OSCE, R.I.P. 

 by Vladimir Socor, IASPS Senior Fellow

This briefing is based on a lecture given at the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute, Johns Hopkins University-SAIS, Dec. 9, 2003.

 The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe was meant by its own definition to uphold international security, economic cooperation, and human rights in countries to the east of Institutional Europe (NATO/European Union). NATO’s and the EU’s eastward enlargement has dramatically reduced the OSCE’s scope for action both geographically and functionally. This shrinkage is likely to continue as more post-communist countries seek to join NATO and the EU. The OSCE, bound by Russia ’s veto, is unable even to serve as an “antechamber” to NATO or to the EU for aspiring post-communist countries. The Council of Europe, the WTO, and other organizations provide such antechambers, where Western standards and norms of conduct prevail.

OSCE activities are in essence confined to the “gray” territory where the West’s and Russia ’s “near abroads” overlap. There, the organization can only be as effective as Russia ’s right of veto allows. The OSCE’s problem, however, is not just one of effectiveness, but one of institutional survival. Under President Vladimir Putin, Russia ’s frequent and bold exploitation of the veto right --particularly on agenda-topping issues--has paralyzed the OSCE. The organization is foundering upon the problem of Russia .

Recently the OSCE has demonstrated two ways to fail. In 2002 it gave in to Russian demands across the board (Georgia, Moldova , CFE Treaty, Belarus , Chechnya ) and produced “consensus” on that basis. In 2003 it still gave in to Russia on many issues while balking at ever-greater concessions on other issues. As a net result, Russia bagged the concessions but still withheld consensus on basic issues at the OSCE’s year-end conference in Maastricht , displaying its re-expansion goals with impunity before the organization.

The Kremlin does not want to kill the OSCE; on the contrary, it prefers to keep it alive although weak, and to use it selectively in Russia ’s interest when possible; e.g., for blessing or at least condoning Russia ’s use of force and the actions of Russia ’s armed proxies, and for being soft to pro-Moscow dictatorships. Thus, the OSCE faces a dilemma: upholding its declared principles, only to be exposed as impotent; or quietly collaborating, only to forfeit its raison d’etre. The organization has tried both of these options, with nearly fatal results to its credibility in 2002 and 2003.

THE DUTCH CHAIRMANSHIP 2003

By all accounts including those of OSCE officials, the organization had reached an all-time nadir in 2002 with the Porto year-end conference. That soul-searching remained strictly private, however; OSCE officials never admitted publicly to the organization’s crisis and the Porto fiasco. When the Netherlands took over from Portugal as OSCE chairman for 2003, it vowed not merely to rescue the organization from imminent demise, but to restore it to a prominent international role and lend it a fashionable shine of multilateralism during the 12-month term of the Dutch chairmanship.

The Netherlands ’ prestige, resources, long experience with and commitment to international institutions --so the reasoning went-- would ensure both a national success for the Netherlands in the chair and an institutional resurgence for the OSCE. Its Chairman-in-Office, Dutch Foreign Affairs Minister Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, created in January 2003 a 40-strong special task force of Dutch diplomats, based partly in The Hague and partly at OSCE headquarters in Vienna , to steer the organization toward a successful year-end conference at Maastricht in December. The chairmanship even hoped that Maastricht could see a summit of heads of state, such as the OSCE is supposed to hold every second year, although it has not managed one since Istanbul 1999.

In sum, the Dutch chairmanship came in with inordinately optimistic plans even as it took over a deeply ailing organization. From that high level of expectations, the fall it took at Maastricht in December was all the harder.

When formally taking over the chair in January in Vienna , de Hoop Scheffer announced an ambitious action program out of Hotel Sacher (home of the eponymous chocolate torte), from which venue the proceedings moved to the Vienna Opera for a “Dance Against Violence” gala show. However, in violence-ravaged Chechnya at that very moment, the OSCE’s office was being compelled to close down by the Russian authorities, with barely a murmur from the OSCE.

The conflict in Moldova/Transnistria, more than any issue, bedeviled the OSCE throughout the year. The Dutch chairmanship singled out that conflict as the most amenable to an early resolution from among the “frozen” conflicts in post-Soviet countries. The chairmanship set for itself the goal of solving that conflict during the Dutch term, under OSCE aegis, as a crowning achievement of the Maastricht conference. The U.S. State Department for its own reasons went along with that goal and deadline. By staking success or failure on that issue and on a calendar date, the chairmanship unwittingly invited Russian maximal demands; and when those materialized, the chairmanship tried hard to accommodate them, before pulling back from the brink at the last moment.

It is a traditional prerogative of the OSCE’s Chairman-in-Office at year-end meetings to issue a Chair’s Statement when consensus can not be obtained, and some fundamental principle must be upheld at least for the record, if not operationally. De Hoop Scheffer had the opportunity to use that prerogative in defense of the OSCE’s own covenants when the Maastricht conference ended in Russia-versus-the-rest disagreement. However, he issued a “Perception Statement” that sought to satisfy Russia and the rest equally, papering over and relativizing differences that most countries actually recognized as fundamental.

This denouement reflected the Dutch chairmanship’s year-long quest for consensus at the expense of principle, not to mention Western strategic interests. To be sure, that quest was fully consistent with the OSCE’s culture; but it caused this chairmanship to engage in constant splitting of the half with Russia ; or even to concede entirely on issues that the chairmanship itself had previously defined as core goals; and finally to open the Maastricht conference doors to the CIS and its “Collective Security Organization.”

