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THE RUSSIAN WORLD: A PEACEKEEPING ANNIVERSARY AND THE SEARCH FOR A FORMULA FOR A FINAL SETTLEMENT
Politkom.ru
July 30 2012
Russia
by Sergey Markedonov, Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Strategic
and International Studies, Washington, D.C.,
The day 28 July 2012 marked 20 years since the start of the
peacekeeping operation that ended the bloodshed on the Dniester in
1992. Today serving in the joint peacekeeping forces are 402 Russian
troops, 492 troops from the Dniester Region, and 355 Moldovan troops,
as well as 10 military observers from Ukraine, which along with Russia
(beginning in 1997) acts as a country guaranteeing peace and security
in the conflict zone. But the attitude of the parties in conflict
towards the peacekeeping operation differs diametrically...
Allow me to remind you in brief of the basic outline of the events
of 20 years ago. On 19-21 June 1992, the armed phase of the conflict
between the Republic of Moldova (which after the dissolution of the
USSR had received international recognition) and the unrecognized
Dniester Moldovan Republic (PMR) reached its peak. There was the battle
for Bendery, and Moldovan regular units stormed the city executive
committee defended by the Dniester people. Russian volunteers and the
servicemen of the 14th Army helped the PMR. Then and later on this
made it possible to speak of the "Kremlin's hand" in the process of
the escalation of the conflict, although at that time Moscow was not
so much directing as not hindering the initiatives "on site." The
failure of the attack on Bendery (as well as the protests of the
Moldovan oppositionists against civil war) forced Chisinau to see
a way out of the impasse that had come about. In Moscow on 21 July
1992, Russian Federation President Boris Yeltsin and President of the
Republic of Moldova Mircea Snegur, in the presence of Igor Smirnov,
the leader of the PMR, signed the agreement "On the Principles
of Settlement of the Armed Conflict in the Dniester Region of the
Republic of Moldova." Created in accordance with this document were
trilateral peacekeeping forces that included representatives of the
parties in conflict and Russia. The United Control Commission (OKK),
which was headed by cochairmen from the Russian Federation, Moldova,
and the PMR, was created on 27 July 1992. And finally, on 28 July the
OKK adopted the decision to deploy peacekeepers in the security zone
that had been created to separate the parties.
Since that time a new stage has begun in the Moldovan-Dniester Region
conflict, one that has not ended to this day. The essence of this
stage is the search for a formula for a final peace settlement. Today,
20 years since the end of the armed conflict on the Dniester, serving
in the joint peacekeeping forces are 402 Russian troops, 492 troops
from the Dniester Region, and 355 Moldovan troops, as well as 10
military observers from Ukraine, which along with Russia (beginning
in 1997) acts as a country guaranteeing peace and security in the
conflict zone. But the attitude of the parties in conflict towards the
peacekeeping operation differs diametrically. On the eve of the 20th
anniversary from the moment it started, PMR President Yevgeniy Shevchuk
signed an edict declaring 28 July Peacekeeper Day. In addition to that,
a bridge across the Dniester in the region of Bendery was given the
special name Peacekeepers of Russia Bridge. The Moldovan approach,
in contrast, proceeds from the idea that in 2012 the peacekeeping
operation that started 20 years ago from this day does not correspond
to the new realities. Official Chisinau believes that it would be
wise to transform the present mission (where Russia dominates) into
a civilian format with an international mandate. The Russian side,
however, is in no hurry to bid farewell to its dominant position. In
the opinion of Russian Federation Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs
Grigoriy Karasin, the operation in the Dniester Region can be
considered the "most effective in all European space."
The Moldovan-Dniester Region conflict differs fundamentally from
other post-Soviet ethno-political confrontations. In the first
place, the ethnic composition of the conflict on the Dniester is more
complicated than in Abkhazia, South Osseti a, or Nagornyy Karabakh. On
the one hand, even the name of the PMR has the word "Moldovan," and
the Moldovan language (based on Cyrillic) is one of the three state
languages (together with Ukrainian and Russian). On the other hand,
on the right bank of the Dniester, in the Republic of Moldova, the
size of the Russian population based on absolute indicators (200,300
people) without counting the percentage correlation of different ethnic
groups is greater than the number of Russians in the Dniester Region
(168,316). In that way, the ethnic component of the conflict is not
prominent here. Much more important is the struggle for political
self-identification.
