Caucasus and Central Asia

Kyrgyzstan is slowly moving forward after the June 2010 violence in the south of the country that left hundreds dead. On 10th October, parliamentary elections were held in a peaceful manner and characterised as relatively fair. 56 per cent of those with the right to vote went to the polls and cast their vote for one of the 29 parties contesting the 120 seats in the Parliament. According to the OSCE and European Parliament election observers, the elections ‘constituted a further consolidation of the democratic process’*.

PRESS RELEASE

Brussels, 29th November 2010

A roundtable on Georgian-Abkhaz relations organised by International Alert took place in Brussels on 29th November with experts from the South Caucasus and representatives of European institutions and the UN.

Dialogue participants shared their analysis of past and current policies and future prospects in relation to the conflict and its regional implications. Participants discussed what different actors and sides to the conflict, in particular civil society, can contribute to conflict transformation and resolution.

On 23rd October 2010, International Alert’s Economy & Conflict project partners, the Caucasus Business and Development Network (CBDN), organised the third Caucasus Tea Festival together with the Caucasian Tea Producers’ Association. The goal of the Festival was to popularise varieties of teas from the region, including CBDN’s own brand of "Caucasus Tea", and to promote cooperation in the tea sector throughout the South Caucasus.  

Over 120 students from three ethnically mixed universities in South Kyrgyzstan recently learned about conflict prevention and started planning for projects aimed at increasing confidence between their peers of different nationalities.

Over 100 students debated youth policy and ways to prevent the growth of radicalism as part of an International Alert project in Tajikistan. In October 2010, International Alert worked with a number of talented students who facilitated five roundtable debates aimed at fostering dialogue and a common understanding of the causes and remedies of the religious radicalisation of youth in Tajikistan.

This report aims to map the small arms control practices in five countries of the Black Sea region (which, for the purposes of the report, include Bulgaria, Moldova, Romania, Turkey and Ukraine). This is the area which has been serving as one of the hubs for arms proliferation, with both legal and illegal arms transfers taking place.

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Over the last ten years the states in the region have had different capacities and different motivations to deal with the SALW issues, and understandably have made different levels of progress in addressing them. As post-Soviet transition states have stabilised, their ability to enforce their international obligations with relation to the export of SALW has improved. The restructuring processes in the defence industries of these states as a result of the end of the Cold War have meant that the number of weapons being produced in this area has reduced.

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This report is a mapping of the situation regarding the control of small arms and light weapons (SALW) in three Central Asian Republics: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Despite a number of potentially escalating factors, such as authoritarian governance, poverty, ethnic tensions, corruption and resource competition (especially over land and water), Central Asia has remained largely peaceful, with the exception of the 1992-97 civil war in Tajikistan and a number of small-scale clashes, mostly in the Ferghana Valley and the bordering areas.

Small_Amrs_Control_Central_.pdf

Это результат восемнадцати месяцев исследований и анализа, направленных на изучение того, как более полное понимание существующей экономической ситуации в регионе может способствовать решению региональных конфликтов. Это также первая книга, в которой данный вопрос изучается с точки зрения людей, живущих в регионе - авторы являются членами Исследовательской Группы по Экономике и Конфликтам; команда экспертов собранана со всего Южного Кавказа, включая Армению, Азербайджан, Грузию, Турцию, а также Абхазию, Нагорный Карабах и Южную Осетию.

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Executive summary

This is the product of an 18-month period of research and analysis that aimed to explore how a better understanding of the region’s current economic dynamics might contribute to the resolution of its conflicts. It is the first book to examine this topic from the perspectives of those living in the region - the authors are members of the Economy and Conflict Research Group; a pool of experts from throughout the South Caucasus, covering Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey and including Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh and South Ossetia.

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Executive summary

This report sheds light on the nature of the relationship between the oil industry and conflict in a region that has been unstable since the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s – with a particular focus on the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline (currently being built to transport oil from the Caspian to the Mediterranean). Once fully operational (2006 is predicted) the BTC will have a capacity to deliver 1 million barrels per day to the Turkish port of Ceyhan. The report recognises that construction of the pipeline is largely the responsibility of BTC Co.

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This report examines the lessons learned from the three year Monitoring the Implementation of Small Arms Controls (MISAC) project which addressed the barriers to the implementation of international controls on small arms such as the 2001 Programme of Action and the UN Firearms Protocol as well as regional control measures such as the EU Code of Conduct, the OSCE Small Arms Document the OAS Convention and the ECOWAS Moratorium. It assesses the key barriers to implementation as well as drawing lessons learned from those countries and regions which have implemented these controls.

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This paper is aimed at motivating and informing discussion within the EU institutions and Member States on the nature of their engagement in the South Caucasus. It suggests priority areas for political dialogue and external assistance programming under the upcoming EC Country and Regional Strategy Papers. It argues that unless authorities and civil society in the region, supported by the international community, genuinely address the root causes of violent conflict, societal instability and distrust, then broad-based development and prosperity will remain beyond reach.

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This report is the product of field research and subsequent analysis carried out between July 2004 and July 2005 by a team of researchers from Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia as well as Nagorny Karabakh, Abkhazia and South Ossetia across the South Caucasus, facilitated by International Alert. Based on a series of one-to-one interviews and focus groups with a wide range of stakeholders, it examines the connections between corruption and frozen conflicts in the South Caucasus region, exploring corruption on all sides.

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This collection of papers by researchers from Georgia and Abkhazia offers an analysis of international engagement in the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict resolution process since the early 90s, with a specific focus on post-August 2008 and the departure of the UN Observer Mission in 2009. Papers assess the impact of non-governmental peacebuilding initiatives, the effectiveness of the ‘Geneva discussions’ co-facilitated by the UN, EU and OSCE, and explore prospects for Abkhaz engagement with the international community.

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