Jamestown Foundation Blog

Democratic Regression Continues in Ukraine

2012-01-23T06:29:00.000-08:00

By TarasKuzio

In a speechcommemorating Ukraine’sJanuary 22 declaration of independence in 1918, President Viktor Yanukovychsaid “Defense of human rights is an inalienable component of the democraticnature of a European country. We are definitely strengthening monitoring andcontrol over every instance of the infringement of human rights and freedoms.And I have under my personal control defense of freedom of speech” (http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2012/01/22/6925178/).

Is Yanukovych president of Ukraine oranother country?

Is he in charge of the same country as thatin which the editor of Segodnya, a daily newspaper owned by Donetsk oligarch Rinat Akhmetov,was sacked after it published photographs of Yanukovych’s Mizhirya palace? This was clear evidence of censorship in the printmedia (see interview with former Segodnyaeditor in http://www.pravda.com.ua/articles/2012/01/17/6915277).

More to the point, is Yanukovych in charge ofthe same country as that written about by the human rights think tank Freedom House (www.freedomhouse.org)?

In January 2011, Freedom House downgraded Ukraine, only one year into ViktorYanukovych's presidency, from ‘Free,’ a status the country received in 2005following the Orange Revolution, to ‘Partly Free.’ Ukraine was “Partly Free” underauthoritarian President Leonid Kuchma in his second term in office in 1999-2004.

In 2005-2010, Ukrainewas the only country ranked ‘Free’ in the CIS.

In January 2012, Freedom House reported, “The steepest decline in theinstitutions of freedom has taken place in Ukraine, where a series of negativedevelopments was punctuated by the conviction of opposition leader Yuliya Tymoshenkoon dubious charges. In the past two years, Ukraine has moved from a status of ‘Free’to ‘Partly Free’ and suffered deterioration on most indicators measured byFreedom House.”

Freedom House said, “Ukraine’spolitical rights rating declined from 3 to 4 due to the authorities’ efforts tocrush the opposition, including the politicized use of the courts, a crackdownon media, and the use of force to break up demonstrations.”

A ‘Partly Free’ countryis one in which there is limited respect for political rights and civilliberties. ‘Partly Free’ states frequently suffer from an environment ofcorruption, weak rule of law, ethnic and religious strife, and a politicallandscape in which a single party enjoys dominance despite a certain degree ofpluralism.

Ukraine in 2012 remains ‘Partly Free’ but for thefirst time Moldovais ranked better in its democracy scores. Georgia and Moldova are better reformers than Ukraine and negotiations for their AssociationAgreements with the EU are making more progress than with Ukraine, whichare frozen (see European Integration Index for Eastern Partnership Countriesreport at www.irf.ua/index.php). The EU will not sign or ratify anAssociation Agreement with Ukraineuntil opposition political leaders are released from prison.

The decline of freedom in Ukraine since 2010, the yearYanukovych came to power, will continue because of two factors.

The first factor is becauseopposition leaders such as Yulia Tymoshenko and Yuriy Lutsenko are unlikely tobe released from imprisonment (see “Why Yulia Tymoshenko WillRemain Imprisoned,” http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=38631).

The second factor is thatimprisonment of opposition leaders during Ukraine’s October 2012parliamentary elections will mean the country will fail to meet democraticstandards in the eyes of the European Union, US, Council of Europe, and Organizationfor Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). With election fraud highlypossible by the Party of Regions, which plans to receive at least half ofparliamentary seats, mass protests are inevitable and there could be violencefrom heavy-handed policing.

With the downwardtrajectory of Ukraine’s democracy likely to continue falling, Ukraine willbecome ‘Not Free’ and a full authoritarian state some time following the 2012elections, possibly in 2013 or 2014.

Numbers of Casualties in the North Caucasus in 2011 Rise

2012-01-09T14:49:00.000-08:00

By Valery Dzutsev

The Caucasian Knot websitepublished 2011 conflict casualties’ statistics for each republic in the North Caucasus. 70 people were killed and 38 people wereinjured in violent incidents in Ingushetia in 2011. The overall figure ofvictims in the republic dropped from 326 killed and injured in 2010 to 108 in2011 (http://www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/198680/).At the same time in Dagestan, the overallnumber of the conflict’s casualties grew from 685 in 2010 to 824 in 2011. 413people were killed and 411 were injured in the largest North Caucasian republicin the past year. The growth was mostly caused by the rise of civilian casualties(http://www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/198813/).95 people were killed and 106 were injured in Chechnya in 2011. Caucasian Knotwarns that these figures are approximate; it is impossible to check the validityof the law enforcement’s statements. In 2010, the numbers of killed and woundedpeople for Chechnyawere respectively 127 and 123 (http://www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/198855/).Numbers for victims in North Ossetia decreased from 195 in 2010 to 10 in 2011,due to absence of terror attacks in the republic in 2011 (http://www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/198773/).Kabardino-Balkaria experienced a great surge in numbers of casualties in 2011.In 2010 this republic had 57 casualties, including four people killed and 53wounded. In 2011, at least 129 were killed in the republic and 44 were wounded(http://www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/198758/).Also in Karachay-Cherkessia the numbers of victims surged from four in 2010 to34 in 2011, of these 22 were killed and 12 received injuries (http://www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/198769/).

At least in three republics of the NorthCaucasus, Dagestan, Kabardino-Balkaria andKarachay-Cherkessia, the situation in terms of casualty counts deteriorated in2011. Journalists can hardly count casualties for Chechnya reliably because ofdifficulties in accessing this territory. The numbers appear to confirm thatthe security situation in the North Caucasusin 2011 has continued to worsen.

Political Violence in Western Kazakhstan

2011-12-22T12:27:00.000-08:00

By The Jamestown Foundation

Kazakhstanhas experienced an unusual wave of political violence in the oil-rich westernpart of the country. The deadly clashes between protestors and Kazakhstan’ssecurity forces that left 15 dead and 110 injured took place just a monthbefore the parliamentary elections scheduled for January 15, 2012.

Violence erupted in the westernKazakh city of Zhanaozenon December 16, the day the country marked 20 years of independence, leaving 14dead and over 90 injured, according to official information. The police clashedwith a crowd that disrupted the Independence Day celebrations by burning downseveral buildings, including the mayor’s office, the ruling Nur-Otan partyquarters, and the offices of the stateoil and gas company KazMunaiGas. The rioters worejackets with the logo of KazMunaiGaz indicating they belonged to the oilworkers who have been on strike since May. Many of those who lost their jobs at KazMunaiGaz subsidiaryOzenMunaiGaz have protested on the main city square throughout the summer andfall.

The unrest continued on December 17when protesters blocked the railway station in the villageof Shetpe, near Zhanaozen and not farfrom Aktau, a key transportation hub for the Northern Distribution Network, which provides transit ofnon-lethal supplies for US troops in Afghanistan. Oneperson was killed and 11 were wounded during clashes with police (Interfax,December 18).

Apeaceful demonstration in support of the striking oil workers took place inAktau on December 18. The protesters made demands to the authorities to stopthe violence, restore peace in the region and resolve the labor dispute. Itappears that negotiations between the protestors and the local authorities havebegun (K-Plus TV, December 18).

Kazakhstan’spresident Nursultan Nazarbayev has announced a state of emergency in Zhanaozenuntil January 5, 2012, during which time a curfew is imposed and publicgatherings are prohibited.

The clashes in the western city of Zhanaozenare were relatedto the oil workers’ strike, but at this point it is not clear whether the oilworkers started the violence or if their strike was exploited for politicalpurposes. However, in the aftermath of 15 civilian deaths and over one hundredinjured, some people in western Kazakhstanaccuse the security forces of using lethal force against rioters and blame theauthorities for failing to resolve the labor dispute at OzenMunaiGas. Disturbing videos of thepolice shooting at fleeing rioters and beating them up have caused deep concernamong foreign governments and human rights groups. The Kazakh Ambassador to theUS,Erlan Idrissov, stated that the video images were shocking and his governmentis investigating the events (RFE/RL, December 22). “Everyone who is guilty ofstarting the violence or exceeded his powers in dealing with the rioters willbe held responsible,” he said in a press conference in Washington on December 22. The KazakhMinister of Interior Kalmukhambet Kasymovhas acknowledged that the police wouldhave to put in place better contingency planning for the deployment ofnonlethal crowd control techniques (Moscow Times, December 20).

In a raremove for any of the Central Asian republics, on December 22, Kazakhstan’sprosecutor-general Ashat Daulbaev invited the United Nations to take part ininvestigations into the deadly clashes between security forces and protestersin the oil-rich west (RFE/RL, December 22).

In addition, President Nazarbayev said on December 22 thathe would sack the head of the sovereign wealth fund Samruk-Kazyna, Timur Kulibayev,who is also his son-in-law (Reuters, December 22). The heads of the state oiland gas company KazMunaiGas and its London-listed subsidiary KazMunaiGasExploration Production were also replaced, as well as the governor of Mangystauregion where the events took place (Lada - News from Aktau, December 22).

The Jamestown Foundation is closely following developments in Kazakhstan andwill provide thorough analysis as more information becomes available.

Kamalov Murder Points to Increased Risks for Civil Activists In the North Caucasus

2011-12-16T10:56:00.000-08:00

By Valery Dzutsev

On December 15, awell-known Dagestani journalist and publisher, Khajimurad Kamalov, 46, wasgunned down near his office in Makhachkala.On December 16, president of Dagestan Magomedsalam Magomedov made a specialstatement about Kamalov’s murder. Magomedov attributed the attack to “enemiesof Dagestan” (http://www.riadagestan.ru/news/2011/12/16/122613/,December 16).

Experts were divided onwho could be behind the prominent Dagestani journalist’s murder. Lifenews.rureported that Kamalov’s colleagues were convinced he was killed because of the imminentpublication of an article about law enforcement’s abuses in Dagestan.The brazen manner in which Kamalov was killed – the killer followed him in the citystreet shooting at him – probably attests to this version (http://www.lifenews.ru/news/77240,December 16). However, Kommersant reported that Kamalov’s main media resource,the newspaper Chernovik, had becomemuch more loyal to the republican authorities and that could have caused a retaliationby insurgents (http://kommersant.ru/doc/1839478,December 16). Respected expert on the North Caucasus,Alexei Malashenko, also tentatively suggested that Chernovik was more of “anirritant” for the insurgents, than for the government (http://www.gazeta.ru/politics/2011/12/16_a_3929982.shtml,December 16).

Yet, officials professingthe government’s position are on the record with open threats againt KhajimuradKamalov; on the other hand, there is no evidence that the Dagestani militancyever made such a threat. To date, the Dagestani insurgents’ website onlyrepublished the news about Kamalov’s killing with no substantial comment on hismurder (http://jamaatshariat.com/new/15-new/2023-2011-12-16-04-39-31.html,December 16). Out of a dozen cases of journalists killed in Dagestanin the past decade, not one such death was proven to have been carried out by insurgents,and not one of these crimes has been solved.

Given the prominence of Khajimurad Kamalov, hismurder may signal a new era of crackdown on civil liberties in Dagestan and theNorth Caucasus as a whole. With thegovernment’s legitimacy undermined after manifestly rigged parliamentaryelections in Russia,the insurgency rises and civil activists galvanize. Journalists and civilactivists, however, may be in an especially vulnerable position as they becometargeted by the conflicting sides – first and foremost by the governmentauthorities.

Does Russia Want a Toehold in the Balkans?

2011-11-30T11:32:00.001-08:00

By Matthew Czekaj

Just days after Serbia received a recommendation for EUCandidate status, and less than a month since Belgradeannouncedits upcoming involvement in the EU’s Common Security and Defense Policy (CSDP)missions in Africa, Belgrade’s securitypriorities swung back in Moscow’sdirection. On October 17, Russiaand Serbia jointly declaredthe opening of a Russian base in Niš, Southern Serbia,just 100 km from the border with Kosovo. Both Belgradeand Moscowofficials denied that the Russian base had a military character, calling theinstallation a “humanitarian” center. The center would be used to respond tocatastrophes, natural disasters and crises in the Balkans and throughout Europe.

To underscore the benignnature of the base, Russiaflew in 35 tons of humanitarian supplies by plane belonging to the RussianMinistry for Emergency Situations (EurActiv,October 18). The emergency response equipment included tents, blankets and powergenerators. Yet, some analysts were skeptical of Russia’sreal intended use for the facility in Serbia. For instance, suggestionsarose that Russia planned touse the base to spy on the USmilitary facility being set up in Romania, which will be part ofNATO’s missile defense shield. Moscowvociferously deniedsuch allegations. During the opening ceremony for the Niš center, Russia’s minister for emergency situations, SergeyShoigu, invited all countries mistrustful of Moscow’sintentions in Serbiato join the humanitarian center’s de-mining teams, which will be tasked withremoving unexploded cluster ordinances dropped on the Niš area by NATO in 1999.At the same time, Serbian Interior Minister Ivica Dacic rebuked all questionscritical of the Russian base by declaring Serbia’s sovereign right to hostforeign military installations on its territory even though the Niš center willonly be for humanitarian purposes. “Shoigu and I are not doing anything secret,”Minister Dacic said defensively. “This humanitarian center is a part of theEuropean mechanism to deal with emergency situations.”

It is the timing of the Nišbase’s announcement, however, which is most curious. News of plansto build such a facility was first revealed in October of 2009 during RussianPresident Dmitri Medvedev’s state visit to Belgrade. Yet, since then, neither theRussian nor Serbian side made any further moves until this past October –within days of the European Union’s recommendation to give candidate status to Serbia. The EUdeclaration sounded bittersweet in Belgrade,however, since it failed to name a date to begin accession talks and linkedfurther progress to a Serbian-Kosovar political rapprochement. Achieving anytrue solution to the Serbia-Kosovo conflict will be difficult, especiallyconsidering the turmoiland violencethat has gripped Kosovo’s ethnic Serb-majority northern border areas sincesummer. Moscow’s unwavering political support ofBelgrade over the status of Kosovo underscoresthe Niš base as a sour jab at Europe over its unsatisfying candidacydeclaration for Serbia(EurActiv,October 18).

At the same time, Serbia has alsoclearly acquiesced to the presence of the Russian base on its territory out of economicconsiderations. During the Niš center announcement ceremony, Serbian InteriorMinister Dacic solicited Russian help to restore Serbia’s post-wareconomy, still recovering after 1999 – a none-too-subtle dig at NATO. Despitethese political overtones, in the midst of an EU financial crisis with no endin sight, Serbia’soverture for Russian investment actually reflects Western advice. None otherthan the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) suggested recentlythat Serbia – as well as other emerging European economies – should look eastwardfor closer trade and economic ties to prevent being dragged down by financialtroubles in the EU.

Nevertheless, Russia’s trueintentions for its Niš emergency and crisis response center – located on thedoorstep of ethnically-unstable Kosovo – encourage open speculation. AsJamestown Senior Fellow Vladimir Socor wrote in Eurasia Daily Monitor in 2009, “It seems hard to imagine a Europeancountry agreeing to host Russian militarized fire-fighting, flood-response, orchemical-protection units on its national territory in anticipation of somecatastrophes. Serbia’sbizarre agreement with Russiais the first of its kind.” Socor further noted the importance Moscowplaced on politically supporting Belgrade’sstance on Kosovo, concluding,

Moscow’stactics are designed to prolong an ambiguous situation in Kosovo, set Belgradeat odds with the US and EU on that issue […], and encourage Serbianpast-oriented nationalism as a means for Russia – alongside its economic means –to compete against the West in the Balkans (EurasiaDaily Monitor, October 27, 2009).

Meanwhile, Russianmilitary thinking has recently focused again on the pre-emptive use of force. TheOctober 23 issue of the Russian military journal, Voyennaya Mysl (Military Thought), openly explores legaljustifications for military pre-emption in an article titled, “On the Questionof the Right of States to Preemptive Use of Military Force,” written by Colonelof Justice (Reserve) Viktor Kirilenko and Captain 2^nd Rank (Reserve)Stanislav Korostelev, both military academy educators (Voyennaya Mysl,October 23). Moreover, according to an RFE/RL article from November 17, someethnic-Serbs living in northern Kosovo have openly requested Russianpassports from Moscow.Notably, the “MedvedevDoctrine,” articulated after Russia’sAugust 2008 invasion of Georgia,includes Moscow’s“responsibility” to protect Russian passport holder abroad. Thus, it suddenlybecomes easy to imagine a future spark on the Serb-Kosovo border leading to aGeorgia-like scenario in the heart of the Southeastern Europe with Russia’smilitary involvement.

Ofcourse, Russiahas no tanks, regular brigades, bombers or attack helicopters currentlystationed in Niš. Nonetheless, toensure the above-mentioned scenario of a fresh frozen conflict in Europe doesnot come to pass, the West will need to actively prevent any future unilateralmilitarization of Russia’snew toehold in the Balkans. Serbiahas every sovereign right to host Russian emergency response teams on itsterritory, so open Western protests would be futile. Instead, the West shoulddo all in its power to “Europeanize” the Niš center and truly weave itscapabilities into a lower-level European security fabric.

In particular, Europeancountries should call Moscow’s bluff and requestto station their own natural disaster and catastrophic accident response teamsat Niš, actively and regularly train with their Russian counterparts there, andeven propose the opening of a similar center in Russia. Western presence at Nišwould allow European countries to keep a closer eye on the facility and preventRussiafrom gradually upgrading the base’s military capabilities. Multilateralauthority over the Niš center would also be preferable to sole Russian militarycontrol. Therefore, the West should insist on moving the operational control ofthe Russian emergency response center to the OSCE or the NATO-Russia Council –or even inside an EU CSDP framework. Finally, Brussels,Washington and the North Atlantic Alliancehave to significantly step up their diplomatic efforts at resolving theinter-ethnic conflict in northern Kosovo, and work toward a workable andlasting rapprochement between Belgradeand Pristina. Removing this source of instability in the Balkans would diminishthe possibility of the Niš center becoming a Russian base for regional militaryoperations.

Aslast year’s catastrophic floodingin Macedonia and thedestructive “redsludge” chemical accident in Hungaryhas shown, there is indeed a real need for a quick emergency response anddisaster relief capability in Europe, whichuntil now has not been filled at a European-wide level. The Niš center couldcertainly fill such a niche, but only on fully European terms, not purely on Russia’s. If Moscow agrees, then Western involvement will keep Russianintentions in Niš honest; if not, then at least Europewill not be able to say that it was blindsided by a Russian toehold in theBalkans.

New Silk Road Strategy: Problems and Perspectives – Interview with Prof. S. Frederick Starr

2011-11-22T09:01:00.001-08:00

By Dr. Guli Yuldasheva and Mavlon Shukurzoda.

Since thecollapse of the bipolar world system, discussions on the new world order andproblems of regional instability have not yet ceased. They have recentlyachieved perhaps their apogee – fierce mass media disputes have erupted aroundthe Russian-proposed Eurasian way of development from the one side, and the US “New SilkRoad” strategy from the other. Each suggested model of development has its ownadvantages and vulnerabilities. It is quite obvious that each vision’s successis closely linked with the settlement of the Afghan issue in one or anotherformat; that is natural in conditions of globalization, integrity andindivisibility of international security.

In fact, anystrategy pertaining to the Eurasian area should have to deal with the Afghan dilemma,directly or indirectly affecting the speed and the level of its realization.Besides the issues of illicit traffic in drugs, illegal migration andcriminality from the territory of Afghanistan, thefollowing external tendencies should be kept in mind that can also negativelyinfluence the processes ongoing on the Eurasian continent:

spread of radical movements inCentral Asia (currently found in Kyrgyzstanand Kazakhstan);
atomism and absence of geopoliticalunity in the CA region;
gradual ascent of Islamic regimes topower in the Middle East and continuation ofinstability there;
gridlock in the Caspian dispute and uncertaintyin the sphere of energy policy in the Middle East.

In thisconnection, the concept of the so-called “New Silk Road” is of specialinterest. It was suggested by Prof. S. Frederick Starr, Chairman of theInstitute of Central Asia and Caucasus at JohnsHopkins University,and later formulated as a new USstrategy jointly with the Washington Center for Strategic andInternational Studies. At present, the Obama Administration seems to haveactively started implementing its provisions, as evidenced by the agenda of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s last visitto the republics of Central Asia and Pakistan,which immediately border Afghanistan.

The ideas, setforth in the concept are not new. Similar ideas have been already voiced inOctober 1997 by Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS), who closely cooperated with Prof.Starr in his legislative initiative “Silk Road Act,” and later were extensivelydeveloped by Prof. Starr in his “Big Central Asia” concept. Today he suggeststhe renewed version of the concept named a “New Silk Road” in his report titled“Afghanistan Beyond the Fog of Nation Building: Giving Economic Strategy a Chance.”

It is worth notingthat the regional dimension of the US Central Asian strategy was analyzed byProf. Starr in such his earlier works such as “A Strategic Assessment of CentralAsia and the Caucasus, 1999-2000” and “The NewSilk Roads” (2008).

In “AfghanistanBeyond the Fog,” Prof. S. Frederick Starr continues to focus on the regionaldimension of the new USstrategy, but takes into account opinions of his opponents and present-dayrealities. The process of realizing transport-trade operations in Afghanistan rests upon the support of suchstates as Russia, China and Iran, the role of which he analyzedin detail as early as in 2008. Indirect cooperation with Iran is in factalready proceeding, though quietly.

In theinterests of geopolitical and economic stability, Prof. Starr’s reportjustifies a leadership and broker’s role for the USin this project, which is de-facto the biggest investor in Central Asia and whose interests therefore cannot be ignored in anyanalytical layout. At the same time, long-term economic and political goals,set forth in the new Afghan strategy, logically exclude US globalleadership so as to avoid the clash of numerous involved resources andinterests, without which the project itself will not be practically fulfilled.

By the samelogic, in this strategy Afghanistanplays the role of an important hub and a crossroads for the trade-transport routesunder construction. Yet, as an unstable state, it is only a center forconcentrating efforts on social-economic stabilization of Central Asia, but not by all means as a geopolitical center or a model ofdevelopment for its neighbors.

The followingfactors will benefit the “New Silk Road” project’s realization:

diversification of regional transitroutes is in the interest of all CA republics;
the transport-logistical system ofthe Northern Distribution Network, so important for the US strategy in Afghanistan,covers the territory of nine former republics of the USSR – Uzbekistan,Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, the Russian Federation, Azerbaijan,Georgia, Ukraine and Latvia;
US experts oftenspeak in favor of a partnership with Russiaand Chinaas important regional players, whose potential and interests should be takeninto account in the Afghan strategy;
rapprochement of the EU and USpositions on Afghanistan (inparticular, Germany and the US);
removal of military sanctions andactivation of American business in Uzbekistan;
diplomatic and other efforts of the US on regulating interstate relations in Central Asia;
the continued aspiration forregional integration among some CA states, which is underscored by KazakhPresident Nursultan Nazarbayev’s adherence to the idea of the Central AsianUnion’s revival, and the efforts of Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan to normalizerelations (opening borders between them on October 26 this year);
a restoration of the dialoguebetween Pakistan and India,culminated with the signing of a transit agreement between them.

It goes withoutsaying that these tendencies are still unstable and much more should be done.However, alongside with statistical data provided in Prof. Starr’s book, theyinspire hope for a positive outcome in Central Asia.

What follows isan in-depth interview with Prof. Starr, where he extrapolates the main ideas ofhis new concept on Afghanistan.It should be stressed that the ideas and thoughts set forth in the introductionand conclusion of this article reflect opinions of the authors and by no meansrefer to the position of Prof. Starr.

***

Question: The US government hasrecently presented a “New Silk Road” strategy, which is aimed at deepeningeconomic and trade relations between Central and South Asia. What are the distinctive differences between the newstrategy and the previous American approach to economic reconstruction in Afghanistan?

Prof. S. FrederickStarr: Thenew US strategy isconcentrated on the development of an integrated strategy of economic andsocial development in Afghanistan,which means construction of the new system of transport and trade routes alongthe ancient Silk road.

The US’s approach to economic renewal of Afghanistan willrest on job creation, the provision of basic services, the construction ofinfrastructure and the development of fiscal sustainability. However, all thesegoals will be focused around a more purposeful yet comprehensive strategy, onethat embraces the expansion of transport and trade as the main engine ofeconomic advancement.

At the same time the usage of military measures will onlybe a means and not the final strategic goal. The revival of the ancient transitroutes through Afghanistan innew conditions can solve the present USstrategic dilemma and can become a genuine key to the success of their regionalstrategy, whereby the UScan efficiently use its leadership potential and possibilities in this issue.

A new economic strategyacknowledges the reality that the Afghan struggle is regional in scope,affecting the rest of Central Asia, Pakistan,India, China, Iran, etc., and must be resolved ona regional basis. Such a strategy benefits all and is directed against no one. Priorityprojects include the completion of the Afghan Ring Road and Kabul-Herat highway,and linking them to continental trunk routes, especially to the Pakistani portat Gwadar; completing trans-Afghan rail lines linking Europe and Asia;constructing the TAPI pipeline; and completing electrical transmission lineslinking Central Asia, Afghanistan,northern Pakistan and India.

