South Stream Vs Nabucco: the Turkmeni affair

Within the turn of the week, the thorny issue of Caspian gas to EU has also dramatically changed. In short, Nabucco is down and South Stream is up.

Bulgaria has given the ratification of the South Stream (that comes after the Greece, Serbia and Austria ) pipeline, which is expected to run with Azerbaijani gas. Meanwhile Turkemistan is granting its gas to Gazprom , undermining the Nabucco project. As the article points clearly, there is now insufficient gas to have Nabucco project feasible and meaningful, unless it is considered the “Hobson choice”: Iranian gas. Turkey, pushing for Nabucco as South Stream bypass Turkey via Black sea, is already lobbying Tehran to double the existing Iran.-Turkey pipeline.

It is still unclear whether it would be iranian or (again) turkmeni gas to be pumped in the pipes, and the memory of January 2008 shortages due to Theran- Ashgabat strife and occasional pipeline blowups are always reason for concern.

In any case Registan.net makes a good argument why South Stream would be more viable and more likely to occur. Not only it is shorter and economically more sound, but it cuts short of problematic areas with separatism problem (Georgia, Turkey), bypassing the crowded Bosphorus.

SCO Dushanbe summit: Afghanistan has a new gardener

SCO next meeting, in August 28^th in Dushanbe – Tajikistan, will be an important demonstration of the maturity the organisation has gained in the last decade. It is significantly set after the Olympiads, as if it intended to appreciate the security SCO can deliver to China in terms of Anti-Terrorism intelligence. It will also be a test to the capability of the organization to make safe its “Bagh”, its garden as the Middle ground between oil and gas-fields and Indian and Chinese soaring economic zones.

Securing this part of the world (that spans from XinJiang to Kashmir and Iran) is a matter of infrastructures and Military self-sufficiency, coupled with single states´goodwill. We have a good example of this in SCO dealings with Afghanistan. As said in a precedent post, SCO produced to Afghanistan a broader “Loya Jirga” in an early summit in Kyrgyzstan. The supposed aim was to lay patent the intertwined interests and problems of the region, specially in the current worsening Afghani-Tajiki border problem (in 2005 Russia retrieved its border guards Tajikistan to the current four-fold increase of drug trafficking).

Given its record-high opium production SCO is considering a joint action with India and China “to build drug-secure belts around Afghanistan”, after the expression of Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov. The stance was reiterated in early July by Russia in a UN Security Council on Afghanistan and was shortly followed up by the Tajiki proposal, suggested in July 28^th, of an SCO regional antidrug center in Dushanbe, Tajikistan. Afghanistan is therefore benefiting form strategic help in its illegal traffics (that finance mainly the Taliban insurgency) while being provided with Russia weaponry.

Nord Stream opening delayed

Alas, Nord Stream delays his delivery to 2012. EU environmental concerns , notably raised by Poland, Sweden, Estonia and Denmark, may have played some part in it. However seems that neighbouring Poland is voicing interest: if not to halt the project, Poland may partake, in the prudent words of former President Kwaśniewski . Obviously it would then make no strategic sense for Germany and Russia to bypass Poland and the Baltics just to have them as stakeholders. A more feasible solutions would be to have them benefitting from the materials and technology supply, as is the case of italian SAIPEM (see former post about Nord Stream).

Would Afghanistan join the SCO club?

In May 25^th Afghan foreign Minister Mr. Spanta stated that Afghanistan is not interested in neither SCO or CSTO membership. The declaration came after a Pakistani proposal; NATO to join SCO in Afghanistan. Yet the recommendations and diplomatic efforts to have the landlocked country join forces with other partners have all but ceased. Just last month in Issyk-Kul, Kyrgyzstan, a summit bearing the title "Afghanistan, SCO, Central Eurasian Security and Geopolitics" showed the high interest in Afghanistan pacification as well as it displayed the Afghani stranger" elements that would possibly play a stabilizing role in Afghani politics. Tajiki is for example an important minority in the north, that happened to be the back-bone of the Northern alliance, Uzbeki are important MP´s and local chiefs (some say “warlords”), Shi´a Hazara is the ethnicity that may prove useful in dealing with Iran. This seizing of the stakeholders multiplicity was perhaps the main success of the conference, and points directly to Central Asia ties in every attempt to studying a really democratic and pluralistic Loya-Jirga. Moreover, it befriended Afghan authorities with SCO proceedings and featured the Friedrich Ebert Institute, testifying that Europe is not idle.

If Afganistan is to join SCO, it would be a chance to meet another major actor in Afghan struggle, Iran, in a multilateral environment. As a matter of fact Iran wants to improve its relationship seeking a full membership, now hindered by its Nuclear Program.

