The Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) has a first-rate report up on its website of the year at OSCE in review, and some frank talk about the perils of Kazakhstan's chair of the organization. While it may have been obvious, CSCE notes that the same president (Nazarbayev) who signed the Helsinki Accords in 1992 as a newly-independent state is *still* in office -- and 19 years is a long time for *any* president.
Says CSCE:
For some who were strongly opposed to giving Kazakhstan the chairmanship, the integrity of the OSCE as an institution is undermined by the disparity between the commitments adopted by the participating States and the practices of the government in Astana. In particular, the Kazakhstani chairmanship begins with the country’s most well-known human rights activist [Yegeny Zhovtis] behind bars in a penal colony.
That's a good point to keep making when some debate the other challenge to integrity by *not* having some countries ever chair the organization. Some say "well, we weathered Libya in the chair of the Commission on Human Rights". Er, no, we did not -- not only the Comission's reputation suffer terribly, and the revised body turn out worse in some ways. In fact, the working methods and procedures were savaged and features like specific country mandates and those special sessions obsessively focusing on Israel could become possible precisely because of the bad-faith chairs of what should have been an impartial human rights body. It's that undermining of good faith that we have most to oppose in Astana's chair of OSCE and the corrosive effect of bad will.
The CSCE report notes that at the annual Human Dimension Implementation Meeting in Warsaw this past year, NGOs stood up in protest wearing t-shirts in defense of jailed human rights leader Yevgeny Zhovtis. I could note that unlike the UN, where every single one of these NGOs' organizations would have permanently lost their grounds pass (remember when Polish activist Irena Lasota tried to unfurl the Solidarity banner at the UN in the 1980s?) -- OSCE diplomats upheld the NGOs right to make this visual but silent and peaceful protest in the room. And the Russians tried to play the bash-NGO game, as CSCE points out in its annual report, by walking out in protest when the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society got to speak.
Here, I'll note what I said about Kazakhstan's past record of hewing to the letter of law and highlight how important it was that some OSCE members stood up for the rock-solid NGO participation principle: Only “persons and organizations which resort to the use of violence or publicly condone terrorism or the use of violence” may be barred from participating; there are no other grounds for exclusion, reminds CSCE.
The Russian-Chechen Friendship to my knowledge, having worked with them in the past, has never advocated or used violence and has not been been charged for such even by biased Russian courts -- so Russians making this claim have to be challenged to back it up.
So I'm glad to see CSCE out of the gates in the first month of the Kazakh chair with a very strong statement, but I'm also reminded of what a UN official pointedly said about his reform efforts: "We need to stop writing reports to each other and get out of the building." And reminded of a poignant statement by an Indian Lahor man to a journalist: "You give us a handful of flour, and yet you're writing so much. Go now. We've had enough of you."
Of course, OSCE does not give out flour (remember the OSCE mission in Chechnya that tried something like this for a short period?) And unlike so many of the other OSCE members, CSCE doesn't just write reports for the building, but puts their frank statements right on their website. Then what? Can it task any of its peers to validate the same kind of concerns? Can it move the substance of these reports to action along the diplomatic channels?
By contrast, I might point out the British Foreign Office's answers to "rapid-fire" questions on Kazakhstan. It's rather bland stuff, even with a dangling preposition:
"David Moran, Her Majesty’s Ambassador: The OSCE Chairmanship represents a real achievement for Kazakhstan, the first Central Asian country to hold this important office. Kazakhstan's international profile will be raised to a new level. This is both a great opportunity and a big responsibility to reflect the values and principles of the Organisation and uphold the commitments which all OSCE participating States have signed up to."
Asked about the criticism of Kazakhstan's democracy shortfall, worrisomely, the UK circled back to put the same emphasis on security as Kazakhstan, although of course mouthing the platitudes:
"We broadly welcome Kazakhstan's priorities for the year, particularly its focus on the dialogue on the future of European security, also known as the Corfu Process. It will be a key responsibility of the Chair to take this forward. We firmly believe the Corfu Process should remain anchored within the OSCE, and should involve work across the three OSCE dimensions: human, political/military, and economic/environmental."
Pushed to respond to the question of what Kazakhstan's citizens get out of it, the UK OSCE envoy said:
"We look forward to Kazakhstan upholding the principles and commitments upon which the OSCE was founded."
Well, we do, too. There are all kinds of styles and approaches in moving the OSCE ball forward. The question is how CSCE, which is more forward with the ball, is going to have any impact on its more circumspect fellows. While a hybrid entity, CSCE has to do most of its negotiations with its counterpart, the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, and leave the heavier diplomatic lifting directly with Astana to State. The problem with OSCE PA is that quite a few of the delegations resulted from elections that OSCE itself found "fell far short of international standards" (start with Russia; move on to Kazakhstan). That limits its effectiveness, even though I feel OSCE PA is one of the best kept secrets of the OSCE process that NGOs should engage with more.
I'm not sure these days just how much freelance bilateral human rights advocacy CSCE can do directly with Kazakhstani officials. The "message has been sent" loud and clear on this website, but the U.S. has lots of detailed and excellent reports (from DRL, from CIRF) without necessarily there being follow-up at the dioplomatic level.
Fortunately, CSCE will have a hearing precisely on the issue of Kazakhstan's chairmanship and can ask some questions.
Recent Comments