The US nowadaystreats the implementation of a “New Silk Road” strategy as a matter of thehighest priority. In keeping with this, the Obama administration has alreadyappointed a special Presidential-appointed Envoy to lead a major inter-agency task force that will work closely withmilitary and civilian leaders in the US,Afghanistan,among coalition partners and in regional states. At the same time it is plannedto use all tools at the disposal of the US government to engage the privatesector.

Question: What criteria must a revised economic strategy for Afghanistanmeet to achieve success?

Prof. S. Frederick Starr: First, it must directly and manifestly improve the lives of Afghans,Pakistanis and people in those Central Asian states that are key to thisregion-wide project. As this happens, internal and external stakeholders willbuy into the effort. Only through these means can one expect a decline in theresort to violent solutions. Only in this way will the need for a large andcostly USmilitary presence begin to lessen in the immediate future.

Second, it mustbe possible to pursue the economic strategy simultaneously with the militarystrategy, and in such a way that thetwo are mutually reinforcing. Third, it must leave the Afghan governmentwith an income stream. Today the US is paying the salaries of allAfghan soldiers and civil servants. This cannot go on forever.

Fourth, aneconomic strategy must work fast, showing substantial results within the next 1-2years. An early focus on removing administrative and procedural blockages totrade will produce quick results. Overall, economic progress will create the conditionsthat will enable the USto shift its main emphasis from military power to economic and socialbetterment.

The onlyapproach that meets these criteria is one that focuses on reestablishing Afghanistan’s traditional role as a hub of transport and trade,linking Europe and the Middle East with the Indian sub-continent and all Southand Southeast Asia.

Question: There is no doubt that Afghanistan’s advantage is itsgeostrategic location. At the same time this country is still viewed as the “endof the road” rather than a central hub. How do you assess this situation?

Prof. S. Frederick Starr: Over two millennia, Afghanistanwas the place where trade routes to India,China, the Middle East and Europe all converged. This is why Marco Polo crossed thecountry en route to China,and why Arab travelers like Ibn Battuta crossed it on their way to India. Suchtrade along the misnamed “Silk Road” (in fact,every conceivable product was transported over it) produced immense wealth. Balkh, nearMazar-e-Sharif, was once among the largest and richest cities on earth.Medieval Arabs, who knew something about urban life, called it “the Mother ofCities.” Bagram once maintained lucrative ties simultaneously with ancient Greece and India, enabling it to flourish inopulent splendor.

The US-led Operation Enduring Freedom radically changed the situation inmodern Afghanistan by reopening its northern border to long-distance trade forthe first time since 1936, and by creating similar potential on Afghanistan‘seastern border with Pakistan. This action, entirely unintended and largelyunnoticed in Americaor elsewhere, is one of the most transformative developments on the Eurasianlandmass in the past century.

Question: What other factors contribute to the futuredevelopment of transcontinental trade in Eurasia via Afghanistan?

Prof. S. Frederick Starr: Themost powerful drivers of the expansion of transcontinental Eurasian trade inthe coming years will be the rapid growth of the Indian and Chinese economies.To date, most of Chinese and Indian exports are shipped by sea, but theanticipated continued growth of such exports will increase demand fortranscontinental road and rail shipping routes. Much shipping from Western China, for example, naturally lends itself totranscontinental trade, given the long distance from production site to portand the slowness of maritime transport. Realistic estimates for Indian trade byland through Central Asia to European andMiddle Eastern markets foresee a growth to US $100–120 billion annually by2015. Afghanistanand its neighboring Central Asian countries stand to benefit immensely fromthis trade through the collection of tariffs and through the growing role oftheir own transit-related industries.

Question: But some politicians and analytics argue that atransport-based “New Silk Road”cannot be realized until stability is established in Afghanistan. Do you agree with suchan assessment?

Prof. S. Frederick Starr: It cannot be denied that sustained violence in Afghanistan – as well as areas like Baluchistan,Kashmir and other parts of Eurasia – inhibits economicactivity and dampens the private and public investment that could help fostercontinental trade and growth. Yet, the continuing flow of Pakistani trucksferrying NATO supplies from Karachi to Afghanistan along roads fully accessibleto Pushtun and other insurgents is proof that commercial activity can flourishamid instability. Any gains that militants would make from disrupting thesevital supply lines on a strategic level are outweighed by the fact that localtribes derive significant income from the traffic. As long as such incentivestructures hold, local populations have shown themselves ready to prioritizecommerce over political violence. The US and NATO would do well to recall thatone reason the Taliban succeeded in gaining control of Afghanistan isthat they promised to abolish local toll-collection points.

Improvements inthe 3,000 kmRing Road, which connects the cities of Mazar-e Sharif, Kabul,Kandahar and Heart,have already facilitated Afghan internal transportation growth. IMF and Afghanauthorities estimate that there are now more than 600,000 vehicles in Afghanistantoday, as compared to 175,000 in 2002, and they travel on more than 13,000 km of newlybuilt or rehabilitated roads. These improvements are part of a strategicpriority placed on transportation by the Afghan Government, and they serve tostabilize the situation in Afghanistan.

Question: As the world and regional trade benefit from thereestablishment of the New Silk Road, what do you estimate the role has been ofindividual countries in the development of a transportation sector in andaround Afghanistanso far?

Prof. S. Frederick Starr: The project in fact is already supported by all neighboring states.With or without America,they would like to get benefits for what, they consider, they have all historical rights. Uzbekistan,with financing from the Asian Development Bank (ADB), has extended its railsystem to Mazar-e-Sharif and is sending electricity to light Kabul. Neighboring Tajikistan,with help from China and Iran, has opened a road across the lofty Pamirsfrom China to the newAmerican-built bridge to Afghanistanand also intends to lay a rail line from its capital of Dushanbe to the Afghan border. Turkmenistan is also constructing roads and railroads to link withthe Afghan Ring Road.

Pakistan and China are rebuilding the main north-south roadacross Pakistan thatprovides Afghanistan with akey link, through the Khyber Pass, both to Chinaand the Arabian Sea. At its southern terminusat Gwadar, they have already built a new port that will provide the mostefficient sea link between Central Asia, Afghanistanand the burgeoning economies of Southeast Asia.China also hopes to enhance Afghanistan’s access to the East with a railroadthrough the Khyber Pass that will then connect to east-west lines across Pakistan.

Iran, meanwhile, isextending its railroad and highway systems to Herat,the key city of western Afghanistan.Teheran is also constructing a new port at Chabahar rivaling Gwadar. India has helped build a road to connectChabahar to Afghanistan’sRing Road. Afghanistan’sneighbor to the northwest, gas-rich Turkmenistan,has meanwhile built a new port on the Caspian Sea at the city of Turkmenbashi that will transmit cargoes from Afghanistan and the East to Azerbaijan and then the Black Sea and Europe. Turkmenistan signed an agreement with Afghanistan, Pakistan,and India to construct a gaspipeline to deliver Turkmen gas across Afghanistanto India’s energy starvednorthwest, as well as to Pakistan.And, as I mentioned earlier, the United States spent US $1.8 billionto redevelop 635 kmof the Ring Road and 2,700 km of other roads linking primary and secondarymarkets.

Question: You described in detail the situation with the highway and railroadprojects in Afghanistan.What progress do you see concerning the aviation sector in this country?

Prof. S. FrederickStarr: ConnectingAfghanistan with the larger world by air has proceeded slowly, and in acompetitive environment in which most of Afghanistan‘s neighbors are strivingto become the main stopover for East-West flights. Japan,however, has reconstructed the terminal at Kabulairport and a new private Afghan-owned airline is already flying into Frankfurt. Direct flights from Kabul to major air hubs are essential, as isthe development of a reliable and Afghan-owned airline for internal travel. Uzbekistan has already made huge strides inestablishing itself as an air hub between South and East Asia and Europe. Those who think only in terms of a “zero sum” failto realize the large potential of this traffic in the future. Afghanistan maynot become THE main air hub, but it can play a useful role and one thatbenefits its domestic economy.

In Afghanistan andaround the region there are many opportunities to implement relatively routineenhancements to commercial aviation operations that would result in more safe,secure and controlled airspace and ground operations. This would allow CentralAsian countries along the New Silk Road to assert rights and collect rentscommonly associated with destination and en route flight operations in thedeveloped world.

Question: Recognizing that inadequate infrastructure is not theonly barrier to expanded commerce in the region, what measures are necessary toaddress institutional impediments to efficient transportation in Afghanistan?

Prof. S. Frederick Starr: Thereis a lot of research, which concludes that thebiggest obstacles to transcontinental trade are institutional, bureaucratic andpolitical. The most common of these obstacles are excessive duties imposed bygovernments, simple corruption on the part of border officials, and the failureof bordering states to cooperate to facilitate trade. A survey conducted by theADB of nearly 1,000 continental truck drivers from various countries haulinggoods across Afghanistansupports this assessment, with 90 percent pointing to the bureaucracy atborders as the greatest impediment to trade. This does not mean thatinfrastructure is unimportant. It is crucial, of course – especially railroads,pipelines and power lines. But that is only part ofthe story.

That is why the standardization and professionalization of customsadministration is essential to unlocking Eurasia’strade potential. They will reduce the opportunity for low-paid and untrainedofficials to extract illegal rents from shippers, and will also spur privateinvestment. In addition, the modest expense of a comprehensive standardizationand professionalization effort can be shared among leading trading nations or fundedby multilateral financial institutions such as the World Bank. Both thepolitical and financial risks involved are modest, and would decline further assuccess breeds success. The resulting reductions in dollars-per-ton-per-milecosts will allow Afghanistan,Central Asia, Pakistanand their neighbors on the Modern Silk Road to compete favorably with othertrans-continental transportation routes.

Question: Who will lose under this proposal?

Prof. S. Frederick Starr: First, it is not aproposal. The new silk roads are advancing on many fronts, with or without the US or any othersingle country or grouping of countries. The opening of continental transportacross Afghanistan and Central Asia is inevitable. The only question is whetherit can be hastened through USsupport. So we are not asking whether or not such a project should go forward.It is already advancing quickly.

Willthere be losers as well as winners? Not necessarily. The opening of continentaltransport across Afghanistanand central Asia is not against anyone. TheRussian government in Moscowmay have expressed skepticism, because it wants to preserve Soviet era patternsof transport. But meanwhile, businesses in the Urals, West Siberia and Altaiare eager to be able to ship goods to India,Pakistan and Southeast Asia, and will benefit enormously from theproposed initiatives. The only losers will be those who refuse to compete, andthose who try to prevent others from competing.

Question: What main considerations were behind the American administration’sadoption of the “New Silk Road”concept for Afghanistan?

Prof. S. Frederick Starr: First, the failure by theUS to embrace a “Silk RoadStrategy” for Afghanistanand adjacent countries would have been a blow to Washington’scredibility in Kabuland other regional capitals. This prospect of becoming strategically irrelevantis no trivial matter for the US, given that Afghanistan and Central Asia arethe only region on the planet surrounded by four, or possibly five, nuclearpowers (Pakistan, India, China, Russia and, possibly, Iran). It means that in somefuture crisis Afghanistan,Central Asia, and Pakistan,too, will respond first not to Washington butto other voices, by no means all of which wish America well.

Second,if Washingtontook a pass on a transport and trade-based strategy, it would have failed toseize and build upon its comparative advantage throughout the broader region.It would proclaim to anyone listening that the greatest commercial power alsohave passed up an opportunity to engage NATO partners and other powers in aproject to which even their most pacifist parliaments cannot object. In otherwords, if the UShad failed to embrace and lead a transport- and trade-based strategy, NATO,too, would also have paid the price.

Third,a transport strategy effectively attracts the US private sector, includingAmerican firms. Even though their role will surely not be enormous, it is animportant factor in garnering domestic support for Central Asia within the US. Businessleaders in China, India, Japanand Iran, with strongencouragement and help from their governments, are already actively lining uptransport-related projects that will cross Afghanistan and the region. As thenew corridors open, opportunities in fields as diverse as insurance, freightforwarding, hotels, mining, hydroelectric production, agriculture, andmanufacturing will open up.

Finally,if the UShad failed to open its eyes to a trade-based economic strategy, or rejects itas nation-building, it would havesquandered its enormous investment in the form of American blood and treasure,and at a moment when a positive outcome is still within reach. This would beall the more regrettable in light of the fact that the United States has already been the biggestsingle investor in the new transport systems that will reconnect Afghanistanwith the world.

***

Conclusions

It is obvious that asolution to the Afghan issue, as described above, first of all benefits USinterests by removing the potential threats to American and Central Asian interests.The solution preserves American presence in Central Asia.Furthermore, US efforts at raising the regional countries’ economic,scientific-technical and commercial potential strengthens their links with globalpolitical institutions and financial markets.
In the meantime, theproblems of democracy-building are relegated to secondary importance due to theincommensurability of potential consequences of regional instability fordemocratic development. It will be easier,however, for more open political systems to evolve in those countries that enjoypeace, stability and solid economies.
It is impossible to excludeas well the interests of the regional states themselves, including first of allCA states, in achievement of stability, development of transit possibilitiesand regional trade, solution of the social-economic issues. Purely politicalprojects for “integrating” Central Asia havenot advanced, and for understandable reasons. The New Silk Road strategy calls not for integrationbut for coordination, which is compatible with the concerns of all regionalstates to preserve and enhance their sovereignty and independence.
Despite shared regionalinterests supporting the New Silk Road strategy, current bi-lateral friction such asbetween US-China, US-Iran and US-Pakistan, as well as lesser US disagreements with Russia, hamper its realization, SpecialUS efforts are needed to remove these barriers. Butit should be stressed again: the New Silk Road Strategy is not against anyone. Everyonewill benefit from it, not least China,Russia and Iran.
It is obvious that success of the “New Silk Road” willbe largely defined by economic interests in the region, by existing demand and completedprojects. However, political support will also play an important role. Ifpolitical disputes and discussions on New Silk Road implementation are prolonged, and unanticipateddifficulties in the Central Asian area arise, the new strategy will riskturning into nothing more than just another political slogan. If the New Silk Roadstrategy stumbles, Moscow’sproposed Eurasian way of development will undoubtedly be the strongest impetus forCentral Asian coordination.

Conflict In Dagestan Displays Entrenchment Trends

2011-11-16T07:27:00.001-08:00

By Valery Dzutsev

In September-October 2011,the North Caucasian journal Dosh conducted a survey in several cities andvillages of Dagestan. Over 2000 people werepolled on the causes of insurgency in the republic. Answering the questionabout why Dagestanis join the insurgents, half of the respondents, 49.4 percent,said people were driven to rebellion by law enforcement’s abuses, to protecttheir lives or to take revenge for their relatives. According to 20.8 percentof the respondents, the main motivation for Dagestanis to join the insurgency’sranks is unemployment and the poor economic situation (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, October 31).

The authors of the surveyadmit that their primary respondent base was made up of people and theirrelatives who were protected by rights activists and were treated by the policeas suspicious. Still the survey results show that practically an entire classof people has formed in Dagestan that deeplydistrusts Russian state institutions, especially the police. Even the Dagestanigovernment’s spokesman, Zubairu Zubairuev, admits that some of the rebelsjoined the insurgency movement out of social protest, although he regards themas marginal forces that do not fit in with the rest of modern society (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, October 31).

A Russian Internet-TV crewconducted its own research in Dagestan in thesummer of 2011. According to its findings, the government-enforced monopoly ofone particular kind of Sunni Islam causes dissenters to radicalize. Corruptionand widespread poverty are cited as another major reason for youthradicalization in Dagestan. The authorities,according to the authors, pursue the policy of “driving everybody [alldissenters] to the forests [into the insurgency’s ranks].” The law enforcementagencies reportedly have vested interest in keeping up the levels of violenceto receive additional funding and power (http://skfonews.info/article/144).

Since there are no popular elections of regionalgovernors in Russia, thegovernment of Dagestan does not bear the costsof radicalization of its constituency. This allows the Dagestani authorities tooutsource dealing with the radicals and dissenters to the police withoutfearing for their own political survival. In the long run, however, this may resultin a backlash as the Dagestanis will increasingly perceive the civil conflictas a Russian-Dagestani war.

Discovery of the Russian People

2011-11-09T07:28:00.000-08:00

By Valery Dzutsev

Many observers havepointed out the rise of xenophobia in Russia,especially toward the North Caucasians. Butperhaps the pivotal recent change in Russian public opinion took place whenRussians unearthed the Russian question. Namely: what is the position of theethnic Russian people in the Russian Federation? This question is so importantthat hardly any viable political force can ignore it.

The pro-governmentforces, such as the so-called “Eurasianists,” advance the thesis of the Russianpeople as the state-building nation of the Russian Federation (http://skfonews.info/article/145).This approach, however, is weak on both accounts – legal and political. Proclaimingethnic Russians as the primus inter paresamong all ethnicities in the country should consequently result in somelegal privileges for ethnic Russians. For political reasons this would hardlybe acceptable even for Putin’s regime. Without such legal implications, theproclamation is empty and unlikely to satisfy anyone.

Instead,opposition-minded Russian nationalists advance the goal of the creation of ethnicRussian-majority republics that would that would exist on a constitutionallyequal basis with the North Caucasus and other autonomous republics within the Russian Federation(http://nazdem.info/texts/274). Evidently,the conflict in the North Caucasus and the Russians’ growing resentment of theNorth Caucasians moved some Russian nationalists to think about ethnicRussians’ own position in the contemporary Russian Federation (http://nazdem.info/texts/275).

Moreover, roughly 60percent of Russians reportedly consider entirely separating the North Caucasus orsome parts of it from the rest of Russia as an acceptable solution. However,no politician has appeared yet to articulate this view in a persuasive andappealing manner (http://www.levada.ru/03-11-2011/kavkaz-raskolol-russkikh-natsionalistov).

Thus, the issues of ethnic Russians’ politicalrights and the future of the North Caucasusare increasingly intertwined. They plausibly will be hotly debatable questionsin the run up to the presidential elections in Russia in 2012 and beyond.

Azerbaijan Voted Onto UN Security Council For First Time In 20-Year History

2011-10-26T08:10:00.000-07:00

By Matthew Czekaj

The votes are in and theresults have been announced: for the first time in its 20-year history as apost-Soviet state, Azerbaijanwill sit as a non-permanent member on the UNSecurity Council. After 17 rounds of voting in the General Assembly, Azerbaijanwas able to obtain the necessary support of two thirds of member countries,thus taking over the Security Council seat – traditionally reserved for anEastern European country – being vacatedby Bosnia-Herzegovina on December 31. In the last round of secret ballots cast,Azerbaijan received 155votes, while the other contenders vying for the seat, Slovenia and Hungary, received 13 and one vote,respectively. Azerbaijanwill sit on the UN’s highest body from January 1, 2012 to December 31, 2013.

The final vote came as adisappointment for Hungary,which hoped that its diplomaticactions during the Libyan civil war would win it greater internationalsupport. When fighting grew most intense in the North African country, theHungarian Embassy in Tripoliwas one of the few foreign diplomatic representations that did not close forsecurity reasons during the entire Libyan revolution. Budapestmaintained a presence in Libyalong after US, British and French diplomats left. Despite the “great securityrisk” they worked under, Hungarian embassy employees became diplomats of “lastresort” for around 50 governments seeking access to Libya duringthe seven-month conflict.

The Central European stateserved as the rotating presidency of the EU Council of Ministers when theLibyan uprising erupted, and felt it was its duty to remain on the groundamidst the conflict. As the pro-Gaddafi forces clashed with the rebels,Hungarian diplomats aided in the release of Western journalists held prisonerduring the fighting, as well as in helping Western citizens escape Libya. Theyalso sought to be a “bridge” between the two warring Libyan factions. Theirefforts were recognized both by the locals in Tripoli (who renamed the streeton which the Hungarian Embassy stood “Hungarian Street”) as well as the UnitedStates government, which sent a formal letter of gratitude from Secretary ofState Hillary Clinton to Hungarian Foreign Minister Janos Martonyi (Bloomberg,October 18; WallStreet Journal, October 19).

Budapest hoped that Washington’s opengratitude would put it over the top in its candidacy to the Security Council.But, its record in North Africa was not enoughto generate the needed votes (Bloomberg,October 18). Consequently, over the next two-year term, Baku will have the responsibility to debateand vote on matters of international security, war and peace in the world’shighest international forum. It remains to be seen whether this South Caucasiancountry, which has been locked in a frozen conflict with Armenia over the break-away territory of Upper Karabakhfor two decades, will attempt to use its new influence to bring the regionalissue to the Security Council. The Armenian side claims to be “unfazed” by theAzeri Security Council seat. Yet, it is certain that Yerevanwill now be stepping up its lobbying pressure to ensure that Upper Karabakh –or at least Azerbaijan’spreferred solution to it – stays off of the UN agenda over the next two years.

Serbia Follows France to Somalia, Hopes to End Up In Europe

2011-10-17T11:14:00.000-07:00

By Matthew Czekaj

Though little noticed inthe press, Serb-EU relations reached a new milestone, recently. On September23, Serbian Secretary of State for Defence Tanja Miščević announcedat a conference on Serbia’sEU integration that around November 10, her country would send Serbian officersto take part in the European Union’s anti-piracy mission to Somalia – Operation “Atalanta.”According to Miščević, Serbian officers will participate on board a Frenchnaval vessel attached to the Atalanta mission. In addition, Serb militarypersonnel will assist in training Somali security forces as part of the EUTraining Mission in Uganda.

Belgrade’s military cooperation with Parisin Ugandaand off the Horn of Africa is the result of a Serb-French diplomatic breakthrough,which culminated in early April of this year. In the first visitof a Serbian Head of State to Paris in about acentury, Serb President Boris Tadić and his French counterpart Nicholas Sarkozysigned a strategic partnership agreement cementing France’ssupport for Serbia’sEuropean integration. In addition to political, economic, and cultural cooperation, the twogovernments also agreed to defense collaboration and military exchanges as wellas discussed jointaction in the Atalanta and the EUTM mission Somalia– Uganda.Serbia’s participationin EU military campaigns was made possible by the Balkan country’s formalacceptance on May 26, of the EU’s security procedures for the exchange andprotection of classified information, and an official agreement reached betweenBrussels and Belgrade on June 8, to cooperate in militaryand civilian missions.

Exact numbers of Serbiansoldiers taking part in the EU missions in and off the coast of Africa were notcited in any English-language media sources, and the Serbian Embassy in Washington, DChad not responded before this article was posted. However, the level of Serbparticipation is likely to remain small. Only a handful of Serbian militarypersonnel are deployedin multinational peacekeeping missions abroad, and the largest contingentcurrently in place is composed of 45 troops and individuals serving in the UnitedNations (UN) peace mission to Cyprus.Nevertheless, the Serb-EU military relationship is groundbreaking for anotherreason: namely, it represents the first time that Serbiahas participated in a European led mission abroad; all of Serbia’sprevious multinational peacekeeping contributions served under UN missions.

Though an aspiring EUmember, Serbiais under no obligation to take part in the EU’s Common Security and DefensePolicy (CSDP) missions. Its voluntary involvement is a clear effort by Belgrade to associate itself more closely andsignificantly with Brussels.The EU and its Member States (MS) share this sentiment. EU foreign affairschief, Catherine Ashton noted that Serbia’sparticipation in CSDP efforts is “a step that will bring Serbia closer to the Union”and “a clear sign of mutual trust” (EurActiv,September 30). These remarks were echoedby the British and German ambassadors to Serbia. That is not to say that Belgrade has changed itsattitude toward the other major Euro-Atlantic security organization – NATO. Serbia stillconsiders the North Atlantic Alliance a threat,and has no interest in joining, currently bound by a resolution mandating thecountry’s neutrality toward all military alliances (EurActiv,September 30). Nevertheless, closer EU-Serbia ties are important to Belgrade in all areas,including the military.

Serbia’s willingness to play by Europe’srules seems to have paid off. On October 12, the EuropeanCommission recommended that Serbiareceive official candidate status, citing positive reforms taken over the pastdecade in political and economic spheres. The EU Council of Ministers willformally vote on Serbia’sstatus in December. Yet, the EU refusedto offer a date to begin accession talks until Serbia improved its relations withKosovo. Indeed, the issue of Serbia’sconflict with Kosovo,which it still considers a break-away province, will likely prove to be a majorstumbling block in Serbia’sfuture accession negotiations with the EU. And the issue has been compounded inrecent months by the violencethat has been occurring on the Serb-Kosovar border.