When de Hoop Scheffer takes over as Secretary-General of NATO in January 2004, it is to be hoped that he will adhere to NATO culture even more closely than he did to that of the OSCE, and that he will help uphold Western strategic interests with even greater persistence than he showed in accommodating Russia at the OSCE. 

BELARUS

At the year-end conference in Maastricht , the Belarusan delegation--representing the last Soviet-type dictatorship in Europe --was justified in its official statement to praise the good cooperation between the OSCE and the Belarusan government. Such praise reflected the OSCE’s consent to emasculate the mandate of its Minsk Office. From 1997 until 2002, that German-led Mission --with significant U.S. support--had actively assisted pro-Western political forces and advised the dictator Alyaksandr Lukashenka to introduce political reforms. During 2002, Lukashenka forced the mission to close down by evicting all of its diplomatic staffers, one by one, from the country. The OSCE took the humiliation silently.

In early 2003 the Mission--now downgraded to Office--reopened with a new mandate, changed as per Lukashenka’s and Moscow’s specifications, which: eliminated the OSCE catchwords “democracy” and “human rights;” required the Office to coordinate all actions with the authorities; severely restricted its ability to fund politically-related activities; allowed the Belarusan government to decide at the end of each 12-month period whether to prolong or terminate the Office’s existence. The U.S. State Department made little fuss because, at that juncture, it was courting Russia for support--which never came--on Iraq . Thus, Lukashenka and the Kremlin succeeded in taming the OSCE in Belarus .

At Maastricht , the U.S. , the European Union, the Baltic states , and some other countries criticized “the continuing deterioration” of the situation in Belarus in their official statements. OSCE Chairman-in-Office de Hoop Scheffer, however, failed to mention Belarus in his “Perception Statement” (see Part 1).

CHECHNYA

In 2003, the OSCE was to all intents and purposes run out from Chechnya by Russia . The organization only had a tiny Assistance Group of six international staff, basically stuck in the Chechen small town of Znamenskoye with very limited access to the scenes of atrocities in Chechnya . The mandate from 1995 through 2002 had authorized the Assistance Group to: promote a political settlement of the conflict in Chechnya ; oversee and report upon the situation with respect to human rights; deliver relief supplies.

At the Porto conference in December 2002 Russia refused to prolong the Assistance Group’s mandate unless it were totally changed. It wanted to eliminate the political settlement-promoting and human rights-overseeing functions, and to limit the Group’s role to delivery of relief supplies and accommodation of refugees (thus in effect asking the OSCE to bear some of the financial costs of Russian military crimes against civilians). The U.S. and other Western countries agreed to give up the political role; accepted an increased relief-supply role, but insisted on retaining a human-rights role for the Group. In response, Russia unilaterally terminated the Group’s activity in the night of December 31, 2002-January 1, 2003, and giving the Group until March to pack up and leave Russia , which the Group did.

When the Netherlands took over the OSCE’s Chairmanship in January 2003, de Hoop Scheffer announced that reopening an OSCE office in Chechnya with an adequate mandate was one of the “high priorities.” The Chairmanship soon gave up, however. The OSCE merely declined to monitor the March 2003 “constitutional referendum” and the October 2003 “presidential election,” both staged by Russian authorities in Chechnya . By declining to monitor those exercises, the OSCE was also able to claim that it could not criticize them. The world may have been horrified by confirmed reports of mass-scale atrocities against Chechen civilians; but not the OSCE as an organization.

At Maastricht , the U.S. and other countries ( Latvia notably among them) did deplore the crimes.  However, de Hoop Scheffer failed to mention Chechnya in his “Perception Statement” (see above); thus from January to December, Chechnya turned--at least at the declaratory level--from a high priority into a non-issue.

Previous OSCE Chairs-in-Office had displayed greater consistency with respect to Chechnya . Thus at the December 2000 year-end meeting in Vienna, when Russia vetoed a draft statement that had called for an independent investigation of alleged crimes against Chechen civilians, Chairwoman Benita Ferrero-Waldner (Austria’s foreign affairs minister at the time) made reference to that proposal in the Chair’s Statement. In June 2001, the Romanian Chairmanship under Foreign Affairs Minister Mircea Geoana had actually succeeded in bringing the OSCE’s Assistance Group back to Chechnya , after a hiatus of two-and-a-half years. The Dutch chairmanship turned out different, however.

C F E   TREATY

The OSCE’s year-end conference in Maastricht could not adopt a final Ministerial Declaration because Russia withheld consensus on its only section that mattered: that on ratification of the Adapted Treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) and the associated Istanbul Commitments. Except for these two paragraphs, the draft final document was so platitude-filled and meaningless that many delegations feared a severe embarrassment to the OSCE were it to adopt such a final document without the only section of any significance. Russia ’s veto in Maastricht capped several months of futile negotiations on that section in the Permanent Council in Vienna .

The Treaty and the Commitments are OSCE documents. At Istanbul in 1999--the last summit of heads of state it was able to hold--the OSCE had approved the Adapted CFE Treaty, along with a set of Russian obligations to close the military bases in Moldova and Georgia, withdraw the troops from those countries, and observe overall CFE ceilings for the southern flank which includes such militarized areas as Chechnya and the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict theater. Russia had accepted those Istanbul commitments as an accompaniment to the CFE Treaty; but it repudiated them after Vladimir Putin had become president, and now officially seeks to keep those forces in place indefinitely.

OSCE officials often stated that Russia had “solemnly undertaken the Istanbul Commitments to the OSCE’s fifty-four member countries.” However, the organization turns out to be unable to take a position on the violation of those commitments, because any response is subject Russia ’s veto.

