This article examines the scope of OSCE activities in Central Asia. Although, in the late 1990s, all five states were in favour of intensifying co-operation with the Organization, none of them acted in accordance with basic OSCE principles. However, today in Central Asia, the OSCE performs a wide variety of activities in all three dimensions, ranging from police projects, strengthening the media, an Islamic-secular dialogue project (Tajikistan), the regional OSCE Academy in Bishkek, and support for land reform in Tajikistan, etc. In addition, ODIHR observes elections and referendums in four of the five Central Asian states (with the exception of Turkmenistan).
With the breakup of Soviet Union, five newly independent Central Asian states emerged into global civil society. The fall of communism brought a great number of topics for research in social science area, which includes: democratization, human rights promotion, nation-building, corruption, power change in Central Asian region and others. When scholars discuss about transition period and post-soviet period of Central Asia, critics focus on low progress in economic and political reforms, power structure and political system. All Central Asian countries have multinational society; they have territorial disputes and at the same time three Central Asian countries are bordered with Afghanistan, which also represent security challenge in the region.
Therefore, Central Asian countries, by being members of OSCE got a great opportunity to develop civil society from the Western perspective. Most social scientists have been expressing their hope for changes in Central Asia through neoliberal approach that pursue civil society development through NGOs activities and non state actors. However, as UN reports on human rights issues and OSCE Reports on the Human Dimension Implementation indicate, Central Asia has been identified as a highly problematic region due to human rights violations and suppression of non-state actors in the region [1].
In addition, Central Asia region is defined as common and unique from social cultural context. However, from political and economic perspective Central Asia region is hard to define as independent. Cultural, traditional and language commonness in Central Asia is even higher than in other regions, but current inter-state relations indicate that Central Asian states are far from regional integration. Due to other unifying factors like geopolitical location and homogeneity of socio-economic and political problems created favorable conditions for solving them. But the main problem is that the common threats are difficult to fight alone. Therefore, today in Central Asia there is a need not only to work together to confront the new threats jointly, but also to bring to this fight someone who has some experience in this struggle.
With 57 participating States in North America, Europe and Asia, the OSCE is the world’s largest regional security organization. All participating States enjoy equal status, and decisions are taken by consensus on a politically, but not legally binding basis. The OSCE works for stability, peace and democracy for more than a billion people, through political dialogue about shared values and through practical work that makes a lasting difference. It has its origins in the 1975 Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE) held in Helsinki, Finland [2].
Security touches on many aspects of the way we live and are governed. The OSCE's comprehensive view of security covers three “dimensions”: the politico-military; the economic and environmental; and the human. The OSCE's activities cover all three of these areas, from "hard" security issues such as conflict prevention to fostering economic development, ensuring the sustainable use of natural resources, and promoting the full respect of human rights and fundamental freedoms. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe has a comprehensive approach to security that encompasses politico-military, economic and environmental, and human aspects. It therefore addresses a wide range of security-related concerns, including arms control, confidence- and security- building measures, human rights, national minorities, democratization, policing strategies, counter-terrorism and economic and environmental activities [3].
Regarding security issues of Central Asia, experts refer to OSCE which includes all Central Asian countries and it is assumed that OSCE can be used as platform for state bargaining, cooperation and partnership of member states on security issues. The main reason is that in OSCE Turkmenistan as well as Uzbekistan, who declined on their membership in CSO and Shanhai Cooperation due to concern on their independent position, have opportunity to discuss Central Asian security challenges in OSCE platform in presence of the third party countries from Europe. Besides, OSCE mission aims cover issues on border management, conflict resolution, counter- trafficking, combating terrorism, arm control and other security issues which are relevant to the case of Central Asian regional security.
Concerning the first mission of OSCE, the outbreak of civil war in Tajikistan in May 1992, led to the establishment of it in Central Asia in 1993, which was to work closely with the United Nations mission to assist Tajikistan in the development of rule of law, democracy, and human rights within the scope of post conflict rehabilitation [4].