In the second place, the armed phase of the conflict on the Dniester
compared with Abkhazia or Nagornyy Karabakh was less intense. It
was not accompanied by ethnic purges and the relocation of masses
of refugees.
In the third place, unlike the two former autonomous bodies of Georgia,
the Russian Federation does not have a direct border with the PMR. The
Dniester Region borders on Ukraine, which often has foreign policy
goals, tasks, and priorities that differ from Russia's. And these
differences have been manifested more than once. Take just the story
of 2006 when Kiev in effect stood in solidarity with Chisinau in its
policy of economic pressure on the PMR by means of customs regulation
measures.
In the fourth place, the Moldovan-Dniester Region conflict is the only
one of the post-Soviet confrontations that directly abuts the borders
of NATO and the European Union. Moldova borders Romania (which is a
member of both the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European
Union), and the idea of the unification of these two states is being
actively discussed, although it is not in fact on their actual agenda.
Another neighbour of the PMR, Ukraine, also has a common border with
several NATO and European Union member countries (Romania, Hungary,
Slovakia, and Poland). That is also a source of the special interest
of the European Union, its main sponsor Germany, and Europe's main
military partner the United States in a final settlement of the
Moldovan-Dniester Region conflict. Of course not under abstract
but under advantageous conditions. Unfortunately, that does not
mean achieving a formula that would suit the two clashing parties,
but minimizing Russian influence. Not everyone but many people in
the West see this influence itself as the restoration of the Soviet
Union in a soft form or of "Russian imperial influence," as well as
an important prerequisite for strengthening authoritarian tendencies
inside the Russian Federation. Ignored in the process is the important
fact that all the peacekeeping operations with Russian participation
began in the 1990s (in South Ossetia and the Dniester Region in 1992,
in Abkhazia in 1994, and in Tajikistan in November 1993 already
during the civil war). That is to say, at a time when Russia was
perceived as an example for conducting democratic reforms and market
transformations both in the West and in Eurasia. And despite that,
back in May of 1995 (in other words, before any "Putin vertical
hierarchy"), the OSCE representative, Hungarian diplomat Istvan
Dyarmati, was insisting on expanding this organization's peacekeeping
mandate and replacing the peacekeeping operation with the kind of
format where an appreciable role would be given to the structure that
he represented at that moment. Let us also not forget that frequently
(deliberately or not), the American and European diplomats mix up
the question of a peacekeeping operation with the problem of Russia's
military presence on the territory of the PMR (from the formal legal
standpoint on Moldova's territory). But it is, of course, a matter
of the remnants of the 14th Army and military storehouses in Kolbasnya.
In the meantime, these two problems are of a different nature and
mechanically mixing them up can only make the peace process more
complicated and confuse it.
And the l ast topic. During the settlement of the Moldovan-Dniester
Region conflict, for many years (1994-2003) only on the Dniester
were the parties in conflict discussing the conditions for possible
reintegration rather than the premises for the impossibility of living
together. And only after the failure of the initiative with the signing
of the Memorandum "On the Fundamental Principles of the State System
of a United State" (known as the plan of Dmitriy Kozak, who at that
moment was the first deputy head of the Russian President's Staff)
in 2003 did Moldova and the PMR go their separate ways. Allow me to
mention in passing that if those same American diplomats had pictured
this situation better and they had not tried to minimize Russian
influence in Eurasia, as a result a single federative Moldova would
exist today, and Russia could have avoided that drastic anti-Western
tilt in its policy that was taken after 2003.
