MINI-YALTA (Part two of three)
MAASTRICHT MUST NOT BE ANOTHER PORTO -- NOR A MINI-YALTA
-- Part Two of three --
BELARUS: "FORGET ABOUT THE OSCE."
Europe's last dictator, President Alyaksandr Lukashenka of Belarus, reaped throughout 2003 the political gains from the OSCE's Porto conference; and he hopes that the Maastricht conference will change nothing in that regard. Indeed the OSCE has this year emasculated its own mission in Minsk under blackmail. It did so after Lukashenka had spectacularly evicted the OSCE's Advisory and Monitoring Group (AMG) from Belarus last year. Moscow backed Lukashenka in order to roll back from Belarus the Western presence as embodied in the AMG.
The AMG had been tasked to promote political pluralism, media freedom, and fair elections in Belarus. Long led by German diplomat Hans-Georg Wieck who worked closely with the U.S., and funded by the U.S. primarily, the AMG supported Western-oriented groups in Belarus, enabling them to survive politically and function in that repressive environment. The AMG in Minsk was the most efficacious and highly motivated among the OSCE's field missions. Yet the OSCE proved structurally incapable of defending it, as Moscow made clear that it would veto ("withhold consensus from") any OSCE censure of Lukashenka's transgressions including this assault on the OSCE itself. Western countries and their Central-Eastern European allies could only protest in their own name within the OSCE against Lukashenka's actions.
At the Porto conference, Russia successfully urged the OSCE to negotiate a "mutually acceptable" mandate for a new office in Minsk. The U.S., hitherto the main supporter of the Minsk mission, gave in. On December 30, 2002 in Vienna, the OSCE's Permanent Council duly approved a severely weakened mandate. The new Office limped along this year under the new rules of the game. Even the words "democratic" and "compliance" (with OSCE commitments) were dropped from the mandate. The term "Belarusan authorities" (which reflected the OSCE's view of those authorities as lacking legitimacy) has been replaced by the term "Belarusan Government" throughout, even though no international authority--certainly not the OSCE itself--has detected any relaxation in that Soviet-style dictatorship. The changed mandate requires the OSCE Office to operate "in close cooperation and consultation with the Government of Belarus and in full respect for the laws and regulations of the host country."
Under the changed mandate, "all activities of the OSCE Office in Minsk not provided in its regular budget...must be relevant to the fulfillment of this mandate." This requirement impedes funding for pro-Western groups and activities from supplementals to the regular budget. The AMG's mandate had not set any time limit on its operation, nor did it stipulate any termination procedure. The new Office, however, will need to be prolonged on an annual basis by "unanimous consent" (i.e. liable to veto and closure). Thus the OSCE-approved mandate severely restricts the organization's ability to promote its own principles in Belarus, while enabling Lukashenka and his KGB (still so named) to frustrate the mission's activities. "Vergiss die OSZE" ("forget about the OSCE")--as the veteran German diplomat concluded during a recent conference in Berlin--sounds like an apt summary of this situation.
GEORGIA: THE OSCE BACKTRACKS ON RUSSIAN TROOPS AND BASES.
In Georgia as well, the OSCE has proven incapable of upholding the principles of its most basic documents, which rule out forcible territorial changes, displacement of populations, and the stationing of troops in foreign countries against their will.
At its Istanbul 1999 summit--the last summit it was able to hold--the OSCE had adopted decisions requiring Russia to close the Vaziani and Gudauta bases in 2001, and to negotiate with Georgia regarding the closure of the Batumi and Akhalkalaki bases. Moscow signed on, as well as accepting these commitments as part of its obligations under the CFE Treaty. Four years later, however, Russia has only closed Vaziani. It retains the other three bases; it practically refuses to negotiate (the last intergovernmental round of negotiations was held a year and a half ago); and it demands an 11-year period for troop withdrawal, counting from the entry into force of any intergovernmental agreement, which however is nowhere in sight. All this amounts to seeking a permament Russian military presence in Georgia. Privately, Russian officials are hinting to the Georgians that Moscow might broker a settlement in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, if Georgia agrees to legalize the Russian military bases.
The OSCE has failed to register any objection to Russia's patent noncompliance. Moreover, it has undermined the organization's own Istanbul decisions. The Porto document--the last word on the matter, though up for review at Maastricht--urges Russia and Georgia to agree on the "duration and modalities of the functioning of the Russian military bases," as if to imply their continuation. Georgia submitted the formula, "duration and modalities of termination of the functioning," as per Istanbul; but it was rejected at Russia's insistence. Moscow also ruled out a reference to the "free consent of any state to any foreign military presence on its territory," although this is enshrined in the CFE Treaty. Georgia had to file its own interpretative statement, citing these crucial OSCE principles, which the OSCE itself proved unable to insert into its own documents, while the U.S. and other Western countries failed to uphold.
During the course of 2003, the OSCE said nothing--let alone doing anything--as Russia moved closer toward incorporating Abkhazia and South Ossetia de facto. By now, Moscow has almost completed the conferral of Russian citizenship on local residents; is disposing almost at will of Georgian state property there; and has intensified direct traffic between Russia and Abkhazia and South Ossetia, across the internationally recognized Russian-Georgian border, the Georgian sectors of which are under Russian and/or Russian proxy control. Georgia has in vain appealed for international support.
While the OSCE does not handle conflict resolution in Abkhazia--the U.N. is supposedly overseeing this--the OSCE continues to ignore the ethnic cleansing and obvious violation of internationally recognized borders there. In South Ossetia, however, the OSCE does handle the conflict resolution talks in a Moscow-imposed, "pentagonal" negotiating format: Russia, the Russian Federation's republic of North Ossetia, the Russian-protected South Ossetia, a helpless Georgia, and an OSCE unable to act without Russian consent. This year, South Ossetia's secessionist authorities received 19 Russian battle tanks and other armaments, which they paraded with a wink and nod from Russia and with impunity from the OSCE.
One creditable accomplishment of the OSCE in Georgia is the Border Monitoring Operation (BMO), deployed on Georgian territory opposite Chechnya and Ingushetia. Comprised of unarmed military officers from many member countries, including Russia, the BMO repeatedly determined that there was no Chechen guerrilla infiltration across those segments of the border. The BMO did confirm reports of Russian air raids into Georgian territory in that sector. It thus contradicted Moscow's accusations--intended as a casus belli against Georgia--that Chechen and "international terrorists" were using Georgian territory to carry out operations in Chechnya. The United States alone stayed the Kremlin's hand, while training and equipping Georgia's security forces to assert complete control over the Pankisi Gorge.
-- end of Part Two of three --
