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from Stratfor.com
While the issue of Kosovo’s independence is hovering over the heads of the international community, four other secessionist regions are uniting to take their own stand on settling their positions. The foreign ministers of the Commonwealth for Democracy and Rights of Nations – which is made up of the unrecognized governments of Transdniestria, South Ossetia and Abkhazia – met Sunday to sign their usual declaration to the United Nations. Though this document is regularly presented and usually far from noteworthy, things are different this time around. These regions, along with newcomer Nagorno-Karabakh, are uniting just as Russia is re-emerging as a power and the Kosovo issue is causing the West angst. And the West’s headache over breakaway states is about to get bigger.
The states’ recent declaration was unique in that it united them on principles of a peaceful and just settlement of conflicts in their territories. The document explicitly rules out the use of any form of pressure against them, including military, information, economic and diplomatic. Moreover, the regions noted that they have been wrestling for independence much longer than has Kosovo.
This collective call for independence grew much louder after Montenegro gained independence in May 2006. Though there are countless regions like these throughout the former Soviet Union and Europe – such as Northern Ireland, Basqueland, Transylvania and Chechnya – these four are particularly worrisome because they are located within countries that are strategic to both the West and Russia. Each already has claimed independence and enjoyed de facto independence for more than a decade, but none has been successful in gaining the support of international forces for independence like Montenegro.
Georgia has two secessionist regions, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, that back up to the Russian border. Georgia has been struggling against the Russian backlash since the 2004 Rose Revolution that gave it pro-Western status; since then Georgia has been pushing to join Western institutions such as NATO, but not without Russian criticism.
Moldova borders recent EU member Romania and also has been fighting to become an EU member. But its membership into either the European Union or NATO has been prevented because of its small enclave of Transdniestria – the population of which is majority Russian and Ukrainian.
Azerbaijan has been pushed into being more pro-West since the opening of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline (BTC), which Western companies developed to feed oil to Europe. The pipeline has afforded Azerbaijan a huge windfall of cash. Though the West expects its Nagorno-Karabakh region to gain independence along the Kosovo principle, the issue has not been pressed since the BTC holds more importance than does the region seceding.
Each of these regions has been unusually quiet during the wait for a Kosovo resolution, and is keeping on eye on how the West pushes for Kosovar independence. However, the fight for Kosovo’s independence has taken a turn from what many thought was inevitable at the beginning of the year. The Kosovo decision has moved from being an issue about Kosovar Albanians’ independence from Serbia into a power struggle between Russia and the West. Now these four regions in the former Soviet Union also are falling into the struggle between the West and Russia.
It is no secret that the Commonwealth for Democracy and Rights of Nations is a Russian-backed and -funded organization. For years it has been used to cause trouble in Moldova and Georgia. It is typical for Russia to manipulate Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Transdniestria when it wants to strike out against Georgia, Moldova and the West. But the interesting twist this year was the addition of Nagorno-Karabakh, since Russia does not usually meddle in this region as much as in the others. Moreover, the United States is prevalent in the region both politically and financially – so far it has managed to keep Nagorno-Karabakh from joining the other “frozen conflicts” in the Russian initiative. Either Nagorno-Karabakh has realized that the United States is not moving to gain its independence or that Russia is finally trying to get more involved in the region, pulling it into its secessionist region movement.
Either way, the shift is a clear sign that Russia is gaining just another region to manipulate while it strikes back at the West’s infiltration into its former Soviet Union states. The West is not ready for any more crises outside of Kosovo. However, if the United States moves to give Kosovo its independence without Russia on board, Russia has these other regions ready to cause a string of crises for which the West is not prepared, and in states that Washington has fought so hard in the past decade to keep on its side.
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