Political development prospects of CIS countries

Political development prospects of CIS

All member countries of the CIS have several features in common: underdeveloped and inefficient political structures, serious problems in the sphere of human rights and high levels of corruption in government organizations. These factors may bring about social explosions, which if supported from the outside, may turn into a revolutionary situation.

In Kazakhstan, a powerful administrative resource guaranteed a victory for Nazabayev. At the elections, he ran against a strong rival for the first time, ex speaker of the lower chamber of parliament Zharmakhan Tuyakbai. The opposition has gained vast organization and political experience, together with a ramified structure. In 2004, Soros Foundation Kazakhstan launched several projects in the country, among them pre election distance, and a project for strengthening and developing Kazakh NGOs that work to protect mass media and journalists. The US also exerts pressure on the Kazakh leadership by raising the human rights issue and spreading information discrediting members of the Kazakh leader’s team. For example, a hearing held in Jan 2005 called Kazakhgate involved high ranking officials accused of corruption.

The situation in Tajikstan is relatively stable. The authorities continue to keep the situation under control, while the legal opposition has to abide, at least outwardly, by the rules of the game. No viable opponent has emerged to challenge the current president, Rakhmonov, but inside his clan there is agitation and regrouping of forces. Tensions have been growing in Tajik society, as acute social and economic problems remain unsolved amidst the criminal enrichment of the ruling clan. NGOs are engaged in active propaganda activities, organizing seminars and discussions and distributin teaching aids on suffrage.

In Turkmenistan despite serious economic problems and grave financial position of an overwhelming majority of the population there are no leaders capable of challenging Saparmurat Niazov – even with outside support. Opposition organisations and mass media are forbidden in the country. The government does not allow an extensive presence of foreign NGOs in the country. Those organizations that do work in Turkmenistan are not permitted to go beyond the frameworks of local projects pertaining to education, public health services and the support of small and medium businesses. The parliamentary elections on 2004 showed that the west has no levers of influence on election processes in Turkmenistan. International organizations including the OSCE were not allowed to observe the course of the election and the vote counting.

In Uzbekistan, where social tensions have been growing one can still speak of a certain threshold of public patience. In 2003-4 it passed new laws that have essentially changed t he conditions for the presence of foreign NGOs in the country. The new laws have toughned procedures for NGO registration and banned financial and other aid for political parties.

The European union views central Asia as a buffer zone against terrorism, Islamic extremism, drug trafficking and illegal migration. The EU’s policy toward central Asia is determined by the Union’s strategy paper for central Asia for 2002-2006, which states that the regional countries face common development problems, caused mainly by a slow transition to democracy, lagging implementation of market oriented economic reforms, and Islamic radicalisation. Since Sept 11, 2001, the European Union has doubled its financial assistance. The core objective of the EU strategy is to promote the stability and security of the Central Asian countries and to assist in their pursuit of sustainable economic development and poverty reduction. To achieve this goa, funds are allocated under the TACIS (technical aid to the commonwealth of independent states) program. Between 1991 and 2004, EU assistance to central asia amounted to 1,132 million euros; of this amount, 516 million euro from TACIS were used for technical assistance. The remainder of the money was used for humanitarian aid and macro financial loans and grants.

The European union is gradually becoming a major donor country, thereby contributing to the strengthening of the Tajik-Afghan border. The EU is implementing its Border Management Program for Central Asia BOMCA, for which it was to allocate 3.9 million in 2005. in the first half of 2005 Brussels allocated 1.65 euro million in technical aid to Tajikistan’s Border Guard Committee; Britain pledged to give another 1.5 million euro.

Energy is acquiring great importance in EU relations with central asia. The European union is very interested in the development of cooperation with Kazakhstan in the fuel sector energy resources account for 75% of EU imports from Kazakhstan. Brussels wants Astana to introduce stable, transparent and non discriminatory legislation that would enable European companies to operate in that country in an effective way.

The European Union welcomed the outcome of the presidential elections in Kyrgyzstan in July 2005, and noted that the pre requisites are in place for continued stabilization there. As regards Uzbekistan, the EU general affairs and external relations council in Oct 2005 introduced sanctions against the capital fo Tashkent and criticized excessive use of force in Andizhan. The European Commission has reoriented its work in Uzbekistan under the TACIS program to support increased focus on the needs of the population, democracy and human rights, as well as to foster closer links with Uzbek civil society. Unlike the US the EU countries recognize Russia’s strategic interests in the region and are ready to discuss them. At the same time, they are prepared to implement practical interaction in addressing security problems above the drug threat, as well as develop the energy sector.

