Before the breaking up of the Soviet Union, the CSCE did not
discuss the political and ethnic tensions in Transcaucasia. This
was consistent with the principle of non-intervention in the
internal affairs of the Participating States (Principle VI of the
Helsinki Final Act). Nevertheless, some declarations by the
CSCE's Committee of Senior Officials (CSO(81)) on the Yugoslav war
in 1991 had already emphasized that the commitments undertaken in
the sphere of the human dimension of the CSCE were matters of
direct and legitimate concern to all Participating States, and
did not belong exclusively to the internal affairs of the States
concerned.(82) Since the
human dimension of the CSCE includes not
only human rights and fundamental freedoms, but also the rights
of minorities, democracy and the rule of law (83), and since the
conflicts in Georgia and Nagorno-Karabakh clearly violated
several CSCE commitments in these fields, there was theoretically
a window of opportunity for action by the CSCE in Transcaucasia
from the autumn of 1991 onwards. The CSCE did not take any
initiative at the end of 1991 for three main reasons: the novelty
of such an intervention in internal conflicts (even in the case
of Yugoslavia); uncertainty about the situation in the Soviet
Union; and the priority given to the Yugoslav crisis. On the
other hand, the Russian Federation and the Republic of Kazakhstan
had succeeded, in September 1991, in mediating an agreement
between the Armenian and Azeri Presidents regarding first steps
towards the shaping of a peacemaking process (Zheleznovodsk
Communique of 23 September 1991). The question of the conflicts
in Georgia and Nagorno-Karabakh was dealt with by the CSCE only
after the dissolution of the Soviet Union (December 1991), the
acceptance of the Transcaucasian countries as full members of the
CSCE and the failure of the Yeltsin/Nazarbaev peace initiative in
January 1992.
Armenia and Azerbaijan, as well as the other Member States
of the CIS, were welcomed as Participating States of the CSCE by
the Prague Meeting of the CSCE Council on 30-31 January 1992(84),
while Georgia had sent its request for accession later and joined
the CSCE only during the Helsinki Additional Meeting of the
Council on 24 March 1992.(85) This may help to explain why the
CSCE's action on the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh began earlier
than its action in Georgia. A second reason for this may be that
the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict had an "inter-state" character,
whereas the latter was an "internal" conflict. The complexity of
the political spectrum in Georgia in the beginning of 1992, the
early involvement of Russia in the settlement of the conflict
between Georgia and the South Ossetians and the non-participation
of Georgia in the CIS may be additional reasons which account for
the CSCE's different policies in the two conflicts.
The following analysis will be divided into two sections:
the first will deal with Nagorno-Karabakh and the second with the
Georgian case (Abkhazia and South Ossetia).
- "Soft Action" and Neutral Position
The admission of new Participating States into the CSCE is
traditionally followed by the sending of Rapporteur Missions to
these States. The Chairman-in-Office of the CSCE, the
Czechoslovak Foreign Minister Jiri Dienstbier, sent a Rapporteur
Mission to Armenia and Azerbaijan with a special focus on the
problem of Nagorno-Karabakh.(86) This mission (12-18 February 1992)
- led by the former President of the International Helsinki
Federation and current head of Vaclav Havel's cabinet, Karel
Schwartzenberg - gave the CSCE a leading role in the management
of the crisis at a time when combat was intensifying and the US,
Russia, France, the European Parliament and Iran were repeatedly
appealing for a peaceful settlement of the conflict. Secretary of
State James Baker had expressed the American government's concern
to find a solution within the framework of the CSCE(87) - probably
in the hope of preventing unilateral action by Russia, or Iranian
involvement in the region.(88)
The CSO of the CSCE discussed the Interim Report of the
Rapporteur Mission on the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh during
its seventh regular meeting in Prague on 27-28 February 1992.(89)
Firstly, it called on "all forces in the Nagorno-Karabakh area of
the Azerbaijan Republic" to impose an immediate cease-fire and to
implement the agreement recently adopted by the Russian, Armenian
and Azeri Foreign Ministers.(90) The CSO underlined that ‹groups of
eminent personsŠ from CSCE States could contribute to such a
process. Secondly, the CSO requested all CSCE States and all
other States in the region - i.e., Iran and the Arab countries -
to impose an immediate embargo on the delivery of weapons to all
combat forces. Thirdly, it took several initiatives at the
humanitarian level to relieve the population of Nagorno-Karabakh
and Armenian and Azeri refugees, for example in creating safe
corridors for aid and supporting an exchange of hostages and dead
bodies. Fourthly, it stressed the need to respect international
obligations, to guarantee the rights of ethnic and national
communities and minorities and to abandon territorial claims
against neighbouring countries. At this time, the CSCE did not
accuse any party of responsibility for acts of aggression or the
use of force. This attitude is very similar to the CSCE's and
EC's "neutral" statements on the Yugoslav crisis between June and
September 1991; only during the last months of 1991 did they take
a more critical stand towards Serbia and Montenegro.
