210108_un_humanrights

Massoumeh Torfeh

The US based human rights organization, Human Rights Watch, says the new EU strategy for Central Asia does not adequately stress on benchmarks for improvements in human rights. Rachel Denber, the deputy director of Europe and Central Asia at HRW says dialogue alone will not be effective. But the European Union claims it has included in the new strategy regular result-orientated dialogue on human rights and democratization. The European Union is doubling assistance to Central Asia for the next six years to endorse the significance it attaches to the region.

Human Rights Watch has consistently stressed that the new EU strategy for Central Asia should contain clear goals and benchmarks to raise human rights concerns at the political level. It has called for the extra EU funding to be directly linked to improvements in human rights. Pierre Morel, the EU Special Representative for Central Asia - one of the main architects of the new strategy - says human rights, rule of law, good governance and the creation of an independent judiciary are among the main priorities of the EU in the new strategy. The strategy was adopted during the EU summit in June 21.

Rachel Denber says while the new strategy is an improvement on the old one; it still misses the opportunity to endorse the idea of specific benchmarks. She says that dialogue, education and training are not enough. What is most important is the political commitment to human rights.

After a recent trip to Central Asia, the UN Human Rights chief, Louise Arbour, also expressed great concern about the human rights situation. She said while some progress had been made, excessive power of governments and the weakness of the judiciary remained a concern. Rachel Denber says while there are variations, human rights situation in Central Asia republics is universally poor. She says international standards and obligations are not being observed. A mix of repression, poverty and corruption are creating potential security concerns, she says.

Pierre Morel says while the EU gives priority to human rights, these are issues that need long-term perseverance. On the specific case of Uzbekistan Mr. Morel says the EU is working very actively on �the sensitive issue� and in six months it has had substantial sessions with Uzbek officials. Rachel Denbar says dialogue with Uzbek authorities had no results and this underscores the need for benchmarks. The EU has not been tough enough with Uzbekistan and that gave the wrong signal, she adds.

In fact EU sanctions against Uzbekistan were slightly reduced last May. Visa bans for travel to Europe were removed for four officials. In turn, Uzbekistan released two political prisoners on probation and agreed to some talks on human rights. However, Tashkent has refused an independent inquiry into the Andijan massacre. Uzbek forces in Andijan killed hundreds of mostly unarmed protestors in May 2005. Uzbek authorities then jailed hundreds of people and forced them to confess to links to radical Islamists to justify the army crackdown. Rachel Denber says the EU should take a strong consistent line against Uzbekistan.

Serious human rights violations by Central Asian rulers come in contrast to EU's hopes for substantial energy agreements. Three of the five republics - Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan - have some of the largest oil and gas reserves. The other two - Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan -- have rich sources of hydropower. Kazakhstan is the fourth largest producer of uranium. Both gas and water, being environmentally friendly, are considered as future energy. Moreover, both are strategic commodities since Russia has been investing heavily - through Gazprom and RAO UES -- in both. Russia also encouraged the main energy producers of Central Asia, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan, to sign a tripartite agreement for a new pipeline to take Central Asian oil and gas to Russia.

Mr Morel confirms that the competition is fierce and the EU is looking for options. However, he says the EU does not have an anti-Russian energy policy. The new EU strategy will support the exploration of new oil, gas and hydropower resources and assist in developing a new Caspian Sea-Black Sea-EU energy transport corridor. It promises to attract investment towards energy projects.

The Commissioner for External Relations and European Neighborhood Policy, Benita Ferrero-Waldner, has described �energy and trade� as �the reasons for the higher profile, higher amounts of assistance that the EU is providing for Central Asia this year.� The EU intends to demonstrate the growing significance of relations with Central Asia by more than doubling assistance to the region in the period 2007 -2013, with a total of �750 million. Since the early 1990s the European Commission has provided �1.132 billion assistance to the reform process in the region.