Helsinki Commission leadership responds to CIS criticism of OSCE (08/01/04)

Helsinki Commission leadership responds to CIS criticism of OSCE

by Elizabeth B. Pryor
CSCE Senior Advisor

WASHINGTON - The bipartisan leadership of the U.S. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (Helsinki Commission) on July 21 responded to a declaration signed by nine members of the Commonwealth of Independent States which, while acknowledging that the OSCE occupies "a key place in the European security architecture," states that the organization has been unable to adapt to the changing political and security environment.

The text was presented to the OSCE Permanent Council earlier this month by Russia's Ambassador to the OSCE, Alexey N. Borodavkin. The presidents of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, the Russian Federation, Tajikistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan signed the declaration. CIS members Azerbaijan and Georgia declined to sign. Turkmenistan did not participate.

The Helsinki Commission leadership - Rep. Christopher H. Smith (R-N.J.), chairman; Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-Colo.), co-chairman; Rep. Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.), House ranking member; and Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), Senate ranking member - responded to each of the nine presidents who signed the declaration.

The commissioners noted that three of the presidents signing the declaration, Nursultan Nazarbaev of Kazakstan, Aksar Akaev of Kyrgyzstan and Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan, actually signed the original Helsinki Final Act document when their countries were accepted as OSCE participating states in 1992.

In the letter to President Nazarbaev, the commission leaders stressed that they "were particularly troubled to see Kazakstan included on the signatories to the declaration, since you have expressed an interest in undertaking the chairmanship of the organization [OSCE] in 2009."

In their replies, commissioners agreed about the importance of the Vienna-based OSCE and that its ability to adapt was essential to its continued relevance. They pointed out, however, that many of the assertions of the declaration were already being addressed by the participating states.

The CIS signatories had criticized the OSCE for "failing to implement in an appropriate manner" the fundamental documents of the organization, stating that the OSCE is not observing an allegedly agreed-upon Helsinki principle of non-interference in internal affairs.

Refuting the assertion that the OSCE was failing to implement its principles, the Helsinki Commission leaders pointed out that the participating states, not the organization, are responsible for such implementation: "We should look to capitals when failures in implementation arise, not Vienna." On the matter of "internal affairs," the leadership reminded the presidents that this issue was definitively decided in the politically binding concluding document to the OSCE's 1991 Moscow Human Dimension meeting, which states: "They [the participating states] categorically and irrevocably declare that the commitments undertaken in the field of the human dimension ... are matters of direct and legitimate concern to all participating states and do not belong exclusively to the internal affairs of the state concerned."

Turning to the assertion that there is a serious imbalance between the three security dimensions of the OSCE - political-military, economic and environmental, and the human dimension - the commissioners noted that since the issue of "imbalance" in OSCE priorities was raised several years ago, there has been significant movement in anti-terrorism and tangible military security issues. For example, path-breaking agreements on export controls for MANPADs, assistance for reduction of excess ammunition and uniform standards for travel documents have been achieved in the last few months. The economic dimension is also being revitalized. For example, the OSCE has the most concrete and robust action plan to fight human trafficking of any international organization. The OSCE Parliamentary Assembly has called for a ministerial-level meeting to discuss ways of halting terrorist financing and has spoken out for increased membership in the World Trade Organization. Though welcoming the development of all of the OSCE dimensions, the commissioners took issue with the idea that this should come at the expense of the promotion of human rights.

The CIS signatories expressed concern that human dimension activities are concentrated in the states of the former Soviet Union and former Yugoslavia, and that unfair standards regarding elections are directed at these nations. They went on to accuse OSCE missions of focusing on human rights and democratic development at the expense of the "full range of work covered by the organization."

In response to the assertion that undue concentration was focused on human rights in the countries of the CIS and former Yugoslavia, the Helsinki Commission leaders noted that on 85 occasions since January 2003 the commission had addressed, often publicly, human rights concerns in NATO countries. Public criticism of actions by the United States, as in the recent criminal treatment of prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison, has also been made in OSCE meetings and has been taken seriously. The United States has made clear that free and fair elections are crucial to the ongoing process of democratic development and welcomes election monitors to its own national elections in November 2004.

The letters also addressed the continued need to locate missions or other OSCE representatives in the former Soviet and Yugoslav countries. In the case of every signatory to the CIS declaration, there are persistent human rights violations and backward trends on democratic development. Specific concerns were cited for each country, including fraudulent conduct of elections, hindrance of free media, curtailment of religious freedom and freedom of assembly, corruption among public officials and, in several of the countries, detention of political opposition leaders. These abuses have been documented in the Commission report "Democracy and Human Rights Trends in Eurasia and East Europe." It is with the goal of reversing these trends that all OSCE states have agreed to the establishment and retention of these missions. The poor implementation record on OSCE commitments argues for the continued necessity of these field offices, the commissioners concluded.

Finally, the leaders of the Helsinki Commission expressed the hope that the discussion of OSCE's development would move beyond the declaration's inaccurate reinterpretations of key OSCE documents and center on concrete suggestions. They welcomed any positive proposals that the presidents might offer. In this, as in all their work, the Helsinki Commission expressed confidence that by working together, the states of the OSCE region could reach their goal of true security and cooperation in Europe.

The United States Helsinki Commission, an independent federal agency, by law monitors and encourages progress in implementing provisions of the Helsinki Accords. Created in 1976, it is composed of nine senators, nine representatives and one official each from the departments of State, Defense and Commerce.

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