In case of the former Yugoslavia, the CSCE Council and CSO
called for "respect for the inviolability of all borders, whether
internal or external, which can only be changed by peaceful means
and by common agreement"(91), but at no stage did they use such
terms in speaking of the secession of Nagorno-Karabakh. From May
1992, the CSCE condemned the "continuing aggression" led by
Serbia and the Yugoslav National Army, who were supporting
irregular Serbian forces.(92) The role of the Armenian government
was never denounced with such vigour. There were indeed
condemnations of the occupation of Azeri territory around
Nagorno-Karabakh in May 1992 and April 1993, but Armenian support
for the Armenian forces of Nagorno-Karabakh itself were not
included in them. Accusations arising from this were discussed by
the CSCE at a time when there was still no agreement about the
use of the "consensus-minus-one" procedure, which may partly
explain its moderate tone.
After this first period of "soft action" (Rapporteur Mission
and political declaration), the CSO immediately took more
concrete action.
- From Soft Action to Peacemaking
On 13-14 March 1992, the eighth regular meeting of the CSO
decided to hold an extraordinary session of the CSCE Council on
24 March, at the beginning of the Helsinki follow-up meeting, in
order to take the initiatives necessary to prevent the escalation
of the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh and, in particular, to launch
a peace process.(93) A
second mission, led by Jan Kubis,
Chairman-in-Office of the CSO, was sent to the region from 19 to
23 March 1992.(94) On 24
March, the Foreign Ministers of the
Participating States reiterated their call for an immediate and
effective cease-fire, welcomed the complementary efforts of other
organizations and their Member States (Iran is not mentioned) and
by the UN Secretary-General. For the first time, the Ministers
agreed explicitly that the CSCE "must play a major role in
promoting a peace process relating to the conflict" and requested
the Chairman-in-Office "to keep in close contact with the United
Nations (...) and to arrange for regular exchanges of
information".(95) This
formulation quite accurately describes the
respective roles of the UN and the CSCE.
The Council took three important decisions. Firstly, it sent
the Chairman-in-Office, Jiri Dienstbier, to the region in order
to examine the possibilities of establishing a cease-fire and an
overall peaceful settlement.
Secondly, it requested the Chairman-in-Office to convene a
peace conference in Minsk under the auspices of the CSCE, with 11
Participating States (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, the Czech and
Slovak Federal Republic, France, Germany, Italy, the Russian
Federation, Sweden, Turkey and the US) and "elected and other
representatives of Nagorno-Karabakh" to be invited "as interested
parties by the Chairman of the Conference after consultation with
the States participating in the Conference".(96) This first
application of the principle of delegating some tasks to an ad
hoc group of States(97)
was
intended to establish an efficient body
which would not be paralyzed by a cumbersome decision-making
process based on unanimity among more than 50 countries. It
included the participation of the main regional players (except
Iran) and some powers which had traditionally played a role in
the region (France, Russia, the USA and Turkey). Taking part were
not only the present Chairman-in-Office of the CSCE
(Czechoslovakia), but also the former and future Chairs (Germany
and Sweden).
Thirdly, the Council urged all CSCE Participating States and
all concerned parties to help in providing humanitarian
assistance, opening safe corridors and organizing international
monitoring.
