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Southeast European and Black Sea Studies

Vol. 7, No. 3, September 2007, pp. 483496

De facto States around the Black Sea:The Importance of Fear

Dov Lynch

TaylorandFrancis LtdFBSS_A_256505.sgm10.1080/14683850701566484SoutheastEuropeanandBlackSeaStudies1468-3857 (print)/1743-9639 (online)OriginalArticle2007Taylor&Francis73000000September [email protected]

On 11 April 2007, the European Commission presented its Communication entitled BlackSea Synergy: A New Regional Cooperation Initiative. This Communication reflected theinfluence of a combination of factors that have led the European Union (EU) to considergreater engagement in the Black Sea region. Most importantly, the enlargement of the EUin May 2004 and January 2007 brought the Union geographically to the coastline of theBlack Sea itself. The Black Sea raises high stakes in the EU as it works to become a foreignpolicy actor. The complexity of engaging in the region is exacerbated by an additionalfactorthe existence of four self-declared states: the Pridnestrovyan Moldovan Republic(PMR) inside Moldovan borders, the Republic of South Ossetia, the Republic of Abkhazia,within Georgian borders, and the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic in Azerbaijan. This articleexplores three questions raised by the existence of these de facto states. First, the discussionexamines briefly the concept of the de facto state. Second, what has sustained these non-recognised entities since the collapse of the Soviet Union? This section examines the partic-ular importance of fear as a sustaining force. And third, what is the security impact at theindividual, state and regional level of the de facto states? All three questions are relevantfor the EU as it becomes more deeply engaged in the Black Sea.

The European Union as Black Sea Actor

On 11 April 2007, the European Commission presented its Communication on BlackSea Synergy, a new regional cooperation initiative (EC 2007). This Communication

reflected the influence of a combination of factors that have led the European Union

(EU) to consider greater engagement in the Black Sea region. Most importantly, the

enlargement of the EU in May 2004 and January 2007 brought the Union geographically

to the coastline of the Black Sea itself. In the words of the EU Special Representative to

the South Caucasus, Peter Semneby: [T]he EU is now a Black Sea power.1 The opening

of accession talks with Turkey, however difficult, also reinforced the gravity pull of the

Correspondence to: Office of the Secretary General, Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Vienna.E-mail: [email protected]


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484 D. Lynch

region on EU attention. In addition, the EU has developed a new policy towards

those states on its borders that do not have the immediate prospect of membership. The

European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) was launched in 2003. Since then, the EU has

elaborated ENP Action Plans with twelve countries in its neighbourhood, including

Ukraine, Moldova and the three South Caucasus countries. On paper, ENP stretchesaround the Black Sea to complete the circle. Of course, the EU has also soughtwith

difficultyto define the tenor and content of the declared strategic partnership with

the Russian Federation, which has a Black Sea dimension.

In parallel, since 1999, the EU has also developed the institutions, the concepts and

the tools for a common foreign and security policy (CFSP). This has included the

creation of decision-making mechanisms in Brussels related to CFSP and to European

Security and Defence Policy (ESDP), and the formulation of a European Security

Strategy (EU 2003). The EU created also new CFSP tools for engagement around

the Black Sea in the shape of the EU Special Representatives to Moldova and to the

South Caucasus, the deployment of a Rule of Law Mission in Georgia after the Rose

Revolution, a Border Assistance Mission on the Ukraine-Moldovan border, and

increased involvement in rehabilitation and confidence-building in the conflict zones

in Moldova and Georgia.2

Insofar as it is becoming a Black Sea actor (if not yet a power), the EU must face a

series of strategic encounters in the region. The first strategic encounter is with itself.

The EU as a whole, indeed, will take time to digest fully the impact on CFSP and ESDP

of having Bulgaria and Romania inside the Union. The second encounter for the EU is

with its future selfthat is, with Turkey, with the complexity this entails in terms of

finding common ground between strongly defined Turkish national interests and anambiguous but rising EU profile. The third strategic encounter for the EU concerns the

new neighbours in the East. This will require balancing the aspirations of these coun-

tries to join the EU with the reality of the suspended enlargement process, while still

seeking the implementation of the ENP Action Plans, which is a tall order. A fourth

strategic encounter for the EU will be with the Russian Federation. In this respect, the

Black Sea region has assumed importance as something of a fuzzy border between a

state that is deeply defensive of its sovereignty and that views the Black Sea as histori-

cally vital and a still nascent strategic actor that is slowly taking shape.