And although in recent months, the negotiating process between Chisinau
and Tiraspol was markedly stepped up, it does not seem possible
to speak of achieving a compromise acceptable to both parties. To
illustrate, based on the outcome of the recent talks in the 5+2
format in Vienna (the two conflicting sides plus an intermediary,
observers, and guarantors), the Dniester Region President Yevgeniy
Shevchuk announced at his press conference: "Questions of status and a
settlement agreement are not being discussed now. It is premature. We
are discussing questions of social-economic cooperation and resolution
of the problems built up in the past." After the former speaker of
the Supreme Soviet of the unrecognized republic Yevgeniy Shevchuk
scored the victory in the second round of the presidential election
in the PMR in December 2011, there were both phobias and excessive
expectations in Russia and in the West regarding the prospects of the
peace process and settlement of the conflict. During the presidential
campaign, the Kremlin supported Shevchuk's opponent Anatoliy Kaminskiy,
fearing that "positive reputation" that was created in certain Western
mass media outlets and in expert circles for this politician. But
this reputation itself was based on myths of many years surrounding
the Dniester Region. And the most important one of them is the idea
of the unrecognized republic on the Dniester as a kind of "Communist
Vendee" headed always by Igor Smirnov, who was at times compared with
Lukashenka and at times with other authoritarian leaders (each to his
own taste). An ordinary personification of Dniester Region politics
occurred where the PMR's status as a political actor was denied (or
to be more succinct, identified with the Kremlin's will), while the
difficulties of the peace process were linked with the personality
of the uncomfortable and ambitious Smirnov. But last year the PMR
got a new leader. However, no decisive "breakthrough" in resolving
the conflict is foreseen at this point. In this context one should
also mention a certain "warming" in Moscow's attitude towards Shevchuk.
Evidence of this is the allocation of an instalment of 500 million
roubles. But that is not the crucial problem. Unlike Smirnov, Shevchuk
is a man and a politician who grew up and was formed not in the USSR
but in conditions of the PMR. If there were no PMR, his political
career would perhaps not have even begun at all. It was formed
specifically in conditions of unrecognized statehood and disputed
sovereignty. To risk it for the sake of the illusory prospects of
universal world recognition is, of course, possible but hard. The
advantages and possible acquisitions from radical concessions are
not obvious.
[translated from Russian]
From: A. Papazian
Politkom.ru
July 30 2012
Russia
by Sergey Markedonov, Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Strategic
and International Studies, Washington, D.C.,
The day 28 July 2012 marked 20 years since the start of the
peacekeeping operation that ended the bloodshed on the Dniester in
1992. Today serving in the joint peacekeeping forces are 402 Russian
troops, 492 troops from the Dniester Region, and 355 Moldovan troops,
as well as 10 military observers from Ukraine, which along with Russia
(beginning in 1997) acts as a country guaranteeing peace and security
in the conflict zone. But the attitude of the parties in conflict
towards the peacekeeping operation differs diametrically...
Allow me to remind you in brief of the basic outline of the events
of 20 years ago. On 19-21 June 1992, the armed phase of the conflict
between the Republic of Moldova (which after the dissolution of the
USSR had received international recognition) and the unrecognized
Dniester Moldovan Republic (PMR) reached its peak. There was the battle
for Bendery, and Moldovan regular units stormed the city executive
committee defended by the Dniester people. Russian volunteers and the
servicemen of the 14th Army helped the PMR. Then and later on this
made it possible to speak of the "Kremlin's hand" in the process of
the escalation of the conflict, although at that time Moscow was not
so much directing as not hindering the initiatives "on site." The
failure of the attack on Bendery (as well as the protests of the
Moldovan oppositionists against civil war) forced Chisinau to see
a way out of the impasse that had come about. In Moscow on 21 July
1992, Russian Federation President Boris Yeltsin and President of the
Republic of Moldova Mircea Snegur, in the presence of Igor Smirnov,
the leader of the PMR, signed the agreement "On the Principles
of Settlement of the Armed Conflict in the Dniester Region of the
Republic of Moldova." Created in accordance with this document were
trilateral peacekeeping forces that included representatives of the
parties in conflict and Russia. The United Control Commission (OKK),
which was headed by cochairmen from the Russian Federation, Moldova,
and the PMR, was created on 27 July 1992. And finally, on 28 July the
OKK adopted the decision to deploy peacekeepers in the security zone
that had been created to separate the parties.
