THE OSCE CHALLENGED - NHC/IHF

PART V: NEW CHALLENGES AND NEW THREATS FOR THE OSCE
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siegfried wöber (ikv/hca caucasus):
“In the absence of change, the OSCE will lose all citizens’ support”

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Although his comments, as afterwards sent to the NGO-meeting’s organizers, weren’t part of the meeting itself, we include here some personal recommendations and proposals from Mr. Siegfried Wöber. Mr. Wöber is the Dutch Interchurch Peace Council (IKV)’s advisor and the Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly (hCa)’s liaison manager for the Caucasus.
He offers serious criticism of the OSCE: the OSCE should find ways to enforce its rules, it should share its strategy with civil society in more detail, and it should change its policy on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, in order not to lose its credibility in the Caucasus.
In addition, Mr. Wöber suggests that the next NGO meeting should focus on the OSCE’s role in the Caucasus as a whole, not solely on Chechnya.
To conclude, he announces the setting up of a virtual ‘human rights defenders support network’ presenting cases of human rights violations in the South Caucasus.
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“In general, I believe that the OSCE should work on establishing new mechanisms to make their participating states ‘stick to the rules’. Although reaching no consensus, as obviously happened during the Ministerial Council, is of course an option. But with respect to the criticism I permanently hear from my colleagues and friends in the South-Caucasus on the OSCE’s legitimacy, it seems clear to me that the organization cannot continue this way without losing all support from society. That’s especially true after the unbalanced reactions and approach to the elections in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia.

The OSCE has to become more transparent and share in more detail its strategy in the various countries, at least with civil society actors. On the one hand, the OSCE offices (for instance in Armenia) do partly not provide any visible new approach, different to the local civil society’s, and therefore become criticised (undoubtedly, I do not question their valued role giving international protection such as has been offered during the imprisonment of Arthur Sakunts (?) in Vanadzor, Armenia). On the other hand, there does not exist any analytical structure within the OSCE that would—again in a cooperative approach—allow civil society to get an insight in the organization’s policies in close detail, and that could act as a means of reflection on NGOs’ work in the region (or at least we do not know about such an analytical structure). As I was informed, during the summit in Lisbon (1996) the participating states’ governments agreed on establishing such a structure, and it would be great if it provided possibilities for elaborating joint approaches with civil society.

As briefly mentioned during the NGO meeting, and referring to the first point above, the OSCE has to change its policy regarding the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict as well. Although everybody knows by now that the OSCE’s offices in Baku (Azerbaijan) and Yerevan (Armenia) are not allowed to get involved in this issue, this situation cannot continue. How can civil society be developed either in Azerbaijan or Armenia if the regimes in both countries are basing all their actions and legitimacy on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict? Human rights violations in a conflict region like the South-Caucasus cannot be tackled without working on peace issues. It’s no longer sufficient to put the full responsibility for dealing with the conflict on the Minsk-Group (?), because it de facto does not include civil society in confidence-building measures and it is perceived as nearly non-existent by other protagonists that work towards a peaceful solution of the conflict.

Concerning my proposals, in the framework of the programme I am responsible for, I will interview main civil society actors in Georgia (and Armenia maybe) in the beginning of 2004 and could also include questions about their attitude towards the OSCE’s role in the region, so that we might include those findings in further strategic discussions, for example during the Bulgarian OSCE chairmanship. I suppose that the planned NGO meeting—which could also be organized as an internet forum—will be more balanced with respect to regional coverage; that means not mainly focusing on Chechnya as the December 2003 meeting did (although I understand the priority to fight against the genocide there), thereby giving all OSCE countries suffering from authoritarian regimes the possibility to present their cause and ideas to the same extent.

Finally, I want to inform you about my intention to establish a ‘human rights defenders support network’ and kindly ask you for recommendations on it. At first, it should be a virtual network of individuals and organizations that are part of a Listserv that presents cases of individuals’ human rights violations to its members (focusing on human rights advocates in the South-Caucasus). As both Amnesty International’s and Human Rights Watch’s involvement in the Caucasus has considerably decreased, I decided that this local initiative is necessary.
I hope that my language does not appear too harsh, but to my mind the time of soft words—which I do not confuse with pragmatism—when talking about the OSCE, is over, since the situation in the region I am concerned about, could not be described as a positive one.”

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