The Black Sea, therefore, raises high stakes for the EU as it works to become aforeign policy actor. The complexity of engaging in the region is exacerbated for the

EU by an additional factor, which is the existence of four self-declared statesthe Prid-

nestrovyan Moldovan Republic (PMR) inside Moldovan borders, the Republic of South

Ossetia, the Republic of Abkhazia in Georgian borders and the Nagorno-Karabakh

Republic in Azerbaijan.3 These entities were born during the turmoil that accompanied

the collapse of the Soviet Union, which saw the recognition by the international commu-

nity of the fifteen Soviet Republics as the basis for sovereign states. Their existence is a

reflection also of what Robert Jackson called the new sovereignty game (see discussion

in Pegg 1998). This game arose with the process of de-colonisation during the Cold War,

and has consisted of a regime regulating the emergence of new states, the criteria of self-determination and the conditions for international recognition.4 The de facto states


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Southeast European and Black Sea Studies 485

have existed since the Soviet collapse despite non-recognition and severe international

pressure, and they look set to endure.

This article explores three questions raised by the existence of these de facto states.

First, what is a de facto state? The discussion examines briefly the concept of the de

facto state. Second, what has sustained these non-recognised entities since the collapseof the Soviet Union? This section will examine the particular importance of insecurity

and fear as sustaining forces. And third, what is the security impact at the individual,

state and regional levels of the de facto states? All three questions are relevant for the

EU as it becomes more deeply engaged in the Black Sea. The discussion here does not

address directly one of the main themes of this volume, which is the legacy of war

crimes, but the topic does filter through the argument. The legacy of war crimes plays

an ambiguous role in these conflicts as the wars are not over formally. This has tended

to amplify local perceptions of the atrocities that were committed during each of the

conflicts in the early 1990s before the ceasefires that are now in place. The experience

of blood spilt and unsettled conflicts has mingled with historical perceptions of injus-

tice perpetrated during the Russian Tsarist and Soviet rule to produce a very powerful

but volatile mixture, which is exacerbated by current conditions of insecurity and

perceptions of fear in the de facto states.

The de facto State

What is a de facto state?5

Before turning to the particularities of the separatist entities around the Black Searegion, it is worth examining briefly the notion of the de facto state. In a first theoret-

ical examination of the concept, Scott Pegg (1998: 26) defined it as follows:

A de facto state exists where there is an organized political leadership, which has risen to

power through some degree of indigenous capacity; receives popular support; and has

achieved sufficient capacity to provide governmental services to a given population in a

specific territorial area, over which effective control is maintained for a significant period

of time. The de facto state views itself as capable of entering into relations with other states

and it seeks full constitutional independence and widespread international recognition as

a sovereign state.6

In order to understand the de facto state from this starting point, several points

must be made. First, Peggs definition is based on a distinction between empirical and

legal notions of statehood. The de facto state is not recognised by other states or the

international community. As a result, it has no judicial status in the international arena.

In 1984, Alan James wrote about recognised states that to all intents and purposes, it

is possible to say that jurisdictionally speaking there is never any doubt about where

one stands, and that one always stands on the domain of a single sovereign state (James

1984: 16). In this light, the de facto state has no judicial right to claim a certain territory

as this land already is part of a recognised state. However, such an entity may make the

case for an empirically defined claim to statehood. The classical definition of an entitythat may be regarded as a sovereign state was set forth in the Montevideo Convention


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486 D. Lynch

on Rights and Duties of States, 1933. The Montevideo criteria are that an entity has: a

permanent population; a defined territory; a government; and the capacity to enter

into relations with other states. The Black Sea de facto states fulfil the first three of

these criteria, and claim to be able to pursue the fourth. However, the empirical quali-

fications of the de facto state cannot make it legal or legitimate in international society.As Pegg argued, it is illegitimate no matter how effective it is (see James 1984: 5).

Second, it is necessary to distinguish between internal and external sovereignty when

considering the concept of the de facto state. Internal sovereignty refers to the supreme

authority of a body within a given territory (Stolsvik 2000: 29). External sovereignty,

on the other hand, may be defined as being constitutionally apart, of not being

contained, however loosely, within a wider constitutional scheme (James 1984: 11).