Since that time a new stage has begun in the Moldovan-Dniester Region
conflict, one that has not ended to this day. The essence of this
stage is the search for a formula for a final peace settlement. Today,
20 years since the end of the armed conflict on the Dniester, serving
in the joint peacekeeping forces are 402 Russian troops, 492 troops
from the Dniester Region, and 355 Moldovan troops, as well as 10
military observers from Ukraine, which along with Russia (beginning
in 1997) acts as a country guaranteeing peace and security in the
conflict zone. But the attitude of the parties in conflict towards the
peacekeeping operation differs diametrically. On the eve of the 20th
anniversary from the moment it started, PMR President Yevgeniy Shevchuk
signed an edict declaring 28 July Peacekeeper Day. In addition to that,
a bridge across the Dniester in the region of Bendery was given the
special name Peacekeepers of Russia Bridge. The Moldovan approach,
in contrast, proceeds from the idea that in 2012 the peacekeeping
operation that started 20 years ago from this day does not correspond
to the new realities. Official Chisinau believes that it would be
wise to transform the present mission (where Russia dominates) into
a civilian format with an international mandate. The Russian side,
however, is in no hurry to bid farewell to its dominant position. In
the opinion of Russian Federation Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs
Grigoriy Karasin, the operation in the Dniester Region can be
considered the "most effective in all European space."
The Moldovan-Dniester Region conflict differs fundamentally from
other post-Soviet ethno-political confrontations. In the first
place, the ethnic composition of the conflict on the Dniester is more
complicated than in Abkhazia, South Osseti a, or Nagornyy Karabakh. On
the one hand, even the name of the PMR has the word "Moldovan," and
the Moldovan language (based on Cyrillic) is one of the three state
languages (together with Ukrainian and Russian). On the other hand,
on the right bank of the Dniester, in the Republic of Moldova, the
size of the Russian population based on absolute indicators (200,300
people) without counting the percentage correlation of different ethnic
groups is greater than the number of Russians in the Dniester Region
(168,316). In that way, the ethnic component of the conflict is not
prominent here. Much more important is the struggle for political
self-identification.
In the second place, the armed phase of the conflict on the Dniester
compared with Abkhazia or Nagornyy Karabakh was less intense. It
was not accompanied by ethnic purges and the relocation of masses
of refugees.
In the third place, unlike the two former autonomous bodies of Georgia,
the Russian Federation does not have a direct border with the PMR. The
Dniester Region borders on Ukraine, which often has foreign policy
goals, tasks, and priorities that differ from Russia's. And these
differences have been manifested more than once. Take just the story
of 2006 when Kiev in effect stood in solidarity with Chisinau in its
policy of economic pressure on the PMR by means of customs regulation
measures.
In the fourth place, the Moldovan-Dniester Region conflict is the only
one of the post-Soviet confrontations that directly abuts the borders
of NATO and the European Union. Moldova borders Romania (which is a
member of both the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European
Union), and the idea of the unification of these two states is being
actively discussed, although it is not in fact on their actual agenda.
Another neighbour of the PMR, Ukraine, also has a common border with
several NATO and European Union member countries (Romania, Hungary,
Slovakia, and Poland). That is also a source of the special interest
of the European Union, its main sponsor Germany, and Europe's main
military partner the United States in a final settlement of the
Moldovan-Dniester Region conflict. Of course not under abstract
but under advantageous conditions. Unfortunately, that does not
mean achieving a formula that would suit the two clashing parties,
but minimizing Russian influence. Not everyone but many people in
the West see this influence itself as the restoration of the Soviet
Union in a soft form or of "Russian imperial influence," as well as
an important prerequisite for strengthening authoritarian tendencies
inside the Russian Federation. Ignored in the process is the important
fact that all the peacekeeping operations with Russian participation
began in the 1990s (in South Ossetia and the Dniester Region in 1992,
in Abkhazia in 1994, and in Tajikistan in November 1993 already
during the civil war). That is to say, at a time when Russia was
perceived as an example for conducting democratic reforms and market
transformations both in the West and in Eurasia. And despite that,
back in May of 1995 (in other words, before any "Putin vertical
hierarchy"), the OSCE representative, Hungarian diplomat Istvan
Dyarmati, was insisting on expanding this organization's peacekeeping
mandate and replacing the peacekeeping operation with the kind of
format where an appreciable role would be given to the structure that
he represented at that moment. Let us also not forget that frequently
(deliberately or not), the American and European diplomats mix up
the question of a peacekeeping operation with the problem of Russia's
military presence on the territory of the PMR (from the formal legal
standpoint on Moldova's territory). But it is, of course, a matter
of the remnants of the 14th Army and military storehouses in Kolbasnya.
