No one following events in Central Asia could say they did not see this coming -- according to the AP, there are already 40 dead and 400 wounded in anti-government demonstrations in Kyrgyzstan today. Troops are firing on unarmed demonstrators as well as apparently some armed instigators -- it appears that some protesters have incited and used violence in encountering brutal suppression by government troops already long known for their brutality.
The short answer to my question of whether OSCE can cope with this crisis is: no. If OSCE were the sort of body that could cope with events spiralling out of control like this in the first place, it would have successfully prevented them (the Zen of international peace-keeping). The long answer is: it will have to. There is no one else. The UN is crippled by Russia's veto and American interests in the war in Afghanistan. NATO isn't a disinterested party. Kyrgyzstan is not a member of the Council of Europe.The regional bodies of the ineffectual CIS and Russian-dominated CSTO cannot change anything -- Russia is already meddling in this crisis and its customs duties causing energy price hikes is the immediate cause of the riots.
The Kazakh chair of OSCE is the worst possible actor to intervene in this scene, with little credibility given both Central Asian rivalries and the tendency of Astana to take the side of brutal governments in power rather than demonstrators who aren't always careful to suppress violence in their midst. Even so, Foreign Minister Kanat Saudabayev has to step up now briskly and effectively to what may be the worst challenge of the Kazakh chairmanship, and not only quell violence and help start effective peace talks with all stakeholders but commission a credible and impartial investigation that will ultimately lead to prosecution for those perpetrating violence. He's unlikely to do those last two things very well or at all, but here he should try not to go below past OSCE standards that set the bar high -- attempts at monitoring and promoting talks in Georgia; a report on violence in Kosovo in the 1990s.
Indeed, using the Moscow mechanism and any other mechanisms that are available, the Kazakh chair should try to get OSCE monitors into position quickly and not let Kyrgyzstan or Russia block them.
The violence is even worse than reported on the wires as we can see from EurasiaNet reports, and among the disturbing developments, this sign of weakness:
The violence in Bishkek began after police began arresting a peaceful group of protesters outside the opposition Social Democratic Party headquarters on the morning of April 7, the EurasiaNet.org correspondent reported.
The arrests started after the departure of German
Ambassador Holger Green and the Organization for Security and
Cooperation in Europe mission head Ambassador Andrew Tesoriere from the
scene. A representative of the US embassy also left immediately before
riot police began arresting demonstrators.
No one expects lone German ambassadors or OSCE mission heads to stand in harm's way when clubs start swinging, or to mount lonely vigils 24/7 to try to prevent the clubs from arriving. Still, they need more company from all the members of the OSCE -- led by its chair -- and right now.
While a sudden surge of violence in "one of the stans" might come as a suprise to the Twitter news junkies, it was brewing for a long time as the Tulip Revolution went south and some of the leaders who had once come to power on rhetoric of democracy began to roll it back when it didn't suit them.
You couldn't say you didn't know this was coming if you subscribed to Ramazan Dyryldaev's news service -- or indeed, if you had ever once even given a business card to Ramazan or come into his field of view, because he'd subscribe you to his daily emails anyway. Each day for the last year -- the last decades, really -- Ramazan has steadily and persistently told the other narrative of Kyrgyzstan outside the happy OSCE workshops, the unlawful arrests, the police beatings, the families of relatives of suspects harassed, the murder of journalists, the unemployment and price hikes, the unrest, the extremists and the extreme response to them. Day after day -- sometimes even two or three times a day, people whose names might seem difficult to spell to foreigners or whose cases might seem complicated to understand or remember have been reported as beaten, even tortured in large numbers, suppressed, without demonstration permits, or demonstrating anyway over economic issues like price hikes.
Until this moment, when finally so many are killed and wounded that the world pays attention -- and the opposition uses force to take over a building, consciously following the Leninist revolutionary instructive meme well known in this region of "first taking over the telegraph station":
The crowds took control of the state TV building and looted it, then marched toward the Interior Ministry, according to Associated Press reporters on the scene, before changing direction and attacking a national security building nearby. They were repelled by security forces loyal to President Kurmanbek Bakiyev.
The UN has generally tacitly let mainly Russia take care of this region, although this week, UN Secretary Ban Ki Moon toured the region to address both making the area a nuclear-weapons-free zone and solving water disputes and security concerns. Indeed, his trip to these usually overlooked countries inside the Russian-veto zone on the UN Security Council may have even sparked more demonstrations and appeals as people hoped desperately the international community might pay attention to them now.