In the following year, on the initiative of Uzbekistan’s President Karimov, the CSCE/OSCE opened a Liaison Office for Central Asia in Tashkent. Regional developments, especially the success of Afghanistan’s Taliban and the problems with political and economic reforms in Central Asia, led to a growth in US and European interest in Central Asia, and the OSCE offered itself as a suitable organization for strengthening co-operation. As a result of the security situation in Afghanistan and the emergence of militant groups in Central Asia (such as the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, IMU), the Central Asian states were also interested in expanding security-related cooperation. During 1998, the OSCE reached agreements with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan to establish OSCE Centres in Almaty, Bishkek, and Ashgabad. The Liaison Office in Tashkent was expanded into a OSCE Centre in 2000 and the OSCE Mission to Tajikistan was renamed the OSCE Centre in Dushanbe in October 2002 [5].
As part of its reflection on 10 years of police-related activities in the OSCE, the SPMU issued a report which attempted to assess these activities according to seven criteria: relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, impact, sustainability, coherence, and value added. Not surprisingly, the report suggests that in all of these areas the OSCE has scored highly and that there are only limited areas for improvement. It concludes: “Overall, the OSCE’s competence and institutional knowledge in police-related activities as well as its capacity to promote regional cooperation among its participating States are well acknowledged and used by other international organizations, in particular, in the fight against transnational organized crime and terrorism” [6].
There are some much more modest aspects that might be highlighted as positive outcomes. The OSCE offers a useful way for Central Asian police forces to have the opportunity to discuss alternative ideas and approaches to policing, including international policing standards. Programs that combine training and ongoing monitoring, such as the ODIHR detention program in Kazakhstan, are most likely to be effective. Other programs on issues such as domestic violence that include active NGOS with expertise also seem most likely to succeed. Some initiatives that can be adapted to fit with familiar local policing traditions, such as the neighborhood policing aspects of community policing programs, may also be appropriate in certain political contexts. In addition, there are clearly areas where it is useful for OSCE police forces to share information, and to attempt to build up some cooperation on transnational crime, even with all the reservations outlined above. Finally, and most optimistically, these programs may put in place structures and ideas that will lay the basis for future police reform processes, when the political situation is more supportive. However, two cardinal rules are worth recalling.
Firstly, none of these potentially positive outcomes will create a genuine movement for police reform without real political leadership within a country. OSCE officials often argue that the organization may be able to act as a useful catalyst for reformers within security agencies or governments. However, in Kyrgyzstan, there is little evidence those 10 years of OSCE engagement on policing has produced any significant group of political figures or security officials dedicated to a thorough reform of the police and other security organs. In countries like Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan there is outright political hostility to the concept of democratic policing. Instead, governments continue to rely on repressive, state-oriented security services that are engaged in widespread human rights abuses.
Secondly, it is impossible to develop democratic policing in a nondemocratic political environment. The OSCE’s police assistance programs have tended to ignore the political contexts in which they work, preferring to focus on the technical aspects of policing. This has led to controversial situations, such as the PRP in Kyrgyzstan at various points in its history losing the support of a wide raft of NGOs and political opposition groups. Attempts to engage in training and technical assistance programs with law enforcement agencies in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan have often developed further than would be expected in an organization committed to democratic values. The promotion of such activities does not produce any sustainable results, but does feed into a narrative of normalization, suggesting that, for example, Uzbek law enforcement agencies have overcome the international censure aimed at them following the Andijan massacre.
Under hybrid political regimes it may be possible to make some progress in improving law enforcement agencies, but programs are only likely to be effective in selected areas. This is clear from the program in Kyrgyzstan, where the picture is very mixed. The police need some international assistance to make progress toward a more responsive and effective service. However, there is almost no support for reform either inside the police or among political leaders. This suggests that police reform is difficult to achieve without working to build up a constituency for reform and engaging with a much wider array of political actors than at present. Although working with NGOs also presents a range of problems, some of the most effective areas of work have involved linking the police with competent NGOs to provide training and monitoring on issues such as domestic violence.
