A Kosovo on the Central Asian steppes
By M K Bhadrakumar
A robust geopolitical thrust by the United States aimed at creating a role for
the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in resolving
conflicts in Kyrgyzstan and Afghanistan promises to rewrite the great game
rivalries in Central Asia in anticipation of an Afghan settlement.
The US initiative poses political challenges to Russia, which is a member of
the 56-member OSCE, and China, which is not. The security vehicles piloted by
each the respective two regional powers - the Collective Security Treaty
Organization (CSTO) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) - are being
outmaneuvered by the US.
Yet, coming in the wake of the deepening crisis in Kyrgyzstan and the endgame
in Afghanistan, the US initiative does convey an
air of positive thinking and carries a sense of immediacy, while neither Russia
nor China has any counter-strategy available.
Paradoxically, Russia and China could seize the initiative if the OSCE plan to
stabilize the situation in Kyrgyzstan somehow crash-lands and ethnic tensions,
violence and anarchy ensue. But that would be a dubious blessing as Russia and
China too are stakeholders in regional stability in their own ways.
'B team' for the Afghan war
The unkindest cut of all is that it is Kazakhstan, which both Moscow and
Beijing counted to be their most sober and thoughtful regional partner, which
is heading the OSCE chariot. As Kazakh President Nurusultan Nazarbayev firmly
asserted, "There is no doubt a new OSCE strategy on Afghanistan is necessary."
The US is delighted, and as a quid pro quo, Washington has accommodated
the Kazakh leaderships' desire to chair an OSCE summit meeting within the year
in Astana and thereby claim a legacy on the world stage. The last time the OSCE
held a summit meeting was in 1999. This is also the 35th anniversary of the
Helsinki Final Act. [1]
"Kazakhstan's strategic approach to the Afghan issue became one of the
foundations of a historical consensus reached there [the OSCE inter-ministerial
meeting in Almaty on July 16-17] on holding an OSCE summit in Astana before the
end of 2010," Kazakh State Minister and Foreign Minister Kanat Saudabayev
openly admitted.
Kazakhstan will host a special OSCE conference in Astana on October 20-21, when
the Afghan issue and the role the OSCE could play in the Hindu Kush will be at
the top of the agenda. The conference factors in the current search for a
political solution to the Afghan problem.
"I would like to emphasize the importance of changing the very paradigm of
combating today's challenges which come from Afghanistan, shifting emphasis
from military means to eradication of sources of these challenges,'' Saudabayev
said. ''Helping the Afghans move from the military conflict to a constructive
track is a main objective of the OSCE and the [US-led] international
coalition."
Astana elaborated on its thinking in a paper titled "Efforts to intensify
cooperation with Afghanistan", according to which the OSCE can offer help from
its niche competencies in soft security and civilian affairs. These would
include training personnel belonging to Afghan security bodies involved in
narcotics control, guarding the border and customs, assisting in the conduct of
elections and monitoring, and helping develop Afghanistan's democratic and
political institutions.
Kazakhstan proposed - evidently, with Washington's backing - that the OSCE
should appoint a special representative for Afghanistan and have an OSCE
presence on the ground there. Moscow promptly objected, informing the OSCE's
permanent council in Vienna last month, "Referring to border, customs and
anti-drug projects to assist Afghanistan ... we [Russia] cannot support the
idea of the OSCE operating on Afghanistan's territory, nor can we support
attempts to extend human rights and democracy obligations to this country. Nor
do we see any grounds for creating the post of OSCE special representative for
Afghanistan."
Russia's sense of indignation is understandable. The US has stolen a march over
Moscow, which for the past five or six years has been pleading that the CSTO
can act as a constructive partner for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(NATO) in stabilizing the Afghan situation, but Washington studiously ignored
the plea. Now, the US is bringing in the OSCE (which includes Russia) as a "B
Team" into Afghanistan so that NATO can concentrate on the major security tasks
of the counter-insurgency.
Plainly put, the US is preparing for a prolonged involvement with the
developing security paradigm of Afghanistan and Central Asia.
Moscow being reactive
Yet, Russia is forced to react with one arm tied behind its back. The US misses
no opportunity to characterize its initiative in Kyrgyzstan as a fine example
of US-Russia cooperation in the best spirit of US President Barack Obama's
"reset" with his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev.
Moscow cannot openly dispute the US interpretation at a time when the "reset"
is delicately poised. Besides, Moscow has hoped that cooperation in Afghanistan
would itself develop into a major template of the "reset". As for the OSCE
role, Moscow has been all along seeking a transformation of the body as an
effective security organization and the US initiative in Kyrgyzstan conforms to
the Russian wish. Again, Russia has shied away from playing a role in
stabilizing the Kyrgyz situation unilaterally and has taken a cautious stance,
fearing a Kyrgyz quagmire that could be financially burdensome.
Evidently, Russia cannot also object to the US initiative in Kyrgyzstan under
the circumstances when China chooses to sit on the fence simply watching the
battle of wits between Washington and Moscow. Also, the two key Central Asian
countries - Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan - are themselves warming up their
relationship with the US.
Generally speaking, Washington is having a sort of "reset" with Astana and
Tashkent as well. Now, these two Central Asian capitals are essentially trying
to emulate Russia's example of prioritizing ties with the US. On its part,
Washington is also being pragmatic about its democracy project in Central Asia
that used to irritate authoritarian regimes in the region.
Clearly, there is a paradigm shift in Central Asia and the credit goes to US
diplomacy; US influence is on an upward curve. The fact is that unlike Russia,
which has acted in an ad-hoc manner, the US is coming up with a comprehensive
approach to the Kyrgyz crisis and the CSTO's credibility has suffered.
