Since ethnic violence erupted in the south on June 10, Kyrgyzstan’s citizens have approved a new constitution, giving legitimacy to the provisional government installed after riots in April, and Roza Otunbayeva has been inaugurated as president, giving Kyrgyzstan its best hope.

Yet state collapse remains a viable outcome absent stronger international support.

Kyrgyzstan’s leaders face staggering political and economic challenges. Their failure to manage these could well bring civil war, produce humanitarian calamity and ethnic slaughter and turn this remote Central Asian republic into a safe haven for terrorists. Collapse would undermine U.S. efforts in Afghanistan. It would make its neighbors far more vulnerable, turning a long-feared arc of instability across the region into a reality. Kyrgyzstan needs urgent assistance if it is to restore stability, secure its borders and address the ethnic tensions that exploded a month ago.

Despite these high stakes, the international community is failing to respond in ways commensurate with the crisis. UN agencies and NGOs have delivered humanitarian aid to the south. But NATO and the European Union are conspicuously silent. Russia and the Collective Security Treaty Organization declined to send peacekeepers. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization has done nothing. The Turkish-led Conference for Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia has no capacity to play a role on the ground. Each of these institutions lacks the broad-based membership, local credibility and organizational capacity to be effective.

One institution is “fit for purpose” — the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). The OSCE brings together 56 countries in a comprehensive approach to security in Europe and Eurasia. Kyrgyzstan is a member, as are its Central Asian neighbors, Russia, the United States, Turkey and all EU states.

The OSCE already has a leading profile and strong record in Kyrgyzstan. The OSCE under Kazakhstan’s leadership played a pivotal role in averting civil war in April. Moreover, according to one local, its work there since 1998 has “embedded it in the fabric of society.” The OSCE mission — ably led by a British career diplomat and veteran of 21 conflicts — has been working with governmental and non-governmental authorities in the areas of policing and rule of law, border security, governance, legislation, environmental protection and regional cooperation. It has the trust of the former opposition that now constitutes the government, as well as NGOs and the Uzbek minority. The OSCE mission has achieved this with only 16 international and 75 local staff and a budget of €5.5 million.



While the OSCE offers the best prospect for structuring an effective international response to the crisis, it risks falling short. Its risk-averse election-observing arm failed when it declined to send 300 short-term observers to monitor the referendum. (It did field a 36-person long-term observer mission.)



Jim Steinberg and OSCE foreign ministers are meeting in Kazakhstan this weekend to discuss how to ramp up efforts (Steinberg will continue on to Kyrgyzstan). Proposals include sending 50 police monitors embedded in six locations throughout the country, enhancing the OSCE mission’s capacity by adding eight to 15 personnel to its staff and deploying the High Commission for National Minorities to support reconciliation in the south.



These ideas are helpful, but tinker on the margins of the problem. By contrast, the OSCE mission in Kosovo is staffed by nearly 700 civil servants with a €23.5 million budget; in Bosnia the numbers are over 530 staff and a €15 million budget. Measures on the table in Vienna now will not stave off failure. It is time to be similarly bold. Long plagued by U.S.-Russian differences, the OSCE can now respond through their joint leadership, in coordination with OSCE chairman-in-office Kazakhstan and other members, on a strategy to help Kyrgyzstan. It should contain these elements:

• A robust OSCE police support capacity numbering several hundred trainers and mentors, its deployment to southern Kyrgyzstan and the development of a program to collect small arms and light weapons.
• A substantial, long-term ethnic reconciliation program, technical support for parliamentary elections this fall and triple the OSCE staff to bolster border management.
• A senior-level OSCE-led mentoring capability to give ongoing policy support and advice to President Otunbayeva and her leadership team.


• An independent OSCE-initiated investigation of the June violence.
• The reconfiguration of the Manas transit center as a joint U.S.-Russian operation or at least one marked by a joint U.S.-Russian presence to show that zero-sum politics are over and that Kyrgyzstan does not have to chose between Moscow and Washington.


• Emergency World Bank and International Monetary Fund efforts to stabilize the country’s finances, give policy guidance to its economic managers and improve transparency.
• International assistance to rebuild the south with an eye to a winter that is less than five months away.


• U.S., Russian, Kazakh and European logistical, technical and financial support for these OSCE and other international efforts to help Kyrgyzstan emerge from crisis.


Now is the time for Washington to test its “reset” policy and to work effectively with Russia and others at the July 16-17 OSCE ministerial in nearby Almaty and the likely OSCE summit this fall to galvanize greater international support for Kyrgyzstan, ensure its success and better secure a promising future for it and the rest of Central Asia. A major joint U.S.-Russian-Kazakh initiative to stabilize Kyrgyzstan would help concretize our rhetoric forsaking zero-sum games.



Ambassador Ross Wilson is Director of the Patriciu Eurasia Center at the Atlantic Council and formerly managed Central Asia policy at the State Department. Damon Wilson is Vice President and Director of the International Security Program at the Atlantic Council, and formerly handled OSCE issues as Senior Director for European Affairs at the National Security Council. The authors direct an Atlantic Council Task Force on Eurasia and recently returned from Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.

Ambassador Ross Wilson is Director of the Patriciu Eurasia Center at the Atlantic Council and formerly managed Central Asia policy at the State Department. Damon Wilson is Vice President and Director of the International Security Program at the Atlantic Council, and formerly handled OSCE issues as Senior Director for European Affairs at the National Security Council. The authors direct an Atlantic Council Task Force on Eurasia and recently returned from Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.

This article was first published on The Hill. Photo credit: Reuters Pictures.

Image: Kyrgyzstan%20President.jpg