The Adapted CFE Treaty is unratified because Russia ’s Istanbul Commitments are unfulfilled. Moscow calls for ratification of the Treaty in order to extend its applicability to Estonia , Latvia and Lithuania , the territories of which were not covered by the original CFE treaty. Russia wants to bring the three Baltic states within the treaty’s purview so as to place caps on possible NATO or U.S. force deployments there. The U.S. , and NATO collectively, take the position that Treaty ratification, and thus the Baltic states ’ accession to a ratified Treaty, are contingent on fulfillment of Russia ’s Istanbul Commitments. Thus, the offer of Baltic accession constitutes an incentive to Russia to comply with its obligations on the southern flank.

In the run-up to Maastricht , however, several influential European governments --including that of the Netherlands , whose Foreign Affairs Minister Jaap de Hoop Scheffer doubled as OSCE Chairman-in-Office--began seriously considering ratification of the CFE Treaty without fulfillment of Russia ’s Istanbul Commitments. Several governments even began intimating privately at the OSCE’s Permanent Council in Vienna that Georgia would be responsible for the CFE Treaty’s unraveling, if it insists on linking the treaty’s ratification to the Istanbul Commitments’ fulfillment. Pressure began building on Georgia to settle for a mere promise by Russia to fulfill those commitments by some future deadline, instead of actual fulfillment. These moves undermined the incentive for Russian compliance on the southern flank as a quid-pro-quo for treaty ratification and Baltic accession to the treaty. Moscow was confirmed in its belief that it could win on both flanks.

At Maastricht , Russia rejected any notion of a “commitment” or “obligation” to withdraw its forces from Moldova and Georgia . Instead, it took the position that Russia merely has such an “intention,” and then only “provided that the necessary conditions are in place.” With this formula, Russia simply turned the tables on the OSCE; for it was the OSCE’s 2002 year-end ministerial meeting in Porto which had adopted that wording, amid European Union indifference, and at the behest of a U.S. State Department seeking in vain the Kremlin’s support over Iraq . At Porto , with barely a dozen ministers in attendance--most countries being represented at deputy-ministers’ and even lower levels--the OSCE had changed the Istanbul decisions of the fifty-five heads of state. It had turned Russia ’s obligation into an “intention,” and introduced the reference to unspecified “conditions” interpretable at will.

The U.S. , NATO and the EU rallied just two weeks before the Maastricht conference to present a common front there, insisting that Russia honor the Istanbul Commitments, and reaffirming the linkage of CFE treaty ratification to Russia ’s southern-flank obligations. Russia responded by vetoing the final Ministerial Declaration because of those stipulations. A disappointed U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell in his concluding statement “call[ed] once again for the earliest possible fulfillment of the Istanbul commitments on Moldova and Georgia .” Some of NATO’s new and incoming members-- Poland , the Baltic states , Romania --most strongly supported this view.  The Chairmanship’s concluding statement by de Hoop Scheffer included a weaker reference to the need to fulfill the 1999 Istanbul Commitments and the linkage to CFE Treaty ratification.

In a concluding statement of his own, Russia ’s Foreign Affairs Minister Igor Ivanov felt free to insult the OSCE: “[Regarding] those so-called Istanbul commitments, Russia does not consider itself bound by any such assessments and recommendations, and deems it unacceptable for the OSCE to take them into account.”

GEORGIA

Under the OSCE 1999 Istanbul summit documents, Russia was to: close the Vaziani and Gudauta bases by July 2001, and negotiate with Georgia toward closure of the Batumi and Akhalkalaki bases and associated military installations.

Four years later, Russia retains the Gudauta base, refusing to negotiate about its closure. Russia demands a further eleven years for closing the Batumi and Akhalkalaki bases, but wants them legalized by treaty in the meantime; would count those eleven years from the moment of entry into force of the treaty, which in any case would take years to negotiate; demands a huge financial “compensation” for the relocation costs; and meanwhile declines to hold the negotiations because Georgia does not accept such preconditions. Georgia holds that three years would amply suffice for closing the bases and relocating the troops and weaponry to Russia .

In the OSCE’s Permanent Council in Vienna preparatory to Maastricht , and then at the conference itself, Russia withheld consensus on a statement by the OSCE on Georgia . The draft statement would have: a) reconfirmed the 1999 Istanbul documents regarding withdrawal of Russian forces from Georgia; b) called for progress in the negotiations toward political settlements in Abkhazia and South Ossetia (on Abkhazia, a document prepared by Germany’s OSCE Ambassador Dieter Boden had been turned down by the Russian and Abkhaz sides); and c) favorably referred to the OSCE’s Border Monitoring Operation on the Georgia-Russia border.

The U.S. and other participants in their final official statements expressed “disappointment” or “regret” over--as they weakly phrased it--the failure to reach agreement on the documents at the Maastricht conference (rather than over Russia’s failure, in fact refusal, to withdraw its forces from Georgia these past four years). Even those implied judgmental nuances were, however, absent from the Dutch Chairmanship’s final statement, which sounded even weaker for trying to be neutral. Only the victim, Georgia, demonstrated integrity by noting in its final statement that “ Russia has seriously undermined its credibility and placed the OSCE in an awkward position, denying it the responsibility to address important security issues.”