Thoughthe European Union is far from unified in its stance vis-à-vis Kosovo,enlargement fatigue following Bulgaria and Romania’s entry as well as ongoing financialwoes are likely to encourage some EU members to use Kosovo as an excuse to keepSerbia out for now. The presence of Serb military personnel accompanying Frenchforces in the Indian Ocean is a significant outcome for Serbia, which has been trying to improvethe international imageof its armed forces. Yet, its participation in EU missions abroad is unlikelyto completely smooth Serbia’srocky and winding road toward European membership.

The Qatar of Central Europe? Shale Gas Prospects In Poland and the Region

2011-09-27T08:54:00.000-07:00

By Matthew Czekaj

As the parliamentaryelection season heats up in Poland,the country’s Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, is crisscrossing the country in his“Tuskobus”[link in Polish], highlighting the successes of his government and makingcampaign promises on behalf of his ruling party, Civic Platform. Over the longterm, however, perhaps the most important strategic game-changer achieved bythe Tusk government has been to bring the shale gas extraction industry to Poland.

On September 18, Tusk visited[link in Polish] Lubocino in northern Poland where Polskie GórnictwoNaftowe i Gazownictwo SA (Polish Oil and Gas Company – PGNiG) had just torcheda flare on one of its gas rigs. This is the second successful production of“unconventional” natural gas – that is, gas trapped in shale rock deposits – inthe country; however it is the first well with a real chance of profitability.With a smile on his face, Prime Minister Tusk told reporters that he was“modestly optimistic” that commercial shale gas production in Poland may begin by 2014.

According to a USDepartment of Energy study, Polandis estimated to possess 5.3 trillion cubic meters of natural gas locked up inits shale deposits – enough to supply the Central European state for 300 years.Warsaw is championing shale gas as the key tobreaking the country’s dependence on coal power for electricity generation andon imports from Gazprom, which fills 40 percent of Poland’s natural gas needs.According to Tusk, with success in unconventional gas extraction, Poland would be“gas secure” by 2035 (AFP, September 18). In addition, the Polish governmenthas promised that shale gas would contribute to overall lower natural gas pricesin the national market.

Nor would the shale gasboon be for domestic consumption only. With smart investment in north-south pipelineconnections, Poland may want to export north to the BalticStates and south to the Czech Republic (Hospodarske Noviny, September 16), forexample. According to a study by the Kościuszko Institute, Polish gas may alsogo to Belarus, Ukraine, Denmark,and even Holland and the United Kingdom.Germanywould also be an attractive target, especially after Angela Merkel’s governmentpromised to phaseout the German nuclear power industry. However, having to compete with thelarge volumes of Russian gas coming through the North Stream pipeline mightpreclude this in the end.

The positive news out ofLubocino is helping to drown out Poland’s other mega-scale energysecurity project: nuclear power. As PGNiG Strategic Planning Bureau director MarcinLewenstein [link in Polish] told Wprost24recently, though atomic power remains full of potential, PGNIG will focus itsfinancial resources on shale gas extraction.

With the successof its first gas-producing well, PGNiG now plans to attempt to drill sidewaysinto the shale. The process of extracting shale gas, known as hydraulicfracturing or “fracking,” has raised the ire of many environmentalists (andGazprom) and has even been banned in some places – most notably in France.However, the Polish government considers the potential danger to undergroundsources of drinking water fully possible to mitigate with the right amount ofregulation. Consequently, Polandis the second country in the world after the United States to attractinternational energy companies with a serious intention to drill for shale gas.

Tusk boldly predicted thatthanks to shale gas, Polandhad the possibility to become energy secure within his lifetime. Yet, mindfulof the dangers of a “resource curse,” the Prime Minister announced thatgovernment proceeds from shale gas would go into a Norwegian-style nationalinvestment fund, which would be used to pay pensions, back environmentalprojects, and help subsidize counties and districts where fracking is to takeplace.

Regional enthusiasm forunconventional natural gas extraction is not limited just to Poland. Geologicalsurveys suggest that the massive 405 mile belt of gas fields, which stretchesfrom the Polish coast diagonally to the southeast, likely also extends substantiallyinto Ukraine.Moreover, with advances in fracking technology in recent years, Hungaryis also looking to tap what are believed to be large shale gas deposits burieddeep in the southeastern corner of the country. Hungary, which uses a disproportionatelyhigh amount of natural gas in its energy mix and is almost exclusively relianton Russian gas for its imports, predicts a breakthrough in shale production by2015 – not coincidentally the same year its long-term gas contract with Gazpromis scheduled to expire. The Central European country additionally intends toset up a region-wide gas exchange market.

Asthe USexample illustrates, unconventional natural gas extraction has the potential tocompletely change global energy markets. Within a few short years, frackingdoubled USestimated natural gas reserves, turning the country from a net importer to anexporter of gas. Yet, to replicate America’ssuccess in Central Europe, Polandwill need to invest many billions of dollars into wells and exploration.Moreover, it will need to avoid any major environmental accidents, which canquickly turn public opinion against hydraulic fracturing. True energy securityin the region is still many years away, but at least a piece of it may finallybe within grasp.

Poland and Lithuania Scramble to Mend Broken Ties

2011-09-16T09:34:00.000-07:00

By Matthew Czekaj

Polish-Lithuanianrelations may not have been this bad since the 1920sand ‘30s. At the heart of the current dispute is an issue Warsawand Vilnius has been struggling with off and on diplomaticallysince the collapse of the Soviet Bloc – namely, the status and treatment of thePolish minority within Lithuania.

In spring of this year,the Lithuanian government passed its latest language law, forbidding the use ofany language other than Lithuanian to be spoken in school during geography,Lithuanian history and world history classes. Furthermore, all Lithuanian language High Schoolmatriculation examinations – heavier on Lithuanian literature than atindependent minority-language schools – will now be standardized nation-wide by2013. This law, which came into effect on September 1, has infuriated theethnic Polish minority living in Lithuania. Teachers from the ethnicPolish schools in Lithuaniawalked out en masse in protest of the language law at the start of the month.It took an emergency visit from Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk to talk themdown. However, the teachers threaten to return on strike in the middle ofSeptember if the Lithuanian government does not repeal the law (GazetaWyborcza, September 12).

Ethnic poles number230,000 in Lithuania,comprising around seven percent of the country’s population. Yet, they havecontinually been a spoiler in close Warsaw-Vilnius ties. The Polish minorityhas been allowed certain concessions in Lithuania, including running itsown Polish-language schools. At the same time, the ethnic Polish communityfeels under siege by language laws designed to defend the primacy of Lithuanianin public life. In addition to the education-centric law that came into forcein September, citizens of Lithuaniaare not allowed to spelltheir names on official documents like passports using letters not found in theLithuanian alphabet. Warsaw feels[link in Polish] that the Lithuanians are breaking the Polish-Lithuanian Treatyof 1994 and are in breach of the Council of Europe Convention on NationalMinorities. Vilnius,on the other hand, is very sensitive to questions of its sovereignty anddefense of Lithuanian culture.

Due to the educationlanguage law, relations have been on a downward spiral for more than a year,but the rhetoric and pressure has really been turned up on both sides in thepast several weeks. On September 6, Lech Wałęsa, the famed Solidarity leaderand first democratically elected president of modern Poland,turneddown [link in Polish] the Lithuanian Presidential Order of Vytautas theGreat, which he was awarded this year, noting his “deep concern” over thecurrent situation of ethnic Poles living in Lithuania. Also citing the issue ofname spellings, Wałęsa promised to accept the award if Vilnius reconsidered its language laws. TheLithuanian Prime Minister, Andrius Kubilius, counteredin a radio interview he gave later, saying that, “Polish authorities do notassess the situation of the Polish minority in Lithuania according to objectivecriteria,” and are being misled by Polish diaspora organizations living in hiscountry. Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite was much more forceful in herpronouncement on Lithuanian Radio, asserting that the Polish minority islacking in loyalty[link in Polish] to the state, which enraged members and representatives of theethnic Polish community. Perhaps most troublingly, the brewingPolish-Lithuanian conflict has been raising nationalistic sentiments. InAugust, street signs and a monument in Puńsk (Punskas), a majority Lithuanianborough in northeast Poland, were vandalizedand covered in graffiti, which included radical Polish nationalist symbols.

Yet, the growingdiplomatic crisis seems to have finally woken both sides to the immediate needto smooth over relations between the two Central East European states. President Bronisław Komorowski[link in Polish], whose family derives its roots in Lithuania, spoke of theneed to resolve the thorny issues dividing Poles and Lithuanians because of themany shared interests between the two countries. Furthermore, out of Tusk’svisit to Lithuania,the two states formed a joint bi-national committee[link in Polish] to work out the issue over language use in Lithuanian schools.The committee is to include representatives from both countries’ educationalministries as well as members of the Polish minority organizations.

Thisis a positive and much needed sign for Polish-Lithuanian relations. Indeed, thetwo countries share a border, but also a number of vital interests. Poland and Lithuaniaare both very exposed to energy disruptions coming from Russia and Belarus, and need to collaborateclosely to secure themselves via oil and gas pipeline connections, joint work onnuclear power and so on. A recent setback in beginning construction of thePoland-Lithuania gas interconnector, in fact, underscores the need for politicalagreement and cooperation between Warsaw and Vilnius to ensure theproject does not slip permanently off the agenda (BNS, September 1). Thedifficult case of Belarus, acountry of intimate concern to both Polandand Lithuania, would alsobenefit greatly from Warsaw and Vilnius’ ability to coordinate their policiesat the highest levels. A final area where the two nations could achieve moretogether than alone is European strategy toward Moldova. This year, Lithuania chairs the Organization for Security and Cooperation inEurope (OSCE), while Polandholds the rotating presidency of the EUCouncil of Ministers between July and December of 2011. Since both the EU andOSCE are active in the Moldova-Transnistria peace process as well asencouraging and supporting Moldova’spath toward European integration, more tangible Polish-Lithuanian agendacoordination would be invaluable. Yet, with both giving up their Europeanleadership positions on December 31, the window for joint action is closing.Polish and Lithuanian diplomats will need to hurry.

Moscow’s Financing of Sochi Olympics 2014 Construction Triples Since 2009

2011-09-12T07:18:00.000-07:00

By Valery Dzutsev

On September 8, Russian news agency RIA-Novosti reported that theRussian government is increasing its material contribution to the Olimpstroystate corporation from $4.8bn to $10.1bn. Olympstroy oversees construction offacilities for the Olympics and the development of Sochi as a ski resort for 2008-2014. Thegovernment’s resolution was posted on the website of federal regulations andadministrative acts on September 8 (http://www.itar-tasskuban.ru/news/article?type=city2014&i=14562).In 2009, the government’s material contribution to Olympstroy for the sameperiod of 2008-2014 was estimated at less than $3bn (http://www.rosbalt.ru/main/2009/07/31/659713.html).

Accordingto the latest government documents, a significant increase in the funding willstart this year and will exceed $1.5 billion, instead of the previously planned$0.3 billion. In 2012, over $3 billion will be allocated, instead of $0.7 billion,and in 2013 over $2 billion instead of $0.5 billion. In 2014, the allocationwill remain as planned, at $0.1 billion.

Thematerial contribution of the Russian government to Olympstroy is only part ofthe costs associated with putting on the Sochi Olympic Games in 2014. Theoverall costs of the Olympics in Sochiare estimated at nearly $30 billion (http://www.bbc.co.uk/russian/russia/2010/06/100607_sochi_budget_inflates.shtml).Current oil prices still allow the Russian government to finance itsliabilities in Sochi,but it may become a serious burden if the energy prices fall significantly. Asthe price of the Winter Games in Sochirapidly climbs, the government may find it increasingly more difficult to footthe bill over the next three years.

Khloponin Admits Ramzan Kadyrov Fails to Live Up to Russia’s Standards On Personal Freedom

2011-09-09T06:27:00.000-07:00

By Valery Dzutsev

On September 8, AlexanderKhloponin, Moscow’s envoy to the North Caucasus,for the first time publicly rebuked the ruler of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov. TheChechen youth want more freedom than Kadyrov allows, Khloponin asserted,adding, “The youth in Chechnyalack freedom. They want to be more dynamic. We have some problems with that, itis obvious. I cannot fully agree with many of his [Kadyrov’s] principles.However, we are having a serious dialogue”. At the same time Khloponindismissed claims that Kadyrov was involved in the killings of his opponents in Russia andabroad (http://gazeta.ru/news/lenta/2011/09/08/n_2001257.shtml).

Khloponin made theseremarks at a meeting with foreign journalists, where he had to show off hisfastidiousness about Ramzan Kadyrov’s management methods. It is very common forthe Russian leadership to appear more liberal to a foreign audience, than tothe domestic one. But at least this can be seen as a sign that Kadyrov with hismethods no longer constitute a reason for Moscow to be resolutely proud of him.

The level of powerpersonification in Chechnyahas apparently reached the point, where some criminals mimic Kadyrov’s voice toget ahead. On September 8, Gazeta.ru quoted an Interfax news agency reportabout three Chechens who were sentenced to five year prison terms for extortingmoney from businesses and bureaucrats by imitating Kadyrov’s voice overtelephone (http://www.gazeta.ru/news/lenta/2011/09/08/n_2001049.shtml).

Moscow may dislike Kadyrov for variety of reasons, includinghis unprecedented level of autonomy from the central Russian government.However, Kadyrov’s critics in Moscowmay be particularly emboldened by the Chechen ruler’s inability to preventbrazen attacks in the republic. The latest double suicide attack that tookplace in Groznyon August 30 is but one example. These attacks may signify that Kadyrov and Russia havereached the limit of their ability to stabilize this republic. Chechnya’sshaky level of stability is unlikely to be surpassed under the presentleadership, or as long as their current set of policies continues.

Hungary’s MiGs Up for Sale

2011-09-01T09:04:00.000-07:00

By Matthew Czekaj

Thosein the market for a used, fourth-generation, Soviet, air-superiority jet fighterneed look no further than Hungary.The Central European country is putting up eight of its 24 remaining MiG-29Fulcrums for tender.The Hungarian government has declared a minimum bid for the package of fightersat no less than 3.46 billion forints ($18.3 million). All bids must be in bySeptember 15, and the deal has to be wrapped up by October.

Theannounced sale is the final chapter in Hungary’s experience with theMiG-29. The Hungarian air force flew a MiG-29 on air patrol for the lasttime [link in Polish] in December 2010 and in same month made announcementsof plans to seek bids to sell the phased out fighters by spring 2011. Yet, talkof replacing the Fulcrums was raised long before then. In 2007, for instance, Hungary wantedto trade them for Russian Mi-8, Mi-17 and Mi-24 military helicopters (Itar-Tass,October 29, 2007). Hungaryinitially received 28 MiG-29s, then valued at $800 million, from Russia in 1993, in a deal to pay off Soviet debtto Budapest. Hungary subsequently maintained and modernizedthem over the next decade despite early pressure to purchase second-hand F-15sfrom Belgium or F-16s fromthe US(Rossiyskaya Gazeta, December 6, 2001).

Interms of capabilities and mission profile, the MiG-29 is often compared withUS-built F-15s and F-16s. It boasts superior maneuverabilityat low speeds, is slightly faster than the F-16 and its handling made it afavorite among Hungarian fighter pilots. However, the MiG-29’s performancecomes at a cost. Its engines are extremely inefficient and fuel-thirsty. Theplane also has a short mechanical lifespan, and spare parts are difficult tocome by. The Hungarian air force was often forced to cannibalize some of itsMiGs to keep the rest flying. The plane’s acquisition and costly upkeepcoincided with steep government cuts to Hungary’s armed forces. Moreover, Hungary’s drivetoward NATO membership necessitated military hardware that was more compatiblewith Western allies. Hence, Budapestended up purchasing Swedish JAS-39 Gripen fighters to replace its agingMiG-29s.

TheFulcrum can be found throughout the former Soviet Union, Eastern Bloc, the Balkansand in countries that enjoyed close political and economic ties with the USSR during theCold War. However, the MiG-29 is fast becoming a rarity in Hungary’simmediate neighborhood. A prominent exception to this trend has been Poland, whichhas continued to purchase andreceive [link in Polish] more MiG-29s from its neighbors since the 1990s. Warsaw is now in the midst of modernizing a portion of itsown Fulcrums with up-to-date electronics, tracking, navigation and computerhardware – upgrades that will cost 126 million PLN ($43.4 million) until 2014 –despite having invested heavily in second-hand F-16s from the US in recentyears. As a result of Poland’scontinued dedication to the MiGs, there are increasing rumors that Warsaw may be consideringbuying the Hungarian planes now up for sale.

APolish purchase of the Hungarian jets could be good news for the Baltic States. The Balts have no air forces of their own;they rely on NATO overflight patrols, which include Polish MiG-29s. An attackin Baltic airspace would also result in part in an automaticresponse [link in Polish] from Poland’s Fulcrums. Lithuania, Latviaand Estoniathus have robust Polish air power in their own best interest.

Whetheror not Hungary’s ultimatelyends up selling MiG-29s to its Visegrad neighbor, it is clear that operation ofthis legacy Soviet fighter in Central Europeand the NATO alliance will continue for the foreseeable future.

Russia: The “New Look” Faces North (Part Five)

2011-08-19T06:33:00.001-07:00

By Jacob W. Kipp

The following is Part Five of a five part series on the Russian efforts to stake a strategic claim on the Arctic region.

Read Part One here.
Read Part Two here.
Read Part Three here.
Read Part Four here.

Further proof that the Arctic was emerging as an area of economic and military competition appeared just days ago. On July 5, the Russian atomic icebreaker Rossiia and the research vessel, Akademik Fedorov, sailed from Murmansk to undertake a second year of seismic prospecting to establish Russia’s claim to the Lomonosov and Medvedev Ridges (“Arctic shelf prospecting in view of global warming,” The Voice of Russia, 21 July 2011). On July 11, the giant Russian mineral and chemical company EuroChem announced that two bulk ore carriers, the Mikhail Kutuzov and Dmitri Pozharskii, were leaving Murmansk under the escort of a Russian atomic icebreaker, and would sail the Northern Sea Route to deliver 40,000 tons of iron ore concentrate to the North China port of Xingang with an estimated sailing time of 25-28 days. EuroChem expects to expand iron ore experts to China to millions of tons over the next few years (“EvroKhim otpravil dva sudna s produktsiei v Kitai po Severnomu morskomu puty,” FK Novosti, 20 July 2011). On the same day, the press reported that Russia’s United Shipbuilding Corporation would embark on the construction of six new icebreakers – three atomic-powered and three diesel-electric powered. The vessels will be built in Russia and Finland, with hulls constructed at the Admiralty Yards in St. Petersburg – the final work done at the Arctech Shipyard in Helsinki, a Joint venture of Russia's United Shipbuilding Corporation and the South Korean Shipbuilding Giant STX (Aleskei Mikhailov, “Nov ledokol na dorog,” Rossiiskaia gazeta, 20 July 2011).

The collaboration of United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC) and STX has, of course, another connection: the joint Franco-Russian project to build fur Mistral-class amphibious assault ships, two in France and two in Russia, with the USC and STX being involved. USC President Roman Trotsenko has recently said that Russia could build an atomic-powered aircraft carrier and have it operational by 2023, a claim, which Minister of Defense Serdiukov denied, saying Russia had no intention of building such ships. Trotsenko’s statement set off an immediate response in China, where PLA naval officers spoke of the great utility of aircraft carriers to strengthen Russian influence there. Il’ia Kramnik, military correspondent for RIA Novosti, suggested that the Chinese enthusiasm reflected an attempt at strategic misdirection. The Chinese understand that aircraft carriers remain a major card in command of the sea. Like Kaiser Wilhelm II, who encouraged Russian naval development in the Pacific to complicate British plans to deal with his “Atlantic Fleet,” Beijing wants nothing more than to ensure US Carrier task forces are deployed across the globe, thus reducing the prospect of a major concentration in the Asian-Pacific Region to challenge Chinese interests. Along this line of thinking, Russian carriers in the Arctic will demand an American response, representing one more area for US-Russian tensions, drawing Russia closer to China and at the same time reducing US naval presence in the Western Pacific. Strengthening Russia in the Arctic is needed by China to achieve the two goals that Germany had at the beginning of the 20^th Century. First, this will provoke a rapid response from the global leader (the US), which will find it necessary to strengthen its own forces there. Second, the neighbor (Russia) will be deflected from the key region and shift its efforts further, untying Beijing’s hands just as it was suppose to do for Berlin a century ago. While Russia should protect its interests in the Arctic, the author argues that it should not fall prey to “dangerous illusions” and provoke an armed confrontation with the US and NATO (Il’ia Kramnik, “Mirovoi balanc i novye avianostsy,” Voenno-promyshlennyi kur’er, 20 July 2011).

All these developments point to Russia’s Arctic engagement as an expected part of emerging competition for resources and economic advantage. The deployment of two brigades would enhance credible military presence to back geo-political claims. But there is no reason at this stage to respond with an arms race in the Far North, which would mean another area of US-NATO and Russian conflict and might serve the interests of another power with a different geo-strategic focus and long-range strategy. While Arctic warming has been seen as a blessing in terms of development opportunities, it is important to keep in mind that there will also be negative impacts on existing settlements and facilities as sea levels rise and the permafrost becomes more unstable. Recent reports from the Ministry of Extraordinary Situations have placed the possible loss of permafrost by 2050 at 15-30 percent. Andrei Bolov, the head of the Ministry’s Department for Monitoring Disasters, stated: “The negative impact of permafrost degradation on all above-ground transportation infrastructure is clear” (“Russia May Lose 30% of Its Permafrost by 2050,” RIA Novosti, 28 July 2011). Indeed, available evidence suggests that climactic changes in the Arctic are moving very fast, with the northern sea route now much more open to navigation. Russia’s Federal Hydro-Meteorological and Environmental Monitoring Service announced that ice fields this year are down by 56 percent, in some areas making navigation possible through September this year. Global warning seems to be having even more impact in the Arctic than in other regions of the globe (Maria Kolesnikova, “Arctic Ice Melt at Near Record Clears Shipping Route to Asia, Russia Says,” Bloomberg, 3 August 2011).

Recent press reports claim that the Federal Security Service (FSB) will have a leading role in the defense of the Arctic, which is supposed to become the “leading strategic resource base of the Russian Federation by 2016.” Denis Terent’ev, reporting for Argumenty nedeli, says that this force will include a regiment of naval infantry in Murmansk and the motorized rifle brigade in Pechenga, with a combined strength of 10-12,000 men, who will join the recently expanded FSB border guard units of 6-7,000 men. These units will enjoy the support of the North Fleet, which has a strength of 45-50,000 men and is the largest naval force of the Russian Federation. Nikolai Patrushev, former head of the FSB and now Secretary of the Security Council, says that the force will be led by a joint command and will be equipped with weapons and technology for operations in the Arctic, including new icebreakers. There are as yet no estimates on the costs of these efforts, but the resource base in the far north, which includes an estimated 7 percent of the world’s oil reserves and two thirds of its reserves of natural gas, will fully justify these expenditures as competition for the Arctic increases. All of the powers contending for dominion in the north are building icebreakers. China, South Korea, and Great Britain are training their special forces for “the struggle with terrorists in the Arctic,” and the US is increasing its naval presence in the region. Terent’ev says that while war in the Arctic appears unlikely, there is good reason for the FSB to expand its presence to support Russian interests and influence where private firms invest in the development of the Arctic Shelf (Denis Terent’ev, “Snezhnye voiny FSB,” Argumenty nedeli, 10 August 2011).

Russia: The “New Look” Faces North (Part Four)

2011-08-17T14:06:00.000-07:00

By Jacob W. Kipp

The following is Part Four of a five part series on the Russian efforts to stake a strategic claim on the Arctic region.

Read Part One here.
Read Part Two here.
Read Part Three here.

Russian MOD Moves to Create Two “New Look” Brigades for the Arctic

In late May, Colonel-General Aleksandr Postnikov, Commander of Ground Forces, left Moscow for a three-day trip to northwest Russia with visits to St. Petersburg and Murmansk. During the trip, Iurii Gavrilov reported that the chief task would be resolving questions connected with the formation in the north of Russia of the so-called “Arctic brigades.” Gavrilov noted that in the past, when Russian media mentioned the formation of Arctic units, they were met by denials. “Why the military up to now had sought to conceal its interest in this time one can only speculate.” The Ministry of Defense described Postnikov’s trip as a sort of reconnaissance in support of a final decision to locate the brigade at Pechinga, about 100 km northwest of Murmansk. But according to other sources Postnikov was not just looking over a base site but also addressing the unit’s structure and composition. These sources stressed the need for a truly air-mobile formation to conduct combat operations in the Arctic. The unit would need special equipment to operate in super-cold conditions and require specialized training, which might draw upon “the experience of our Finnish and Norwegian neighbors.” The initial brigade would have a strength of 3,000 to 5,000 men (Iurii Gavrilov, “General moroz i ego riadovye,” Rossiiskaia gazeta, 18 May 2011). On the same day that Gavrilov reported on Postnikov’s inspection trip, Viktor Khudoleev wrote in Krasnaia zezda about what the new Arctic brigades would look like. He confirmed Gavrilov’s details on the brigade’s composition, equipment and training. Referring to the “Foundations of State Policy…on the Arctic,” he noted that “it required the creation in the next few years in the region a group of forces to ensure the military security under various military-political circumstances” (Viktor Khudoleev. “Oblik ‘arkticheskikh brigad,” Krasnaia zvezda, 18 May 2011).