The de facto state claims both of thesethat is, to be sovereign over its self-defined

territory and people, and to be constitutionally independent or any other state. The key

difference for the de facto state resides in its non-recognition. This status prevents it

from enjoying membership of the exclusive and all-encompassing club of states; the de

facto state does not have recognised external sovereignty.

Why refer to the PMR, South Ossetia, Abkhazia and Nagorno-Karabakh as de facto

states? Why not call them, as they often are, break-away regions or separatist enti-

ties? The question is worth posing. Referring to these areas as de facto states is impor-

tant for three reasons. First, separatism in these regions should be understood as

essentially political projects, couched in the terms of decolonisation and national self-

determination. Too often and too quickly, these regions are referred to as criminal

black holes or as the puppets of external actors. However much they are criminalised

and dependent on external support, one should not confuse focus with significance.The fundamental project in each region has been the construction of the political insti-

tutions of independent statehood. Using the term ofde facto state, therefore, serves to

draw our attention to the political underpinning of the projects that have sustained

these regions despite their isolation.

Second, the self-declared statehood of these regions is precisely the factor that has

obstructed conflict settlement. These armed conflicts have reflected, indeed, conflict-

ing perceptions of the domain and scope of the territory of the new states of Georgia,

Moldova, Russia and Azerbaijan. The aim of the separatist leaders is not to capture

power in the capitals of the metropolitan states, or to renegotiate the division of statepowers within a given territory. The objective is to exitthe metropolitan state. At the

least, the aim is to build new relations with it on an inter-state level as equal units. The

linkage of ethnicity with territory has made the objectives of these separatist areas state-

orientated; nothing less than state sovereignty will suffice for their authorities. This

fundamental disagreement about the idea behind the new states of Moldova, Georgia

and Azerbaijan has made conflict resolution very difficult. In this light, it may be worth

it analytically to discuss these not as intra-state, but inter-state, conflicts.

Third, the areas seeking self-determination face an incentive system at the interna-

tional level that leads them to seek statehood rather than any other form of existence

autonomy or associationwith their metropolitan state. The absolute nature of statesovereignty as it emerged since the 1960s has diluted international society of all the


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gradations between types of entities that had existed previously. The international game

is now quite zero-sum; there are states, and there is little else. The exclusive nature of

the club of states, and the principles of equal sovereignty and non-interference upon

which it is based, have meant that most self-determination movements will be content

with nothing less than state sovereignty in order to achieve what they perceive as justice.Thus, there exist good reasons for these regions to seek statehood. Recognised sover-

eignty is a source of vitality for states (see Miller 1986: 7989). It provides a range of

opportunities for protection and self-defence, and embeds the state firmly in the inter-

national society, guarding against the possibility of its extinction (Miller 1986: 82). The

principles of territorial integrity, equal sovereignty and the norm of non-intervention

constitute the societal fabric of international relations, as well as unique sources of

strength for states (James 1992: 381). Without state sovereignty and its recognition by

the intentional community, a separatist movement has very few rights, and no status

that protects it in international law. The extermination of a separatist movement

through the use of force by the metropolitan state cannot be ruled out. The separatist

state is not protected by the rules governing the legal state regime, and it lacks the

vitality that this provides. This system pushes a separatist area towards the pursuit of

full state sovereignty. The concept of the de facto state is useful, therefore, both

because it underlines both the state-like nature of the entities that have emerged in

these regions (they have created all the recognisable institutions of statehood) and it

draws attention to the statist aspiration behind these projects (for recognition).

The Driving Force of Fear

Most discussions of the Black Sea de facto states focus on external factors as key obsta-

cles to conflict settlement. On the ground, the parties themselves are the first to blame

external forces for everythingfrom creating the conflict in the first place to holding

off its resolution. The Russian Federation has pride of place in most arguments about

why the separatist regions still exist and why the conflicts are not resolved. Clearly,

external factors have been, and continue to be, critically important in sustaining the de

facto states and in inhibiting conflict settlement. However, the balance of analysis

needs to be redressed. Given the state-orientated thrust of these projects, internal polit-

ical, ideological, military and economic dimensions are important drivers sustainingthe existence of the de facto states. These internal drivers combine with external forces

to sustain the status quo. This article will address one internal factor that has been a

particularly important driving force: the mixture of conditions of insecurity and

perceptions of fear.7 Behind all the rhetoric of sovereignty, self-determination and

justice, there reside calculations of power that have led the separatist authorities to seek

security based on force.