This first peacemaking exercise led by the CSCE encountered
many difficulties in its implementation. The designation of Mario
Raffaelli as Chairman of the Minsk Conference on 7 April 1992 by
the Chairman-in-Office; the CSO's decisions regarding the
practical organization of the Conference and the invitations to
the UN and the UNHCR; the CSO's agreement to the sending of a
CSCE monitoring mission once a cease-fire had been achieved(98) -
none of these factors managed to prevent a worsening of the
situation. The seizure by the Armenian forces of the last Azeri
city in the enclave, Shusha (9 May 1992), and of the Lachin
corridor on Azeri territory, which linked Armenia with
Nagorno-Karabakh (17 May 1992), were significant steps in the
escalation of the war. On 10 May, CSCE mediators tried
unsuccessfully to enter the region.(99) On 21 May, the US proposal
to summon an emergency meeting of the Minsk Conference
participants was rejected by Armenia because it explicitly
mentioned the condemnation of "the extension of the conflict to
other regions of Azerbaijan" and a most forceful demand for
"respect for Azerbaijan's territorial integrity".(100) The
"consensus-minus-one" procedure requested by Azerbaijan was
refused by some countries, in particular France and Greece.(101)
After five rounds of preparatory talks, held in Rome between June
and September 1992, attempts to convene the Minsk Conference
became deadlocked in disputes over the official status of
representatives of Nagorno-Karabakh's Armenian community and over
the responsibility of the Armenian government for the actions of
all unofficial Armenian militias.(102) The agreement by the parties
on the potential deployment of peacekeeping forces was the only
significant result of these talks, although the question as to
whether these forces would act under the command of the CSCE or
the UN remained unanswered.(103) This ambiguity reflected the
difficulty of co-ordinating the UN Security Council's deeper
involvement in the crisis since May 1992 with the CSCE's
willingness to act as a regional arrangement of the UN under
Chapter VIII of the Charter, and to carry out peacekeeping
operations(104) as such,
as proclaimed in the Helsinki Summit of
July 1992.
The period between May and December 1992 showed that the
respective roles of the CSCE and the UN were not yet clearly
defined, for three reasons:
- the continuing escalation of the conflict made a break-through
by the peace process impossible;
- the two organizations had no previous experience of such
co-operation;
- Armenia seemed to favour intervention by the UN Security
Council while Azerbaijan would have preferred action by the CSCE:
the presence or absence of France, Russia, Iran and Turkey in
these bodies was clearly the main reason behind their
preferences.
The Stockholm meeting of the CSCE Council on 14-15 December
1992 was unable to take any new initiatives and merely asked
Mario Raffaelli and the Minsk Group "to continue their tireless
efforts to advance the peace process".(105)
- From Peacemaking to Peacekeeping
Despite these failures, the CSO decided - at its 17th regular
meeting in Prague on 5-6 November 1992 - to establish an
open-ended ad hoc group in Vienna in order to prepare an Advance
Monitoring Group to be sent to the area. CSCE States which had
already sent monitors to the region were urged to integrate them
into the CSCE group in order to unify the chain of command.(106)
The relative stabilization of developments on the ground in
January 1993 gave Mario Raffaelli the opportunity to organise new
negotiations on this initiative. The Minsk Conference reconvened
in Rome on 26 February 1993, and a preliminary agreement was
signed on 2 March for the deployment of a CSCE "observer mission"
to monitor a cease-fire, a separation of forces, the withdrawal
of foreign military advisers and heavy weapons, and the return of
refugees.(107) This
agreement focused primarily on the parts of
Azeri territory around Nagorno-Karabakh. The Azeri proposal for a
demilitarization of Nagorno-Karabakh itself was not included.
The new Armenian offensive in the region of Kelbajar at the
end of March threatened to wreck the whole peace process once
again. Seventeen countries supported Azerbaijan's request to
convene an emergency meeting of the CSO in accordance with the
emergency mechanism created by the Berlin Council Meeting of June
1991.(108) The meeting
was held during the 21st regular meeting of
the CSO (26-29 April 1993). A statement proposed jointly by the
US, the Swedish Chairman-in-Office and Mario Raffaelli, calling
for an "immediate and complete withdrawal of occupying forces
from the Kelbajar and other recently occupied areas of
Azerbaijan" was rejected by Armenia. Turkey and Azerbaijan
requested the use of the consensus-minus-one procedure, but this
proposal did not find agreement among the other States, as had
already been the case after the seizure of Lachin eleven months
before. The failure of the CSCE to mediate in the conflict was
followed on 30 April by the vote on Resolution 822 by the UN
Security Council.
This confirms that the decision-making process of the UN
Security Council is more flexible than the cumbersome consensus
or unanimity voting systems of regional organizations like the
CSCE, EU, WEU or NATO. This did not prevent the UN from
supporting the CSCE's mediation efforts in Nagorno-Karabakh.