That same day, Regnum Information Agency, as part of its on-going series “struggle for the Arctic,” reprinted an article by Aleskandr Khramchikhin from Arkitika i Sever, which addressed the military-political situation in the Arctic and scenarios of possible conflicts and gave an endorsement to enhancing Russia’s military presence. Khramchikhin pointed out that even during the Cold War, the militarization of the Arctic had remained largely a theoretical problem. Moreover, with the Cold War’s end, there had been a general reduction of forces in the Arctic region. However, recent events connected with the thawing of the Arctic ice pack and the discovery of major hydrocarbon reserves beneath the Arctic shelf had made militarization an immediate prospect. In the absence of well-defined borders, Arctic powers were free to make their own claims to territories and to back such claims with military forces. Geography and political alliances have placed Russia in direct competition with several NATO members: the US, Canada, Denmark and Norway. Iceland, which lacks military forces, has not put forward any claims and Sweden and Finland lack direct access to the Arctic.

Khramchikhin examined the efforts of the NATO members to improve their air, naval and ground presence in the Arctic. He noted that US military power in the Arctic is primarily deployed in Alaska and could effectively threaten the Chukotka across the Bering Straits, which Russia would be hard pressed to defend, but which would have almost no effect on vital Russian interests. Russia’s Arctic forces are deployed on the Kola Peninsula and there is almost nothing to the east of that. He reviewed a range of possible scenarios from local conflicts to strategic nuclear attacks based on events in the Arctic, but concluded that none of them made much military-political sense. Indeed, heightened tensions in the Arctic were sure to reduce the interests of private energy firms in what are already technologically difficult projects. Khramchikhin does, however, add one other player to the Arctic game. China will have both the interests and the forces to play there in the future and has announced it intension to join the game. He concludes that the various scenarios, which he considered, are not likely:

“Thus, although changes in climatic conditions and economic interests of Arctic countries have created the theoretical possibility for the militarization of the Arctic and the outbreak here of various military conflicts in the foreseeable future, the probability that any of the scenarios of conflicts considered here will take place is quite low. At the same time one should note that one of the most important factors in preventing such conflicts in more distant future is the strengthening of Russia's military potential in all its components in the Arctic and in general” (Aleksandr Khramchikhin, “Voenno-politicheskaia situtsiia v Arktike i stsenarii vozmozhnykh konfliktov,” Regnum Informatsionnoe Agenstvo, 18 May 2011).

While the Ground Forces seemed to be moving forward to create at least one Arctic Brigade at Pechinga, the Russian Airborne forces announced that they would also have a joint role in Arctic defense. General-Lieutenant Vladimir Shamanov, Commander of Airborne Forces reported that the General Staff had recommended to begin work on devising a plan to use airborne forces as part of a joint forces unit composed of naval, ground and airborne forces. He mentioned that the week before the commanders of three naval infantry brigades and three air assault brigades had met at the Airborne School in Riazan to study creating of such a joint Arctic command. Shamanov denied that Russian airborne forces would have an independent role in Arctic operations and said that they would not deploy to the Kuril Islands. Airborne forces were, however, going to create two helicopter regiments, and he was looking at deploying them at Pskov and Ulianovsk (“Desantniki budut zashchat arkticheskii shel’f Rossii,” Tikhookeanskaia vakhta, 28 May 2011).

In early July, as Serdiukov was announcing the creation of Russia’s Arctic brigades, the Russian military press noted Canada’s increased efforts in the north. On July 5, it was announced that the Canadian Armed Forces would be conducting its largest Arctic exercise in many years. Canadian Minister of National Defense Peter MacKay was quoted as stating that “Operation Nanook 2011” would take place throughout August and would involve actions over several stages across the Canadian Arctic, in which air, naval and ground forces would take part, including Canadian rangers and Inuit territorial troops. MacKay started that “the goal of the maneuvers is to expand the presence of Canada in the North. The government of the country has every intention of providing the means to these objectives.” These means have included the development of a major military base on Baffin Island (“Innostrannaia voennaia khronika,” Krasnaia zvezda, 5 July 2011).

On Jul 11 Ogonek drew attention to the Arctic by publishing a cover remembering the Soviet polar expedition of 1938 and then devoting two articles to Arctic defense issues. Oleg Anisimov, head of a section at the State Hydrological Institute and a member of the Inter-governmental group of experts on climate change, dismissed the decision to create Arctic forces as a purely political one disconnected from north political and military realities. No one has any immediate intention of attacking Russia in the North. Discussions about future conflicts over resources would not be answered by the deployment of a brigade of ground forces in the Arctic. “Our military often thinks in terms of scenarios from the last century. They don’t fight like that today: there are UAVs, missiles. And the threats now are different, including first of all terrorism. But terrorism and the Arctic do not compute. There are territorial disputes in the Arctic.” But Anisimov sees this as an issue more affected by climate changes, which are causing major erosion on Arctic islands and coast line, than by conflicting state claims to energy development rights. Arctic development, especially the northern sea route, holds out more promise than investments in troops (Oleg Anisimov, “Kholodnyi raschet,” Ogonek, 11 July 2011).

The second article reviewed the decisions leading up to the creation of the two brigades. Kirill Zhurenkov then asked just what the Russian military would be defending and stressed competition for Arctic resources in a region with poorly defined borders and greater possibilities for maritime trade through the area. He noted the contradiction in the actions of the Security Council concerning Arctic security and the declarations of Ambassador Vasil’ev in the fall of 2010 that Russia had no intention of creating any special forces formations for the Arctic. Consulting various specialists on defense issues, Zhurenkov judged the creation of the brigade to make sense, but wondered whether the necessary resources to sustain the effort would be forthcoming. In addition to the two brigades announced by the Minister of Defense, Russia has also been developing its own “arctic spetsnaz” (Northern Sea Lions), trained not only in rescue techniques but also as observers of deep-water communications with the capacity to thwart those intent on disrupting such communications. He concluded that Russia does have interests in the Arctic to defend and can only protect such interests by military means if other powers are intent upon militarizing the region. The article concludes with an assessment of each Arctic state’s interests and their willingness to abide by a solution to conflicting border claims from the UN (Kirill Zhurenkov, “Beloe dvizhenie,” Ogonek, 11 July 2011).

On July 16, the provincial press from Belgorod published two articles on Arctic developments by foreign authors. The first was a Canadian piece from Toronto’s Globe and Mail on Canada’s summer Arctic exercise, “Operation Nanook 2011,” which Jeremy Torobin described as a show of force. The article quotes Minister of Defense MacKay as saying: “Our goal is to strengthen our role and presence in the North” (Jeremy Torobin, “Glob end mail [Kanada],” Belgorodskia pravda, 16 July 2011). The second article came from the Wall Street Journal by its Moscow correspondent Alan Cullison, and was a recap of Russian news on the decision to create two Arctic brigades. However, while the original title of the piece addressed that topic directly – “Russia to Deploy Troops to Defend Interests in Arctic,” the Belgorod paper changed the title to reflect a larger theme of the Arctic’s place “during a general warming of chilly relations.” It emphasized the conclusion of the article, which addressed the rationale for such military presence in terms of the competition for control of the northern sea route, fishing grounds and energy resources (Alan Cullison, “Arktika: Pri obshchem poteplenii prokhladnei otnosheniia?” Belgorodskaia pravda, 16 July 2011).

Russia: The “New Look” Faces North (Part Three)

2011-08-16T06:31:00.001-07:00

By Jacob W. Kipp

The following is Part Three of a five part series on the Russian efforts to stake a strategic claim on the Arctic region.

Read Part One here.
R ead Part Two here.

In December 2008, Morskoi sbornik carried an article by A. Smolovskii, which addressed the military aspects of the Russian Arctic policy in terms of securing control of the Lomonosov Ridge and its anticipated energy resources. Russian efforts to strengthen its defenses were depicted as a direct result of the “militarization of the Arctic by the West.” Smolovskii identified two major features in this militarization: the extended present of Western military forces in the region in the form of 1) US and British nuclear submarine patrols, flights of US and Canadian shore-based aviation and patrols by US Coast Guard, and the sea defense forces of Denmark, Norway and Canada, and 2) increased monitoring of the region by aero-space, surface, and particularly subsurface means supported by the conduct of naval exercises in the direct vicinity of Russian territory (A Smolovskii, “Poslednie voenno-politicheskie sobytiia v Arktike,” Morskoi sbornik, December 2008).

Russian commentators remained concerned about what was called “the struggle for the Arctic,” but did not seem to see the defense of the Arctic tied to the Russian military’s New Look. Speaking before the State Duma on April 15, 2010, M. P. Nenashev, a member of the Duma Committee on Defense and the head of the Movement for the Navy, put before his colleagues the “most important questions of policy, economics, defense, and transportation of our country. This is the question of the condition of affairs relating to the development of the Arctic.” Calling attention to the volcanic eruption on Iceland and its effects on international aviation, Nenashev warned that Russian could face unpleasant unnamed consequences if it did not address in a systematic fashion all aspects of Arctic development. He called for efforts to stop the flight of the Russian population from the far north and emphasized the need to develop medicine and education to support that population. Focusing on military capabilities, he noted Russia should “…build, repair, and modernize icebreakers and other necessary vessels, create a complete transportation infrastructure today before it is too late.” Under military reform, Russia should stop cutting back “our defensive resources, particularly the Northern Fleet, the Pacific Fleet, aviation, and ground forces. …it is vitally important for Russia and for global security to develop its military, naval, and air presence in this region” (“Arkticheskii aktsent,” Morskaia gazeta, 26 April 2010). But Nenashev’s call seemed to go unanswered. In September 2010, Putin spoke on the peaceful development of the Arctic at an International Arctic Forum sponsored by the Russian Geographic Society. There was much talk about Russia’s Arctic claims, but these were presented as subject to international resolution with much emphasis on protection of the Arctic environment as energy exploration went forward. Putin rejected conjectures by certain futurologists about an impending “battle for the Arctic,” and pledged that Russia would seek to achieve its ends by peaceful means, and not make use of the methods of the “Cold War.” Anton Vasil’ev, Russia’s Special Envoy to the UN for Arctic matters, stressed Russia’s commitment to a negotiated settlement via the UN, and declared that “Moscow does not plan to create specialized Arctic forces” (Tat'iana Zamakhina, “Arkticheskaia voi’na budet teploi,” Moskovskii komsomolets, 24 Sept 2010).

However, the failure of the UN to accept Russia’s claims during the international body’s 2010 session seems to have put an end to the commitment to resolve conflicting Arctic claims by negotiations alone and brought military considerations back into open discussions. Russia was arming for the “battle of the Arctic.” On April 1, 2011, Vladimir Voloshin reported that the Ministry of Defense, as part of its “new look,” had taken the decision to create a “special, cold-weather motorized-rifle brigade on the Kola Peninsula at the base of the current 200^th motorized-rifle brigade.” The article went on to discuss the new equipment, which would make it possible for the brigade to fight in super-cold conditions. Voloshin stated that the decision to create the Arctic brigade had been taken in 2008 as part of “The Foundations of State Policy of the Russian Federation in the Arctic for the period to 2020” as approved by the Security Council. He cited an Arctic arms race among the powers competing for influence in the region. “Now a good ten powers are seeking to divide up the region to their own advantage. Now this is being done by claims under international law. But one needs to be prepared in any case to apply ‘the armed argument’” (Vladimir Voloshin, “U Rossii budut Arkticheskie voi’ska,” Komsomol'skaia pravda, 1 April 2011).

Does Russia Conceal the Real Casualties of Its Forces in the North Caucasus?

2011-08-15T07:20:00.001-07:00

By Valery Dzutsev

On August 12, the North Caucasian rebel resource Kavkazcenter.com reported an astonishing discrepancy between official and previously reported numbers of casualties. On August 11, government forces killed six militants in Makhachkala, Dagestan. In a press-release related to the August operation, the Russian national antiterrorist committee said that the killed rebels had been involved in two high-profile attacks in Dagestan. On September 5, 2010, a suicide bomber attack killed 56 servicemen at the military base in Buinaksk. On February 14, 2011, two suicide bombers – ethnic Russian converts to Islam, Vitaly Razdobudko and Marina Khorosheva – killed 26 servicemen in a double suicide attack in Gubden village in Dagestan (http://kavkazcenter.com/russ/content/2011/08/12/84348.shtml).

The intrigue of the situation is that at the time, the Russian official sources reported four killed servicemen in Buinaksk (http://ria.ru/incidents/20100906/272974410.html) and two killed servicemen in Gubden (http://ria.ru/inquest/20110414/364571491.html). According to Kavkazcenter, the RIA Novosti website removed the initial numbers of casualties from its website. In fact, its modified article does not contain any casualty numbers for the Buinaksk or Gubden attacks. (http://ria.ru/defense_safety/20110811/415938900.html). However, information about 56 and 26 killed servicemen in attacks in Dagestan continued to be available on the internet as of August 14, 2011. In particular, the English version of ITAR-TASS news agency’s website still reflected the numbers of killed as 56 and 26 respectively (http://ria.ru/defense_safety/20110811/415938900.html).

Given the relative freedom of the press in Dagestan, this discrepancy is even more striking. If there was no mistake and the initial numbers of casualties were tweaked, the casualty statistics in the North Caucasus should be drastically readjusted. The latest incident casts additional doubt on already dubious Russian statistics concerning the unrest in the North Caucasus.

Russia: The “New Look” Faces North (Part Two)

2011-08-12T06:28:00.000-07:00

By Jacob W. Kipp

The following is Part Two of a five part series on the Russian efforts to stake a strategic claim on the Arctic region.

Read Part One here.

In late June 2007, the Shipbuilding giant Sevmash, located in Arkhangelsk Oblast’, was looking for a partnership with Gazprom, Rosneft and Lukoil, along with foreign investors, to create a new infrastructure to exploit the gas and oil deposits. This included ice-resistant platforms, icebreakers, sea-going tugs, terminals, pipelines, a new dry-dock and LNG tankers. The investment in this infrastructure was estimated at 6.5 billion rubles (Pravda Severa, June 28, 2007). However, the challenges of energy extraction from under the Arctic Sea have proven even harder than expected, and have pushed Russian investors to seek both foreign capital and expertise in what is viewed as a long-term development program. Indeed, Russia has promised to changes its laws to encourage foreign invest in Arctic projects (BarentsObserver.com, June 1). Russian specialists estimate Arctic Russia’s energy reserves to be disproportionally in natural gas.

While scientists may support and diplomats argue for such a claim, military power in the region will figure in the calculus of control over these resources. Russian discussions of an enhanced military presence in the Arctic go back many years and were articulated in the document “The Foundations of State Policy in the Arctic to 2020.” Speaking to a plenary session of the Security Council on Arctic policy in September 2008, President Medvedev stated: “This region, without any exaggeration, has strategic significance for our country, and the solution of many long-term tasks is connected directly with its development” (Na Strazhe Zapolar’ia, September 20, 2008). He addressed the geopolitics of the Arctic, the need to secure the northern sea route for navigation, protect the ecology of the region and to press ahead with the development of natural resources, including energy in the Arctic continental shelf. The measure was described as one that would mobilize the efforts of many ministries and state institutions. But it fell to the Secretary of the Security Council to state the underlying need: the defense of Russia’s interest in the Arctic. Nikolai Patrushev said that the President had ordered the Security Council to complete work on the document covering Arctic policy by December 1, 2008. “We must protect our interests in the Arctic, but we understand that the Arctic states – Canada, Norway, Denmark and the USA will protect their own interests” (Kommersant, September 18, 2008). The final document, as signed by President Medvedev, looked to the long-range development of the region and contemplated bilateral and multilateral cooperation in aspects of Arctic development. But it also contained an explicit charge to enhance Russia’s Arctic defenses:

“In the sphere of military security and the protection of the state borders of the Russian Federation in the Arctic Region it is necessary to create a grouping of conventional forces of the Russian Federation and other troops, military formations and organs (primarily border-patrol organs) in the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation, which will be capable of ensuring the military security under various military-political circumstances” (Sovet Bezopasnosti, Rossiiskaia Federatsiia, “Osnovy gosudarstvennoi politiki Rossiiskoi Federatsii v Arktike do 2020 goda i dal'neishuiu perspektivu,” September 18, 2008).

Russia: The “New Look” Faces North (Part One)

2011-08-11T08:58:00.000-07:00

By Jacob W. Kipp

The following is Part One of a five part series on the Russian efforts to stake a strategic claim on the Arctic region.

In early July, Russia’s Defense Minister Anatoly Serdiukov announced the creation of two brigades for the defense of Russia’s Arctic region. He went on to state that the General Staff was working out their place of deployment, numerical strength, armament and supporting infrastructure. In this process, Russian specialists had taken into account foreign experience with Arctic forces, including Finnish, Swedish, and Norwegian. The report speculated that the brigades would be stationed in Murmansk or Archangelsk (Murmanskii vestnik, July 5). This announcement comes as no surprise after four years of Russian claims to expanded interests in the Arctic, especially the development of energy resources. Vladimir Putin had urged development of the Russian Arctic and promoted Russia’s extended territorial claims while President. He spoke to a Party conference of United Russia in Ekaterinburg on the need for additional private energy investment and linked that to enhancing Russian military presence in the Arctic. He stated that Russia is seeking to expand there, and will “firmly and consistently” defend its geopolitical interests in the region Moscow Times, July 1).

On July 6, Russia announced that it will submit a claim to the United Nations to expand its Arctic shelf borders as scientists embarked on a new expedition to prove its ownership of energy-rich territory. Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov, speaking from Narian-Mar in Russia’s far north, said, “I expect that next year we will present a well-based scientific claim about expanding the borders of our Arctic shelf.” The stakes here are quite high with Denmark, Canada and Russia presenting claims to the region. The new expedition will continue the work of one mounted in 2007. The author stressed the significance of these claims for Russia’s energy future: “Geologist estimate that in the depths of the Arctic Ocean are located 30 percent of the world reserves of natural gas and 13 percent of world oil reserves. If Russia gets the right to the Lomonosov Ridge, it will get control over 60 percent of the hydrocarbons, which might be located in the region” Nezaviimaia gazeta, July 7).

The decision to create Arctic brigades for the Russian Army and Putin’s linkage of such forces with Russia’s plans to transform the Arctic into a new frontier for marine time trade and energy extraction stands in stark contrast with the situation in the region only a decade ago. Russia’s Arctic, including its northwest strategic direction covering the Kola Peninsula, was an explicit example of Russia’s decline since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Soviet state had poured resource into the northwest to build a huge naval complex to supports its Northern Fleet, which included the surface, submarine, and naval aviation forces intended to defend the Barents Sea as a bastion of the Soviet Union’s SLBNs of the Delta and Typhoon classes. By the end of the 1990s, that fleet had declined and one of the chief challenges facing the region was the de-coring of the reactors of old nuclear submarines as part of their decommissioning. The number of nuclear submarines from the Northern Fleet needing decommissioning was staggering and well beyond the capacity of Russia’s facilities and its defense budget. International cooperation was required. At the same time, Russia’s urban centers north of the Arctic Circle were experiencing population flight as state subsidies and defense orders disappeared (Jacob W. Kipp, “Russia’s Northwest Strategic Direction,” [July-August 1999], pp. 52-65). These problems have not gone away.

The nuclear clean-up at Andreev Bay has made progress and Minatom has promised that by 2025 the residents will have a “green pond.” In the meantime, 40 reactor cores are stored in the area and another seven will go into storage this year (Murmanskii vestnik, July 21). Moreover, the decay of the old Soviet infrastructure for its nuclear submarine forces continues. The submarine base at Gremikha, which supported 40 nuclear submarines and had a population of 30,000, is dying with no boats and a population of 1,300. Social services barely function, the bakeries are closed, and the population feels abandoned by those in power. The climate tests human endurance. The wind howls like mad dogs and the rain beats down sharp and icy. As Sergei Leskov reported, Gremikha is a dying town with a people who have no future (Izvestiia, July 18).

Russia’s economic recovery over the last decade, combined with the discovery of significant reserves of oil and gas in the North and the impact of global warming on Arctic ice fields have brought with them a renewed enthusiasm for Arctic investment and development in Moscow. In the summer of 2007, “Arctic mania” hit Russia. That summer, a geological polar expedition on a nuclear icebreaker returned after six weeks to report that the Lomonosov Ridge was part of the Russian mainland, and the claim went forward for including 1.2 million sq. km to Russian territory, an area larger than Texas and California combined. The chief geologist on the expedition, Valerii Kaminskii estimated the gas and oil reserves at 100 billion tons. “Russia must use all its resources to retain its leadership position in the Arctic,” declared the Governor of Murmansk Oblast’, Yurii Evdokimov, at meeting of the National Anti-Terrorism Committee under the chairmanship of Nikolai Patrushev (“V koridorakh vlasti dolzhny sokhranit’ liderstvo v Arktike,” Murmanskii vestnik, 27 June 2007). Andrei Reut, writing about the economic potential of the region being claimed, framed the issue as one of Russian national security:

“For Russia, the exploitation of the shelf is the chief means by which to remain a European energy provider in the 21st century. In the near term, the reserves located in Western Siberia will be exhausted and the reserves in Eastern Siberia and Timano-Pechorsk Basin could prove to be insufficient to secure the annual production of 560 million tons needed. Therefore the struggle for the shelf is for us a matter of national security” (Andrei Reut, “Rossiia podrastet na 1 200 000 kvadratnykh km Arktiki,” Izvestiia, 27 June 2007).

Arson attacks on North Caucasian cars in Moscow may raise the conflict between Russians and North Caucasians to a higher level

2011-07-21T09:14:00.001-07:00

Valery Dzutsev

On July 21, Moscow police informed the popular Russian news website Gazeta.ru about three arson attacks on cars with tags of North Caucasian regions. Two cars with Dagestani license plates and one car with a Kabardino-Balkarian tag were set on fire in the eastern part of Moscow. The police officials cautioned the cars may have flared up by themselves, but given that all three cars were in close proximity to each other and had North Caucasian regions’ codes, the coincidence is very unlikely.

Moreover, it became apparent that attacks on the cars with North Caucasian plates started at the beginning of June, 2011. Over ten cars with Kabardino-Balkarian and Dagestani license plates were set on fire in the Moscow suburb Balashikha, also situated to the east from Moscow. Independently of police sources, some car services told Gazeta.ru about other cases of car arson attacks, though they were unable to confirm whether the affected vehicles had North Caucasian tags. The number of attacks may thus be even higher.

Leader of the nationalist organization “Russians,” Dmitry Dyomushkin, denied that organized Russian nationalists could be involved in the attacks. “The degree of nationalism in the [Russian] society is extremely high. There are some autonomous groups that do not carry out any political activities, but have switched to a regime of ‘punch, explode, kill,’” Dyomushkin warned.

It appears some Russian nationalists have started to mimic the North Caucasian insurgents, creating small autonomous groups, which then target North Caucasians. If this trend persists, however, and the Russian authorities do not put an end to it, the next step will be attacks on ethnic Russian civilians in the North Caucasus and full-scale civil war.

Source: Russian military forces refuse to accept conscripts from the North Caucasian republics

2011-07-06T12:29:00.001-07:00

By Valery Dzutsev

On June 29, Russian news agency Regnum published a news story about another hazing scandal. This time it was about six ethnic Russian conscripts running away from a Russian Ministry for Extreme Situations (MChS) training camp in Chelyabinks, in southern Ural. The North Caucasian conscripts allegedly extracted money and physically attacked ethnic Russians. Reportedly there were only 30 ethnic Russian conscripts against 140 North Caucasians, which made it especially hard for the Russians to withstand the pressure. The officers not only did not defend the group of ethnic Russian conscripts against their assailants, but were also themselves subjected to beatings by the North Caucasians. Ludmila Zinchenko, the chairwoman of the Soldiers’ Mothers Organization in Chelyabinks, stated that the Russian military had refused to draft new conscripts from the North Caucasus, so only MChS continues to accept them, which is why their concentration became so high (http://www.regnum.ru/news/1420229.html).