Thus, Maastricht failed to redress the setbacks that the OSCE’s December 2002 Porto conference--in fact, the U.S. State Department’s unilateral concessions to Russia during that conference--had inflicted on Georgia and indeed on Western strategic interests there. Porto introduced the conditionality to Russian troop withdrawal; it downgraded Russia’s withdrawal obligation to a mere intention (see above concerning both points); it threw out of the final document a reference to the host country’s “free consent” being required for the stationing of foreign troops (as per the CFE Treaty); and it also threw out the key words “and termination” from the goal of Russia-Georgia negotiations, making that goal read: “duration and modalities of the functioning of Russian bases,” as if to imply their continuation, not their Istanbul-mandated termination. Those four concessions to Russia on troops and bases at Porto turned out to be irreversible at Maastricht . 

Russia also vetoed a favorable reference to the OSCE’s Georgia Border Monitoring Operation (BMO) by the Maastricht conference. Such an acknowledgment could have justified maintaining and indeed expanding BMO’s budget and size. Comprised of unarmed military officers from many OSCE member countries, including Russia , the BMO watches since 2000 the Georgian side of the Georgia-Russia border opposite Chechnya , Ingushetia, and Dagestan . The BMO’s mission is to report on any cross-border traffic by putative “Chechen and international terrorists.” It was on such allegations that Russia sought to build a casus belli against Georgia in recent years. In response, Georgia and its Western partners ensured a steady enlargement of BMO’s personnel and area of responsibility, so as to tighten security on that border; and proposed a further enlargement in 2003. 

Two considerations motivated Russia to oppose an acknowledgment to and enlargement of the BMO at Maastricht . First, the BMO never confirmed Moscow ’s relentless accusations that “terrorist groups” were crossing the border from Georgia into Russia in the Chechen, Ingush and Dagestan sectors; thus, the BMO implicitly undermined Russia ’s attempts at creating a casus belli. Second, the BMO did confirm Russian air raids into Georgia , even as Moscow was attempting to deny the facts about the air raids. By its hostility to the BMO at Maastricht , Russia showed that it is more interested in pressuring Georgia than in enhancing security and stability on that border.

Only a few days before the Maastricht conference, Moscow hosted a week-long meeting of the leaders of Georgia ’s secessionist regions. The Abkhaz, South Ossetian, and Ajar leaders--all of whom are propped up by Russian troops in their respective areas of Georgia --held well-publicized meetings with Russian officials. They declared their intentions to continue cementing the secession from Georgia and links with Russia .  At Maastricht , U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell urged member countries to “do everything possible to support Georgia ’s territorial integrity. No support should be given to breakaway elements seeking to weaken Georgia ’s territorial integrity.”

Meanwhile, Russia is in the process of annexing Abkhazia and South Ossetia de facto. In the past two years it has: strengthened Russian and proxy control of the Georgian side of the border in those two sectors; established direct transportation and communication links between Russia and those two regions of Georgia, without reference to the Georgian government; acquired property there, violating Georgian law and Georgian state ownership; handed out Russian citizenship en masse to residents of those regions of Georgia; or granted those residents visa-free travel privileges, while imposing visa requirements on residents from the rest of Georgia; and demonstrated the ties between the secessionist leaderships and the locally based Russian troops.

The OSCE is unable officially even to take note of, much less to take a stand on, Russia ’s de facto seizure of Georgian (as of Moldovan) territories. The OSCE’s holy of holies--the Helsinki Final Act--along with the Charter on European Security, Platform for Cooperative Security, codes of interstate conduct, and any number of other OSCE pacts may forbid territorial annexations, the use or threat of force to change borders, ethnic cleansing, and all forms of attack on the territorial integrity of states in their internationally recognized borders. However, the OSCE’s Permanent Council in Vienna , the Maastricht conference, and ultimately the OSCE Chairmanship did and said nothing in the face of Russia ’s latest moves to splinter the pro-Western Georgia .

MOLDOVA: A BLOT ON THE OSCE’S DUTCH CHAIRMANSHIP.

Moldova topped the OSCE’s agenda throughout 2003. It also figured near the top of the overall European security agenda since at least 2002, as a disputed borderland between the enlarging West and the reemergent contours of a Greater Russia.

The Dutch Chairmanship under Foreign Affairs Minister Jaap de Hoop Scheffer aimed to resuscitate the deeply ailing OSCE by solving (or at least making decisive progress toward solving) one post-Soviet “frozen” conflict during the Dutch term. It looked at South Ossetia before the term had begun; but by the time it stepped into the chair, it had identified the Trans-Dniester conflict as the most amenable to an early resolution. Its ambitions were high: vindicating OSCE’s “relevance,” hosting an OSCE summit (first since 1999) at Maastricht to consecrate the settlement, using it to showcase U.S.-Russia consensus and Europe-Russia “cooperative security,” and collecting laurels for the Dutch government as peacemaker. Avoiding Russia’s veto by satisfying its all-too-well-known geopolitical goals in Moldova was key to a “success” defined in those terms.

All along the Dutch Chairmanship worked closely with the U.S. State Department and the American-led OSCE Mission in Moldova. Sorely lacking expertise on the country, the Chairmanship took on board a ready-made Russia-OSCE-State Department plan to “federalize” Moldova with Trans-Dniester, placing such a “federation” under mainly Russian oversight. Drafted primarily by Russia, and publicly promoted mainly by the OSCE Mission at State Department’s behest, the plan is contained in the July 2002 “mediators’” document and its successive edited versions through October 2003. Russian Foreign Affairs Minister Yevgeny Primakov’s 1997 Moscow Memorandum provides the framework and basic parameters for the current project.