Insecurity and fear gave rise to the conflicts at the outset. In late March 1992, the

first Moldovan President Mircea Snegur declared a state of emergency that set the

two parties on the path towards larger scale clashes than those that had occurred

already since late 1990. In early April, the Moldovan government attempted andfailed to regain control by force of the town of Bendery. The Moldovan authorities


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488 D. Lynch

then successfully dispatched troops to Bendery on 19 June. Armed clashes followed

and the fledgling forces of Pridnestrovye were able to repulse the Moldovan attempt

only with armoured support from the Russian 14th Army deployed on the left bank

of the Dnestr River. Despite its limited scale, the conflict was seized upon by the

authorities of the self-declared PMR as justification for their independence. The newMoldova, as it was then emerging, seemed to be a Romanianising state, in which the

traditionally more Slavic and more Russophone elites on the left bank thought they

would be sidelined.

Fear was also a driving force behind the conflicts in Georgia and Azerbaijan. In

1991, the first Georgian President, Zviad Gamsakhurdia, unilaterally abolished South

Ossetias status of autonomy in Georgia, and armed clashes spread throughout the

region. In August 1992, Georgian guardsmen seized the Abkhaz regional capital of

Sukhum by force. In the eyes of the Abkhaz and the Ossetian minorities, the new

Georgian state seemed bent on asserting by force its power over all of Georgia. The

unifying (and it quickly became disunifying) idea behind the Republic of Georgia

seemed then to be preponderant power in Georgian hands in Tbilisi. For the Abkhaz,

their very existence as a people and culture seemed to be at stake. Similarly, in Nagorno-

Karabakh, the Armenian population lived in an enclave embedded in Azerbaijan,

surrounded, in their view, by potential enemies bent on forcing them to flee from their

homes. The Armenian authorities in Stepanakert and Yerevan feared a new twist in a

history of defeat suffered by the Armenian population throughout the region.

Insecurity has remained a defining condition of life since the end of active combat.

The ceasefires reached in Moldova (1992), Georgia (South Ossetia in 1992 and

Abkhazia in 1994) and Azerbaijan (1994) have frozen victories that the separatist lead-ers reached on the battlefield. Historically, these peoples have rarely, if ever, won wars

by themselves and for themselves. Victory has left the de facto states bewildered. On

the one hand, victory has become a source of strength. Natella Akaba, leader of the

Centre for Human Rights and Support for Democracy in Abkhazia, argued that the

Abkhaz victory was a fundamental basis of legitimacy for the self-declared state.8

With histories of constant defeat, the victories of the early 1990s have become sacred

objects that may not be questioned. As a result, the authorities have become deter-

mined at all cost to retain the fruits of victory. In their view, the threat posed by the

metropolitan states is seen as existential and total. The former foreign minister inStepanakert, Naira Melkoumian, argued: History gave Armenia so little territoryWe

cannot make any concessions that would threaten Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh.9

In addition, compromise would raise questions about the nature of the sacrifice

suffered by many during the conflicts and since. Also, as time passes, the significance

of the separatist victory has taken on new connotations. Facing times of isolation and

penury, victory has invested some meaning to lives that may otherwise seem bleak. At

the same time, the separatist authorities profoundly distrust victory. They are all aware

that they have won a battle and notthe war. The example of renewed armed conflict in

Chechnya after 1999 was edifying in this respect. The former Speaker of the Abkhaz

parliament, Sokrat Jinjolian, was blunt: The resumption of war (with Georgia) is a realpossibility.10 The distrust of victory has led them to elevate self-defence over all other


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policy areas. None of the de facto states are military states; however, all of them are

devoted to the military.