In April 2011, the Russian Ministry of Defense officially rebutted claims about a decrease in its drafting of North Caucasians (http://www.regnum.ru/news/polit/1396456.html). Yet, the draft from North Ossetia in spring 2011 decreased by threefold from previous conscription campaigns, allegedly because there are more professional soldiers in the Russian army. All quoted conscripts from North Ossetia appear to be ethnic Russians, so the number of ethnic Ossetians drafted to serve in the Russian military is probably even lower (http://region15.ru/news/2011/05/17/10-17). The Russian military is experiencing a severe shortage of conscripts, which already forced it to abolish its plans to reduce the number of conscripts from Dagestan from 4,000 to 400 in spring 2011. Instead, the draft from Dagestan was allegedly increased up to 6,000. Dagestan could dispatch up to 10,000 draftees every year, according to the local experts (http://www.rosbalt.ru/kavkaz/2011/04/22/842284.html). The Dagestani and other conscripts from the North Caucasus appear to be recruited to the Russian army only because of the shortage of manpower in Russia. It thus seems that a separation of Russia and the North Caucasus is already underway, even though officially it is still a semi-taboo topic in the country.

Chechen dead still not buried 10 years after the start of the second Russian-Chechen war

2011-06-14T14:17:00.000-07:00

By Valery Dzutsev

On June 13, the Caucasian Knot website unveiled information about a newly discovered mass grave in Chechnya. An estimated 20 people were killed in what appears to have been an extralegal execution during the first years of the second Russian-Chechen war that started in 1999. The mass grave site is located in Chervlyonnaya, a village in the Shelkovskoi district in northern Chechnya (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, June 13).

It is noteworthy that the locals reported the mass grave to the authorities only recently. According to Caucasian Knot, the locals themselves buried the gnawed remnants of the people they found around their village. The remnants could be identified only through DNA tests, but Chechnya does not have its own DNA identification facilities and it is not clear if the authorities will do the identification at all.

“No one can say how many such mass graves there are in Chechnya today,” an anonymous human rights activist told Caucasian Knot in an interview. According to the Human Rights Commissioner of the Council of Europe, Thomas Hammerberg, over 3,000 people disappeared in Chechnya between 2000 – 2009. According to Hammerberg, the Chechen authorities discovered 60 mass graves with the overall number of buried people above 3,000 (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, June 13).

Mass graves are one of the important indicators of crimes against humanity. The latest finding in Chechnya raises the issue of military crimes that were committed in this territory and have remained uninvestigated. This climate of impunity is not simply unjust and abhorrent, but also, from a very practical standpoint, promotes lawlessness and invites repetitions of the same crimes.

Manezkha Redeux? Budanov Murder May Spark Nationalist Backlash

2011-06-10T10:19:00.000-07:00

By Valery Dzutsev

On June 10, former Colonel Yuri Budanov was gunned down in Moscow. His murder is expected to galvanize Russian nationalists. Already flowers were reportedly taken to the scene of the murder, and nationalist activists are reportedly planning a flash-mob type of action similar to what happened in Moscow in late 2010 (http://echo.msk.ru/news/783342-echo.html). Moscow police detachments are patrolling the Manezhnaya square where Russian nationalist riots took place in December 2010 as fears grow there may be another round of uprisings (http://echo.msk.ru/news/783361-echo.html). A leader of Russian nationalists, Dmitry Dyomushkin, stated that the nationalists had “no doubts this murder could be tracked back to the Chechen republic” (http://www.rosbalt.ru/kavkaz/2011/06/10/857814.html).

In 2003, Budanov was sentenced to 10 years in prison for the kidnapping and murder of 18-year-old Chechen girl, Elza Kungaeva. In 2009, Budanov was released on parole. Colonel Budanov served as the head of a Russian military detachment during the second war in Chechnya. Budanov’s trial became the most notorious of few Russian military crimes in Chechnya that were investigated by the Russian state. Russian nationalists defended Budanov, regarding him as a hero, while the pro-Moscow government in Chechnya demanded harsh punishment for him. Ramzan Kadyrov’s close aide Adam Delimkhanov briefly commented on Budanov’s killing: “I think it is retribution” (http://www.gazeta.ru/politics/2011/06/10_a_3659061.shtml).

The anxiety of the government to prevent Russian nationalist backlash is reflected in attempts to portray the killing as “a provocation.” Nationalist politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky stated the murder was designed to undermine Russia as a viable partner for the EU, as a Russia-EU summit started in Nizhny Novgorod on June 10. Investigators assure the driver of the killers’ car was of “Slavic appearance”, i.e. the killers were not Chechens (http://www.gazeta.ru/social/2011/06/10/3659081.shtml). The indications are that Russian society is becoming extremely sensitive to crimes in Russia proper that involve North Caucasians, so any such event might spark serious clashes and unrest in Moscow.

Georgia Thwarts Another Russian-Sponsored Coup Attempt

2011-05-26T11:08:00.000-07:00

By David Iberi

On May 26, 2011, the day Georgia celebrates its Independence Day, the Ministry of Internal Affairs made public a phone conversation, or a recording on some other electronic device, between Nino Burjanadze and her son, Anzor Bitsadze, that took place some time during the May 21 – 25 violent anti-Western and antigovernment protests she organized in downtown Tbilisi.

Burjanadze, former chairwoman of Parliament who turned into the single most important conduit of Russian schemes against Georgia’s pro-Western course, discusses with her son some gruesome details of her plan aimed at overthrowing the government of President Mikheil Saakashvili. The overthrow would materialize at the expense of hundreds of innocent civilian lives “in a civil war” and, even more importantly, with the help of the Russians. “It is worth the death of 100 or even 500 people,” Anzor suggests to his mother, to which Burjanadze replies, “Yes, you are right.” Then then discuss how many Georgians are pro-Western and how many are pro-Russian, and Burjanadze says that she has “direct” support of 15 percent of Georgians. The figure is of course greatly exaggerated given the data of every single poll suggesting that Burjanadze has never had more than 1 – 2 percent.

The last part of the mother-son conversation is about how to use the “Egypt scenario” after a coup d’état has already been carried out in Georgia, such as setting up a transitory government, declaring a state of emergency and installing a curfew. As for the Georgian security forces, Anzor says to his mother, “We will withstand the first strike and then let them deal with the GRU special task forces.” The GRU, of course, is the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.

[ See Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dh35kUiu0Ho ]

In her latest desperate bid to force President Saakashvili out of office, Burjanadze organized aggressive protest rallies in the central parts of Tbilisi that attracted no more than a few thousand people at most, mainly men in their late fifties. Georgian social networks suggest that many of those who showed up at the Burjanadze demonstrations were former Soviet police and security officers and Communist Party apparatchiks who lost their jobs, influence and prestige after the liberal Rose Revolution ended Eduard Shevardnadze’s regime. Burjanadze and her supporters blocked several important streets in Tbilisi between May 21 and 25—even though the number of protesters was so small that they could well stand on sidewalks without interfering with the traffic. Police did not interfere until the protesters declared that their goal was to sabotage the Independence Day celebrations on Tbilisi’s Rustaveli Avenue scheduled for May 26.

A police officer and a civilian were killed, and another police officer was critically injured, when two cars from Burjanadze's escort speeding away from the scene crashed with the crowd after police started breaking up the violent demonstration, the Ministry of Internal Affairs said in a statement.

Burjanadze has visited Moscow several times over the past few years and repeatedly met with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Every time she returned from Moscow, her ambitions seemed to have increased and her plans only became more aggressive. Burjanadze never publicly called Russia’s illegal presence on Georgian soil occupation, nor has she ever qualified the events of August 2008 as Russia’s invasion of Georgia. Moscow, for its part, has never hidden its support and sympathy for Burjanadze nor other representatives of a small group of Georgia’s pro-Russian forces.

The latest events, including, the scandalous record of Burjanadze’s conversation with her son, show both the ability of Georgia’s pro-Western government to defend the nation’s sovereignty and the incessant attempts by the Kremlin to destabilize Georgia and bring it back under its suzerainty. But it is also true that until Georgia becomes a formal ally of the West, its long-term stability and security will remain under a big question mark. Greece and Turkey of the 1940s could serve as a good reminder.

Kyrgyz MPs Exorcise Demons by Slaughtering Sheep

2011-04-25T15:11:00.000-07:00

By Erica Marat

Tired of continuous showdowns that threaten to disintegrate the ruling coalition, Kyrgyz MPs decided to sacrifice seven sheep in front of the parliament building. According to local traditions, offering the blood of a slaughtered sheep expels devils that a human being is not able to oust just by virtue of his or her own effort.

Although blood offering is a common feature of most Kyrgyz politicians’ campaigns in rural areas, this is the first time the ritual has been performed in central Bishkek. Each of the 120 MPs contributed 700 soms (roughly $18) toward the ritual. Slaughtered meat was served to the people working in the parliament and shared with the elderly and disabled.

In an attempt to boost their own popularity, Kyrgyz MPs have resorted to symbolic politics, trying to justify their own dysfunction. In a recent brawl, ruling coalition members engaged in a fistfight, smashing each other’s faces and further threatening the coalition’s collapse.

Other attempts to boost individual popularity include the compilation of an extended list (over 1,160) of heroes of the April 7, 2010 regime change. The list is long because every parliamentary faction suggested its own heroes. The list embraces about 10 percent of the roughly 10,000 demonstrators on that day.

Furthermore, MPs also voted to impose restrictions on the use of state symbolism. For instance, anyone wearing a hat while performing a national hymn will be charged for misconduct. Also, the state emblem and flag cannot be used on personal business cards.

The parliament’s use of rituals exposes its attempt to deal with the increased transparency of parliamentary work. Most parliamentary sessions are broadcast live, while local media outlets have a good overview of the ruling coalition’s work.

The politics of symbolism might indeed increase the parliament’s short-term popularity among some segments of society. To most international media, however, the Kyrgyz MPs’ lamb slaughter was a source of comical headlines.

U.S. Image in Central Asia

2011-03-28T11:23:00.000-07:00

By Erica Marat

Nearly half of the Central Asian population shares a favorable view of U.S. global leadership, the latest Gallup survey shows.

Ironically, approval rating in Kyrgyzstan, where the United States has a transit base servicing the war in Afghanistan, is the lowest within Central Asia. Only 30 percent of population sees the United States in a positive light. Only in Belarus and Russia are the ratings lower – 29 percent and 23 percent, respectively.

The latest Gallup survey results show that the United States’ image has remained favorable over the past years in Central Asia and has significantly improved in Ukraine in the past two years. Between 2008 and 2010, the share of Ukrainians with favorable views of the United States grew from 26 percent to 38 percent.

The biggest gains were seen in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. All three countries saw a roughly two-fold increase since 2008. Compared to three years ago, when 20 percent of Kazakhs and 22 percent of Uzbeks approved U.S. leadership, in 2010 this number increased to 42 percent and 47 percent, respectively.

According to Gallup, such a spike in U.S. ratings is the response of these Central Asian states to President Barack Obama's landmark speech in Cairo. “That may have influenced approval in the region, given that the majority of its population is Muslim,” explains Gallup.

In Kyrgyzstan, on the other hand, the U.S.’s rating has been fluctuating. In 2008, only 24 percent of the Kyrgyz population viewed the United States favorably. In 2009, positive perceptions increased to 36 percent, only to decline to 30 percent in 2010.

Importantly, however, the share of Central Asians unsure about their view of the United States is high. Forty three percent of Kazakhs are not sure whether United States leadership is positive or negative. Kyrgyzstan 44 percent and 36 percent of Uzbeks refrain from identifying Washington’s global impact.

Russia is the only former Soviet state where the number of those disapproving the U.S. leadership is higher than the U.S. approval rating – 29 against 23 percent of responders.

Otunbayeva’s Courage Recognized in Washington

2011-03-10T10:16:00.000-08:00

By Erica Marat

Kyrgyzstan President Roza Otunbayeva’s visit to Washington, DC on March 6-8 exceeded expectations. On March 7 Otunbayeva held an unplanned meeting with President Barak Obama. This marked the second meeting between the two presidents in less than six months.

Obama made an impromptu appearance during Otunbayeva’s meeting with National Security Advisor Tom Donilon. The President reiterated his support of Kyrgyzstan’s efforts to consolidate its democracy. Obama thanked Otunbayeva for hosting the US Transit Center and pledged the United States’ commitment to “maximize the benefits” from the Center for the Kyrgyz people.
Otunbayeva, in turn, was impressed by Obama’s in-depth knowledge of developments in Kyrgyzstan. During her informal speech at the Kyrgyz embassy shortly before departing Washington, DC on March 8, the President said that she is genuinely delighted by the amount of attention and interest US policy makers pay to Kyrgyzstan.

Her deputy, Shamil Atakhanov, told Jamestown, that most talks with donor organizations were about “concrete and substantive” issues.

The main goal of Otunbayeva’s visit to Washington was to accept an “International Women of Courage” award presented by First Lady Michelle Obama and State Secretary Hillary Clinton. Additionally, Otunbayeva was able to hold several important meetings with US officials, think-tanks and NGOs. She met with Senator John Kerry (D-Mass) and John McCain (R-Ariz), among others.

Upon her return to Kyrgyzstan, however, Otunbayeva will face grand challenges. The parliament’s ruling coalition might collapse at any point over disagreement about government posts. Opposition party Ata-Meken has been attacking the deputy prime minister and head of Respublika party, Omurbek Babanov, over his alleged involvement in corrupt deals.

The overall political climate in Kyrgyzstan remains unpredictable as presidential elections approach. All five political parties represented in the parliament prefer to their leaders to be the head of state. Most are ready to use dirty tricks to prevail in the competition. Otunbayeva might be Kyrgyzstan’s only president to receive such a warm welcome in Washington for a long time.

Elections Not a Smooth Ride for Nazarbayev

2011-03-04T08:48:00.000-08:00

By Erica Marat

President Nursultan Nazarbayev might have thought out his strategy carefully before scheduling snap elections on April 3, but the leader is underestimating the role media and social networks will play during the election campaign.

Kazakhstan’s media landscape has changed since Nazarbayev last ran for president in December 2005. The country’s blogosphere has expanded along with greater penetration of Internet. Political opposition has better access to media to voice its criticism. Indeed, the opposition party OSDP “Azat” might have more supporters this time as well.

This time around, political opposition and Kazakhstan’s bloggers will be able to better record the government’s falsification of election results. The Internet has a far longer reach in Kazakhstan, while the blogger community has expanded over the past years. Although no one in Kazakhstan expects mass protests after the election, documented fraudulence during the election will contribute to public discontent over the Nazarbayev leadership.

Two major candidates – Bulat Abilov from OSDP “Azat” and Jambyl Akhmetbekov from the Communist National Party of Kazakhstan – have openly stated that they doubt the elections will be free and fair. Both argue that the two months allocated for political campaigning is unfair to opposition candidates.

Three candidates will compete with Nazarbayev: Gani Kasymov with the Party of Patriots, Communist Party leader Zhambyl Akhmetbekov and environmentalist Mels Yeleusizov. All three are known in Kazakhstan, but their bases of support are too insufficient to challenge Nazarbayev.

In February, three female candidates announced their plans to run for president, including Guldana Tokobaeva, Maya Karamayeva, and Meyramkul Kozhagulova. Karamayev and Kozhagulova tried to register as candidates in 2005 but were not able to pass the Kazakh language exam. None of the women, however, were able to gather enough support in the country to officially register as candidates.

According to most experts, Nazarbayev is a popular enough leader to win in free and fair elections by earning support from at least 60 percent of the population. However, Nazarbayev prefers to see his score reach 90 percent or higher. Given that opposition forces are more assertive this time around, the question now remains – will Nazarbayev be happy with support of 90, 80 or 70 percent of voters?

Khodorkovsky Faces Kremlin

2011-02-22T09:47:00.000-08:00

By Erica Marat

On February 20 for roughly 30 minutes, a large banner featuring images of the imprisoned former CEO of Russian energy giant Yukos, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin hung facing the Kremlin until Moscow police took it down. The interesting aspect of the banner was that Putin, not Khodorkovsky, was depicted behind bars in the images.

In the spirit of provocation, activists from the Russian youth movement “We” hung the banner, which depicted the images and the words “Time to change”, some 50 meters away from the country’s symbol of power.

According to “We” leader Roman Dobrokhotov, there were no police around to stop the hanging of the banner. Minutes later, however, police officers were on the scene and tried to prevent anyone from photographing the banner. Roughly half an hour later the banner was taken down, but Russian photographers were able to capture its image and spread it across social networking websites.

Over the years, Khodorkovsky has crafted a succinct message about his imprisonment. Through Twitter and his website, Khodorkovsky shares his thoughts with the wider public. The number of sympathizers for him in Russia and across the world dramatically increased after his second trial earlier this year when Khodorkovsky’s prison term was renewed until 2014.

New details of the second trial became available as Natalya Vasilyeva, an assistant to Judge Viktor Danilkin, who found Khodorkovsky guilty, revealed the court was under strict control of Russian authorities. She claims that the verdict Danilkin read in court was not written by the judge himself.

Although the banner has been taken down, Russian opposition movements use the example of Khodorkovsky’s imprisonment to illustrate the oppressiveness of Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev’s regime. In their latest Washington Post op-ed piece, the co-chairs of the opposition People's Freedom Party called on the United States to “discontinue their kisses-and-hugs ‘Realpolitik,’ which has failed, and to stop flirting with Russian rulers."

“It is unfair when a man who could be accused of many more criminal charges than Mikhail Khodorkovsky is ruling the country,” said Dobrokhotov.

Kyrgyzstan, Russia Move Closer to New Agreement on Fuel Supplies to Manas

2011-02-15T11:16:00.000-08:00

By Erica Marat

On February 10, the Kyrgyz-Russian intergovernmental commission on trade-economic, scientific and humanitarian cooperation requested the Kyrgyz government to form a special joint venture between Russian energy company “Gazpromneft-Aero” and Kyrgyzstan’s “Refueling Complex Manas." The joint venture will supply Russian fuel to the U.S. Transit Center at Manas airport.

Deputy Prime Minister on economic issues Omurbek Babanov said that the joint venture will be formed by end of this month and the company should begin work on the fuel supply by March.

President Roza Otunbayeva also said that she welcomes new opportunities for bilateral cooperation with Russia. Without mentioning the new joint venture, the president expressed her hope that new bilateral initiatives will be implemented as soon as possible.

Last year, when the U.S. Department of Defense renewed its contract with Mina Corp Ltd., the Kyrgyz government expressed its disappointment with the decision. According to government officials, Mina’s work in Kyrgyzstan lacked transparency and the company was engaged in corrupt deals with former president Kurmanbek Bakiyev.

Otunbayeva has been pushing for greater transparency in the government. However, despite the formation of a new joint stock company, questions of transparency in fuel contracts still remain. It is unclear who will be the main informal stakeholders of fuel supplies on the Kyrgyz side. Kyrgyz NGOs and journalists have been pressing for greater transparency in fuel contracts.

The Kyrgyz president has been pressing for the elimination of Mina from the equation, arguing that it would save up to $50 million per year. In an attempt to save its DoD contracts in Kyrgyzstan, Mina has launched an aggressive PR campaign to improve its image in Bishkek, Moscow and Washington. Mina representatives have been emphasizing that the Congressional subcommittee’s investigation did not find any major cases of corruption in the company’s work.

It also still remains unclear whether or not the Russian side supports Otunbayeva’s suggestion on ousting Mina from the existing contracts.

Tajik Parliament Introduces New Tax on Marriage

2011-02-04T08:56:00.000-08:00

By Erica Marat

Tajikistan’s parliament has ruled that any foreign man wishing to marry a Tajik woman must provide her with real estate to qualify as a future husband. The parliament also requires that foreign men spend at least one year living in the country before tying the knot with local women.

The motivation behind parliament’s latest decision is the idea that the state must control the rights and interests of Tajik women. Too many marriages with foreigners end in divorce. Committing foreign men to real estate in the country might increase their loyalty to Tajik women, the parliament argues. Out of 2,500 international marriages, 600 ended in divorce. The majority of foreigners marrying Tajik women come from Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey, India and Pakistan.

This is not the first time the Tajik parliament has tried to regulate traditional practices. In 2007 the Tajik parliament adopted a law regulating the population's spending on wedding and funeral ceremonies.

The law is quite rigid, with precise details on most rituals’ limitations. It only allows 150-200 guests per wedding, with one hot meal served, no more than four cars in a wedding procession and three hours allocated for the entire celebration. The families of the groom and bride should provide equal funding for the celebration. Funerals may bring together no more than 100 people, a low number according to local standards.

The law also provides elaborate enforcement mechanisms. A penalty for violating these regulations comprises 2,000 somoni (approximately $580). The penalty is higher for people with political ranks or owners of a business. The law was created after Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon noticed how these ceremonies produce a devastating economic impact on the impoverished population. Surprisingly, the law has been quite popular, being reinforced by many in Tajikistan.

However, unlike the law on wedding and funeral spending, linking marriage to real estate shows the Tajik parliament’s inability to empower women though public policy. The law, in effect, will serve the interests of Tajik men, rather than women.

Medvedev Learns about Domodedovo Bomb from Twitter

2011-01-26T10:18:00.000-08:00

By Erica Marat

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev is known for his savvy use of online social networks. Medvedev has his own Twitter account and blog. He is “followed” on Twitter by over 174,000 users, among them US President Barack Obama and a myriad of other political leaders from across the world.

Given that Twitter is still struggling to gain its market share in Russia, Medvedev is among the chief promoters of this social networking sight.

However, some Russian social network users did not appreciate how the president learned about the January 24 Domodedovo airport bombing through Twitter.

Indeed, Twitter was ahead of all other media outlets in reporting the Domodedovo blasts. In this case, however, the president’s social networking skills did not add to his popularity, particularly because Russian security forces might have known about the possibility of an attack in Domodedovo but failed to prevent it. Medvedev exposed the unprofessionalism of the Russian security forces and his inadequate relationship with them.

Twitter user Igor Platonov wrote (in Russian): “Medvedev has learned from Twitter what’s going on in Domodedovo and has gathered an emergency meeting. What the hell is this [supposed to be], but a country.” Platonov’s “tweet” went viral online.

Twitter users and bloggers were frustrated with how they, too, had to rely on social networks to learn the latest about the Domodedovo attacks. National TV channels, infamous for being controlled by the Kremlin, were particularly slow to react to the news. “TV: First [channel] – [entertainment] show, ‘Rossiya’ – soap opera, TVTs – talk-show, NTV –soap opera, should I continue? CNN – live broadcast! BBC –live broadcast!”, wrote one Twitter user.

Popular Russian blogger Alexey Navalny wrote about the Russian media, “Right now we are witnessing the final death of television and mainstream media [in Russia] as a source of operational information in a crisis situation."

“When it blasts, only then everyone panics, where were the special services, militsya and Domodedovo’s security, how did the bomb was brought to the airport??” wrote another Twitter user, reflecting the overall frustration with lack of information on how the government allowed the attack to occur.

The Domodedovo blasts took lives of 35 and injured over 180 people. According to some reports, the bomb was detonated by a terrorist. The Russian government has launched a special investigation into the incident.

Against the backdrop of Medvedev’s seeming inaptness vis-à-vis the attacks, Vladimir Putin has made some decisive statements. He promised to punish all those found guilty in the attacks.
In response to the bombing and the growing suspicion that Putin might use Domodedovo as a platform for reelection in 2012, a Twitter user named sedictor wrote, “Vladimir Vladimirovich, we would have elected you again even without terrorist attacks.”

Commentary: Georgia’s Caucasus Strategy Revisited, Emerging Power in the South (Part Two)

2011-01-10T08:27:00.000-08:00

By David Iberi

As Tbilisi started to develop its neighborhood policy (See Part One), publications spawned in the West assessing the reasons of and the implications for Georgia’s Caucasus engagement. Some of those writings clearly lack credibility due to their authors’ premeditated distortion of facts or manipulative analyses. Nonetheless, Georgia needs to perform additional explanatory work in the West in order to secure broad support for the furthering of its Caucasus agenda.

Walter Russell Mead, a renowned American scholar who works with the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), a leading US think-tank, wrote in October 2010 on Georgia’s Caucasus visa policy: “The move angered Russia (which wants to keep the lid on tightly in the North Caucasus and already blames Georgia for allowing arms and people smuggling in and out of the troubled region); it also seriously annoyed the United States, which does not want Georgia poking at the Russian bear; the US also objects, strenuously, to the idea of Islamic militants crossing the Georgia border and then roaming freely around a country with many US Peace Corps volunteers, diplomats and other personnel.”

The only truth in this analysis is that Russia indeed wants to keep the North Caucasus – and the whole Caucasus for that matter – eternally isolated and closed, and Georgia seems to be the only country in the region that objects to Russia’s policy of isolating the region. Other than that, Mr. Mead does not seem to desire to differentiate between visa-free travel and free travel per se when there are no borders or checkpoints; likewise, he does not explain why Russian authorities on the Russo-Georgian border would allow free passes to “Islamic militants” into Georgian territory. Besides, Mead fails to keep in mind the US government’s annual Country Reports on Terrorism, in which Georgia is persistently praised for its significant troop contributions to the ISAF operations in Afghanistan and for the diligent security and police reforms that have transformed the Caucasus nation.

