Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe

Solange Fernex is affiliated with WILPF France and the Abolition 2000 Working Group on European Security. She wrote in response to a letter from David McReynolds (see Peacework, April 1999).

Wed, 24 March

Dear David,

I share your analysis of the NATO and US interests to bomb Serbia. NATO needs desperately to show its usefulness to Europeans before the NATO Summit in Washington. NATO needs also to be recognized as an important actor in the "Charter for a Cooperative European Security for the 21 Century," which is now discussed at the Security Forum of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Vienna, and is due to be approved at the next OSCE Summit in Istambul in November 1999.

However NATO is not the solution, it is an important part of the problem. While Russia spoke in favor of the necessity of a peace agreement in Kosovo, any intervention of NATO is due to face their opposition, and to strengthen the lingering anti-West positions in Russia, Serbia and elsewhere.

As late as from October 23, 1998 to January 1999, the solution rested in the OSCE. 2000 accepted observers were due to come rapidly to Kosovo. Only about 1000 came slowly, one by one, reluctantly put at the disposal of the OSCE by its 54 member states and especially the NATO members, with insufficient equipment, training, budget. Why is it possible to spend millions for only one air strike and to deploy tens of thousands of military and impossible to send in time (October 1998) OSCE observers, to gain a civilized peace?

And now that Milosevic is refusing to sign the peace agreement, what should have been done was to deploy an international peace-keeping force under OSCE mandate, with US and Canadian members, OSCE being the Regional Organization of the United Nations. Russia could not have objected and so doing, strengthening Milosevic even more. Russia would even have sent peace-keepers to Kosovo.

Now the OSCE had to withdraw, and this will durably stay in the books as the "undeniable proof" that OSCE is absolutely ineffective. Exactly what was intended by NATO proponents. Well done. One cannot predict the extent of the dire consequences this will have on the status of the OSCE in the future.

The democratic, civil rights and peace movement, especially in USA and Canada, but also here in the NATO states, is urgently asked to educate itself about the OSCE, of which USA and Canada are members.

Note : the budget of the OSCE, although it has 54 member states (compared to NATO's 19), is one thousand times smaller than that of NATO. This shows also a political will to keep it as marginal and ineffective as possible. The peace movement could have made a difference, with a strong commitment to support the OSCE while rightly fighting NATO. Gandhi said : "always engage in a constructive program, the alternative." OSCE is clearly an alternative to NATO, and we have almost completely neglected to support it. It might be too late for this time. Let us do it in the future, and especially when protesting during the NATO Summit in Washington.

Historical Data

The CSCE (Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe) was founded in Helsinki in 1975, during the Cold War, based on the 10 Helsinki Principles : human rights, freedom of speech, democracy, confidence building measures, disarmament etc.

As time passed, the CFE (Conventional Forces in Europe) Treaty was negotiated and adopted by the CSCE in Vienna, the Open Skies Treaty in Madrid, the Confidence Building Measures Treaty (CBM) in Stockholm (offering advanced notice of each block's maneuvers in order to avoid panic and false rumors of invasions, and extending of invitations to military leaders to watch maneuvers of their adversaries). The CSCE was pivotal to the defense of rights of so-called "dissidents."

After the end of the Cold War, the CSCE was relaunched with pomp at the Paris Summit in November 1990 (Paris Charta). The very important Budapest Summit (December 1994) transformed this security structure from a "Conference" to an "Organization" (CSCE = OSCE) to strengthen it, and initiated deliberation about a "Charta for a Cooperative Security in Europe for the 21th Century." The OSCE was also declared to be a "regional organization of the United Nations," according to chapter 8 of the UN Charter.

The Lisbon Summit, attended in December 1996 by Clinton and Eltsine, Chirac, Major, and almost all the 50 other heads of the member states, made an interim Declaration (Lisbon Declaration), outlining some guiding principles for the future Charter: "no state or group of states will build its security at the expense of the security of other state or group of states"; "the new security structure will be democratic, transparent, open"; member states, as "equal partners" pledge to "renounce establishment of new dividing lines in Europe."

The OSCE considers security to be more than just a military problem. Security has to do with democracy, respect of human rights, free elections, freedom of speech, the buildup of a strong civil society, it has to do with economic justice, with the protection of the environment. Military solutions are generally viewed as largely inadequate to solve political problems. The OSCE maintains missions in about 12 member states, and has been able to prevent many conflicts and to diffuse many others.

The new OSCE Charter will be adopted this fall, at the Istambul OSCE Summit, by the 54 OSCE Heads of member States (November 15 - 17, 1999). OSCE member states who also belong to NATO have lately begun to question the name "Charter." They want to rename it a more modest "Document," to show clearly and in advance its absence of political weight. (For the time being, it is referred to as the "Charter-Document" in the wonderful diplomatic manner used to reconcile the irreconcilable.) The NATO/OSCE delegates want to restrict OSCE mandates to preventive and humanitarian actions, and to keep the peacekeeping side for NATO, in spite of the fact that OSCE could also be a principle peace-keeping organization according to the Helsinki .

The 1992 Helsinki Document made provision for OSCE peacekeeping activities, stating that peacekeeping constitutes an important operational element of the overall capability of the OSCE for conflict prevention and crisis management, and that OSCE peacekeeping activities may be undertaken in cases of conflict within or among participating States to help maintain peace and stability in support of an ongoing effort at a political solution. So far, however, this option has not been made use of.

Strong OSCE support by NGO's, especially in Canada and the US, is absolutely crucial in these troubled times. The OSCE Parliamentary Assemblies (PAs), formed by parliamentarians of the 54 member states, meet every year in the second week of July. In Stockholm and Warsaw (1996 and 1997), the PA adopted an amendment drafted by the Working Group on Nuclear Free Zones in Europe (NFZE). NFZ are also mentioned in an Annex of the Lisbon Document (3 Dec. 1996, OSCE Summit). In Copenhagen (1998), the PA approved the formation and training of a Civil Peace Corps and the principle of gender balance (the rapporteur was Alcee Hastings, US OSCE/PA member from Florida). This shows the utility of lobbying by NGOs. NGOs could organize meetings in the 54 OSCE member states before the 1999 OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, inviting MPs, State Department officials, and Ambassadors of OSCE member states (consult the PA website : www.osce.org/inst/oscepa/)

However the OSCE budget remains ridiculous, because the richest member states (which happen to be NATO states) wish it to remain so, and other member states can not pay more.

Since the OSCE succeeds in the functions of maintaining security, building democracy, insisting on respect for human rights, and applying peaceful solutions to conflicts, NATO perceives it as a threat, fearing it might appear largely superfluous in this region of the world. Today, NATO is fighting for its life in the Balkans. The peace movement, fighting only to counter the NATO nuclear doctrine (a very necessary struggle), has failed to see the urgency of questioning the need for any NATO presence at all in the OSCE region.

Data for 1999: The OSCE Parliamentary Assembly will take place on July 6-10, 99 , in St Petersburg (Russia). The next Summit of the 54 OSCE Heads of States will meet on November, 15-17, 1999 in Istambul, and adopt the Document/Charta on the "European Security for the 21st Century." The current OSCE President in Exercise is Knut Vollebaeck, the Foreign Minister of Norway. (www.osce.org)

-Solange Fernex