War and the necessity of war-making were formative features of the state-making

process in modern Europe. These forces play a similar formative role in the Black Sea

self-declared states. In essence, during the war in Nagorno-Karabakh and Abkhazia,the armed forces were the state, without which the self-determination movements

would have ceased to exist as political forces. Since the ceasefires, the separatist leaders

have moved to create genuine military structures. As the state of war is seen to still exist,

their armed forces are designed to ensure security through deterrence of any further

encroachment by the metropolitan state. There are variations in these states ability to

maintain deterrence. The Line of Contact between Azerbaijani and Armenian forces

has become a well-defined trench system, with periodic violations of the ceasefire

regime. By contrast, in the border district of Gali inside Abkhazia, paramilitary groups

conducted sabotage actions rendering the area often lawless.

Fear has also become an instrument wielded by the separatist authorities in state-

building projects. These projects are as weak as these purported states are themselves

in terms of their ability to allocate resources to educational, information and other

campaigns that assist state-building. Since the early 1990s, the metropolitan states have

started to move away from exclusive and antagonistic state-building projects and more

moderate politicians have led the movement towards state consolidation. By contrast,

in the de facto states there has been very little shift away from the type of political

discourse that was prevalent in the early 1990s. Public rhetoric has remained largely

defined by dichotomies of us/them. The other (i.e., the former central authorities) is

used to justify the very existence of the de facto state. The existential challenge posedby the former central power, whether it is accurate or not, is a powerful glue binding

the residual populations of these areas together into some kind of cohesive whole. It is

part of the idea that builds popular support for these de facto states. The discourse of

insecurity has made reconciliation and notions of power-sharing very difficult to

accept as it has primordialised and totalised the conflicts with the metropolitan states.

Potential compromise has become all the more difficult to justify.11

Two conclusions flow from the condition and exploitation of fear. First, de facto

states are partly racketeer states. As defined by Charles Tilly in his discussion of state-

making, someone who produces the danger and, at a price the shield against it, is aracketeer.12 The de facto states do precisely this. This is not to say that the metropol-

itan states do not pose a real threat to the de facto statethey do. However, the

emphasis placed on the metropolitan threat goes beyond a rational assessment of needs

and requirements. The PMR is a case in point. Any objective assessment of the threat

posed by Moldova to the PMR would conclude that it is almost nilboth in terms of

capabilities and intentions. However, the PMR Minister of Security, led by the former

Soviet special forces officer wanted by Interpol for crimes committed in the Baltic

states, Vladimir Antiufeev (an alias), runs a number of social organisations and news-

papers that inflate the nature of the Moldovan threat posed to Tiraspol. The Ministry

of Security conflates this imaginary Moldovan threat with the intentions of the so-called aggressive Western alliance and the revanchist fascist regime in Romania. As a


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490 D. Lynch

result, the extensive role played by the Security Ministry in all aspects of political and

economic life in the PMR may be justified.

This logic affects more than simply the Ministry of Security as the existence of the

PMR itself depends on the threat posed by Moldova and the West, against which the

self-declared state proposes to defend the population on the left bank of the DnestrRiver. An existential threat, which does not exist in the terms presented, has become a

fundamental pillar justifying the existence of the de facto statein essence, this is

racketeering. The racketeering dimension has also affected civil-military relations. In

Nagorno-Karabakh, the racketeering tendency made the former Defence Minister,

Samvel Babayan, the most powerful economic and political actor, until March 2000

when he was arrested for the attempted assassination of the Nagorno-Karabakh pres-

ident. The existence of an external threat and its instrumental use have distorted

civil-military relations in the self-declared states. At the least, in Abkhazia and the

PMR, the military and security agencies dominate security policy making. At the

most, in Nagorno-Karabakh, the military has become dominant in politics and

economics. The inflated role of the military has come to represent an important

obstacle to conflict settlement as the logic of military dominance has become deeply

entrenched.

The second point stemming from the condition of insecurity and the perception of

fear is that these self-declared states have no faith in the rule of law as a means to guar-

antee their security. Military power is seen as the only means by which to deter the

metropolitan state from seeking to resolve the conflicts by force. The distrust of law is

a legacy of the Soviet Union where politics were founded on the rule bylaw and not of

law. In addition, in the early 1990s, the separatist regions experienced how new lawsenacted in the metropolitan capitals (constitutions, declarations, resolutions, etc.) were

used as weapons against them. As noted by Svante Cornell (2000: 47): [T]here is no

confidence (in these separatist areas) in the implementation of the basic principle of

international law, Pacta sunt servanda. This distrust has implications on the nature of

any agreed future relationship between the de facto and metropolitan state. In particu-

lar, it is difficult to imagine that the self-declared authorities will agree to federation-

type relations, where, by definition, ties between federal subjects and the federal centre

would be based on the transformation of fundamental political questions into legal

questions.