“Russian claims of Georgian support for Chechen terrorists and harboring of such individuals in the Pankisi Gorge were unsubstantiated,” the latest US report reads, “and the Georgian government has made transparent efforts to prove this to the international community.” What the report regrets, though, is the absence of order, law or transparency in the Russian-occupied portion of Georgian territory, which allows for the “unrestricted and unidentified flow of people, goods, and other potentially dangerous items from Russia into Abkhazia and South Ossetia.”

In the words of Alexander Melikishvili, a Washington-based analyst who works with the Voice of America’s Georgian Service, “In presuming that all North Caucasians willing to take advantage of the visa-free regime are rebels or are somehow connected to them, Mead commits another ignorant mistake, which actually borders on ethnic prejudice, the kind that is popular in certain Russian circles.”

Oliver Bullough, a Caucasus editor for the Institute of War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) and a former Reuters Moscow correspondent, weighed in on Georgia’s Caucasus strategy in an article published in the CFR’s Foreign Affairs magazine on December 23, 2010. Like Mead, Bullough made statements – such as “Georgia now buys gas from Iran” – which are not only false but are offensive by nature as they seek to sow seeds of distrust toward Georgia in the US public, which is known to be highly sensitive to anything related to Iran. Bullough laments that Washington is “dangerously silent on the provocative, and potentially destabilizing, moves of its ally [Georgia]. During the buildup to the 2008 war, Georgia’s friends in the West neglected their duty to calm Saakashvili's government -- and they may be doing the same thing today.” What Bullough utterly misses here is how long and persistently Russia was preparing for an aggressive and irredentist war against its southern neighbor, the only sin of which was to refuse to recognize Moscow’s suzerainty. The IWPR’s analyst also makes no mention of the United States and the West adamantly rejecting Moscow’s claim to a sphere of influence at the expense of Georgia’s sovereignty.

Davit Beritashvili, a Tbilisi-based leading Georgian analyst – who was interviewed by the author of this article – commented on the allegations Bullough made against Georgia. “Much like the Kremlin and its propaganda machine, he acts as an advocate of a ‘new reality’ that Russia is trying to concoct in the post-Soviet space. While Bullough is keen on criticizing Georgia’s visa facilitation policy for isolated and disempowered citizens of the Russian Federation in the North Caucasus and calls Georgia’s move a ‘giant gamble,’ he forgets to mention Russia’s illegal mass ‘passportization’ of Georgian citizens in Abkhazia and the Tskhinvali region/South Ossetia years before August 2008” when Moscow still had the official status of a “peacekeeper” but, nonetheless, distributed Russian passports to Georgian citizens in the territory it held under de facto control. “Likewise,” Beritashvili regretted, “Bullough neglects the gross ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands of Georgians that Russia perpetrated in the occupied territories.”

In Bullough’s words, “any decline of Russian influence on its side of the mountains could spur interethnic conflict -- a possibility perhaps even more worrying for outside powers.” Beritashvili asserts that “Bullough’s true mission seems to be the portrayal of Russia as the legitimate master of the Caucasus and the sole power capable of pacifying the region, notwithstanding the deportations and ethnic cleansings in the Caucasus throughout the 19th and 20th centuries and the two bloody wars in Chechnya in the aftermath of the Soviet collapse, or other brutal acts of violence committed by the Russian state.”

For Christmas, the Georgian president traveled to Ushguli, a little hamlet in Georgia’s northwestern Svaneti region. Located at 2,200 meters above sea level, Ushguli is referred to as the highest populated village in Europe. Bordering Russia’s Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachay-Cherkessia republics, Svaneti, with Mestia as its central town (see the photo above), is rapidly transforming into a burgeoning tourism destination and winter ski resort – in sharp contrast with Russian republics on northern slopes of the Caucasus Mountains where insurgency, religious violence, crime and corruption have a debilitating impact on the region.

As true believers in Realpolitik, Mead and Bullough may indeed show contempt for Georgia’s internal modernization or for its potential to serve, in US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s own characterization, as a “role model” for the entire region. There are, however, a great many other scholars in the West who would sincerely like to understand the socioeconomic and geopolitical processes in the Caucasus. To remain competitive and succeed, Georgia has to have not only a government and political elite with a vision of modernity, it also needs greater popularization of its reform agenda across the Caucasus and internationally, as well as more support in the West’s political and academic circles.

Georgia’s Caucasus Strategy Revisited: Emerging Power in the South (Part One)

2011-01-10T08:20:00.000-08:00

By David Iberi

Summarizing Russia’s hardships in the North Caucasus, Mairbek Vatchagaev, The Jamestown Foundation’s leading Caucasus analyst, wrote in his article on January 6, 2011: “…further in the south, Georgia is emerging as a competitor and an alternative to Russian power, capable of influencing the situation in the region. In 2010, Tbilisi dramatically shifted its policy toward the North Caucasus and now seems to be poised to play a more dynamic role in this part of the region.”

Indeed, along with intensifying diplomatic, political, economic and trade relations with the international community two years after the Russian aggression and illegitimate occupation of 20 percent of Georgia’s sovereign territory, Tbilisi stepped up its engagement north of the Greater Caucasus Mountains. Through its open-door policy, Georgia aims to counter the centuries-old Russian monopolistic strategy of isolating the Caucasus and making it inaccessible to the outside world.

On October 11, 2010, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili signed an executive order allowing the residents of Russia’s seven ethnic republics in the Caucasus – Dagestan, Chechnya, Ingushetia, North Ossetia, Kabardino-Balkaria, Karachay-Cherkessia and Adygea – to enjoy a 90-day visa-free regime with Georgia.

Aiming at “deepening dialogue” with its immediate neighbors to the north, Tbilisi hopes this will boost its reputation in the neighborhood as the champion of modernization and a role model for development and cooperation. As reported by Tabula, a Tbilisi-based libertarian weekly magazine, on December 27, 2010, “thousands of Muslim pilgrims from the North Caucasus” made use of the Georgian route during their recent hajj to Mecca, and they were “pleasantly surprised” to see that Georgian police were “highly professional” and did not ask for bribes at the border-crossing checkpoint or along the road, as is “routinely practiced in Russia.”

In September 2010, Saakashvili spoke of a peaceful and united Caucasus at the General Assembly of the United Nations. “For too long, [the Caucasus] has suffered from division, injustice, conflict, colonization and violence,” Saakashvili asserted, “Today, however, change is possible. In fact, change is already taking place.” He then asked his fellow world leaders to support the idea of a “free, stable and united Caucasus” and highlighted Georgia’s rapid modernization against a background of Russia’s failed policies in the North Caucasus – “a region that is exploding,” in Saakashvili’s own words.

He apparently had in mind the ongoing low intensity warfare in the Russian-controlled part of the Caucasus where a gap is rapidly widening between the corrupt and highly incompetent elites and the increasingly nationalistic local populations. Speaking before the European Parliament in November 2010, Saakashvili again claimed it was “high time for the European peace to be extended to the Caucasus. And it is our responsibility, as political leaders, to conceive bold initiatives in order to make this happen.” He was most likely alluding to the Balkans of the past era when talking of the perils of the contemporary Caucasus, alleging that it is only a matter of time before Europeanization of the Caucasus becomes a reality.

The Georgian Parliament has found its own niche in elaborating Tbilisi’s Caucasus policy. There is a special body in Parliament charged with the task of strengthening humanitarian ties with indigenous populations in the North, and a parliamentary committee for relations with compatriots residing abroad was recently renamed as the Committee for Diaspora and Caucasus Issues. Georgian parliamentarians argue that “the issue of Caucasus solidarity is now active” and there is a need “to develop unified Caucasus policy.”

As Georgia’s engagement intensified, the number of students from across the North Caucasus studying in private and public universities in Tbilisi significantly increased as well, as has the reputation of Georgia as an educational, scientific and cultural hub and of the Georgian language as a newly discovered lingua franca for North Caucasians. Georgia has historically had close relations with all ethnicities across the Caucasus and there is a pervasive, popular belief among Georgians that most of the North Caucasians are related to them ethnically and linguistically. While Georgia’s popularity and attractiveness in the neighborhood are definitely on the rise, Tbilisi is experiencing difficulty in convincing the West of the usefulness of its Caucasus engagement (See Part Two).

Kyrgyz PM Earns Russia’s Support

2011-01-03T09:04:00.001-08:00

By Erica Marat

Newly elected Kyrgyz Prime Minister Almazbek Atambayev’s first trip abroad was to Russia. During his visit, Atambayev met with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, and achieved two crucial goals for his government. First, he secured a $200 million loan and second, ensured that the Russian energy giant Gazprom will lift extra export charges to Kyrgyzstan.

Atambayev has always been open about his appreciation of Russia’s support of Kyrgyzstan. “We need to drastically change our relations with Russia and place them on the level they need to be. I hope that meeting with the leadership of the Russian government will give us an impetus, will be a breakthrough,” Atambayev said shortly before heading to Moscow. Other politicians, including the head of the Ar-Namys party, Felix Kulov, tried to earn similar Russian support.

After the regime change in April 2010, Russia’s initial concern was that its influence over Kyrgyzstan might decline if a new parliamentary system was established, in which the Kremlin would need to jockey with a parliament made of competing political parties. Elections results, however, showed that mostly pro-Russian political parties succeeded, leaving Ata-Meken, a party with a somewhat pro-Western orientation, in the minority. Two out of three political parties included in the coalition – Social Democratic Party of Kyrgyzstan and Respublika – favor greater integration with Russia.

Putin was among the first foreign officials to congratulate Atambayev for acquiring the position of prime minister.

Gazprom’s agreement to lift export tariffs indicates that the Kyrgyz government and the Russian firm have reached a deal on fuel supplies to the US Transit Center at Manas airport in Bishkek. On December 21, the Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs released results of its eight month-long investigation into Mina’s work in Kyrgyzstan, as well as the DoD and State Department’s oversight of contracts with Manas.

According to the report, Gazprom increased export tariffs for Kyrgyzstan in April after discovering that its fuel was used for Manas. The Pentagon, State Department, and the U.S. embassy in Bishkek, in the meantime, were not ready to take responsibility and challenge contracts with Mina. In September President Roza Otunbayeva proposed to cut out the middleman, Mina Corp Inc, and create a joint venture between Gazprom and the Kyrgyz government. Through this method, $50 million would have been saved each year, according to Otunbayeva. The president also suggested the creation of a special overseeing state agency to monitor the contracts in order to prevent the illegal enrichment of state officials.

Otunbayeva’s government has repeatedly said that the United States will be able to rent Manas airport for the purposes of supplying the war in Afghanistan until 2014, at which time President Barack Obama plans to withdraw troops.

What Lukashenko Can Learn From Bakiyev

2010-12-21T07:40:00.000-08:00

By Erica Marat

“Uhadzi!” (Go away), shouted protesters in central Minsk on December 19, the day when Alexander Lukashenko secured another presidential term for himself. Tens of thousands of demonstrators gathered in Belarus’ capital to protest against the rigged presidential elections. Belarus Spetznaz (special forces) and OMON (special police unit) suppressed the protests by beating up hundreds, among them activists and journalists.

The scenes from Minsk’s downtown were déjà vu for another dictator, Kurmanbek Bakiyev, who has ironically been residing in Belarus for months now. The Kyrgyz equivalent of “Uhadzi!”, “Ketsin!”, was the main slogan during the April 7 riots in Bishkek that resulted in Bakiyev’s ouster.

Lukashenko was the only leader to host Bakiyev and his family members (including Bakiyev’s unofficial younger wife). Bakiyev’s move to Belarus highlighted similarities between Lukashenko and himself. Both greedy for power and money, the two men are mocked by their own people for reeking idiocy and shortsightedness.

Bakiyev’s authoritarian policies were deepening as social discontent with him mounted. In the final months of his leadership he tightened control over the military, appointing relatives and cronies to key posts. Bakiyev also created special elite forces to ensure his own personal security. Reportedly, these special forces were ordered to shoot at protesters during the April 7 demonstrations. Eighty-six people were shot dead and hundreds were wounded that day.

Lukashenko has already created a loyal military that showed its unwavering support on elections day. Several layers of police and army personnel are trained to defend the leader against social unrest. Although the forces dispatched against the crowds did not shoot, Jamestown sources report that snipers were planted on rooftops of buildings surrounding the Nezavisimaya and Oktyabrskaya squares where most protesters gathered.

Some reports suggest that government provocateurs stirred unrest during the protests by smashing windows of nearby government buildings. Such imposed chaos presented an opportunity for OMON to purge crowds and arrest roughly 650 protesters. Similar ingenious techniques have been widely used by both Bakiyev and his predecessor, Askar Akayev.

As Lukashenko continues his rule, a lot will depend on the Belarus opposition’s ability to organize and pressure the regime. However, the experience of Kyrgyzstan, as well as that of other countries ruled by unpopular authoritarian leaders, suggests that clashes between the regime and civilians do not pass unforgotten. Rather, civic discontent continues to breed, creating more opportunities for opposition leaders to gain both domestic and international support.

Effectively, Lukashenko has three options lined up for him in the next few years: consider giving up his power, opening up to the opposition, or suppressing the next round of protests with more violent means. Bakiyev’s experience might come in handy, though Lukashenko should not rely too much on his friend in need.

Moscow’s Two-Track Response to Tbilisi’s Constructive Unilateralism

2010-12-15T08:07:00.000-08:00

By David Iberi

In his highly publicized speech in the European Parliament on November 23, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili unveiled peace initiatives aimed at reducing tension between his country and Russia. They include the commitment of non-use of force against Russian occupying bodies and their proxies and a readiness to engage in high-level talks with Moscow without preconditions. The Kremlin’s response to what is called Georgia’s constructive unilateralism so far has been a mixture of diplomacy by proxy and a reinforcement of Russia’s military presence in the occupied Georgian territories in Abkhazia and the Tskhinvali region/South Ossetia.

Although Georgia has vowed to seek reunification of the country within its UN-recognized borders only through peaceful means, it nonetheless retains the right to self-defense if Russia perpetrates new military attacks against the Georgian government and people.

On November 24, a day after Saakashvili spoke to the European Parliament, the Russian Foreign Ministry made its first comment on his speech only to argue that Russia is just a mediator and there is no conflict between Russia and Georgia. Instead, according to the Foreign Ministry, “at issue is…the long-running conflict between Tbilisi and the peoples of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.” Therefore, the statement went on, there should be “a legal enshrinement of obligations not to use force” between Georgia and the two Russia-sponsored proxy regimes.

In a matter of days, the proxy regimes themselves issued statements in which they pledged that they would not resort to force “against Georgia” and requested that non-use of force agreements be signed between Abkhazia and Georgia and South Ossetia and Georgia, “preferably under international guarantees.”

Then, on December 7, the Russian Foreign Ministry made another statement to sum up the non-use of force pledges by Georgia and the Russian proxies in the occupied Georgian regions. Hailing the “exceptionally important step…taken towards sustainable peace and security, Moscow stressed the importance of building “equitable and neighborly relations between Abkhazia, “South Ossetia” and Georgia. The “full-fledged legal enshrinement” of a regime of non-use of force between the three was again underlined in the statement and with that, apparently, Russia’s role as that of the guarantor of peace and security in “Transcaucasia” – Russian jargon for the South Caucasus used to make clear that the region is part of the Kremlin’s geopolitical orbit.

In parallel with these “multilateral” diplomatic overtures, Georgia announced in early November that it broke yet another network of Russian intelligence operating within its territory and arrested 13 people, including four Russian citizens, who were accused of spying for Russia’s military. This was the fourth time since 2006 that Tbilisi made a public announcement about the arrest of a Russian spy network. The Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, called the latest incident a “farce” and “anti-Russian hysteria.”

In early December, Georgian police arrested several people accused of organizing, carrying out and participating in a series of explosions, including one fatal incident, that took place in September and November 2010. Police claim their activities were directed by a Russian general, Yevgeny Borisov, stationed in one of the Russian military bases in Abkhazia. It is not immediately clear from the statements made by Georgian law enforcement if Borisov’s activities were closely coordinated by Moscow.

On the ground in the occupied regions, Russia has continued to build up its military infrastructure and capabilities. New military garrisons were inaugurated in both Abkhazia and the Tskhinvali region, and in addition to S-300 systems already stationed in Abkhazia, Russian media recently reported the deployment of the BM-30 “Smerch” heavy multiple rocket launchers to the Tskhinvali region, within striking distance of the Georgian capital of Tbilisi. According to Georgian estimates, there are at least 12,000 Russian troops in both territories.

Georgia has continually tried to disentangle itself from Moscow through a two-track approach of “diplomacy of peaceful de-occupation.” On the one hand, it asks the international community to condemn Russia’s illegal occupation of its territories and demand its termination. On the other, it shows willingness and readiness to engage in high-level talks with Moscow.

Russia seems to be using a two-track approach of its own, as well. On one side, it has proxy regimes in the occupied territories through which it reacts diplomatically to Georgia’s peace offers and, on the other, it continues to strengthen its military presence in the occupied lands in order to underpin the “proxy” diplomatic response. The irony is that the regimes in de-populated Abkhazia and the Tskhinvali region/South Ossetia are mere extensions of the Russian state structure and by no means do they represent the local populations, the majority of whom live in other parts of Georgia as victims of the two-decade-old ethnic cleansing.

UzbekKino Releases List of Banned Movies

2010-12-13T08:50:00.000-08:00

By Erica Marat

Everyone in Central Asia knows where to buy pirated copies of the latest movies. DVDs burned in Russia, China and Eastern Europe flood the local markets as soon as they appear on big screens in the West. Controlling this part of the black market is inefficient and costly for the authorities. Pirated movies and music are relatively cheap ($0.50-$3 per DVD) according to the local standards, and the quality is often quite acceptable.

Nevertheless, in an attempt to regulate the market, UzbekKino published a list of 744 movies banned in Uzbekistan during 2005-2010. The list includes Western, Russian and Uzbek movies. All movies on the list were produced during the past decade.

The list was comprised of mostly horror and pornographic movies, including “Eyes Wide Shut”, “The Secrets of Kamasutra”, “Saw” and “Hostel”. Russian movies about the war in Chechnya are banned in Uzbekistan as well.

Movies by the famous Umida Akhmedova, who was persecuted in Uzbekistan for slandering the Uzbek nation, are banned as well.

Some family cartoons, like “Shrek” and “Madagascar”, are also in the list. Epic movies including “Lord of the Rings” and “Eclipse” are banned in Uzbekistan as well.

UzbekKino has not explained why certain films are banned or what type of punishment can be expected for breaking the rule. Inevitably, some movies that could have made it onto the list but for some reason were left out, are in the grey zone. For example, most of Quentin Tarantino’s films are banned, but “Pulp Fiction” is not. Does UzbekKino recommend that people avoid watching it?

It is also unclear as to who decided the contents of the list. UzbekKino’s staff mostly includes actors, directors and scriptwriters. Members of the agency’s higher administration have backgrounds in cinematography as well. Were the decisions made based on ethical, cinematographic or political views?

UzbekKino’s website also offers a list of movies allowed to be shown and watched in Uzbekistan. Nearly all of them are movies produced by local directors. Each year UzbekKino lists 8 to 16 of such movies.

While the logic behind UzbekKino’s choice of prohibited movies is difficult to define, the effectiveness of this ban should not be overestimated. In 2008, Jamestown watched “Madagascar 2” on a train from Samarkand to Bukhara. Dozens of fellow travelers enjoyed the cartoon as well.

Troublesome Coalition Formation in Kyrgyzstan

2010-12-10T08:44:00.000-08:00

By Erica Marat

After weeks of negotiations, the Social-Democratic Party of Kyrgyzstan (SDPK) finally formed a ruling coalition with the Ata-Meken and Respublika parties. The coalition, however, fell apart the next day when Ata-Meken party leader Omurbek Tekebayev failed to gain enough votes to be elected parliament speaker, a position he coveted since becoming MP.

Several members of the Respublika party prevented Tekebayev from earning the position. From the very beginning, Respublika was against Tekebayev’s leadership.

President Roza Otunbayeva has now granted Respublika the responsibility to form a coalition. The party will have several weeks to do so. Respublika’s deputy chief, Bakyt Torobayev, has said that the party is seeking to form a wide coalition comprising either all or four out of five parties represented in the parliament. All five political parties have agreed to form a special working group that would facilitate the process of coalition formation.

Even if Respublika is unable to gather all parties into one alliance, the likelihood that Ata-Jurt will be included in the ruling coalition is high. Ata-Jurt is infamous for its nationalist views; most of its members are still loyal supporters of deposed president Kurmanbek Bakiyev. Ata-Jurt’s inclusion in the ruling coalition, however, will bridge the gap between the so-called “northern” and “southern” parties. Indeed, Ata-Jurt’s main electorate is concentrated in the country’s south.

Whatever the interplay, Respublika’s leader, Omurbek Babanov, will seek the prime minister position. He will likely be challenged by SDPK’s Almazbek Atambayev, who has been determined to earn the post.

Ata-Meken, in the meantime, is facing a leadership problem. Tekebayev has become a victim of his own achievement. He authored the current constitution that allows for transparent and balanced political leadership. Tekebayev’s opponents, however, have used the process of coalition formation to marginalize him within the parliament.

Kyrgyzstan today lacks a functional government and parliament. Its judicial system is deeply ineffective and the president’s control over police forces is lacking in southern parts of the country. Yet, there are grounds for optimism. The prolonged process of coalition formation has considerably improved the parliament’s transparency. Voters and mass media are able to observe what guides individual MPs and their parties. Distribution of key government posts is an obvious divide behind coalition formation.

The coalition formation process has also been a steep learning curve for MPs who have never before had to function is such a transparent environment. If a stable coalition emerges, for the first time in its post-Soviet history Kyrgyzstan might be experiencing elements of deliberative politics. Judging from the past two months, however, a coherent, ruling coalition is still far away.

Osh Tense Once Again

2010-11-29T09:08:00.000-08:00

By Erica Marat

On November 29, residents of Osh city awaited in panic for the government to clarify that a series of shootings were part of a National Security Service’s special operation. Memories of ethnic strife from last June are still fresh in southern Kyrgyzstan. Over 450 people died and 400,000 ethnic Uzbeks were forced out of their homes as a result of the clash that erupted unexpectedly on June 10 and lasted until June 14. The violence was aggravated by government forces’ chaotic and unprofessional actions during the outbreak.

Head of the National Security Service Keneshbek Dushebayev has assured the people that this was a special operation conducted by security forces and the government was in control of the situation. President Roza Otunbayeva, too, rushed to explain that the shootings were not a result of renewed ethnic violence.

According to the Ministry of Health, four government troops were injured and three criminals were eliminated in the clash. Earlier this month Kyrgyz security forces detained nine people suspected of attempting to instigate ethnic clashes. The government still blames former president Kurmanbek Bakiyev for fueling the ethnic hatred that arose last June.

Despite statements by Dushebayev and Otunbayeva, information coming from the government was incomplete and at times conflicting. Minister of Interior Zarylbek Rysaliyev argued that security forces disbanded an organized group that intended to instigate ethnic strife in southern Kyrgyzstan. Other government channels pointed at security forces’ eradication of Islamic radicals.

The population at large lacked clear information as to what type of “special operation” the government decided to carry out in Osh. Rumors spread fast, fueling panic. Some ethnic Uzbeks feared that police forces renewed “chistki” (cleansing) of Uzbek neighborhoods in search for weapons and the alleged instigators of June violence. Local ethnic Uzbek and Kyrgyz communities mobilized for defense against perpetrators.

The latest incident points at persisting fear of the possibility of renewed ethnic clashes as well as the government’s inability to communicate with the masses efficiently. It is such panic and lack of information that might potentially spark a new wave of violence. Looters and opportunistic criminals will seek to attack local businesses and communities should there be a feeling that the government is losing control over Osh. This is the same feeling that many in Osh shared during clashes between government troops and unknown insurgents.

Seven Years after Georgia’s Rose Revolution: From a Failed State to a Modern Nation

2010-11-23T07:51:00.000-08:00

By David Iberi

On November 23, 2010, Georgians mark the seventh anniversary of the Rose Revolution, a peaceful, popular uprising that ended Eduard Shevardnadze’s post-Soviet regime in the Caucasus country. The revolution followed the parliamentary elections in early November 2003 that had been assessed by opposition political parties, domestic and international observers and, most importantly, by hundreds of thousands of Georgian voters as unfair and undemocratic. The longtime ruler of Georgia, Shevardnadze, submitted his resignation after realizing that he had virtually no public support. His old elite-based regime had exhausted all legitimate means, both at home and abroad, to remain in power.

The new government of young, pro-Western reformers led by Mikheil Saakashvili, who briefly served as minister of justice under Shevardnadze but resigned in protest to the clan-based corrupt power structures, was legitimized in the presidential and parliamentary elections that were held shortly after the revolution.