Moreover it would help SCO to exit an impasse. As the interesting analysis of Dr. Erica Marat stresses, Russia and China are said to be weary over the very mission of SCO.

Russia is seeking to merge CSTO and SCO, which concerns China as this would definitively present the organization as military, whereas it has been kept up to now an economic partnership (despite the military drills, which Chinese authorities don´t want to be re-staged).

Afghanistan and Iran membership would re-connote the organization as Strategic (not merely economic) and move the balance of the organization towards the observers Pakistan and India.

Museveni mused to mediation role

Seems like much is on the move in this hot sudanese summer: while ICC confirms its charges against Al-Bashir, UN is planning to nominate Burkina Faso president as mediator and unspecified sources name also Joweri Museveni, Ugandan president, to mediate directly with Sudanese government (sources have not been specified, and the whole plot seems a bit hasted). Darfour already had as mediators Chad (later dismissed as accused to support the JEM) and Eritrea. As for the nomination of Museveni, it comes in a moment of high relations between Uganda and Southern-Sudan president and Sudan vice-president Salva Kiir, and it would be the second time Museveni to be assigned to Sudan , given his previous Southern-Sudan mediation.

Internationally, things are getting a different spin: China, with its many vested interests in Sudan and the fear of having them exposed during the Olympiads, is opposing the indictment and recommending other means. As of today, China's ambassador to the United Nations, Guangya Wang, said that the UN Security Council should suspend ICC warrant and suggested the five permanent Security Council members -- China, Russia, the United States, France and Britain – to meet with Moreno-Ocampo, "warning him about the negative consequences" of the arrest warrant for al-Bashir.

Russia to arm Afghanistan

Commitment of Russia in Afghanistan is broadening. An early agreement in March 2008 regarded logistical support (transit facilities), yet recently a joint statement issued in Moscow following the meeting of the United States-Russia Working Group on Counterterrorism ( CTWG ) confirms the agreement to be “in principle over the supply of Russian weaponry to the Afghanistan National Army”. Manifestations of Russia interest in helping in Afghanistan date back to 2007 , implicitly answering to the patent power void in the almost entirety of the country. The project is to welcome the country in the fold of nations of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

Russia opens up National downstreaming Business

The news of Russia acquisitions of downstream businesses in the Balkans (Serbia, Bulgaria) spread fears of political usage of these assets, got Bulgaria to be blamed as a Troian horse within EU and were universally received as a proof of Russia will to dominate the oil business in order to blackmail EU...

As of July 8th some news have helped joining many dots in Russophobic inconsistent literature: Russia welcomed Eni as the first foreign downstream player. According to Eni sources: "Eni will become the first European player to enter the Russian gas downstream market through sale and purchase deals, [...] to achieve the target set out in the strategic plan 2008-2011 of 900 million cubic meters to be sold in 2011."

Russian Government is said to be pursuing a "gradual plan of price increases that, following the trend of world energy outlooks, will make European and internal gas prices aligned between 2011 and 2014, net of transportation costs and export taxes."

This progress might well be a benefical example of how sound economic interests can harbour and strive in Russia and perhaps help as a blueprint in the redaction of an EU Energy Treaty.

Of Sudanese shrugs and Chinese concerns

ICC has formally indicted Sudanese President Hassan Al-Bashir.

Interestingly, after the dust deposited, the editorialists and commentators are starting to point at the most patent precedent of what is occurring in Sudan: the Iraqi case; i.e. government of a divided state commits (among the other claims) abuses on ethnic minority and faces Western criticism, then bold diplomatic speaking, then war and invasion. The country is then ultimately ungovernable, and a hot-spot for international anti-US revenge.

As the collapse of the Baath party in Iraq shows, Governance and Statehood are subject to thermodynamic law and ignore creation ex-nihilo. By beheading or severely de-legitimating a Government the only output is Political Commotion hence anarchy, where the anti-state and war-lord economies strive. I am not saying that all this would happen, simply detecting a trend.

At this moment, we are at the very beginning of the procedure: discrediting the government. It may as may not yield a regime–change, but surely there are other ways to intimidate the Autocracy. As already reported in this blog, Sudan was already asked by ICC to hand a minister also impeached in the Darfour civil war and connected to the Janjaweed militia.

If ever ICC factual commitment were to follow to the accusations, the case would end with a Sudanese dismissal of indictment and a n Autocracy-clampdown (with Federalism in Southern Sudan back to square one), to the great distress of the Horn of Africa uneasy situation.