13

Any settlement of these conflicts must consider, therefore, the require-ments of hard deterrence and security in order for the de facto state to be willing to

compromise on the victories they have already achieved on the battlefields.

One should add to this mixture the ambiguous legacy of the armed conflicts of the

1990s, where atrocities were perpetrated by all parties. The importance of these crimes

has become amplified by the absence of settlement of these conflicts, which have

strengthened histories of atrocity featuring particular events and dates in each conflict

(e.g. Labra in Abkhazia, Khojali in Nagorno-Karabakh). This difficult legacy in itself

has been exacerbated by being grafted onto perceptions of historical injustice felt by

almost all of the parties to these conflictstowards the Turks in Armenia; towards the

Russians in Azerbaijan, Moldova and Georgia; towards the Georgians in Abkhaziaand South Ossetia; and towards the Romanians in Transnistria.


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The Impact

What is the impact of the continuing existence of the de facto states? The question is

of policy relevance also for the EU as it becomes more engaged in the Black Se as a polit-

ical actor. The first level of impact resides with the individual. In the de facto states,the average individual has been deeply affected by the conflict and its consequences. In

Abkhazia and Nagorno-Karabakh, almost every family has been touched by the war

through personal loss, or some form of abuse, experienced during the conflict. The

standard of living in all of the separatist areas was relatively high before the wars. It has

now dropped catastrophically. The economies of the separatist regions barely function,

and the populations have suffered from a collapse of social services and education, and

widespread impoverishment. For most people, life has retreated to basic survival tactics

of subsistence farming and shuttle trade.

The economic restrictions imposed on Abkhazia and Nagorno-Karabakh have

heightened the difficulties facing the individual. The Abkhaz, in particular, have

become deeply isolated from the rest of the region and the wider world. All of these

difficulties have created a serious feeling of psychological isolation in which the trau-

matic experience of the war has not been assuaged. As one member of Abkhaz civil soci-

ety described it: We live in a reserve!. In Nagorno-Karabakh, public disaffection has

translated into disenchantment with the political leadership of the break-away state,

who have been widely seen as corrupt and incompetent. These perceptions are worse

outside the capital Stepanankert. Yet, even among the urban elites, the vein of discon-

tent runs deep. In late 2000, Grigory Afanasyan from the Karabakh State University

stated: What is our leadership thinking? Does it really not see that the country is rollingtowards an abyss? We have lost all sense of morality and basic social justice (cited in

Kuprianov 2000).

In the de facto states, individualsmainly young people and those with relatives

abroadwho could leave have done so. The bulk of the remaining populations lives

in penury, but has little choice. In Abkhazia, the Russian section of the population

mostly pensionershas become most vulnerable as they lack the family and clan

networks that ensure the survival of the Abkhaz and the Armenians. This vulnerability

is also reflected at the level of physical security. As described by the leader of the

Armenian community in Abkhazia, criminals who touch an Armenian receive swift

retribution. In a state where the law is largely absent, clan protection makes all the

difference. The experience of the war, and the isolation that followed it, has created

circumstances of impunity from crime and injustice. As a member of UN Association

of Abkhazia argued, once human rights are no longer protected, once these elements

of society are weakened, there naturally arise other tendencies, towards lawlessness

and the idea that force should prevail over the law and it is no secret that if you are

brought in primitive conditions, you will grow up wild (Adzhindzhal 1996).

On the other side of the conflicts, over a million people were expelled from their

homes during the wars. The 600,000 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Azerbaijan

and 250,000 IDPs in Georgia still suffer the consequences of the wars despite years ofceasefire. In both countries, the IDPs and refugees have not been integrated into the


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492 D. Lynch

local societies, and they continue to live in trying conditions. The existence of compact

IDP groups have reinforced their sentiment of difference, and have also strengthened

a distinct IDP view of the war, which makes potential Georgian and Azerbaijani

compromise all the more difficult.14 The difficulties facing the Georgian and

Azerbaijani IDP population relate to the second level of security impactthat is, on themetropolitan state. The existence of such a large IDP population and the loss of

substantial national territory constitute a serious security threat to these states. At the

most basic level, the IDPs have become a drain on the economic and financial resources

of the new states. In addition, the loss of the separatist areas has serious economic costs.

