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Chapter II
OSCE reactions to the security threats of the XXI century
§1. Combating terrorism
Al-Qaeda attacks of September 11, 2001, on the World Trade Center in New York and on Pentagon in Washington, caused shock and condemnation among the population of the whole world. Overnight, terrorists dominated international thinking. Many international bodies had included fight against terrorism in their action programs, but now this issue became a major priority . The United Nations Organization, the European Council, NATO, the European Union, OSCE – all these international bodies declared their determination to fight against terrorism and initiated counteraction measures.
UN have begun to pay special attention to the fight against terrorism since 1960. UN adopted a series of declarations and conventions concerning the issue. The Security Council dealt with terrorism in a more specific way, including Osama bin Laden and Talibans from Afghanistan, etc. After September 11, UN developed a general framework for combating terrorism. The Security Council authorized the use of force in pursuing the responsible for attacks; a Commission for Combating Terrorism (CCT) was established, its goals being to monitor the implementation of the measures imposed by the Security Council .
Terrorism was not a new subject for the Council of Europe either. In January 1977, the EC adopted the European Convention on Terrorism Abolishment that focused on legal and legislative measures. After September 11, the EC appealed to the member states to ratify the Convention regarding terrorism and other relevant documents. A multi-disciplinary group of international action against terrorism was established to review the EC tools used for combating terrorism, including the European Convention.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is rather a beginner in combating terrorism . Before the terrorist attacks, NATO paid some attention to the challenges of international terrorism, especially in the press release of the Washington Summit in 1999. September 11 brought NATO to a new level, the Alliance deciding to consider the attacks as an action covered by Article 5 of the Washington Treaty. Besides the fact that this step showed political solidarity, it was also a commitment to offer military support. In Afghanistan military campaign it was clear that the political, military, and logistical assistance offered by NATO were of great help to the USA.
In the period preceding the attacks in New York and Washington, the European Union undertook measures to combat terrorism, implementing sanctions imposed by UN and strengthen the judiciary cooperation between its members. After the al-Qaeda attacks, the EU applied new measures of restriction against Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda, and the Taliban.
Until the attacks of September 11, 2001, OSCE did not consider terrorism problem to be a priority, except for certain member states, like Russia and the countries of Central Asia. After a certain period of time, the OSCEs perception of terrorism has changed. Analytically speaking, there are four types of terrorism as they appear in the OSCE documents: terrorism as an undermining tool of the Cold War policy; terrorism of the age of the Cold War, but without any connection to the Eastern-Western conflict; terrorism as a separatism tool within the OSCE region; and Islamic fundamentalism.
In the middle 90s, there was a general belief that OSCE should be used for specific measures of combating terrorism. However, the suggestion to organize a workshop on terrorism problems and to create a group of experts for stimulating the cooperation of the member states in combating terrorism that was made at a meeting in November 1996, was rejected. At the 1999 Conference the member states of the EU said again that OSCE should neither double the work of the United Nations, nor set an operational role in this area.
The attacks of September 11 caused a dramatic increase of the attention paid by OSCE to the problem of terrorism, including the relations of OSCE with other international organizations. All member states of the OSCE expressed their strong condemnation of the attacks and created a special Work Group on the issues of terrorism and an action plan. These were adopted at the Ninth Ministerial Council, in Bucharest, on December 3-4, 2001. In the resolution regarding terrorism combating the Ministerial Council declared that the “terrorist acts in all their forms and manifestations, whenever, wherever, and by whoever performed, constitute threats to international peace, security,y and stability”.
According to the Action Plan adopted in Bucharest, OSCE will support all the activities undertaken by other organizations, especially by UN, without duplicating their efforts. UN undertakes the role of the leader in combating terrorism, while OSCE can assume the role of coordinating interregional and intra-regional initiatives.
OSCE will also try to offer extra value to this process on the basis of the characteristics of the Organization, its strong points, and comparative advantages: the comprehensive concept of security that connects human, economic, and political-military dimensions; its enormous participation; experience in the area and the expertise it possesses in preventive forewarning, conflicts prevention, crisis management, post conflict rehabilitation and democratic institutions. Moreover, many of the efficient measures of combating terrorism are from the areas like police training, judiciary and legislative reforms, and border monitoring – areas, which OSCE is already professionally working in.
A huge list of measures used by OSCE is included in the Action Plan. However, these are formulated in general terms and it is not clear how they are to be implemented. At a deeper analysis, these measures do not offer OSCE a new approach to the problem. The Organization will continue to do what it has done before, although new other measures can be identified.
It is clear that the five states of Central Asia will benefit politically and financially from the reactions undertaken after September 11. As a result, the international Conference held in Bishkek on December 13-14, 2001 adopted its own Action Program. In this program they appeal to the need for addressing economic and social problems that terrorists take advantage of. International community is hailed to offer technical and financial assistance to the states of Central Asia.
Portugal, which undertook the Presidency-in-Office in 2002, identified the fight against terrorism as a major priority. On May 2, 2002, the President-in-Office