Most likely, Sudan would then turn to China, as protector and reliable and problem-free economic Partner, which brings me to another point: the UN overall Africa Policy Vs the Laissez-faire China Africa Policy. Africa autocracies, much like their Central Asian (and South-East Asian one might say) counterparts, are enthusiastically ignoring their colonial-style abuses on their own citizens (who happen not to be of a ruling ethnicity) in exchange of wealth and prestige. As the “one family, one party, one leader” african mantra goes, the “Celestial” Presidency seat distributes goods that are accessible to it alone, its deeds are good and just, every protest or complaint is a threat to harmony. As worded, it seems darn Asiatic rather than African, and it may as well echo the Cargo Cults as the wealth stems from Foreign Assistance and the soil rather than from any national capability.

Sadly this is perforce happening in oil-rich lands, and given the Oil-Peak theories resurfacing it will set the Century policies for these states. Perhaps the only solution durable is promoting diversification policies in those lands, as EU is successfully doing with Russia (albeit the outputs are not immediate). Economy differentiation means power differentiation and ties neighbour economies one another. Transforms a drilled and derrick-dotted surface into a State among States.

NordStream underwater pipeline gains "ground"

In face of the recent opposition of European Parliament to the Nord-Stream project out of environmental grounds, it is growing real, as Saipem has signed a contract to lay a part of the pipeline and have it ready by 2011. Being 43% owned by Italian energy giant Eni SpA, Saipem enter along to the dutch Gasunie (which gets 9% in the joint enterprise, reducing the shares of E.On Ruhrgas and Wintershall Holding to 20% each, while Gazprom keeps its 51% stake) its broadening the european interest-block in Nord-Stream.

Perhaps, if there were some business open for Baltics and Poland, the naive public may expect environmental concerns to be lifted. Of course this is not the case, as this EU Parliament statement was made to question NordStream , alas still short on alternatives in its Energy strategy.

No Dove-talk : further updates from the Russia-US proxy-war.

Following uneasy skirmishes between Georgian army and South-Ossetian self-styled police force, two Russian Military jets were spotted in the South Ossetian territory, admittedly to assess the situation. Georgia interpreted it as a formal invasion and withdrew embassy personnel while filing a complaint to UN Security Council requesting an Emergency session. Georgia did already cut short about a proposal of a Moscow-based Joint Control Commission meeting to study “confidence-building measures”.

The move was matched by South-Ossetian president spokesman Dmitry Medoyev stating that South Ossetia "has all the necessary forces and means to repel any aggression”, also calling for more Russian peace-keeping of the region, while giving Russia the high-ground to play the peacemaker in doing “everything possible to [...] prevent a military escalation of events” (Sergei Lavrov, speaking about South Osstia in Moscow).

5 months after Abkhazia and South Ossetia stated that Kosovo was setting an example of all unresolved ethnic conflicts , UN is once again addressed. Despite I openly admit no party wants a confrontation in this area, only for the more destabilization of the Caucasus, my understanding about this is of a maturity-patent for Russia´s new global role. According to the confident stand in the Caucasus struggles, Russia wants to be perceived as a hub-nation, a pacifier and one of the few relying partners in statehood-building (speaking of Realpolitik prudence), in a region (Broader Middle East) that is rather unused to such a civilized multidimensional approach.

Russia Sphinx re-loaded

O, old world! While you still survive,

     While you still suffer your sweet torture,

Come to a halt, sage as Oedipus,

     Before the ancient riddle of the Sphinx!..

Russia is a Sphinx. Rejoicing, grieving,

     And drenched in black blood,

It gazes, gazes, gazes at you,

     With hatred and with love!..

I believe these verses of Alexander Blok (Scythians, verses 21-28) can still describe the attitude Russia may have for Europe. However, presently, it is not a matter of love and hatred, yet of apathy and interest. Russia is simply staring at EU as a peculiar and feeble political subject but a perfect economic partner, waiting EU to solve its own enigma. But time is short, and the Sphinx could well look away.

ICC Vs Sudan: the name game

Although justice in Sub-Saharan Africa seems asyndetical, ever-approaching but never-reaching, is reaping important results. We can name a few cases: Democratic Republic of Congo war-lord and Vice-president Jean-Pierre Bemba, arrested in end-may 2008 and currently tried; Liberian President Charles Taylor, arrested and detained in Liberia, tried in 2007 but “disappeared” since march 2008.