On all accounts, the Georgia of late 2003 was a failed state. The central government exercised control over only a portion of the country with Abkhazia, the Tskhinvali region/South Ossetia and Ajara under direct or indirect Russian rule. The remainder of the territory was hardly governed properly, either. Economic and political reforms undertaken between 1995 and 2000 ended nowhere since they were half-measures at best and parts of devious schemes at worst. Add to that the arrears for months in salaries and pensions, the inefficient and bribe-taking police and bureaucracy, the depleted state coffers, and the acute shortage of electricity keeping the half of the country constantly in the dark and the other half with daily blackouts, and you will have a clearer picture of what Georgia in 2003.

There was, however, more than that. The aging Shevardnadze busied himself more with balancing interest groups and competing clans than exercising his constitutional duties. His utterly corrupt ministers and governors nearly reestablished the practices of the tumultuous years of the early 1990s when gangs roamed the streets and criminality ruled the countryside. Abductions for ransom and crimes related to illegal drugs were so frequent that Georgia’s only portrayals in Western media at the time were journalistic accounts of foreign businessmen’s travels in remote Georgian villages in the company of local warlords.

It was at that period in time when Western audiences first learned about the Pankisi Gorge, a tiny area in northeastern Georgia where armed paramilitary units were engaged in all sorts of illegal activities. Although Pankisi became the epitome of lawlessness and the trademark of Georgia in that day, no better was the situation in other parts of the country, be it Ajara, the Tskhinvali region, Svaneti or Abkhazia, where pockets of illegal transactions were rapidly expanding.

The first priority for the Saakashvili government was to restore law and order across the country and to provide normal administration and services to the population. Pankisi was soon free of gangs and, step by step, other provinces were as well. The Russian-supported regime in Ajara, which had become the fiefdom of local landlord Aslan Abashidze and his clan, was deposed peacefully in late spring 2004. One of the least developed regions of Georgia at the Black Sea near the Turkish border, subtropical Ajara, with the central city of Batumi, has since become Georgia’s Riviera and home to five-star hotels and kilometers of seashore boulevards attracting hundreds of thousands of foreign tourists.

In summer 2006, Georgia succeeded in restoring constitutional order in the interconnected regions of Svaneti and Upper Abkhazia in northwestern Georgia. Assessing Tbilisi’s successes, Matthew Bryza, the then U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, told the press in August 2006: “In this case [Upper Abkhazia], the Georgian government is eliminating the lawlessness and restoring the rule of law. In Gali, that’s not happening.” What he meant was the despicable situation in the Russian-occupied parts of Abkhazia, which continues up to this day.

Almost in the same period of time, in 2005-2006, the government succeeded in removing two Russian military bases from Georgian soil that should have been closed much earlier in accordance with the commitments Moscow had undertaken at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Istanbul Summit in 1999. The removal of the Russian military bases and the restoration of central rule over Ajara have arguably been the two biggest victories of the Saakashvili administration in terms of consolidating Georgia’s sovereignty. Over time, the country’s institutions, including the police force, the army and the bureaucracy, have changed and become almost unrecognizable. The ambitious economic and structural reforms have put Georgia in the eleventh spot in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business category and have made it one of the fastest reforming economies.

Societal changes have been likewise impressive. The traditional Soviet-styled elites, which in fact were competing clans with connections to power echelons in the Kremlin, have been largely replaced by associations and parties of Western-educated individuals who have the same kinds of debates about the role of government, religious and moral issues, and political and economic freedoms as elites do in the West. The organization of Georgian society today is increasingly along the Western lines. This is true not only in the capital of Tbilisi but in the rapidly developing provinces as well. The modernization process will only deepen with the expansion of infrastructure projects, including highways, railroads and educational institutions, interconnecting the nation. Moving the parliament and government to Kutaisi, the second largest city in central-western Georgia, will only speed up the dynamic changes, as will making English a second language and attracting a population of thousands of English teachers and other professionals from the English-speaking world.

The rapid changes, arguably, have disadvantages too. As Georgia moves farther and farther from the Russian reality, a gap widens between the lifestyles of those who live in Abkhazia and the Tskhinvali region/South Ossetia in the lawless environment under factual Russian rule and the society in the rest of Georgia. For better or worse, however, those provinces remain depopulated largely due to the ethnic cleansing but also because of the unbearable conditions. And, besides, there will hardly be any chance for those Russian-occupied Georgian territories to reunite with the rest of the nation unless the bigger part keeps advancing along the path of reform and modernization.

NATO Decisions Give Fresh Air to Georgia’s Pro-Western Reformists

2010-11-22T08:57:00.001-08:00

By David Iberi

On November 19-20, 2010, the heads of state and government of NATO member countries met in the Portuguese capital to discuss some of the most challenging issues the Western alliance is facing today, from the ongoing operations in Afghanistan to the collective missile defense system and uneasy relations with Russia.

For Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili, who also attended the summit, this was an additional opportunity to hold meetings with and garner support from individual NATO leaders and engage in active discussions related to his country’s security problems and modernization reforms. While talks with British, Canadian, Dutch, Turkish, Polish, Romanian, Czech and several other leaders were important for Saakashvili, his bilateral meeting with the President of the United States, Barack Obama, undoubtedly was the highlight of his Lisbon trip. The language of the Lisbon Summit Declaration and of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly resolution on Georgia a few days earlier were likewise significant and, combined, they even triggered a reshuffle in the Saakashvili administration that will strengthen the positions of pro-Western reformists in Georgian society.

The read-out of the first time ever tête-à-tête meeting between Obama and Saakashvili published by the White House said that Obama “reaffirmed U.S. support for Georgia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity…expressed his appreciation for Georgia’s significant contributions to the ISAF mission in Afghanistan…[and] discussed the Georgian government’s efforts to implement political, economic, and defense reforms and our shared interest in securing democracy, stability, and prosperity in Georgia.”

Obama’s meeting with Saakashvili on the sidelines of the NATO summit was more than a symbolic gesture and in sharp contrast to the arcane postulates propagated by individual authors, such as Walter Russell Mead from the Council on Foreign Relations, a Washington-based influential think-tank, who have long written off Georgia as a factor in U.S. foreign policy and rejected Tbilisi’s NATO bid as pure utopia.

The account of the same meeting published by Tbilisi stated that the two leaders “focused on the strong and growing partnership between [the] two countries, based on [the] shared democratic values and strategic goals… under the auspices of the U.S.-Georgia Charter on Strategic Partnership…[and] discussed regional security, stressing the importance of dialogue and cooperation.” In addition, Saakashvili thanked Obama for America’s “steadfast support of Georgia's sovereignty and territorial integrity… for affirming Georgia's path toward eventual NATO membership… [and] for [Washington’s] generous financial aid package that helped Georgia in the past two years. Obama, for his part, “praised Georgia's contributions to NATO’s ISAF mission in Afghanistan, where almost a thousand Georgian troops are serving…[and] commended Georgia's reforms, [urging] the Georgian leadership to continue them.” President Obama also said the United States supports Georgia's Euro-Atlantic and NATO aspirations.

The Lisbon Summit Declaration says that “Stability and successful political and economic reform in Georgia and Ukraine are important to Euro-Atlantic security. We will continue and develop the partnerships with these countries taking into account the Euro-Atlantic aspiration or orientation of each of the countries.” This actually means that the alliance has decoupled NATO-aspirant Georgia from Ukraine, whose leadership no longer sees NATO membership as a national priority, at least for the moment. To manifest the decoupling even further, a separate paragraph was introduced for Georgia that states that “at the 2008 Bucharest Summit we agreed that Georgia will become a member of NATO and we reaffirm all elements of that decision, as well as subsequent decisions.”

The declaration also reiterated NATO’s “continued support for the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Georgia within its internationally recognized borders… [called] “on Russia to reverse its recognition of the South Ossetia and Abkhazia regions of Georgia as independent states,” and urged Moscow “to meet its commitments with respect to Georgia, as mediated by the European Union on August 12 and September 8, 2008.

The language of the resolution on the situation in Georgia adopted by the NATO Parliamentary Assembly in Warsaw, Poland on November 16, three days before the NATO summit, was even more favorable to Georgia. The document that very much resembles the Council of Europe’s several resolutions on Georgia in the aftermath of the Russian military aggression in 2008 openly calls the Georgian provinces of Abkhazia and the Tskhinvali region/South Ossetia “occupied territories” and expresses concern over the “continuing failure by the Russian Federation to comply fully with the provisions of the EU-brokered Ceasefire Agreement, and particularly its failure to withdraw to the positions it held before the conflict.” Even more importantly, the Assembly urges Moscow “to reverse the results of...the ethnic cleansing” that was committed by Russia and its proxies in the occupied Georgian territories and “allow the safe and dignified return of all internally displaced persons to their homes.” Among other requests, the resolution also asks the NATO governments and parliaments “to reaffirm...the Bucharest Summit declaration that Georgia will become a member of NATO.”

Already in Lisbon, Saakashvili announced an important reshuffle in his administration. Giorgi Bokeria, one of the closest allies of the Georgian leader and, arguably, the single most influential catalyst of Georgia’s democratization and modernization, has become the assistant to the president for national security affairs and secretary of the National Security Council of Georgia.

Bokeria, who served as first deputy foreign minister prior to the recent appointment and years before was a member of Georgian Parliament, played a key role in many aspects of Georgia’s reforms. As a staunch trans-Atlanticist and a man who worked with the Liberty Institute, a powerful force behind the peaceful Rose Revolution in 2003, he has been one of the major targets of the pro-Russian forces in Georgia. Bokeria is believed to reinvigorate and consolidate Tbilisi’s pro-Western agenda, in which sovereignty issues are firmly anchored with the Euro-Atlantic integration and NATO membership, for the next several, crucial years before the parliamentary and presidential elections in 2012 and 2013, respectively. Analysts in Tbilisi foresee that the National Security Council will become a powerful decision-making body under his leadership.

It is no coincidence that this major change in the Saakashvili administration came during the Lisbon Summit. It is seen as a reward for the important diplomatic efforts behind Georgia’s latest successes as well as a sign that Tbilisi has no plans to succumb to Russian pressure and go back to Moscow’s sphere of influence where it belonged some seven years ago.

Kazakhstan Lifts Ban on Major Blog Portal

2010-11-15T08:05:00.000-08:00

By Erica Marat

Kazakhstani bloggers can now use the popular LiveJournal blogging site again. After Kazakhstan authorities had reportedly banned access to the site for two years, LiveJournal has become available again. Kazakhstan’s lifting of the ban coincides with the suspension of Kazakh president Nurslutan Nazarbayev’s former son-in-law Rakhat Aliyev’s LiveJournal page. There have been no official statement as to whether these two events are linked, but a few savvy bloggers are convinced that this is the only explanation.

Rakhat Aliyev requested asylum in Austria in 2007 after his relations with Nazarbayev soured. Since then he has used his LiveJournal page to launch attacks against the president. He posted provoking material about Nazarbayev’s alleged corruption deals, as well the president’s personal life. Although Kazakhstan authorities did not officially react to Aliyev’s statements, Astana has been pressuring Austria to extradite him back to Kazakhstan.

Owned by the Russian company SUP, LiveJournal is a major part of the Russian-language blogosphere. It is loosely edited but well maintained by its owners to prevent abuses and spamming. In Russia, LiveJournal, along with other internet resources, has become the only media outlet where opposition forces are able to freely express their own views.

Overall, 874,783 users have been registered in Russia to date. The users vary from those who blog about hobbies to those trying to spread political messages. Nemours young Russian rights and political activists are actively present on LiveJournal. Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, an avid user of social media, has his own LiveJournal page as well. The president uses his page to post weekly video-diaries.

The impact of LiveJournal on Russia’s political life has been growing, as at times the blogosphere is the only credible source of information when compared to national propaganda featured on TV and by the press. Apparently, renowned journalist Oleg Kashin’s criticism of the pro-Kremlin “Molodaya Gvardiya” youth movement unnerved his opponents. The journalist was severely beaten in front of his house on the morning of November 6 by unknown perpetrators.

Due to its implosive content, LiveJournal has been blocked in other parts of Central Asia as well. During former president Kurmanbek Bakiyev’s block of LiveJournal access in Kyrgyzstan, local bloggers were forced to switch social media portals. However, the vibrant blogger community in Kyrgyzstan only flourished under Bakiyev’s regime and became ever more active after the leader’s ouster. Kyrgyzstan's bloggers provide timely information on all aspects of political life in the country, particularly during the elections season. President Roza Otunbayeva has even started her own video-diaries similar to those of Medvedev.

Kazakhstan’s temporary ban on LiveJournal is likely to have produced similar results. Perhaps it is time for Nazarbayev to join the virtual community as well.

Kyrgyz Government Unhappy with DoD Decision

2010-11-08T16:01:00.000-08:00

By Erica Marat

Kyrgyzstan president Roza Otunbayeva has expressed her disappointment with the November 3 U.S. Defense Department (DoD) decision to renew its contract with Mina Corp Ltd., which has supplied jet fuel to the U.S. Transit Center Manas in Bishkek for the past six years. The one-year, $315 million contract will allow Mina to supply 96 million gallons of fuel to Manas. The contract can also be extended for another year.

Otunbayeva is particularly unhappy with the DoD’s decision to renew its collaboration with Mina due to the fact that her government is still investigating the company’s work in Kyrgyzstan. The government has urged the United States to terminate the contract with Mina until the investigation is completed.

According to the president, the Defense Department has turned a blind eye to the fact that revenues from selling fuel to Mina by local companies surpass the state budget. The business is so secretive, she alleges, that it is difficult to trace how these virtual companies serving Mina function. Both DoD and Mina have claimed that they are not aware of any corruption schemes led by Kyrgyz contractors. The U.S. Congress, in the meantime, has called on the DoD to “ensure transparency” in fuel supply contracts.

DoD’s resumed cooperation with Mina comes at the time that Otunbayeva’s administration is pushing for greater transparency throughout the government. Although corruption remains high in Kyrgyzstan, some positive changes are obvious. Otunbayeva has been determined to fight the major corruption sources of the previous regime.

Namely, Kyrgyzstan’s hydro-energy sector shows signs of gradual recovery. Otunbayeva’s government also disbanded the Central Agency on Development, Investment and Innovation formerly led Bakiyev’s son, Maksim Bakiyev. The agency was formed as a result of Bakiyev’s government reform and was entitled to control all foreign financial inflows, including aid and credits. The agency’s responsibility also included the control of major national hydroelectric and gold companies.

Otunbayeva has announced that a new state agency “Manas” will be formed to take over fuel supplies to the Transit Center. Right now the Kyrgyz government is pushing for the gradual overtake of fuel supplies by local companies, hoping to increase their involvement from 20 percent to 50 percent during 2011.

The few open supporters of the U.S. Transit Center’s presence in Kyrgyzstan see its main benefit in significant financial inflows from rent payments. Although none of the five political parties represented in the parliament have openly challenged the U.S. presence, corruption around fuel supplies might potentially serve as a strong argument against the Transit Center.

Russian State TV Broadcasts a Parody of Ukraine’s President

2010-11-08T07:33:00.000-08:00

By Taras Kuzio

It did not take long for Russia to poke fun at Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych in a seven minute comical parody aired on Russia’s State channel 1 in the “Bolshaya Raznytsia” (Great Differences) program on October 31, the same day as Ukraine’s local elections. The timing was obviously not coincidental.

“Bolshaya Raznytsia” is retransmitted by Ukraine’s ICTV channel, owned by oligarch Viktor Pinchuk, a darling of Western leaders such as President Bill Clinton. However, ICTV censored the video clip parodying Yanukovych.

In May, Ukrainian television also censored a similarly embarrassing clip of Russian President Dmityri Medvedev and Yanukovych laying wreaths to commemorate the end of World War II (or the “Great Patriotic War” as it is now called) with Yanukovych’s wreath falling back on to him. The wreath incident became a sensational hit on Youtube.

Over the summer Russian television lambasted Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenko in documentaries entitled “The Godfather,” that depicted him in an unflattering light with ties to exiled Russian oligarch Boris Berezovskiy. “The Godfather” re-opened the sensitive issue of a presidential-run death squad that operated in the late 1990s that murdered the regime’s opponents and a Russian journalist.

The question now is why Moscow is parodying Yanukovych, who has this year become more pro-Russian than Lukashenka. In fact, latter has fallen out with Moscow and is fighting the December 18 Belarusian elections without Russian support.

Russian political technologist Stanislav Belkovsky told the BBC that Moscow has become disenchanted with Yanukovych. The television skit plus Western criticism of him over election fraud last Sunday could be a double whammy for Yanukovych. At this rate, Ukraine could soon have a “no vector” foreign policy.

Belkovsky pointed out that such a parody would not have appeared on Russian state television without the Kremlin’s approval. He also claimed that Prime Minister Vladimir Putin preferred Yulia Tymoshenko in Ukraine’s 2010 presidential election, which could have influenced his decision to approve the airing of the parody. Russian President Medvedev has developed closer relations with Yanukovych than has Putin.

More importantly, Yanukovych has not agreed to various Russian economic proposals for the takeover of Ukrainian companies or joint ventures, Belkovsky argues. Putin has, according to sources in Kyiv that confided in the Jamestown Foundation, set aside $20 billion of his funds for the purchase of strategic areas of Ukraine’s economy, such as the metallurgical industry which accounts for forty percent of export earnings.

Kyiv’s rejection of Putin’s offer to merge the two state-run gas companies Naftohaz Ukrainy and Gazprom was especially galling. Equally infuriating is Yanukovych’s close ties with Lukashenka over energy issues by reversing the Odesa-Brody pipeline from north-south to south-north so that Minsk can import Venezuelan oil. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez recently visited Russia, Belarus and Ukraine (see JF blog, October 21).

Russia’s State TV parody shows former president Viktor Yushchenko asking Yanukovych how many years it will be before Ukraine pays for its imported gas. The camera pans in on Yanukovych’s hands behind his back which show him giving a “dulia” to this question (meaning never). The correct answer should have been “two years.”

The Kremlin-inspired parody of Yanukovych resembles earlier ones aimed against Lukashenka. The difference, however, is that this recent parody was far less revealing and critical. There was no mention, for example, of Yanukovych’s two prison terms, while the Godfather skit based on Lukashenka raised the issue of officially sanctioned murders in Belarus of opposition politicians.

Most amusingly, when Party of Regions deputy Vladislav Lukianov was asked what he thought of the parody he replied, “Russia is a democratic country... This is a sign of democracy, a sign of political tolerance."

Presumably, following Lukianov’s “logic”, if Russia is “democratic” for showing the parody then Ukraine, by his admission, is not democratic, as ICTV cut out the parody from its retransmission of “Bolshaya Raznytsia.” Lukianov should be asked if it is then the case that Ukraine will only be considered democratic if its state TV channel aired a similar parody of President Medvedev?

Georgian Premier Goes to China, India to Attract Investments

2010-11-04T11:06:00.000-07:00

By David Iberi

On October 24, 2010, Georgian Prime Minister Nika Gilauri kicked off his nine-day tour of China and India. Accompanied by his top economic team, Gilauri met in Beijing with China’s Vice Premier, Zhang Dejiang, to discuss a “broad spectrum of political and economic issues” and explore opportunities for “strengthening the already fruitful cooperation” between the two nations. In India, where Gilauri traveled on October 30, the Georgian delegation took part in the Invest in Georgia Forum that attracted Indian companies interested in the Georgian market.

As reported by Georgian media and later confirmed by the Georgian prime minister himself, the Chinese vice premier told his Georgian counterpart that his government “encourages Chinese companies” to deepen collaboration with Georgia and make investments in the Georgian economy. Gilauri called this kind of encouragement “a political decision” on the part of the Chinese government. A Georgia-China business council will soon be created to address trade and economic issues and Georgia expects hundreds of millions of US dollars in Chinese investments “in a matter of two to three years.”

For its part, Tbilisi offers a set of incentives in terms of the better use of the country’s transit potential for China’s air and land travel to and from Europe, including the establishment of a direct flight between Tbilisi and Beijing, multimillion energy projects in Georgia’s hydro power sector and in general making Georgia a “regional logistical hub” in the Caucasus for Chinese businesses and tourism.

The free economic zones at Georgia’s Black Sea ports could offer a different set of opportunities, Tbilisi hopes, to Chinese industries as they try to explore new markets in the wider Black Sea region and the Middle East. Four-season tourism potential is one of Georgia’s prides. The country, with a population of five million, has already attracted more than one million foreign tourists this year mainly to its subtropical sea resorts and the capital. Georgians expect more visitors to come as the ski season soon starts in the Caucasus Mountains in less than a month. Wine is another asset of Georgia and a variety of Georgian wines was on display in Shanghai’s renowned World Expo as Prime Minister Gilauri was given a tour in the Georgian pavilion during the National Day for Georgia event.

Gilauri held separate meetings with representatives of China’s investment companies, banking, technology, automobile and energy sectors. In India, he met with entrepreneurs who are interested in investing capital in Georgia’s steel and textile industries, agriculture as well as tourism and infrastructure projects and film production.

Georgia’s liberal economic reforms have found international acclaim and over the past several consecutive years the country has been in leading positions worldwide in terms of ease of doing business, business and investment attractiveness and efficient anti-corruption policies. Despite the Russian invasion in 2008 and the ongoing international economic crisis, Georgia’s GDP has grown by 6% in the nine months of 2010, although the growth is less impressive than the two-digit numbers that existed during several years before the war.

Georgia dramatically intensified its diplomatic, political, economic and trade relations with the outside world after the 2003 Rose Revolution but, paradoxically, the Caucasus nation’s openness only increased after the Russian aggression. Tbilisi apparently hopes that a greater international presence in the Georgian economy and a diversification of Georgia’s economic and trade ties will only help its long-term political objectives in addition to providing for steadier and more robust economic growth.

Charles Stewart Mott Foundation’s Support for Two Ukrainian NGOs Under Question

2010-11-04T08:14:00.000-07:00

By Taras Kuzio

The Charles Stewart Mott Foundation has given grants to two Ukrainian election-monitoring organizations: the well known Committee of Voters of Ukraine (KVU) and the lesser known Opora. KVU obtained $200,000 in 2007 and $140,000 in 2010, while Opora received $100,000 in 2007 and again in 2009. Unfortunately, only funding given to Opora has been money well-spent.

KVU and Opora also received funding from the National Democratic Institute (NDI), but in the case of KVU, a decade-long relationship ended in the first two years following Viktor Yushchenko’s election. The reason was KVU’s financial shenanigans.

Opora grew out of the “black” wing (based on its symbols) of the Pora (It’s Time) youth NGO that modeled itself on Serbia’s Otpor and Georgia’s Kmara. The “yellow” wing of Pora, headed by Vladyslav Kaskiv, was a parody of the Serbian and Georgian youth NGOs, acting more as a vehicle for his political ambitions. Yellow Pora became a political party, but failed to enter parliament in 2006. It succeeded, however, in 2007 as one of nine parties in the Our Ukraine-Self Defense bloc.

After Yanukovych’s election, Pora leader Kaskiv defected to the new administration and joined the Nikolai Azarov government. It seems as though the KVU has also been bought.
The reputation of the KVU, which was stellar during its decade-long cooperation with NDI, deteriorated, ironically, during the Yushchenko presidency, when Ukraine held three free elections. Suspicions of corruption first surfaced during the pre-term March 2009 Ternopil oblast council election, which was endorsed by the KVU as “free” despite numerous, significant infringements. The KVU worked with Presidential Administration head Viktor Baloga, who used the Ternopil elections to ensure that the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc received poor results (and in the same breath permitting the nationalist Svoboda party to win).

The link between KVU and Baloga was confirmed when KVU leader Ihor Popov was appointed deputy head of the Presidential Secretariat immediately after the Ternopil elections. The final proof of this relationship was evident this year when Popov was elected leader of the United Center party that Baloga established in 2008 to compete with Our Ukraine to become the president’s party of power.

Popov’s replacement as head of KVU, Oleksandr Chernenko, gave the October 31 local elections a similar clean bill of health four hours before the polls closed, claiming they were held in a “free atmosphere.” He was already insisting to the mass media that the elections could not be declared illegitimate (also before the polls closed).

This statement points to Chernenko’s biased work on behalf of the authorities, Ukrainian experts and journalists believe. Opora, other Ukrainian and foreign NGOs, the Ukrainian opposition, the U.S. Embassy and the Council of Europe, as well European Parliamentarians from all the major political groups (including the Socialists, with whom the Party of Regions signed a memorandum of cooperation last month), were highly critical of the October 31 elections and believed they were a step back from the free presidential elections held in January-February.

Even the Odesa branch of KVU stated that the local elections in their city had a greater number of violations than the infamous fraud in the 2004 elections that sparked the Orange Revolution. The Odesa election commission committed egregious violations that led to a “scandalous situation” in the city, Odesa’s KVU stated.

The Charles Stewart Mott foundation should investigate this blaring contradiction between the corrupted KVU and objective and unbiased Opora. The KVU’s reporting of the October 31 local elections shows that only Opora has proven that it is worthy of U.S. assistance.