The current project envisages: 1) confining the negotiations to a “pentagonal” format of: rump Moldova and Trans-Dniester as coequal parties, along with Russia, Ukraine and the OSCE in two roles: “mediators” in the negotiations and “guarantors” of the eventual outcome, to supervise the “federation’s” functioning; 2) legalizing the secessionist ruling group in Trans-Dniester, and granting it a share of power in Moldova’s central governance under a “federal” arrangement; 3) drafting a “federal” constitution in the “mediated” negotiations between rump Moldova’s and Trans-Dniester’s authorities, and getting that constitution approved by referendum in 2004.

The plan’s first component means direct and multiple Russian representation, and only a narrow and indirect Western representation via OSCE subject to Russian veto. This model of “guaranteeing” a state is nowhere else to be seen in Europe or Asia. The second component means authorizing foreign minority rule by Russia’s own citizens and agents in Trans-Dniester, and empowering those exponents of a Greater-Russia agenda alongside the local Moldovan Communists. This would mean a death sentence on Moldova, and creation of a Russian-oriented substate entity on the West’s new border. The third component means holding the “referendum” under the existing conditions of Communist control over mass media in rump Moldova and a Soviet-type police regime in Trans-Dniester.

Meanwhile, Russian troops are staying put in Moldova. In 2003 the OSCE again could do nothing about Russia’s repeated breach of its 1999 troop-withdrawal obligation. Although the OSCE is the guardian of that commitment, it excused Russia’s breach by pretending continuously that Trans-Dniester was preventing Russia from withdrawing the troops. This is farcical, inasmuch as Trans-Dniester’s leaders are citizens of Russia, many of them with Russian military and security service ranks, and constantly shuttling to Moscow for consultations and support. The OSCE’s playing along with this farce confirmed that the OSCE was powerless to “guarantee” Moldova’s sovereignty, integrity and security. Moreover, mandating Russia and Ukraine to supervise the “federation’s” constitutional arrangements and internal functioning made a mockery of the “democratic” packaging of this project.

In sum, the proposed “federalization” and “guarantees” would turn Moldova into a Russian satellite on the soon-to-be border of NATO and EU. Moldova’s pro-Western opposition has branded the proposed “federalization” a “Russian protectorate.” No Western expert is known to have endorsed it, outside the OSCE and State Department.

Nevertheless, the OSCE and State Department alongside Russia--and with Ukraine  passively seconding Russia’s position--sought during 2003 to force the pace of “federalizing” Moldova under Communist and Russian control, and while Russian troops stayed on. The OSCE’s Chairmanship made it a top priority to have this project endorsed at the Maastricht conference.

The Chairmanship’s representative in Chisinau, as well as the Mission, brushed aside the growing objections from Moldova’s pro-Western opposition and civil society groups. The Mission had all along chosen to cast these groups as “retrograde,” “nationalist” and worse; the Dutch Chairmanship’s representative in Chisinau took this attitude, as well, on board.

Conversations in March and May with two officials of ambassadorial rank, responsible for Moldova at two different levels of the OSCE’s chairmanship, revealed poor background knowledge of the 13-year-old conflict in Moldova, and inadequate information on the situation on the ground. These ambassadors candidly admitted to having received only the most cursory initiation into Moldova’s history, politics and culture after embarking on their 2003 effort. Some of their views on the current political situation seemed to reflect the OSCE Chisinau Mission’s and State Department’s biases, which these Dutch ambassadors had few means to filter: e.g., a vision of Moldova as essentially a “Russian-speaking” society; and confusion about the effects of Soviet-era linguistic russification, now regarded with a measure of approval as modern multiculturalism. These ambassadors took at face value the Russian military’s obviously understated data on the size of the Russian troop contingent. While senior OSCE levels seemed to accept a major Russian political role in Moldova as a matter of course, Dutch and other junior staffers displayed a lively interest in seeking a genuinely European solution for Moldova.

Poorly advised by his senior officials, de Hoop Scheffer attempted three months into his term to score a “breakthrough” by persuading Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin and Trans-Dniester leader Igor Smirnov to attend together a football game in Tiraspol in de Hoop Scheffer’s presence, there to relaunch the “negotiating process.” Smirnov had, however, banned Voronin from entering Trans-Dniester almost two years previously and reaffirmed the ban since then; he now rejected de Hoop Scheffer’s pleas to admit Voronin, deflating the OSCE’s public-relations hype. The OSCE’s Chairman did dignify Smirnov by holding official talks with him, however he declined to attend the football game as “punishment” on Smirnov; and went on nevertheless advocating the empowerment of Smirnov through “federalization.” Had this football episode occurred one day earlier than it actually did, it might have qualified for an April Fools’ story; but it did not qualify because it occurred on April 2.

The Chairmanship was advised in March and again in May to take advantage of a “Dutch continuity” as OSCE Chair in 2003 and EU Presiding Country in 2004, in order to transfer the Moldova dossier to the EU. In this way, the Netherlands could avoid a premature settlement at Maastricht that could only be in Russia’s favor, while still collecting the hoped-for laurels by promoting a better solution through the EU.

In July 2003, de Hoop Scheffer took a first step by requesting the EU to consider leading a peace-consolidation operation in Moldova. The idea had originated in the EU’s Paris-based Institute for Security Studies, and the planning in EU High Representative Javier Solana’s staff. However, de Hoop Scheffer insisted that any EU-led operation should still require an OSCE mandate; and that at least the outline of a political settlement would still have to be adopted by the OSCE as a prerequisite to the proposed EU-led operation.

