OSCE Unbound

Bear-Hunting With the Politburo

Prived', medved'...

The Kennan Institute Woodrow Wilson conference on the Jackson-Vanik amendment was first-rate (my summation here) and afforded the opportunity to catch up with a lot of Russian, European, and American colleagues present who follow OSCE. And since I've been developing this blog, I've been checking in with more friends in Europe and Eurasia and hearing their thoughts on OSCE.

Interestingly, Europeans I know have expressed concern and even revulsion over this hearing, where some of our more colourful congressmen were on display. I try to reassure them and say this: look at who actually votes, and what they vote on, and what their work is in the CSCE, and what they write. That matters more than any particular posturing in the hearing. Still, the video is upsetting, prompting some to wonder if our representatives are "bought by Kazakhstan" (it's not that crude but you can go here and here to follow some of it). The transcript is demoralizing not only for the gushing over Kazakhstan, and it veering off topic to create a forum on the war in Afghanistan (something I've happy to have, but not at the expense of human rights in Kazakhstan), but because nobody debated this one-sided approach. Regrettably, Sen. Cardin was not in the room, as he had to attend a funeral.

Definitely there's a corrosive effect that happens when our elected representatives simply buddy up with non-democratic leaders who aren't elected by or accountable to our civil society counterparts, and gush like this uncritically.

I call it "Bear-Hunting with the Politburo". This was a common approach in the Soviet era and even after. There's actually even a book by that name, but what I mean by that Soviet-era phrase is the sense that some Western politicians and businessmen had then -- as now -- that they must establish personal rapport, and appreciate the "human side" of their counterparts, and do manly bonding-like rituals like hunting (which was a favourite sport of the old Soviet CP leaders) and make excessive praise of their counterparts in order to engage in international relations. Like I said -- corrosive effect, as no one needs you to bear-hunt and bond to get the People's work done here.

Interestingly, Europeans -- and Eurasians especially from some of the more oppressive states -- may not have anything remotely as outspoken as our CSCE, with anything even approaching the frankness and specific human rights advocacy of the CSCE members, but they expect -- demand -- more of America. This American security umbrella concept that held so many years with the nuclear shield, for better or worse, seems to hold for interpersonal dealings with Russia and its aggressive allies in the CIS as well when it comes to human rights advocacy: let the Americans be way out in front, let the Americans take the flak for criticism, and Europeans with the same values and same concerns about human rights can hide behind that -- and then get upset if Americans seem to pull their punches.

What all this comes to now is to figure out what the "benchmarks" or "deal" is with Kazakhstan, and what we can expect.

This interview in Foreign Policy and others make reference to a notion that there have been some kind of "assurances" given by Kazakhstan about what it will do during its chair. Kanat Saudabayev, the foreign minister, tells FP the following:

Just recently, on the 29th of January, in his state of the nation speech, President Nazarbayev launched a massive program of legal reforms, which is aimed at bringing Kazakhstan's judiciary closer to international standards. This year the Parliament will adopt a law that stipulates total public and legislative control over the activities of the law enforcement. This signifies our ongoing work to further strengthen the protection of rights and liberties of our citizens.

This is all double-talk, and only those who have been bear-hunting with the Politburo would take it on anything remotely resembling good faith. Kazakhstan's judiciary is not going to spring free of executive fiat any time soon; the case of Yevgeny Zhovtis and many other such cases are a good window into that truism. Total control over law-enforcement? But while laudable, whatever that *really* means, that's not how you get control over abusive police. In the West, and in the East, this is done by an independent judiciary, independent bar, and free human rights groups more than it is some bureaucratic legislative commission -- from a parliament not elected under free conditions.

Sen. Cardin raised Zhovtis' case which FP references, but gets back total double-talk from Saudabayev:

In this situation we don't speak about Zhovtis as a human rights defender; we are speaking about the decision of the Kazakh judicial court on the case of a Kazakh citizen who caused the death of another person. Mr. Zhovtis was born and raised in our country and he had not had any problems with the law before but because he was involved in the tragic accident that led to the death of another person, he plead guilty and this is it. I don't even want to comment on this issue. On the same grounds, within that time period 200 people were convicted on the same grounds. The actual penalty foreseen is from three to eight years of imprisonment. Mr. Zhovits was given near the minimum sentence, so why don't you speak about the other 199 convicted?

I have some questions about this:

o why can't Kazakhstan speak about Zhovtis as a human rights defender? He is.

o why was his legal defense material not admitted in court? why is he sent 1,000 kilometers away from his home? why is he being threatened with worse conditions?

o saying that Zhovtis "pled guilty" only tells part of the story; he's a truthful man and does not deny he was involved in vehicular manslaughter in an accident, but he has a number of vital pieces of information that are not being admitted in this defense

o Hey, I'm happy to speak about the other 199 convicted because I bet not everything has gone so swimmingly for them, either. Do you like bilateral commissions? Let's have a bilateral commission and *just* review the way in which cases of vehicular manslaughter are handled, where the defendants are not found by police to be intoxicated or not to be negligent in the case of their vehicle, and let's compare judicial and sentencing practices.