In the rural country of Moldova, the loss of the PMR has left the new state devoid of

real industrial potential, all energy generating capacity and most of the transportation

links to the CIS market. The privatisation effort of the Moldovan government has been

overshadowed by the reality that most profitable enterprises reside on the left bank of

the Dnestr River. The Abkhaz region before the war provided substantial revenue from

tourists, which has now been lost for the Georgian state. More generally, the existence

of separatist states on their territory has been an obstacle to extensive foreign direct

investment because of the risk factor and the potential for renewed conflict.

In addition, the rise of criminal structures profiting from the conflicts has worked to

undermine the new states at several levels. The smuggling opportunities offered by the

de facto states have led to the loss of millions of dollars of potential state revenue in

cigarette and alcohol sales, and the import of oil and gas. At a more indirect level, the

result has been an increasing criminalisation with widespread corruption and graft.

The de facto states are not directly responsible for this. However, they have contrib-

uted to the climate of impunity prevalent throughout the metropolitan states. Theexisting losses, as well as the opportunity costs, on the economic transition of the new

states of Moldova, Georgia and Azerbaijan are difficult to overestimate.

Moreover, in each of the metropolitan states, there are relatively powerful political

groups with extremist views on the conflicts, which place enough pressure on more

moderate leaders in control of the Georgian and Azerbaijani governments to block

serious compromise. In Azerbaijan, for instance, as the former President Aliyev moved

close to an agreement with Armenia, the opposition, especially the Popular Front and

Musavat, coalesced to block further progress and forced Aliyev to halt the negotiations

in mid-2001. In Armenia, President Kocharyan faced a more quiet, but no less serious,opposition to a peace deal from the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaks)

and other opposition groups.

The third level of impact of the de facto states is on regional and international secu-

rity. The impact resides at four points. First, the non-settlement of the conflicts and the

blockades of the de facto states have exacerbated the economic situation throughout

these regions as a whole. In the Caucasus, the blockades against Nagorno-Karabakh

and Abkhazia have created a system of impediments to free trade that have skewed

economic interaction across the region by blocking rational transportation routes as

well as obvious trading partners, and increasing transportation costs. A study by the

World Bank in 2000 concluded that lifting these impediments in the Caucasus wouldincrease Armenias GDP by approximately 30 per cent, and Azerbaijan by five per cent


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(Polyakov 2000: 67). In a region where macro-economic stability has not translated

into an amelioration of peoples lives, the opening of the border for free trade could

make a substantial contribution to the economic transition of these states and alleviate

the general impoverishment of the population.

Linked to this, the no-mans-land status of the de facto states has reinforced theircriminalisation. In many ways, these separatist areas have little choice but to pursue

illegal economic activities as their very existence is not legally recognised. Their

authorities have exploited the fact that they are under no obligation to abide by inter-

national law or trade agreements. In the case of the PMR, this was reflected in the

dumping of steel from the Rybnitsa steel factory across the market in the United

States. More than this, the separatist states have become focal points for regionally

significant criminal activities that affect the Black Sea region and neighbouring states.

The regional impact of criminal activities is particularly poignant in the PMR, which is

a deeply criminalised area.

The third point of regional impact concerns questions of direct military threat. The

former Soviet 14th Army was based largely in the Dnestr region, and it contained huge

stocks of weapons and military equipment. Significant numbers have been withdrawn

or destroyed. However, the quantities of weapons and equipment remaining in the

separatist region are deeply disturbing. The former OSCE Ambassador to Moldova,

William Hill, in June 1999 stated: The large quantities of weapons in Transdniestria

(PMR), whose powers are equal to two bombs that destroyed Hiroshima, endanger the

situation in the region and European security.15 The security impact has been more

marked in the Caucasus. The de facto states of Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Nagorno-

Karabakh have been stimuli for the militarisation of the region. The non-settlement ofthe conflicts has exacerbated regional tensions and increased the geopolitical struggles

for influence in the area.