In particular, the Security Council:
- reaffirmed its "unreserved support" for the current CSCE peace
process as well as for the CSCE Minsk Group's "tireless
efforts"(109);
- urged the parties immediately to resume the negotiations to
reach a settlement of the conflict within the peace process of
the Minsk Group of the CSCE(110), as well as to negotiate a final
settlement through direct contact with one another(111);
- endorsed the continuing peace efforts by the CSCE's Minsk
Group, including efforts to implement UN resolution 822(112);
- recommended that parties accept the so-called "Modified
Calendar of urgent measures" drawn up in the Minsk Group of the
CSCE(113);
- requested the Secretary-General to delegate a representative to
the CSCE's Minsk Conference and to supply all necessary
assistance to the Conference peace talks(114);
- expressed its support for the CSCE's monitoring mission.(115)
The particularly close co-operation between the UN and the
CSCE concerning Nagorno-Karabakh was placed under the political
leadership of this latter organization. Most of demands and
requests issued in the Security Council Resolutions corresponded
to Raffaelli's suggestions(116), especially those in which the
Security Council referred explicitly to CSCE initiatives and
where it:
- condemned the seizure of the districts of Agdam(117) and
Zanghelan(118);
- condemned attacks on civilians and the bombardment of inhabited
areas(119);
- demanded an immediate cessation of all hostilities and the
immediate, complete and unconditional withdrawal of the occupying
forces involved from the districts of Agdam/Zanghelan and all
other recently occupied areas of the Azerbaijani Republic.(120)
With the exception of the first resolution on
Nagorno-Karabakh (UNSC Resolution 822), all the other Security
Council resolutions were based on reports issued by the chairman
of the CSCE's Peace Conference, Mario Raffaelli, and not by the
UN Secretary-General.(121) This is remarkable insofar as Article 54
of the UN Charter stipulates that "the Security Council shall at
all times be kept fully informed of activities undertaken under
or in contemplation of regional agreements or by regional
agencies for the maintenance of international peace and
security". In the case of Nagorno-Karabakh, the division of
labour between CSCE and UN was not limited by this restricted
approach.
In parallel with this positive evolution of the relationship
with the UN, the "observer mission" agreed on by the parties on 2
March 1993 has been continuously prepared by a CSCE ad hoc
group.(122) An Initial
Operation Planning Group was subsequently
set up in Vienna, within the framework of the Conflict Prevention
Centre (CPC), in order to implement this mandate. Five stages
were planned for the operation: a verification stage
(verification of the cease-fire and of the withdrawal of all
armed personnel from the Kelbajar area), followed by four stages
of monitoring. The Planning Group was to include 600 people
(mostly military) in its final stage. A number of Blue Berets
from the Golan Heights were also to take part in the operation.
Furthermore, in June and July 1993, the Minsk Group intended to
implement UNSC Resolution 822 with a "Calendar of urgent
measures" accepted by the Armenian and Azeri Presidents as well
as by the Armenian President of the Supreme Council of
Nagorno-Karabakh. But the ousting of the Azeri President,
Elcibey, in June and the seizure of the Azeri town of Agdam by
the Armenian forces of Nagorno-Karabakh in July(123) created an
entirely new situation, leading to a loss of leadership in crisis
management for the CSCE.
- Russia's Involvement and the Marginalisation of the CSCE
The replacement of President Elcibey by President Aliyev on 24
June significantly changed the role of the CSCE. Like the EC one
week before(124), on 24
June the CSCE condemned any
unconstitutional attempt to remove the democratically elected
President of the Republic of Azerbaijan and urged a peaceful
solution to the present crisis without outside interference and
in which respect for democratic institutions and the rule of law
are upheld. The maintenance of constitutional order was seen as
essential for the implementation of UNSC Resolution 822 and for
the success of the CSCEs efforts to reach a negotiated settlement
to the conflict dealt with by the Conference on
Nagorno-Karabakh".(125)
This attitude had of course no influence on
the shift of power in Baku or on President Aliyev's new policy,
which was to start direct negotiations on a cease-fire with the
Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh, with Russian mediation, and to
accept the entrance of Azerbaijan into the collective security
agreement of the CIS (Tashkent Agreement of 15 May 1992). Moscow
acquired a hegemonic position in the management of the crisis,
even though it tried to settle it within the framework of the
CSCE.
