Page 56 - bne magazine February 2022_20220208

56 I Special focus I Kazakhstan bne February 2022
and sovereignty, which have arisen as a result of external intervention".
The CSTO is intervening under its Article 4 – a counterpart to Nato’s Article 5 on collective defence – which states: “If one of the States Parties is subjected to aggression by any state or group of states, then this will be considered as aggression against all States Parties to this Treaty. In the event of an act of aggression against any of the participating States, all other participating States will provide him with the necessary assistance, including military, and will also provide support
at their disposal in exercising the right to collective defence in accordance with Article 51 of the UN Charter.”
Despite Tokayev’s accusations that he
is confronting foreign-trained "terrorist gangs”, no credible evidence has so far been presented that Kazakhstan is facing an external threat by a “state or groups of states”, as mandated under Article 4.
Up until now the CSTO has had little
to do. Since the founding treaty was signed on May 15, 1992, the most notable moves were the creation of a Collective Rapid Reaction Force (under a 2009 agreement) and peacekeeping forces (under a 2007 agreement).
Some 3,000 soldiers and 600 interior ministry personnel are assigned to the CSTO peacekeeping force. In October 2016, in CSTO also decided to establish a CSTO Crisis Response Centre in Yerevan, Armenia, which was entrusted with helping to organise any crisis response decisions taken by the organisation.
Ironically the first peacekeeping exercise – “Unbreakable Brotherhood 2012” – was actually held in Kazakhstan. "According to the scenario, a crisis situation arises connected with the activity of international extremists and terrorist organisations and conflict between ethnic groups living in the country," the CSTO said at the time.
CSTO units regularly hold joint exercises – their latest manoeuvres in October were conducted in Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan in the wake of the takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban –
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but never before has the CSTO agreed to send military forces and invoke Article 4.
In 2010 when Kyrgyzstan was experiencing huge ethnic unrest, and in Armenia in 2021, when it looked at one point as if Azerbaijan would not just retake its former territory but push into Armenia itself, the CSTO did not respond to requests for help.
In the case of Armenia, the CSTO sat on the request for three months and then dismissed the incursions as “in essence a border incident”. Eventually Armenia was persuaded not to make a formal request under Article 4.
In the current crisis, some analysts have questioned Russia’s ability to respond, as the troops that would normally travel to Central Asia from Russia’s Central Military District have largely been redeployed to the Western Military district near Ukraine.
However, at the moment large-scale deployments of troops are unlikely and Russia should be able to spare units such as the paratroopers that have been deployed. Russian media had reported that an aviation regiment in the city of Orenburg, close to the Kazakhstan border, was “on alert to be deployed to Kazakhstan”.
It is to be seen whether CSTO forces will play a frontline role in putting down
the unrest, but even the fact that they have been deployed could damage the credibility of both the Tokayev regime and some of the states taking part in the CSTO mission. If the repression turns very bloody, this could rebound on their reputation both at home and abroad.
For Tokayev, the appeal for Russian help goes against long-standing Kazakh interests in trying to restrict Moscow’s influence inside the country, given
its sizeable Russian minority and its history of Soviet domination.
His government’s allegation that Kazakhstan is facing “armed aggression from terrorist groups trained outside
of the country” looks incredible, given that Kazakhstan is surrounded by other authoritarian states, most of them CSTO members.
There have also been reports that Tokayev discussed the crisis in a call with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, another beleaguered dictator. Speculation that the presidents were discussing how to repress demonstrators and potential Belarusian assistance will further damage his credibility.
The CSTO intervention – compared
by some outside observers to the Warsaw Pact repression of the 1968 Prague Spring in Czechoslovakia – could also rebound on the governments taking part.
Most obviously, Armenia, one of only two partly free states in the CSTO according to Freedom House, could be severely embarrassed. President Pashinyan is already facing criticism for authorising the military intervention in his new role as the rotating chairman of the CSTO. Ironically, Pashinyan came to power after Armenia’s own protest movement, and in its subsequent war with Azerbaijan, the CSTO refused to come to its aid.
The Session of the CSTO Collective Security Council, September 16, 2021, Dushanbe.