In any event, this is not a serious answer, because the leading human rights activist of the country is in jail, on jail from an accident not of his own fault, that is tragic and should require some responsibility, but not likely the harsh penalty that has been set of three years in a remote labour colony far from home.

Recently, colleagues visited Zhovtis and found that he is living in a dormitory and hoping to be able to move to an apartment and find a job, but there is concern that due to the sort of light infractions that you can be slapped with in a stay in an arbitrary and oppressive jail system such as Kazakhstan has, he could find himself sent to a labour colony with even worse conditions. That's the threat.

As for other "benchmarks," they've been set by human rights groups, but I do want to brainstorm as to what people actually expect they can wrest as a concession out of Astana in this period, when the game has been lost. Even so, I'm for trying to go for the basics, repeal the Internet law, etc. and ensure the modalities for meaningful NGO participation in conferences.

A Lot of Love in the Room

Joshua Kucera called the CSCE hearing on Kazakhstan a "love fest". I was a bit surprised to see that as I thought the CSCE had made the right noises of criticism before the meeting and the right statement afterwards signifiying conditional support. But I wasn't in the room and haven't watched the video yet -- so I'll have to see. Hearings are, well, hearings, where everyone gets to air their opinions and the real question is how the rest of the OSCE members are going to grapple with these issues and whether other countries will keep asking the Human Rights Watch "ten questions" on realizing rights in Kazakhstan.

I don't think you can say that calling for a preparatory review conference is merely a "procedural detail," however. The prepcons are where the human rights implementation gets looked at, where concessions can be made, and if the situation is deteriorating *that* badly, I suppose that could scuttle the summit -- in theory. Usually, *something* will get conceded before such summits, in the fine Helsinki tradition of hostage politique. In 1999, first there was a review conference in Vienna in September-October, then the summit in November 1999. If the modalities for NGOs to meet and participate in both the review and the summit are poor, that could also possibly lead to suspension -- but it would have to be pretty bad.

See, OSCE itself and the CSCE before it have themselves always been a kind of love fest in a way because you had to agree to be nice even to have the organization in the first place. You have to meet, even when very awful things happen, like the invasion of Afghanistan, or Iraq for that matter, or the invasion of Baku or the bombing of Grozny. Jaw-jaw and not war-war and all that. Meetings are not postponed -- and it takes a lot to get diplomats to walk out of them. So the summit won't get postponed over a newspaper closing, but I have to say, in 1999 there was some brinkmanship on the case of Anatol Labedzka, leader of Belarusian United Civic Party, who was jailed for a demonstration. The OSCE PA chairman made sojourns to Minsk at the time raising issues not only of conditions for elections such as access to media but prisoners' cases. Reading OSCE Amb. Georg Wieck, you can see how the Istanbul summit because a leverage to try to get concessions that fall -- and it worked -- but of course Lukashenka reneged on the deal after the summit.

Even so, OSCE members should go "no lower than Labedzka", so to speak -- and insist on a favourable resolution to the case of Yevgeny Zhovtis before any preparatory review or summit is held in Astana (they could ask for a lot more, of course, like the same press access the Belarusian opposition sought and got before Istanbul for a time).

"Conditional Support" for the Kazakh OSCE Summit Proposal

Sen. Ben Cardin has made a bold and interesting proposal today at the hearing on Kazakhstan's chair of the OSCE described as "conditional support" for the summit that basically goes like this, "I'll see your bid for an OSCE summit and raise you one human rights implementation component and a side of NGOs". Good! That is the way to deal with these sorts of aggressive proposals designed to throw the West off balance and roll over the wavering and the disengaged. Be positive, but be firm: you want this basket? You have to have the other basket, too. They go together.

I think it's important to meet these disingenuous proposals squarely face on, and keep insisting on the "indissoluble link" (per Sakharov) between security and human rights. There can't be meaningful trust and security when you jail or murder journalists, shut off the Internet, persecute religious groups.

Kazakh Foreign Minister Kanat Saudabayevsaid that his country had four "Ts" to bring to their chairmanship: "trust, tradition, transparency and tolerance". I'm not sure what he means by "tradition," but it really ought to include the OSCE's best traditions itself and not traditions of despotism. As for trust, you get that not only when you verify, but when you stop doing bad things to your own people and stop trying to silence their protests. This really is intimately connected with external trust. As for "transparency," I think this is definitely shaping up to be the total boondoggle topic of the year. "Transparency" seems always to happen far away in comfortable conference rooms with hefty per diems and not at home in the rural areas in the dirt. For me, transparency is really more about being able to write about corruption without getting a severed dog's head on your doorstep or "falling out of a window" with your hands tied.

"Tolerance" routinely produces snickers by the international jet set as they believe "the American Jewish lobby" has introduced this into the mix to get the issue of antisemitism covered -- itself a very good example of the intolerance that still needs to be fought in OSCE, BTW. "Tolerance" is fine as a topic, and need not be about non-existent situations in Kazakhstan, if they are indeed non-existence. The chair has to be chair for all of OSCE. What about a robust study of the harassment, discrimination, and even beatings and killings that Central Asian migrant workers experience in Russia and other countries? If Kazakhstan would pick up *that* issue, tolerance will have some teeth. 

Frank Year in Review from CSCE

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."