After autumn 1993, the CSCE's role diminished noticeably,
despite several statements which continued to promote the Minsk
process(126), the
appointment of a Personal Representative of the
Chairman-in-Office (the Swedish diplomat Mattias Mossberg) for
the area of Nagorno-Karabakh on 9 September(127), and the new
"Modified Calendar of urgent measures" proposed on 1 October by
the Minsk Group in order to implement UNSC Resolutions 822 and
853, including the opening of the Minsk Conference on 2 November
1993.(128) This
conference was never convoked. The conclusions of
the Rome Council on 30 November and 1 December 1993 did not even
refer to the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh.(129) During the same
period, negative declarations from both Armenian and Azeri
officials indicated that they had lost confidence in the CSCE-led
process and would prefer Russian and/or Iranian mediation.(130)
Moscow wanted to take advantage of the political change in Baku
to replace the CSCE with the CIS in the peacemaking/ peacekeeping
process, even though it envisaged this replacement within the
framework of the CSCE. Russia had already managed to include a
cautious reference, in the July 1992 CSCE Summit Declaration, to
possible support for CSCE peacekeeping operations from "the
peacekeeping mechanism of the CIS"(131), and had proposed to adapt
the UN Charter in order to legitimize the role of regional
organizations like the CIS in dealing with regional conflicts.(132)
In late July 1993 (the date on which the armistice talks began
between President Aliyev's representatives and the Armenians of
Nagorno-Karabakh), the Russian special negotiator for
Nagorno-Karabakh, Vladimir Kazimirov, stated that "the CSCE
mediation was ineffective because this organization did not have
at its disposal the means of enforcing any cease-fire agreement
that might be reached". The Russian attitude was also motivated
by the unwillingness of the other CSCE Participating States to
contribute actively to the military side of the crisis
management. The Western States did indeed refuse to send more
than 30 soldiers for the first team of 150-200 troops to be
deployed as the CSCE's peacekeeping force in the region.
The Moscow talks between Russian President Yeltsin, Turkish
Prime Minister Ciller and Azeri President Aliyev in early
September 1993 showed that Turkey accepted Russia as the CSCE's
replacement in the role of main mediator.(133) The Turkish attitude
did not, however, include acceptance of the deployment of either
a unilateral Russian peacekeeping force or even a mixed
Russian-Turkish one.(134)
In this situation, the CSCE could do no more than take note
of Moscow's mediation efforts between Azerbaijan and the
Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh and reaffirm the central role of
the Minsk process.(135).
Although it has demonstrated a certain
potential for the role of peacemaker and/or peacekeeper, the
policies of the big powers prevented the CSCE from realizing this
potential to the full. Its future role in Nagorno-Karabakh may
depend to a large extent on the policies of Russia and the CIS.
The leadership of the CIS in the management of conflicts in the
post-Soviet area could reduce the CSCE's future role to
preventive diplomacy. On the other hand, a failure of Russian
mediation in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict could lead to a
revival of the CSCE Minsk process, which officially never
ended.(136)
This second scenario seemed to result from President
Aliyev's current hesitations regarding co-operation with Russia
on military and energy policies and his efforts to have Russian
troops in Azerbaijan deployed within the framework of the
CSCE.(137) This paved
the
way for a new diplomatic effort by the
Minsk Group since September 1994 and for a (difficult) consensus
on a CSCE peacekeeping operation at the Budapest Summit in
December 1994.(138)
- Fact-finding Missions and Support for other Peace Initiatives
Georgia's entry into the CSCE, at the Helsinki Additional Meeting
of the Council on 24 March 1992, was followed by a first
Rapporteur Mission (5 to 22 May 1992). The CSCE only began to
show real interest in the ethnic conflicts in that country when,
at the request of the Georgian government, it sent a CSCE
fact-finding mission to the region from 25 to 30 July 1992, after
the signing in June of the Sochi Agreement.(139) This intervention
by the CSCE in the Georgian-Ossetian conflict was curtailed by
the Russian leadership at a much earlier stage of the settlement
process than was the case for Nagorno-Karabakh.
- CSCE Leadership in South Ossetia and UN Primacy in Abkhazia
After the return of the fact-finding mission, the CSO decided to
request the Chairman-in-Office to designate a Personal
Representative(140) who
should be accompanied by a staff of two
diplomatic and five military advisers. The team was mandated(141):
- to begin discussions with all parties involved in the
Georgian-Ossetian conflict in order to eliminate sources of
tension and to extend law and order and political reconciliation
beyond the immediate cease-fire zone;
- to initiate a visible CSCE presence in the region;
- to establish contacts with the local military commanders of
the trilateral peacekeeping force(142) deployed under the Sochi
Agreement of June 1992 and to help strengthen the cease-fire;
- to facilitate the creation of a wider political framework
for a lasting political solution on the basis of CSCE
commitments;
- to help establish a negotiating framework between the
parties to the conflict in Abkhazia.