Just Thursday July 10^th ICC (International Criminal Court, The Hague, NL) prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo maintained it was collecting evidence on Sudan State apparatus for war crimes in Darfour, and it is likely that the President itself (Omar Al-Bashir) would be named for indictment in The Hague. Sadly, the accused president is still in power, and the procedure would resemble a case against an internationally questioned but nationally feared Saddam Hussein in 1996. Now the International Community in Khartoum (Human Rights activists and UN officers) are planning to leave the country and expecting retaliation in the very aftermath of such an announcement.

The statement arrives in times of Sudanese blatant defy of the International Community: an attack on UN peacekeepers in Darfour killed 4 and has been connected to the Janjaweed (a para-militay force, yet allegedly a cadre of the Sudanese Army), and, as already reported in this Blog, in mid-June a ICC demand for a Sudanese Minister to be tried was blocked. As an output of this procedure, it may push the Presidency far from the Western Community directly into the Iraqi pre-2002 limbo, vanifying the South-Sudanese federal asset. Understanding this, it may be wise if Moreno-Ocampo omits presidential responsibility and aims just to the factual perpetrators.

Abkhazia and South-Ossetia front: Georgia gaping jaws of war

Russia and Georgia clashing over the georgian break-away region of Abkhasia and South-Ossetia has now reached an unprecedented ignition-level, with evacuated villages and army musters. The conflict kept certain volatility in Abkhazia for months and has now extended to South Ossetia.

Abkhazia has officially closed its borders to Georgian peace-keepers, while the territory is targeted by vicious blastings of bombs on civilians in an escalation that is blamed on Georgia.

As to South-Ossetia, Russian army has just made a military drill in Northern Caucasus (Chechnya, North Ossetia, Ingushetia, Kabardino-Balkaria, and Karachayevo-Circassia) the S.Ossetia capital, Tskhinvali, is attacked by mortar shots, allegedly launched by Georgian army. Some georgian border-towns had the youth evacuated due to security reasons, which was deemed by South-Ossetian authorities as a patent preparation to invasion.

Georgian leaders suggested in July 4th a partition of the Abkhaz disputed territory, aknowledging russian influence over a large portion but securing a few key-locations. Yet the recent President Medvedev call to attain to 1994 ceasefire dispositions (a Split russo-georgian safeguarding while demanding for a demilitarization of certain areas) maintained Abkhazia integrity. This opening is also highly regarded as another diplomatic move to present the international community with a fait-accompli: a split rule of the land, with Russian military effectively patrolling the roads. A possibility that grows factual as Russia is initiating two “Missions” in the territories (the opening is due for July 9^th) .

The actors of this confrontation are various and variously embedded one another. As Russia is being blamed to help Abkhazians and South Ossetians secede, Georgia is part of the US strategy for a new regime change in CIS countries. CIS countries have break away from the Soviet Union and experienced a high level of hostility in the aftermath of secessions due to an over-secession syndrom. The whole area did not have a clear nation composition as encountered in Eastern Europe, but presents a much more conflictual potential than the Balkans itself. However we should distinguish Central Asia countries, where nationalism is embedded in the bigger sense of “Turkishness” and is more conceivable as a clan struggle (sole exception is the Tadjiki-Uzbeki unrest), the Caucasus is a much more fragmented and delimited area, with no common identity nor self-rule experience.

No steady-paced agreement in oil-rich areas?! Not so fast...

Southern Sudan conflict encounters sometimes also good news.

Sudan President Hussan al-Bashir and Southern-Sudan president Kiir signed in June 9th an agreement for the Abyei area, calling for International Border Arbitration. The agreement recommends a return of the displaced by the recent LRA-SPLA fighting, as well as those displaced by the second Sudanese civil war, ended in 2005. A call for an administrative authority for the area, and the merging of Northern and Southern units in "joint integrated units" was also issued from both sides.

This solution ends a rather under-covered conflict between SPLA and LRA that caused several deaths and hundreds of thousands of refugees that are now on the route to re-settle.

The oil rich Abyei region is also setting for 2011 a referendum to decide whether to join the Southern Sudan or stay with the North. Southern Sudan would then be allowed to express its will to secede from Sudan in a separate referendum. As to now, southern militia SPLA merely moved out of Abyei town and is said not to have fully meet agreements. SPLA maintained it was not clear whether it was meant a withdrawal from Abyei-area or Abyei-city.

Reason for concern now is the nomination of the arbitrator, a decision which will prove the commitment to peace.

The follow-up of the signing was marred by LRA (Lord´s Resistance Army) activity causing several deaths in the SPLA. The organization, once an Ethnic-indipendentist Army, is now reported to be Sudan-backed, in response to Ugandan support for SPLA. In both cases, the agreement will invalidate its very mission and existence as it may prove that Militias are not necessary when there is a sincere will for peace.