Official Election Results Finally Announced in Kyrgyzstan

2010-11-01T08:43:00.000-07:00

By Erica Marat

Kyrgyzstan’s Central Elections Commission (CEC) has announced the October 10 parliamentary election results following three weeks of deliberation. As expected, five parties were proclaimed winners – Ata-Jurt, Social Democratic Party of Kyrgyzstan (SDPK), Ar-Namys, Respublika, and Ata-Meken.

Although the winners are now officially recognized, it remains unclear how the parties will form parliamentary coalitions. Rumor in Bishkek has it that SDPK, Respublika and Ata-Meken will form a bloc, leaving Ata-Jurt and Ar-Namys as the minority. This type of coalition is widely supported in Bishkek.

However, voters from southern Kyrgyzstan would prefer for either Ata-Jurt or Ar-Namys to prevail in parliament – both parties received strong support in Osh and Jalalabad. Ethnic Kyrgyz overwhelmingly supported Ata-Jurt, while ethnic Uzbek voters hoped Ar-Namys would represent their interests in the parliament. In effect, Respublika got a trump card and is, therefore, able to decide on its own partners. The party’s leader, Ombek Babanov, is likely to demand the position of prime minister in return for building a coalition with competitors.

Several political parties that were not able to overcome the 5-percent threshold, including Butun Kyrgyzstan Party, refused to recognize official results. Butun Kyrgyzstan leader Adakhan Modumarov has announced that he will not give up and demands that his party is included in the parliament. Butun Kyrgyzstan originally passed the required 5-percent threshold, however, because the voters’ lists were extended on election Day, the threshold rose by a few thousand and the party failed to meet the new threshold. Madumarov has been holding rallies in Osh and Bishkek for weeks now.

According to CEC Chair Akylbek Sariyev, if requested by the court, election results will be recounted. However, it is unlikely that the CEC will be officially requested to recount the votes.

According to the CEC, 120 parliamentary mandates will be distributed in the following way:

• Ata-Jurt - 28 mandates
• SDPK – 26 mandates
• Ar-Namys – 25 mandates
• Respublika – 23 mandates
• Ata-Meken – 18 mandates
• Another 3 seats will be distributed proportionally between parties.

Although Butun Kyrgyzstan will now become the loudest political voice outside the parliament, the country’s most powerful parties are represented in the parliament. Many in Kyrgyzstan hope that the winners will now resolve their differences and abstain from street-riot politics. Leader of the Ar-Namys party Felix Kulov and the Ata-Jurt leader, Kamchybek Tashiyev, however, previously warned that they would hold mass riots in Bishkek should CEC not consider their reports of irregularities during the October 10 vote.

Both politicians have since dropped their plans to stage riots, showing agreement with CEC’s conclusions.

Yanukovych’s Assassination-Phobia Deepens

2010-10-28T06:19:00.000-07:00

By Taras Kuzio

Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych’s assassination-phobia is reaching the level of hysteria (EDM, June 28). Three bomb explosions in Kirovohrad on the eve of his visit to that city will undoubtedly increase the president’s long-standing paranoia (EDM, October 26).
This is the only manner in which one can analyze recent purchases of equipment for his protection. The president is to be protected by a surface to air, anti-missile battalion of spetsnaz, who are to use two Zenith ‘Buk’ rocket complexes.

There are plans for the construction of a helicopter pad in central Kyiv and at Yanukovych’s suburban mansion that would end the daily traffic jams caused by his 15 mile drive to the presidential administration in downtown Kyiv. Each day President Viktor Yanukovych races from his mansion to the center of Kyiv, causing traffic jams. The Kyiv city council is donating one hectare of unused land to build a heliport for two helicopters.

Presumably, the president’s helicopter will be fitted with a wide array of defense devices –in case of an attack by the opposition (or more likely an angry and frustrated motorist trying to get to work).

The Directorate on State affairs, the supplier of every manner of goods to Ukraine’s state elites, has purchased three jeeps for the cost of 4.2 million hryvnia. The jeeps are specialist Toyota Sequoia 4 by 4s fitted out as Rescue Fast 1 vehicles to provide assistance in the event of attack or accident.

Anatoliy Grytsenko, defense minister from 2005 to 2007 and since head of parliament’s Committee on National Security and Defense, commented in a tongue-in-cheek response that the president needs to be defended from all angles “from his own people."

There is, therefore, a need, Grytsenko says, to purchase “two submarines and then to carefully camouflage them with duckweed and conceal them somewhere in the Dnipro and Desenko river bays along the route from the president's house to work,” Gritsenko said. As for a potential attack from land, Grytsenko recommends that one mechanized brigade from the Interior Ministries Internal Troops be transformed into a Cavalry unit. These cavalrymen would sit on horseback with automatic weapons along 50 meter intervals guarding the entire 15 mile route between his mansion and office.

If this advice is implemented, and Yanukovych is therefore protected “from his own people” from every possible angle, Grytsenko will rest assured that “Yanukovych could then fully concentrate on running the state.”

Perhaps.

Yanukovych’s entourage, heavily penetrated by Russian security officials (see EDM, October 13), is undoubtedly convinced that the best manner in which to keep him under full control is to feed his assassination-phobia. This is the real reason for this additional equipment and perhaps last week’s bomb explosions.

Pressing Issues Remain as the Zone of Russian Occupation Slightly Shrinks

2010-10-27T06:57:00.000-07:00

By David Iberi

On October 19, 2010, Tbilisi regained control over the village of Perevi after a regiment of the Russian occupation forces left the area the previous day. Located in western Georgia close to what is called the Tskhinvali region/South Ossetia, Perevi was first vacated by the Russians in 2008, but their military units soon reentered the village and reoccupied it for nearly two years. As Perevi is now free and fully accessible for Georgian police and ordinary citizens, the more important questions of Georgia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity remain unsolved. The Russians have just shifted the occupation line slightly inward, but will apparently not budge any further unless international pressure intensifies.

The Georgian Foreign Ministry immediately called the Russian withdrawal from Perevi “a step taken in the right direction,” but cautiously added that this was only a “miniscule step.” First Deputy Foreign Minister Giorgi Bokeria told Georgian and foreign media that Moscow de-occupied the Georgian village as a result of “the pressure from the international community.”

That Perevi was never a part of the Bolshevik-designed South Ossetia autonomous district – a territorial entity created within the Georgian Soviet Republic shortly after the Russian invasion and occupation in 1921 – has not been disputed by Russia’s current leadership. Instead, Georgian analysts argue that Perevi was kept under occupation for strategic reasons and possibly as a bargaining chip in future negotiations. The Russians apparently exhausted the village’s strategic significance after they completed the construction of roads northwest of Perevi that would allow them to move their troops easier than before in the western flank of occupation. As far as the bargaining value of Perevi is concerned, the Russians probably later realized that it was not big enough to entice the Georgians into some new scheme. Tbilisi’s muted response to Moscow’s highly publicized step was clear evidence of that.

The Russian foreign ministry issued a contradictory statement on October 19, the opening part of which claimed that Moscow acted “in a spirit of goodwill” when solving this “technical, in fact, problem.” “This was preceded by serious preparation,” the document read, such as the completion of “a 10-plus km bypass road.” The statement became more revealing at the end, reading, “With the withdrawal of the Russian border post from Perevi the issue of alleged non-compliance by us with the [2008 Russo-Georgian ceasefire] agreement has been definitively closed.”

In its own statement, the Georgian Foreign Ministry called the Russian claim on the “closure” of the issue “a cynical attempt to evade the full compliance with the international legal commitments” stipulated in the ceasefire agreement and reminded Moscow and the international community that Russia continues to occupy 20 percent of Georgia’s sovereign territory where “several military bases and up to 10,000 troops are illegally deployed.” Catherine Ashton, the high representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, for her part welcomed “the removal of the Russian checkpoint in Perevi, Georgia” as a “positive development on the ground” and expressed a hope for “further progress toward the full implementation of the European Union-brokered Six Point Agreement.” Ashton’s statement complemented Georgia’s argument that by quitting in Perevi, Moscow made just one step in the right direction.

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili and members of his cabinet have said on many occasions that Tbilisi is ready to engage in dialogue and negotiations with Moscow “without any preconditions,” to which Moscow has not yet responded. In a larger perspective, what Tbilisi is apparently trying to do is to include the solving of its sovereignty and territorial integrity issue as a composite part of the United States and the West’s reset policy with Russia. The dynamics of Moscow’s bid to accede the World Trade Organization as well the NATO and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) summits in November and December will be indicative of how much Georgia’s pro-Western government’s “inclusion” agenda is shared by Washington and Brussels.

Leader of Opposition Party Attacked in Kyrgyzstan

2010-10-25T10:23:00.000-07:00

By Erica Marat

A new scandal is in the making inside Kyrgyzstan’s security services. Leader of the Ata-Jurt party, Kamchybek Tashiyev, is arguing that National Security Service (NSS) attempted to assassinate him last Saturday night in front of his own house in Bishkek. According to Tashiyev, NSS personnel deliberately provoked him in front of his house followed by a few armed NSS personnel shooting at his house and his guards.

After Tashiyev’s guards captured NSS attackers, Ata-Jurt’s official memo states, 15 more armed NSS staffers stormed the politician’s house. When the police and prosecutors arrived to the scene they also evidenced that NSS were involved in illegal activity, the memo states.

Head of NSS Keneshbek Dushebayev denies allegations and claims that members of his service were stationed in a car 200 meters away from Tashiyev’s house when Tashiyev’s guards dragged one of the NSS personnel from the car and beat him inside the politician’s house. According to Dushebayev, the remaining two officers tried to rescue their colleague but were beaten by over 40 of Tashiyev’s guards. NSS personnel were bound to fire shots into the sky to protect themselves, Dushebayev recounts.

Whose version – Tashiev or Dushebayev’s – is closer to the truth remains to be seen. However, the Ata-Jurt-NSS showdown reveals the infighting between former president Kurmanbek Bakiev’s loyal regime followers and the current government that is made up mostly of Bakiyev’s former opponents. Ata-Jurt has experienced pressure from the general prosecutor, Kubatbek Baibolov, who accused the party of instigating inter-ethnic hatred in the run-down to the October 10 parliamentary elections. During Bakiyev’s rein both Dushebayev and Baibolov, along with a number of other security officials, were pressured by the regime.

With pro-Bakiyev politicians now entering the parliament, tensions within security structures are better described between the legislative and executive branches. However, tensions are breeding between the General Prosecutor’s office, NSS, and other power ministries. All have been trading criticism about the lack of professionalism in maintaining order in the country, particularly during the June violence.

These showdowns inside power institutions will negatively impact lower-ranking personnel. Without coherent political leadership over armed and police forces, human rights abuses will continue to be entrenched in the everyday lives of locals, particularly in southern Kyrgyzstan.

Yanukovych’s New Best Friend – Hugo Chavez

2010-10-21T11:50:00.000-07:00

By Taras Kuzio

Venezuela’s eccentric President Hugo Chavez visited Ukraine on October 18 to cement an economic, political and security relationship. As the director of Kyiv’s Institute of World Policy, Alyona Hetmanchuk, noted, the new alliance was given a name by Ariel Cohen of Washington’s Heritage Foundation: VIRUS – which brings together Venezuela, India, Russia and Syria. Perhaps Ukraine, Hetmanchuk muses, is planned to be the ‘U’ in the new strategic alliance of VIRUS?

Chavez travelled to Ukraine after visiting Russia and Belarus. From Kyiv, he visited Iran, Syria, Libya and Portugal. “I was very pleased to hear about your victory, about your return, which was secured by the Ukrainian public. That very day I said to myself that I cannot waste time anymore, I must go to Ukraine and shake Viktor Yanukovych's hand, I have to embrace [the president] and convey the warmest greetings to the Ukrainian people,” Chavez said.

Kyiv’s relationship with Venezuela harms Ukraine’s relationship with Georgia. During the same week that Chavez visited Ukraine, the prosecutor’s office re-opened the case of alleged “illegal” arms sales to Georgia during President Viktor Yushchenko’s rule.

Venezuela and Nicaragua are two of the four entities that recognize the independence of Georgia’s occupied provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia (the others being Nauru and Moldova’s Trans-Dniestr). In September 2008, the Party of Regions and Communist Party of Ukraine supported a resolution in the Ukrainian parliament that recognized the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia – but it failed to be adopted. A similar resolution in the Crimean parliament succeeded after it was supported by the Yanukovych bloc, which unites the Party of Regions and Russian nationalists with the Communists.

Yanukovych has not acted upon this step since becoming Ukraine’s president and now claims he supports the territorial integrity of states such as Moldova. Yanukovych claimed that “this was because we always stand for territorial integrity.”

However, it seems as though the Party of Regions has one rule when in the opposition position and another when in power.

Besides the inevitable arms exports to Venezuela, both sides discussed economic projects. These included Ukraine’s development of oil and gas fields in Venezuela, the transportation of 10 million tons of Venezuelan oil through Ukraine to Belarus, the opening of embassies in both countries, and the purchase of An-74 planes for transport and marine patrol operations. Venezuela currently uses 15 An-140 and An-74 Antonov planes.

Venezuela is interested in cooperation in the fields of energy, petrochemicals, agriculture, industry and education. The widely criticized minister of education, Dmytro Tabachnyk, could very well become a “senior adviser” to the Venezuelan Ministry of Education.

Both sides discussed the issues of democracy and freedom of speech, a discussion during which it would have been fascinating to have been a fly on the wall. One can only muse at the thought of Chavez and Yanukovych discussing their unique contributions to building democracies and upholding free media in Venezuela and Ukraine.

Both, after all, have similar habits of saying one thing and doing another. Yanukovych has promised to punish those who will undertake election fraud in the October 31 local elections, while at the same time his political force is preparing to undertake massive election fraud. Is Yanukovych really unaware that the party that he led for seven years, and which is now led by loyalist prime minister Nikolai Azarov, controls a majority of officials in each election commission?

Yanukovych had strong words of advice for Western journalists, saying, “I think that you will have to undertake great effort to obtain truthful information about what is taking place in Latin America and Venezuela, especially, because there has been such a massive campaign of falsification and lies that it has become difficult to understand where is the real truth.”

No doubt Chavez will repay the compliment to Yanukovych when the West condemns the election fraud committed on October 31 in Ukraine and declares them to have not been free or fair.

Following the creation of a Ukrainian-Venezuelan working group, the first meeting of which will take place next month and the second in December in Caracas, Yanukovych is expected to visit Venezuela in the early part of 2011.

Chavez told Yanukovych that his country’s foreign policy was one of “friendship with all peoples and that “we do not want anybody to rule over us.” Perhaps Yanukovych did not understand the significance of this comment in the light of Ukraine’s reduced sovereignty to Russia since his election (see EDM, October 18).

Hetmanchuk concludes her blog by ridiculing the claim that Ukraine has a multifaceted foreign policy that balances different strategic partners, a claim made by Yanukovych during an official visit to Lithuania this month, as Chavez’s visit to Ukraine will only serve to undermine Ukraine’s strategic partnerships with the West. “In other words, it leaves us with only the option of greeting ourselves with the fact that Ukraine’s multivectorism is transforming itself in a banal way into diplomatic chaos.”

In the meantime, Ukraine’s new alliance with Venezuela could very well end up losing a lot more than it would gain economically,” energy expert Bohdan Sokolovsky told Hazeta po-Ukrainski.

International Investigation Into Osh Violence Begins

2010-10-18T08:37:00.000-07:00

By Erica Marat

Four months after the ethnic violence in Osh and Jalalabad, an international investigation is to begin in southern Kyrgyzstan. Gathered and led by Finnish MP Kimmo Kiljunen, a group of seven experts will work on the ground to investigate the causes and consequences of the June 11-14 violence.

Anna Matveeva, a scholar from the London School of Economics, will be the lead investigator. Experts from Russia, Estonia, Turkey, Australia and other states are part of the assembly. For greater objectivity, no Kyrgyz citizen is working on the investigation.

“We are there to prevent the spread of rumors about what happened,” said Kiljunen to the media recently. Kiljunen was invited by Kyrgyz president Roza Otunbayeva to conduct an impartial investigation shortly after June 11-14 violence. Although Kiljunen has been open to the media about his plans to lead the investigation, he made the announcement about his investigation only after the October 10 parliamentary elections. By doing so, Kiljunen tried to avoid destructive criticism on the part of Kyrgyz political leaders who have been launching attacks against international involvement in dealing with the aftermath of the violence. Earlier this year, several of Kyrgyzstan’s political parties spoke against the deployment of the 52-member OSCE Police Advisory Group.

At a press-conference in Bishkek, Kiljunen emphasized that this will not be a criminal investigation but rather targeted at finding the causes of the violence. According to him, the first report will be ready in late January 2011.

Between June 11-14 over 400 people died and over 400,000, mostly ethnic Uzbeks, were forced out of their homes in the course of ethnic violence in southern Kyrgyzstan. Uzbek communities are slowly reconstructing their homes before the start of winter. But peace remains fragile in Osh and Jalalabad, with both ethnic majority and minority groups in southern Kyrgyzstan – both blaming each other for instigating fighting and infringing upon each other’s rights.

Kiljunen’s investigation will encounter numerous challenges, including skepticism among local law enforcement agencies and political leaders. The investigation is, however, vital for reconciliation efforts. If the investigation produces results which both the Uzbek and Kyrgyz populations recognize, international and local efforts to build stronger peace would receive a significant boost. Among other issues, Kiljunen’s group must address questions regarding Kyrgyz security officials’ courses of action during the first few hours after the violence began.

According to Jamestown observations, both Uzbek and Kyrgyz sides blame Otunbayeva’s government for failing to stop the violence during the first day. Also, both groups think that the real perpetrators of the violence have left the country. Kiljunen’s task will be difficult one.

Georgia Expands Its Outreach to the North Caucasus

2010-10-14T07:51:00.000-07:00

By David Iberi

On October 11, 2010, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili signed an executive order allowing the residents of the North Caucasus republics of the Russian Federation to enjoy a 90-day visa-free regime when entering and staying in Georgia starting October 13. The waiver applies to all seven ethnic republics in the North Caucasus: Dagestan, Chechnya, Ingushetia, North Ossetia, Kabardino-Balkaria, Karachay-Cherkessia and Adygea. Symbolism aside, Georgia’s latest decision aimed at “deepening dialogue” with its immediate neighbors to the north might have serious consequences for Tbilisi’s standing in the Caucasus and could as well be seen as part of a more ambitious strategy that is just taking shape and substance.

It was nearly a month ago on September 23 in New York when the Georgian president spoke before the 65th General Assembly of the United Nations and elaborated on his views of a peaceful and united Caucasus. “For too long, [the Caucasus] has suffered from division, injustice, conflict, colonization and violence,” Saakashvili asserted, “Today, however, change is possible. In fact, change is already taking place.” He then talked about his vision of a “free, stable and united Caucasus.” To be sure, the Georgian leader then made a direct connection between Georgia’s rapid modernization and its deepening ties with the outside world, including the Caucasus, against a background of Russia’s failed policies in its ethnically diverse North Caucasus region – “a region that is exploding,” in Saakashvili’s own words.

Georgia has had visa-free relations with three out of its four neighboring countries. With trade and people-to-people contacts burgeoning with Turkey, Azerbaijan and Armenia, Russia stands as an exception for understandable reasons. Tbilisi severed diplomatic ties with Moscow after the latter started to annex the Georgian territories of Abkhazia and Tskhinvali region/South Ossetia following the Russian invasion of Georgia in August 2008. But the establishment of a visa regime with Georgia had itself been a unilateral decision by the Kremlin almost ten years ago, in December 2000. Tbilisi had then felt compelled to take a reciprocal step.

Georgia significantly stepped up its engagement with the North Caucasus soon after the August war. A special body charged with a task to strengthen humanitarian relations with the indigenous populations across the major Caucasus ridge was created in the Georgian Parliament. In an apparent show of increasing confidence, in March 2010, the Georgian Parliament received an appeal by Circassian communities to recognize the massacres and deportations of Circassians orchestrated by Tsarist Russia in the 19th century as genocide. Georgia’s Public Broadcaster created a special Russian-language First Caucasus Channel to reach to the audiences in the post-Soviet space, including the North Caucasus. Although the channel was shortly removed from a French satellite under alleged Russian pressure, it is currently being renovated and its producers hope to resume satellite broadcasting soon. The number of students from across the Caucasus, including the North Caucasus, studying in public and private Georgian universities has dramatically increased over the past several years as well as think-tanks and academic institutions studying and researching the North Caucasus. Tbilisi’s visa facilitation policy seems to be the latest measure reinforcing the general trend in what could be called Georgia’s Caucasus strategy.

Nugzar Tsiklauri, a Georgian MP who is actively engaged in developing Georgia’s North Caucasus direction, told Israel’s 7kanal.com news agency in April 2010 that Georgia’s strategy was to help “create a friendly atmosphere toward the Georgian State in both North and South Caucasus and thus reduce the risks and threats emanating from Putinist Russia.” In the same interview, he also talked about a “democratic alternative” that Georgia was presenting to the peoples of the North Caucasus as a “rapidly modernizing, liberal, multi-ethnic, pluralistic, non-corrupt and transparent society.”

Apart from creating a “friendly atmosphere” and being seen as a “role model,” Georgia’s North Caucasus engagement strategy apparently has other objectives as well. Deeper ties with North Caucasus Muslim populations could help stability in Georgia itself; although the country is overwhelmingly Christian, it has a sizeable Muslim community, including Muslim Georgians, who would only hail good neighborly relations with the North Caucasus. Besides, Georgia has historically had close relations with all ethnicities across the Caucasus and although it is scientifically controversial, there is a pervasive popular belief among Georgians that most of the North Caucasians are related to them both ethnically and linguistically, and thus it is Georgia’s duty to champion the “Caucasus cause.” Several prominent Georgian writers and statesmen of the 19th and 20th centuries have helped inculcate that belief deeply into the Georgian psyche and public discourse, and many North Caucasians have only positively responded to it.

Lastly, against the backdrop of Russia’s continued occupation of Georgian lands, Georgia apparently seeks to secure a greater Caucasus-wide consensus on issues of its sovereignty and territorial integrity, and hopes that a more intense interaction between Georgians and North Caucasians will play an instrumental role in it.

Nationalist, Pro-Russian Parties Prevail in Kyrgyz Elections

2010-10-13T07:36:00.000-07:00

By Erica Marat

The October 10th election results have changed the political landscape in Kyrgyzstan. Instead of lauding the Ata-Meken party, which has been behind writing the current constitution that promotes a parliamentary system of governance, Kyrgyz voters have chosen the Ata-Jurt and Ar-Namys parties that wish to reinstall strong presidential power. Overall, five political parties out of 29 were able to overcome the five percent threshold nation-wide.

During the electoral campaign period, Ata-Jurt was accused of instigating inter-ethnic hatred by highlighting that the Kyrgyz are a titular ethnicity and therefore have greater rights and responsibilities compared to ethnic minorities, as reported in a September 16 article. Despite public outcry about Ata-Jurt’s nationalism, the party gained 8.6 percent support, mostly in southern Kyrgyzstan.

No political party was able to rally enough support to gain a majority of seats, and therefore, at least three parties will need to align to form a coalition. It might take days or weeks before coalitions are formed but for now experts speculate that the Social-Democratic Party of Kyrgyzstan (SDPK), Respublika and Ata-Meken might join one block. Another scenario suggests that a strong pro-Russia coalition might emerge made of Ata-Jurt, Ar-Namys and Respublika.
In effect, Respublica got a trump card by gaining 7.4 percent of support and is, therefore, able to decide on its own partners. The party’s leader, Ombek Babanov, is likely to demand the position of prime minister in return for building a coalition with competitors.

Chances of Ata-Meken’s leader, Omurbek Tekebayev, becoming prime minister have drastically diminished, as the party, to its own surprise, gained the least support (5.8 percent).

Russia’s influence is obvious. Ar-Namys party leader Feliks Kulov has made his strong relations with Russia a central part of his electoral campaign. His party was supported mainly by ethic Russians and those fearing renewed bloodshed, hoping that Kulov will install order. If he prevails in this political competition and is elected prime minister or becomes a security official, Kulov will pressure the United States to allow Kyrgyzstan closer monitoring of activity at the Transit Center “Manas”.

Leaders of all parties, except for Ata-Meken, were once part of former president Kurmanbek Bakiyev’s regime. Ata-Jurt, in particular, is mostly composed of former loyal supporters of the Bakiyev regime.

Despite uncertain power configurations in the parliament, these were by far the most fair and democratic elections in Central Asia. The results were reflective of the people’s choice. Some cases of election fraud were reportedly detected in southern Kyrgyzstan, but the OSCE’s overall evaluation of the voting process was positive.

There is a great deal of surprise over the results in Bishkek, as most of the city’s residents did not expect Ata-Jurt to prevail. But there is also a general understanding that whatever the results are, they are legitimate and represent the nation’s will.