The general aim of the mission - "to promote negotiations
between the conflicting parties in Georgia aimed at reaching a
peaceful political settlement"(143) - indicates that the CSCE was
trying to participate more actively in the political settlement
of the crisis.
The mission, led by the Hungarian diplomat Istvan Gyarmati,
began work in Tbilisi on 3 December 1992. It signed Memorandums
of Understanding with Georgia on 23 January 1993 and with the
South Ossetian leadership on 1 March 1993. After an initial three
months, the mission has been extended for additional periods of
six months.(144) This -
the lengthiest mission in the history of
the CSCE - represents the core of CSCE involvement in the
conflict. The CSCE has to act here in close co-operation with
Russia and the United Nations, and the Personal Representative
exchanges regular information with the UN and other international
organizations involved in the conflict.
The mission's mandate also refers to Abkhazia, as - after
the beginning of this crisis in February 1992 - the CSCE had for
several months nursed the hope of having a limited peacemaking
role there.(145)
Ambassador Gyarmati himself, who had proposed this
extension of the mission to Abkhazia, stated that the conflict
had not yet reached the point where "a large-scale CSCE
involvement would be possible".(146) The involvement of Russia and
the United Nations reduced the possibility that the CSCE could
have a mediating role of its own in the settlement of the
Abkhazian conflict.
The need for close co-operation between CSCE and UN became
apparent at an early stage of their involvement in Georgia. The
Security Council noted explicitly, on 8 October 1992, that "the
current Chairman of the CSCE intends to dispatch a mission to
Georgia in the near future and [it] underlines the need to ensure
co-ordination between the efforts of the United Nations and those
of the CSCE aimed at restoring peace".(147) "Maximum efficiency
through a rational division of labour" with the United Nations
was also requested by the CSCE Council in its Stockholm session
of 14-15 December 1992. Here it reaffirmed its willingness to
contribute to the political framework for a lasting peaceful
solution to the Georgian-Ossetian conflict, and it urged the
parties to the Abkhazian conflict to co-operate with the CSCE
mission for the same purpose.(148) The UN progressively took the
lead in the management of the Abkhazian conflict, leaving the
settlement of the South Ossetian crisis to the CSCE.
- Extension of the Mandate of the CSCE Mission and
Progressive Merger with the UN-Sponsored Process
The efforts of the Personal Representative of the Chairman-in-
Office and of the CSCE Mission to Georgia received continuous
support from the CSO.(149) The latter endorsed the Personal
Representative's proposal to hold two peace conferences, under
the auspices of the UN and the CSCE(150), and adopted his "CSCE
concept of a settlement of the Georgian-Ossetian conflict"
(August 1993), which implied closer co-operation with the UN.(151)
Throughout this whole period, the CSCE participated in the
UN-sponsored Geneva talks between the parties to the Abkhazian
conflict and was involved in the work of the Joint Commission
formed under the terms of the Georgian-Abkhazian cease-fire of 27
July 1993. It co-operated directly with UNOMiG through the
attachment of CSCE liaison officers to it, and proposed to place
two CSCE officers at the disposal of the UN Advance Team during
the initial phase of the operations to monitor the
Georgian-Abkhazian cease-fire.(152) An arrangement for CSCE
monitoring of the Joint Peacekeeping Forces in South Ossetia was
also requested by the Rome Meeting of the CSCE Council on 30
November-1 December 1993.(153)
After the visit to the region by the Chairwoman-in-Office of
the CSCE Council, the Swedish Foreign Minister Margaretha af
Ugglas, on 24-25 October 1993, the CSO authorized the CSCE
Mission to purchase humanitarian relief goods. This was the first
humanitarian task given to the organization.(154) This extension of
the mission's mandate was confirmed by the Rome Council, which
also included in its responsibilities "the promotion of respect
for human rights in the whole of Georgia and the rendering of
assistance in the development of legal and democratic
institutions and processes, including the drawing up of a new
constitution for Georgia".(155)
The creation of a joint UN/CSCE post of Personal
Representative was also accepted in principle(156), but has not yet
been implemented. The close co-operation with the UN and the
partial merger of the UN and CSCE peace processes are the main
lessons to be drawn from the involvement of the CSCE in Georgia.