Testifying before the Helsinki Commission in Washington last week, US Assistant
Secretary of State Robert Blake was frank about the US's intention to keep its
military presence in Kyrgyzstan for the foreseeable future. He said:
We
are not in competition with any country for influence in Central Asia ...
Maintaining the Manas Transit Center is an important national security priority
for the United States, but that center can only be maintained if Kyrgyzstan
itself is a stable and reliable partner and we ourselves are totally
transparent in the functioning of the center. The center is an important part
of our partnership, but our focus has been and remains developing our overall
political, economic and security relationship.
The US has also
lost no time pushing through a big aid program for Kyrgyzstan's economic
reconstruction. The international donor conference held in Bishkek, the
Kyrgyzstan capital, on July 27 was sponsored by the World Bank but it bore
Washington's imprimatur. The donors' pledge of US$1.5 billion for Kyrgyzstan
over the next 30 months exceeded Bishkek's own request. In political terms, it
unmistakably underscores that the "United States has a strong commitment to
Kyrgyzstan", as Blake put it.
In a July 30 speech at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Blake
made it clear that Washington was in no mood to concede Central Asia - "a
region of significant importance to US national interests" - to Russia as the
latter's backyard. He said:
We recognize that other countries have
interests in Central Asia. But we don't accept any country having exclusive
interests. We maintain it is in the interests of all countries in the region to
undertake policies that can produce a more durable stability and more reliable
partners for everyone, including the United States, in addressing critical
regional and global challenges, from non-proliferation to counter-narcotics to
energy security and combating terrorism.
Another Kosovo?
Having said that, the audacious US strategy is also not without real risks and
Kyrgyzstan's medium-term prospects are worrying. The political landscape is
highly fractured and there is no certainty as to how a new constitution will
work in practice and whether elections expected in October will be free and
fair. Clan politics are acute and the interim government in Bishkek remains
weak.
Furthermore, regional divisions in Kyrgyzstan are deepening. Kyrgyz nationalist
rhetoric is becoming strident, insecurity continues, the Kyrgyz-Uzbek ethnic
divide remains enormous and minority Uzbek grievances are largely unaddressed.
With the security bodies and law-enforcement agencies showing bias against
Uzbeks, revenge attacks are possible.
Meanwhile, as Martha Olcott, a prominent US expert on Central Asia, put it,
"Uzbeks are unlikely to simply fade away ... small numbers of young men also
seem to be drifting into the jihadist camps and networks in Afghanistan, and
beyond in Pakistan. All this means that even if the Kyrgyz government is able
to keep the lid on ethnic tensions in the south in the near term, the events of
June [the pogrom against ethnic Uzbeks] could have serious ramifications in
both Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan for years to come."
Conceivably, as a perceptive Kyrgyz expert wrote in the Guardian newspaper
recently, "There are three possible templates for the future: that of Sri
Lanka, where a powerful guerrilla organization emerged after ethnic riots; that
of Chechnya, where a nascent nationalist movement fell prey to Islamist
networks; and that of Uzbekistan, which reacted to Andijan [the uprising there
in 2005] with overwhelming repression. None of these is very inspiring."
Indeed, some Russian observers discern a fourth template as the most likely
scenario - Kosovo. They feel that the US is proceeding according to a carefully
choreographed plan where the induction of OSCE policemen is a necessary first
step.
After all, the 52 unarmed OSCE policemen put in place under the group's plan
can't do much to stabilize southern Kyrgyzstan. They are most likely to fail in
a hostile environment where the Kyrgyz majority population appears to be
opposed to the OSCE's intervention. A Moscow politician who is a member of the
Russian Duma's international affairs committee said:
If anything
happens to these OSCE policemen, orders will be given to bring in armed units
to Kyrgyzstan. Who is going to send military units there? Of course, it's NATO.
There's a US military base in Manas, a French air base in Dushanbe, a 154,000
NATO military contingent in Afghanistan. What's the problem? If that happens,
we will witness a very interesting situation that will resemble the one in
Kosovo ... And the threat of active Western interference according to the
Kosovo scenario is very realistic.
Above all, the OSCE
deployment may be designed to soothe tensions, but its downstream impact could
be quite to the contrary. It could well turn out that the presence of
international observers might embolden ethnic Uzbeks in southern Kyrgyzstan to
pursue autonomy.
To an extent, the US is already pandering to latent Uzbek separatist sentiments
in the Osh and Jalalabad regions in southern Kyrgyzstan. Whether this is a
calibrated approach happening in concert with Tashkent is a key question with
immense consequence to the future trajectory of the geopolitics of Central
Asia, and indeed Kyrgyzstan's own integrity and viability as a state.
A surge in Uzbek separatist sentiment in southern Kyrgyzstan would be bound to
trigger a backlash of Kyrgyz nationalism and it would only be a matter of time
before some Kyrgyz "strongman" took the stirrups and rode to the center stage,
brushing aside the US-backed Kyrgyz democrats in Bishkek to take matters to a
point of no return.
If that happens, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan - given the Vorukh ethnic enclave in
Batken province in southern Kyrgyzstan - would almost inevitably be drawn in,
locking in three of the five Central Asian states. In sum, it could be
Yugoslavia all over again.
Note 1. The Helsinki Final Act was the final act of the
Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe held in Helsinki, Finland,
during July and August of 1975. Thirty-five states, including the US, Canada
and all European states except Albania and Andorra, signed the declaration in
an attempt to improve relations between the communist bloc and the West.
Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign
Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka,
Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.
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