Above all, staff involved in police programming need to understand much better the environment in which they are operating, engage more closely with specialists in local politics and culture, and develop a system for proper evaluation of their work by developing robust indicators and welcoming candid and independent assessments of success and failure. Without such evaluation and a more self-critical stance, these projects become “virtual” processes, divorced from reality and maintained by only a small coterie of self-interested officials on both sides rather than engaging with a broad range of institutions and individuals.[7] This need for wider engagement also applies inside the OSCE: police assistance programs should be designed to work in close collaboration with institutions in the OSCE, such as the ODIHR and the HCNM, which have extensive experience in human rights monitoring and engagement with political processes. These issues in policing policy reflect much broader trends within the OSCE. Some officials and delegations would like to see a shift away from a focus on political and human rights issues toward more engagement in a range of security areas, including drug trafficking, transnational crime, human trafficking, and terrorism. As a result, some have argued that the OSCE has begun to lose its unique status as an arena for political engagement and has become too focused on projects and programs [8]. Others have suggested that human rights issues and democratization have been sidelined in the drive to ensure engagement with nondemocratic members of the organization. Certainly, this trajectory poses significant questions about the normative stance of the OSCE and its ability to retain a balance between engagement in security sector reform and its commitments on human rights and democracy.
OSCE programs and policies on policing assistance in Central Asia should be viewed within this broader trajectory in the organization, and the overall crisis faced by the OSCE, in its inability to encourage a significant number of participating States to meet their OSCE commitments on democratization and human rights. The difficulties in dealing with these states, including the authoritarian regimes of Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, has led the OSCE to seek alternative ways to accommodate them within the organization, which has stretched its normative concepts and left many participants and observers disillusioned with its continued engagement. In addition, the development of a semi authoritarian political system in Russia, one of the key players in the OSCE, has made achieving consensus on such issues extremely difficult. The OSCE is only the most visible organization that faces these difficulties: in one sense, the whole of Western policy in Central Asia faces a similar dilemma, as it becomes clear that two decades of international engagement in the region has achieved very limited results in the areas of political liberalization and democratic development.
In the global context, the OSCE is a minor player in security sector reform, and its programs in Central Asia are a big part of its overall police-related activities. The total expenditure in the OSCE Unified Budget on police- related activities in 2015-2016 was €141,107,600, of which €20,529,100 was spent in Central Asia [9]. OSCE projects accentuates at civil society development through neoliberal approach, which seeks to foster democratic reforms, application of rule of law, decentralization, political and civic participation and human rights promotion. All the above values interpreted by local experts and governmental institutions as external and native to western culture. Moreover, OSCE also can be seen as active intergovernmental platform for Central Asian countries.
- http://iep-berlin.de/blog/international-conference-on-prospects-of-eu-central-asia-relations-in-almaty-kazakhstan/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organization_for_Security_and_Co-operation_in_Europe
- http://www.osce.org/whatistheosce
- Johannes Reissner, Bürgerkrieg in Tadschikistan. Ursachen, Akteure, Verlauf und Friedenschancen [Civil War in Tajikistan. Causes, Actors, Events, and Chances for Peace]// Ebenhausen 1997.
- OSCE, Permanent Council, Decision No. 463, Year 2001 Budget Revision, PC.DEC/463, 21 December 2001, and OSCE, Permanent Council, Decision No. 715, OSCE 2005 Unified Budget Revision, PC.DEC/715, 19 January 2006.
- OSG, SPMU, Report by the OSCE Secretary-General on Police-Related Activities of the OSCE Executive Structures up to the End of 2009// Vienna, April 2010,-
- Vladimir Shkol ikov, “Retrospective o OSCE strategic thi ki g o Ce tral Asia,” Security and Human Rights, // № 4,
- Ibid., - 66
- 1084th Plenary Meeting PC Jour al// № 1084, Age da item 1