Leaving those two decisions up to the OSCE, however, clearly meant holding them hostage to Russia’s veto. Moreover, the concept of a “post-settlement” operation would cast the EU in the role of policing a settlement not of its making, but rather of Russia’s/OSCE’s making, in this case “federalization.” Within the EU itself, the issue of a peace-consolidation operation was ultimately sidelined in October, not least by Italy (the EU’s currently presiding country), Germany and France, countries whose national leaders pursue special bilateral relations with Russia.

That failure had two consequences: first, it eliminated a possible formula for turning the Russian “peacekeeping” troop presence into a multinational one;  and, second, it returned all decisions fully to Russia’s and OSCE. Moreover, at this juncture in October, the Chairmanship and Mission began acting frantically under self-generated pressure to produce a “success” if only on paper at the rapidly approaching Maastricht conference. Thus, they seemed prepared for ever-increasing concessions to Russia by forcing the pace of “federalization” while still condoning Russia’s refusal to withdraw the troops. Moreover, they pressured a reluctant Moldova into still greater concessions to Trans-Dniester on a “federal” constitution: e.g., in October at the U.N., a communique by de Hoop Scheffer jarringly announced that he was “impressing on” a still-reluctant Voronin that he must embrace and accelerate the “federalization.”

The Kremlin now evidently felt that it could aim for total, rather than predominant, control in Moldova. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s first deputy chief of staff, Dmitry Kozak, began mediating between Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin and Trans-Dniester leader Igor Smirnov, behind the back of the three official mediators who are the OSCE, Russia’s Foreign Affairs Ministry, and Ukraine. The OSCE was aware that the Kozak negotiations were in progress, but was kept in the dark about their content. Kozak falsely assured the OSCE that he was working with Voronin on a document identical to that of the three mediators. Characteristically, Russia’s Foreign Affairs Ministry continued working with the OSCE and Ukraine toward a settlement in Moldova on the old basis, knowing full well that Kozak was negotiating in parallel on a new basis even more favorable to Russia.

In late October 2003, the three “mediators” signed a final document--in practice a Russia-OSCE document, the latest edited version of the July 2002 document--as the basis for “federalizing” Moldova. They also agreed at Russian insistence that the document could only be presented by the three mediators jointly, not individually. The Russian side immediately blocked the presentation, in order--as it turned out--to free the table for the Kozak document.

On November 5 in Voronin's office, de Hoop Scheffer supplicated him for “something deliverable at Maastricht” on December 1. He also grasped once more at the straw of trying to set up a Voronin-Smirnov meeting, so as to enable the OSCE to claim that “the process” was alive. Because Russia had tied the OSCE’s hands in terms of presenting the “mediators’” document, de Hoop Scheffer now asked Voronin to endorse it sight unseen. Furthermore, de Hoop Scheffer maintained (based on Kozak’s assurances to OSCE) that the Kozak document was identical to that of the “mediators.” Voronin, who was at that juncture finalizing the document with Kozak, gained full confidence that the double-cross had worked, and he let de Hoop Scheffer depart empty-handed on every count.

That same day in Chisinau, as anti-“federalization” protests were mounting, de Hoop Scheffer met for the first time with civil society representatives. Attending the first 45 minutes of a scheduled two-hour dialogue, he heard but (as it turned out) did not listen to their arguments: these debunked “federalization” and called for withdrawal of the Russian troops and observance of the constitution as the first priorities. Unable to deal with those issues, the OSCE Chairmanship and Mission by now only wanted to have something signed at Maastricht on December 1; the contents seemed to matter less and less during the final countdown to the conference. Even at the eleventh hour, the Chairmanship and Mission showed no interest in Moldova’s pro-Western opposition and civil society.

MOLDOVA BETWEEN RUSSIA AND THE WEST AT MAASTRICHT

On November 15 and 17, with only two weeks to go to the Maastricht conference, Kozak presented and published his Memorandum as a basis for “federalization” and for discussion at Maastricht. It gave Trans-Dniester even greater powers--including a grotesquely high numerical overrepresentation in Moldova’s central authorities--and Russia an even stronger supervisory role over the “federation,” than the “mediators’” document had envisaged. The “mediators’” document in its successive versions down to October 2003 corresponded to the “soft” model of a Russian sphere of influence; whereas the Kozak Memorandum corresponded to the “hard” sphere of influence model. Final touches were added to the Kozak Memorandum until November 24, with Voronin initialing each page in approval. In a parallel move, Russia publicly reserved the right to keep its troops in place until 2020 for “guaranteeing” the political settlement.

Putin was scheduled to sign the Kozak Memorandum with Voronin and Smirnov on November 25 in Chisinau. Voronin, however, pulled back during the night of November 24-25, and in the morning cancelled Putin’s visit with only a few hours notice. Three factors had intervened: first, strong intercession with Voronin by Solana on the telephone and by the new U.S. ambassador in Chisinau, Heather Hodges, in person; second, Voronin’s own, last-minute reservations on the issue of Russian “guarantor troops;” and third, a vociferous, broadly based opposition movement going into daily action from November 24 on, culminating on November 30 with a 40,000-strong mass rally that sent appeals to Maastricht against “federalization,” for withdrawal of Russian troops, and for defending Moldova’s constitution.

At that point--barely one month before de Hoop Scheffer’s inauguration as NATO Secretary-General--he and the U.S. parted company on Moldova. On November 27 in the OSCE Permanent Council, the U.S. for the first time openly criticized Russia’s breach of the troop-withdrawal obligation, rejected the Kozak Memorandum, and criticized the double-cross that had been perpetrated on the OSCE. This change not only responded to Russia’s power-grab in Moldova, but reflected incipient second thoughts in Washington about its overall Russia policy.