Those only tuning in now about "the U.S. base" here without studying its pre-history are rapidly firing up the cynical tweets and blogs and Facebooks, rolling their eyes with web world-weariness about American oil interests. Of course, those who tuned in earlier would know that this base was evicted by the Bakiyev government under clear pressure from the Russians, who even induced the Kyrgyz to go back on the base agreement by offering to foot the bill for a controversial hydropower station -- and the U.S. has only recently gingerly eased back in. The World Bank has only recently tried to broker an arrangement among Central Asian nations to solve their water and energy disputes amicably to reflect all their interests, without Russian meddling to incite one against the other. The U.S. base is more about the war in Afghanistan than it is about oil and gas which are more present in neighbouring countries (not in Kyrgyzstan) and not so easy to get out, especially with Russia and China already controlling pipeline routes.
How can violence like this be prevented, or how can such situations not spiral so out of control? Literally millions of OSCE funds have been spent on this country for years on every thing from training police to become sensitive to gender issues and women's rights to training border guards how to be more effective and less abusive, and training journalist show to report stories more professionally and protect itself. Just this month, there was news of cross-border environmental cooperation -- all good, but typical of the soft-option topics OSCE grabs hold of while Rome is burning.
Why doesn't all that stuff come in handy at a time like this, when you want police not to shoot even at people who have taken over a building, but you'd also would like to see a social movement that doesn't violently take over buildings, either? And for extra credit, you want the state not to silence the media so that no one knows what is really going on inside the country. (The OSCE representative on media freedom should be protesting this.)
There are many complex reasons and I could not address them here, but I would have to say that after the failure of Kyrgyz democracy -- for which one must above all blame the Kyrgyz in power -- the failures of OSCE, the UN, the international civic movements also play a role.
The savagery with which demonstrators beat the Interior Minister, no doubt symbolically for every blow that Minister's own employees have inflicted on numerous Kyrgyz even if peacefully dissenting, might be understandable, but it is to be roundly condemned.
Will any human rights groups be found to condemn it? They usually don't, preferring to focus on the crimes of the state in power rather than the non-state actors with grievances who might use violence to achieve their goals. I personally find this troubling as a proposition for civic organizing in general, even if a recipe for a good narrow mandate of a human rights groups, and I attribute this growing problem to the long moral slide of the international human rights movement since Durban. I've written about the demise of the sturdy "prisoner of conscience" mantra that served us so well for decades -- you must not use or advocate violence if you want the solidarity of the international community -- to one in which "defensive jihad" and "a range of views about armed struggle" have sickenly come to take the place of the POC value.
I can't help thinking that all the legions of OSCE and various state-funded non-profits bringing trainings and legislative rewrites on media and NGO law, willing to compromise with governments in power, are part of the problem, too: if we had a free and strong civil society of human rights groups and independent media really solidly backed by every international governmental and non-governmental institution, there might be less tendency to use violent struggle and indulge in revenge. But for this, again, we have first and foremost to blame the abusive Bakiyev government, under which appalling acts like the assassination of journalist Gennady Pavlyuk have taken place.
Today, Ramazan is reprinting Human Rights Watch's plea of April 6 -- maybe the louder voice of this American group can get the attention the situation deserves. As HRW pleas,
We urge the government to allow peaceful gatherings tomorrow. A blanket policy to break up all gatherings violates fundamental rights and could escalate tensions.
That's not working -- yet --although at least it has the benefit of telling the story fully and accurately. Neither is this terse statement by the Kazakh chair which deftly applies moral equivalency to oppressive government troops and desperate demonstrators and talks vaguely about "facilitating" a "broad political dialogue".
That's all good, but the chair needs to facilitate a broad public monitoring and reporting operation which is something OSCE is equipped to do well, with many experts who speak local languages. Meanwhile, rioters and looters as well as peaceful protesters are still milling around. Even unarmed monitors' presence, if there are enough of them, can quell such violence -- it's a resource the OSCE has, and needs only political will and pressure on the Kazakh chair to supply.
The outbreak in violence is partly a failure of the U.S. to use more of the chits it has with a base in this country to do more good, and there will be those found to try to get the Obama Administration to jump over its own knees on this, to get a Western power that had a hard time getting its base back in after being evicted under Russian pressure, and is an interested party in keeping cooperation with an abusive government to keep access to nearby Afghanistan to supply the war.
With a Kazakh chair of OSCE and the German ambassador figuratively leaving the scene to the police, it's not clear who will put pressure not just on the U.S. to do more for democracy, but to lean on Russia not to use this violence in Kyrgyzstan as an excuse to put *its* base for the "war on terrorism" in the south, using the cover of the Russian-dominated CSTO. There's a strong liklihood that we will see this happen in the coming months more than we're likely to see OSCE monitors.
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