A final impact resides at the wider international level. The international community

has become engaged in seeking to settle these conflicts. In South Ossetia and the PMR,

the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has served as a

forum for negotiation and interaction between the conflicting parties. The peace talks

in Nagorno-Karabakh have been directed by the so-called Minsk Group, under the

aegis of the OSCE, and led by its three permanent co-chairmen from France, the United

States and Russia. In Abkhazia, the UN has taken the lead in the negotiations throughthe person of the Special Representative of the Secretary General, and with the support

of various UN agencies, including the UN Observer Mission in Georgia (UNOMIG),

as well as the Russian Foreign Ministry. While commendable, the involvement of this

varied group of agencies has produced little thus far in actually advancing conflict

settlement. Moreover, developments elsewhere have impacted on the Black Sea

conflicts in contradictory ways. On the one hand, leaders in Georgia, Azerbaijan and

Moldova have looked closely at the lightening operation by Croatia in 1995 to elimi-

nate the Serbian Krajina on its territory. At the same time, the possibility of a Kosovo

precedent (of whatever kind) has created a countervailing pull in the view of some

parties the favour of the separatist authorities. Contradictory developments and appar-ent double standards have exacerbated the context for seeking to settle the conflicts.


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494 D. Lynch

Conclusions

The de facto states around the Black Sea region are driven by deeply engrained forces,

including the condition of insecurity and the perception of fear. Insecurity and fear

were important drivers that led to the armed conflicts in the late 1980s and early 1990s;

they have remained a salient feature of life in these areas ever since, defining much of

that which passes for politics in the separatist areas. As a result, military power and the

use of force remain essential forces. This has implications for the efforts of the interna-

tional community to resolve these conflicts at three levels. On the whole, settlement of

these conflicts must tackle the complex problem of conditions of insecurity and

perceptions of fear. First, it should influence how much importance the international

community attributes to the role of law in leading to and sustaining settlement

processes. A fundamental distrust in the rule of law should be a key conditioning factor

on all international approaches. In this respect, the questions of security guarantees

and military deterrence must be built into international settlement efforts from theoutset and become important pillars of possible full settlement agreements to attenuate

the conditions of insecurity. Finally, in the meantime, confidence-building measures of

the military, economic, political and economic type can play important facilitating

roles in order to tackle the perceptions of fear.

In the April 2007 Communication on Black Sea Synergy, the European Commission

called for greater EU engagement throughout the region at a number of functional

levels (EC 2007). In particular, the Commission noted the need for special attention to

be give to promoting confidence-building measures in the separatist areas, including

cooperation programmes specifically designed to bring the otherwise divided parties

together. In light of the argument made above, the European Commissions point is

spot-on and should be taken forward by the EU as a whole throughout all of these de

facto states. Certainly, the EU may play a role in these conflicts at two levels. The first

is in seeking to break down the perceptions of fear that divide the parties to these

conflicts and reinforce enemy images. Confidence-building measures are vital far

upstream from a political settlement. Second, the EU may propose itself as a more

neutral security guarantor to address the conditions of insecurity than other external

parties involved in the negotiations, such as Russia and the United States, whose pres-

ence, in fact, tends to heighten perceptions of fear from the parties. The EU, thus,

stands in a good position to help create conditions for leading to settlement of theseconflicts and for ensuring the settlements are sustainablebut, for this, it must act.

Notes

1.

[1] EUSR Peter Semneby speaking at METU University, Ankara, 18 May 2007.2.

[2] For more information on all of these policies, consult the website of the Council of the

European Union: http://www.consilium.europa.eu/cms3_fo/showPage.asp?id=261&lang=

EN&mode=g.3.

[3] The self-declared states do not have legal status and are not recognised. They are referred to

here as states (in inverted commas) as a reflection of their self-proclaimed status and theessence of the aspiration of their political projects; by no means does this imply recognition by


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Pegg, S. International Society and the de facto State. Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998.

Polyakov, E. Changing Trade Patterns after Conflict Resolution in the South Caucasus. Washington,

DC: World Bank, 2000.

Shehadi, K. S. Ethnic Self-determination and the Break-Up of States, Adelphi Paper 283. London:

Brasseys/IISS, 1993.

Smith, G., V. Law, A. Bohr & E. Allworth. Nation-building in the Post-Soviet Borderlands: The Politicsof National Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.

Stolsvik, G. A. The Status of the Hutt River Province (Western Australia): A Case Study in International

Law. Bergen: Det juridiske fakultet, Universitet I, 2000.


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