De Hoop Scheffer’s public statements, however, formulated a different position, in three points: a) he was officially informing Voronin that some OSCE member countries would withhold consensus on the Kozak Memorandum were it to be submitted at Maastricht; b) were Voronin to sign the Kozak Memorandum preparatory for submission at Maastricht, the Chairmanship would be “neutral;” c) the Chairmanship favored combining elements of the mediators’ document and the Kozak Memorandum into a single document on “federalization.” The OSCE’s Chisinau Mission also called publicly for combining the two documents into one, for approval at Maastricht.

A Task Force chief of the Dutch Chairmanship sent out word insisting that this was a brave stand, and demanding credit for it. In fact, it only meant groping for a “middle way” between the Russia-OSCE document and the purely Russian document; i.e., between predominant and total Russian control of Moldova. It was a textbook example of continually slicing the half with Russia until very little remained of the West’s putative half.

On Moldova as on Georgia, the Maastricht conference proved unable to overcome the legacy of the December 2002 Porto year-end conference. At Porto, high-level State Department officials had not only accepted Russia’s demands to keep forces in Moldova, but went on to arm-twist the Moldovan delegation into ceasing its resistance.  Thus, Russia-U.S. accord at Porto put three huge holes into the OSCE 1999 Istanbul summit’s decisions on Moldova: it downgraded Russia’s withdrawal obligation to a mere “intention;” changed it from unconditional to sweepingly conditional--“provided the necessary conditions are in place”--thus leaving the interpretation to Moscow’s discretion; and extended the December 2002 troop-withdrawal deadline to December 2003, on the false pretense that Trans-Dniester authorities did not permit Russia to withdraw the troops. Meanwhile, Russia continued evacuating or scrapping parts of its antiquated, useless equipment stockpiles from Trans-Dniester.

At Maastricht the U.S. policy was no longer that of Porto, but the Russian side would not budge from the Porto formulae. Thus, Foreign Affairs Minister Igor Ivanov and Deputy Minister Valery Chizhov in Maastricht--as well as Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov in Moscow during the Maastricht conference--argued that: a) Russia had no obligation to withdraw its forces; b) its intention to do so was conditional on Trans-Dniester allowing the withdrawal to proceed, and on a political settlement to Russia’s satisfaction; and c) inasmuch as Russia did intend to withdraw, and inasmuch as the necessary conditions were not in place, it would therefore be superfluous and irrelevant to set a date for withdrawal; and would even offend Russia by seeming to question its intention to withdraw the forces.

These same Russian officials--including the defense minister pronouncing at length on this political matter--assailed certain Western countries for opposing the Kozak Memorandum. They did not publicly name those countries, but clearly meant the U.S. in the first place. The Russians decried those countries’ “interference in Moldova’s internal affairs” -- a vintage Soviet argument, which held that Moscow’s and proxies’ power-grabs were legitimate while Western objections constituted “interference in the internal affairs” of countries targeted by Moscow. The two Ivanovs and Chizhov maintained that the Kozak Memorandum could not be changed and was to be taken as the sole basis for resolving the Trans-Dniester conflict. Sergei Ivanov threatened that the evacuation of military equipment might be slowed down or halted, and that “Moldova’s partition might continue for decades to come.”

Many Western countries--foremost those of the EU, but also the U.S.--tried hard to accommodate Russia’s demands in the negotiations on the final document within the Permanent Council, and then at Maastricht. They did not heed the Moldovan concluding statement’s call for direct involvement by the EU and U.S. in resolving the Trans-Dniester conflict. Nor did they support the Moldovan Foreign Affairs Ministry’s proposals to set a specific deadline on the withdrawal of Russian  troops, or to criticize Trans-Dniester for “human rights violations” and other obvious transgressions. Most delegations anticipated that Russia would breach a new deadline--it would be the third--again with impunity, ruining the OSCE’s credibility; therefore, they avoided setting a deadline. They were prepared in the final document to ask Russia to withdraw the troops “as soon as possible, without further delays.” Russia was amenable to this at Maastricht, even as it was announcing in Moscow its intention to keep the troops in Moldova until 2020. (Such is Moscow’s idea of  troop withdrawal “as soon as possible” from Georgia as well). Russia said that it would oppose any criticism of Trans-Dniester on human-rights grounds, but would accept criticizing Trans-Dniester for blocking the withdrawal of Russian forces. (With this, Russia sought to make the entire OSCE as it had made the Chisinau Mission, into an accessory to that farce). 

In the event, Russia vetoed (“withheld consensus on”) the final document on Moldova because most countries insisted on reaffirming the validity of Russia’s 1999 Istanbul troop-withdrawal commitment (which Russia has repudiated since then); and because no country would accept Moscow’s view that the Kozak Memorandum must be the sole basis for resolving the Trans-Dniester conflict. Not a single country supported these Russian positions publicly at Maastricht.

The U.S. and the EU arrived at a common position on Moldova at Maastricht. In statements delivered both during the conference (by Secretary of State Colin Powell for the U.S. side) and at its conclusion (by the EU’s Italian presidency in both cases), they called for: a) fulfillment of Russia’s 1999 OSCE Istanbul commitment to withdraw its forces from Moldova; b) continuation of the existing, “pentagonal structure” of negotiations between Moldova and Trans-Dniester mediated by Russia, OSCE and Ukraine; c) creation of a multinational peacekeeping or stabilization force, under the OSCE’s aegis (it being implicit that Russian troops would be included).