In the meantime, these two problems are of a different nature and
mechanically mixing them up can only make the peace process more
complicated and confuse it.
And the l ast topic. During the settlement of the Moldovan-Dniester
Region conflict, for many years (1994-2003) only on the Dniester
were the parties in conflict discussing the conditions for possible
reintegration rather than the premises for the impossibility of living
together. And only after the failure of the initiative with the signing
of the Memorandum "On the Fundamental Principles of the State System
of a United State" (known as the plan of Dmitriy Kozak, who at that
moment was the first deputy head of the Russian President's Staff)
in 2003 did Moldova and the PMR go their separate ways. Allow me to
mention in passing that if those same American diplomats had pictured
this situation better and they had not tried to minimize Russian
influence in Eurasia, as a result a single federative Moldova would
exist today, and Russia could have avoided that drastic anti-Western
tilt in its policy that was taken after 2003.
And although in recent months, the negotiating process between Chisinau
and Tiraspol was markedly stepped up, it does not seem possible
to speak of achieving a compromise acceptable to both parties. To
illustrate, based on the outcome of the recent talks in the 5+2
format in Vienna (the two conflicting sides plus an intermediary,
observers, and guarantors), the Dniester Region President Yevgeniy
Shevchuk announced at his press conference: "Questions of status and a
settlement agreement are not being discussed now. It is premature. We
are discussing questions of social-economic cooperation and resolution
of the problems built up in the past." After the former speaker of
the Supreme Soviet of the unrecognized republic Yevgeniy Shevchuk
scored the victory in the second round of the presidential election
in the PMR in December 2011, there were both phobias and excessive
expectations in Russia and in the West regarding the prospects of the
peace process and settlement of the conflict. During the presidential
campaign, the Kremlin supported Shevchuk's opponent Anatoliy Kaminskiy,
fearing that "positive reputation" that was created in certain Western
mass media outlets and in expert circles for this politician. But
this reputation itself was based on myths of many years surrounding
the Dniester Region. And the most important one of them is the idea
of the unrecognized republic on the Dniester as a kind of "Communist
Vendee" headed always by Igor Smirnov, who was at times compared with
Lukashenka and at times with other authoritarian leaders (each to his
own taste). An ordinary personification of Dniester Region politics
occurred where the PMR's status as a political actor was denied (or
to be more succinct, identified with the Kremlin's will), while the
difficulties of the peace process were linked with the personality
of the uncomfortable and ambitious Smirnov. But last year the PMR
got a new leader. However, no decisive "breakthrough" in resolving
the conflict is foreseen at this point. In this context one should
also mention a certain "warming" in Moscow's attitude towards Shevchuk.
Evidence of this is the allocation of an instalment of 500 million
roubles. But that is not the crucial problem. Unlike Smirnov, Shevchuk
is a man and a politician who grew up and was formed not in the USSR
but in conditions of the PMR. If there were no PMR, his political
career would perhaps not have even begun at all. It was formed
specifically in conditions of unrecognized statehood and disputed
sovereignty. To risk it for the sake of the illusory prospects of
universal world recognition is, of course, possible but hard. The
advantages and possible acquisitions from radical concessions are
not obvious.
[translated from Russian]
From: A. Papazian