Beijing views the penetration of outside countries in central Asia, above all the US as aggravating economic competition in the region and as attempts to contain China militarily, politically and economically. In is relations with Russia, Chinese diplomacy recognizes the traditional political and economic interests of their northern neighbour and its leading role in regional security. China whose economy has a growing need for energy resources, is working hard to enter the central Asian energy markets. Through its participation, china seeks to prevent the redistribution of the regional markets of raw materials. Chinese companies participate in the development of the Aktyubinsk and Mangyshlak oil fields – the Aktyubink petrochemical plant is a Kazakh-Chinese joint venture, in which China owns 85 %, and are also showing an interest in oil prospecting in Kyrgyzstan. Beijing continues display political activity at bilateral and multilateral levels. In 1996, china signed a multilateral agreement with Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrzstan and Tajikstan on confidence building measures concerning border patrols. A year later this pact was followed up with an agreement on mutual reductions of armed forces in the border areas. In 2002, China concluded treaties with Kyrgysztan and Kazakhstan on strengthening relations, friendship and cooperation, similar to the 2001 Russian-Chinese Treaty.

Beijing views the Shanghai cooperation Organisation as an instrument for strengthening regional security and developing multilateral cooperation. China’s active policy in the region is dictated by the need to establish interaction with neighboring countries to counter Uygur separatism, as well as to prevent outside support for separatist forces operating in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. These forces seek to create the so called state of East Turkestan on Chinese territory and the neighbouring central Asian countries to counter the separatists, Chinese special services are strengthening cooperation with colleagues in Russia, Kazakhstan and other countries throughout central Asia.


The North Caucasus

Terrorist sorties, unparalleled in audacity and scale, have acquired a tenacity and regularity in the North Caucasus. Events that were at one time confined to Chechnya are now found all across the region. These events seem to have formed a systemic process with deep lying sources of reproduction. Destabilizing factors in the North Caucasus are intertwined in a complicated and chaotic way, often making it hard to identify the primary and secondary, as well as the logical and haphazard, elements.

Since 1991 Russia has been slowly but surely losing sovereignty over the North Caucasus. The region is de facto pulling out of the legislative framework of the Russian Federation along two synchronized directions, which can be described as sporadic and deliberate. The sporadic element of this highly explosive evolution springs from the realities of everyday existence that dissuade the population from observing Russian legislation. As those individuals holding the reins of power ‘privatize’ federal law, they recklessly tear the regions entrusted to them out of the framework of Russian statehood, while inflicting moral damage on the country’s image and reputation in the eyes of its compatriots, not to mention the international community.

It has become customary to describe the North Caucasian crisis as systemic. Moscow’s interpretation of system argues that factors generating the crisis are positioned in a horizontal relationship and play more or less equally destructive roles. Unlike Russian intellectuals, the bureaucrats are aware of their goal and how to get there. However as esoteric knowledge aims to undermine the welfare of the people, the answer is to build a system capable of changing the policies of the force and talents of politicians and administrators. The population not particularly endorsing state power, but it has a much greater dislike for the absence of power; this situation brings to a head the problem of the balance between freedom and security. These two notions in North Caucasian society resemble a system of communicating vessels to a greater degree than anywhere else. Public opinion in the region is not simply loyal to the idea of strengthening the vertical structure of state power. It demands more pragmatic policies. Following the collaps of the soviet union, which removed Russia’s supra identity of a strong power, the masses of the region population adopted ethnic, clan, corporate and other highly marginalized forms of self identification as replacements for it. The paradox of globaization in that region is that its peoples have chosen the path of restoring traditionalist patriarchal relations dating from the 17th and 18th centuries. These presuppose clan hierarchy, infighting among clans for top positions on the hierarchic ladder, a system of subordination, and the practice of subservience tributes with a respective distribution of community wealth and important roles. Moreover the cover-ups and notions of crime and punishment, implemented through the sporadic revival of common law have also aggravated the situation. These circumstances make it highly impractical to hold out hope for the self organization of the North Caucasian regions along the principles of civic society’s dictum from the bottom to the top, a general pattern of social relations.

The English philosopher William of Ockham warned that entities must not be multiplied beyond what is necessary. His call is especially topical in the North Caucasus where entities have multiplied beyond their capacities. If the situation is not made simpler with the implantation from above, it will become too complex at the bottom. The spaces of the region abound in knots, which require courage, and the sources to draw are present.

Derived from:
Degoyev V., Ibragimov R., The north Caucasus and the future of Russian Statehood, in Russian in global affair quarterly, Dec 2005

Chernyavsky S., Central Asia in an Era of Change, in Russian in global affair quarterly, Dec 2005