In practical terms, however, Istanbul is all-but-exhausted. At Porto 2002, the U.S. and EU (by commission and by omission, respectively) fatally corrupted the Istanbul commitment (see above). Russia repudiated them in 2001 de facto and in 2003 officially, sticking to Porto after the U.S. and EU had reversed their Porto stance. Even when these two main actors revived the Istanbul commitment at Maastricht, they stopped short of setting a timeframe for fulfillment because they anticipated continuing failure. In sum, Istanbul is basically a pious wish by now, the OSCE patently lacking the means or even collective will to turn it into a reality. Only the U.S. and EU have the means to pursue this issue with Russia directly; but have not seriously done so, thus far.

Sticking  to the “pentagonal structure” is a weak, improvised defense against the Kremlin’s attempt to cut out the OSCE and make a direct deal with Voronin on the basis of the Kozak Memorandum. The “pentagonal structure” itself was Primakov’s recipe bequeathed to the OSCE for consigning Moldova to Russia’s sphere of influence. It is illegitimate in itself, as well as the relict of a past that has been overtaken by NATO’s and EU’s enlargement. Defending the “pentagonal structure” is fully in character with the OSCE, but is incompatible with Western interests because it would empower Russia in a “federalized” Moldova along a 400-long-kilometer sector of this new Euro-Atlantic border.

The OSCE’s Dutch Chairmanship and American-led Mission--the latter reflecting State Department policy on this issue--excluded Romania from any role in shaping the settlement in Moldova. It did not seem to matter that Romania had become a valued U.S. ally, NATO invitee, and EU candidate. They also seemed to ignore Romania’s close kinship to two-thirds of Moldova’s population, long border with Moldova, and unique role as Moldova’s sole overland link to institutional Europe. In every respect, Romania has more legitimate interests and better qualifications than Russia’s or Ukraine’s in shaping the political and security outcome in Moldova. Still, the OSCE persisted in excluding Romania, while empowering Russia in Moldova, and accepting Ukraine in Russia’s tow. This attitude underscores the OSCE’s readiness to allow Russia to trump Euro-Atlantic interests in this sector of the West’s new border.

Romania is now in charge of this border as an incoming member of NATO and EU. In his speech at Maastricht, Foreign Minister Mircea Geoana asserted that Romania has more valid concerns regarding the situation in Moldova than any of the “pentagonal” format’s members; he called for changing that format and for a direct involvement of the U.S. and EU. Geoana reminded the OSCE that Trans-Dniester’s leaders and those of secessionist areas in the South Caucasus are local dictators who should not be treated as representing local populations; he urged the OSCE to offer these populations the opportunity to choose freedom; and, because (as he put it) “containment is not the solution,” he called for hands-on engagement by NATO and EU in solving the Trans-Dniester and South Caucasus conflicts. Thus, Geoana’s speech amounted to a wakeup call to the OSCE.

The Dutch Chairmanship had seen its top goal for Maastricht--an agreement on Moldova--thwarted by Russia and Trans-Dniester, ultimately through the Kozak Memorandum. By then, the Chairmanship’s initially high ambitions (see above) had shrunken to a face-saving quest for some document on Moldova, even if meaningless or indeed damaging, as long as it could be presented as a “consensus” result of Maastricht. This is why de Hoop Scheffer went in for concessions of his own to Russia on the Kozak Memorandum (which he deemed partly acceptable -- see above), on the troop issue and on “federalization.”

In his opening address at the conference, de Hoop Scheffer lauded equally the mediators’ joint efforts and Russia’s separate efforts; this, after the Kozak Memorandum had so grossly double-crossed the OSCE. He emphatically praised the work done toward a new constitution of [“federalized”] Moldova; this, about constitution-drafting by a primitive Communist government and a Soviet-type dictatorship in Trans-Dniester, with Russia in the saddle and a helpless OSCE lending cover. His opening address unjustifiably failed to mention the issue of Russian troops; and wrongly credited Russia (alongside OSCE) with proposing international guarantees, whereas Russia only proposed Russian guarantees. The unjustifiable omission and the wrong crediting fit within the common logic of giving in to Russia. On this basis, de Hoop Scheffer exhorted the conference to issue a consensus statement on Moldova.

After Russia’s winner-take-all insistence had thwarted that consensus, de Hoop Scheffer’s Perception Statement perceived that most ministers at the conference had welcomed and urged the drafting of a federal constitution. In fact, this was not mentioned by any of the ministerial conference statements posted on the OSCE’s website. (Moldova in its first statement mentioned drafting a federal constitution, but eliminated this reference from its concluding statement, which called for EU and U.S. involvement). De Hoop Scheffer called for a constitutional referendum on both banks of the Dniester to be held in 2004, presumably being fully aware--though without mentioning it--that the Communist Party and the Russian-installed authorities enjoy overwhelming control of the mass-media and state apparatus on either bank. 

Under this Chairmanship as under its predecessors, the OSCE did nothing whatsoever by its own criteria for a democratic opening in Trans-Dniester, that lethal mixture of foreign military rule, ethnic-minority rule, Soviet-police rule, and mafia rule. The Dutch Chairmanship, however, actually pressed for legalizing those authorities and giving them a share of the central power.

Unnecessarily turning itself into a prisoner of the December 1 Maastricht deadline, and staking too much on the issue of Moldova, the Chairmanship ended up a hostage to Russia in terms of declaring success or acknowledging failure at the year-end conference. OSCE “success” in Moldova through “federalization”--complete with a communist-style “referendum”, and with Russian troops in place--would create a Russian satellite and serious security problems in this sector of the new Euro-Atlantic frontier.                    

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