“Jointly countering terrorism, separatism and extremism in all their manifestations” – in the words of the 2002 Charter of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) has long been the main security function of the organization. Yet, the SCO has encountered many of the same problems as other institutions in this realm. These include disagreements over the nature of terrorist threats and their causes, diverging national definitions of terrorism, and national governments eager to maintain freedom of action in this sphere and limit encroachments on their national sovereignty. These constraints have impeded the collective counter-terrorist capabilities of the SCO at a time when terrorist incidents are increasing in its region.
BACKGROUND: Perhaps the most revealing SCO document, at least in terms of the organization’s security priorities, is the “Shanghai Convention on Combating Terrorism, Separatism, and Extremism,” signed at the organization’s founding summit in June 2001. In stressing the importance of cooperating against regional “terrorism” (broadly defined to include two other “evil forces” of ethno-separatism and political “extremism”), the text aptly highlights the SCO’s collective priorities.
SCO members subsequently decided to institutionalize their counterterrorist cooperation by creating a Regional Antiterrorism Structure (RATS) in Tashkent. Since its official opening in June 2004, the RATS has facilitated information sharing about terrorist threats, provided advice on counterterrorism policies, and mobilized collective action against terrorist threats. According to Vyacheslav Kasimov, director of its executive committee from 2004 to 2006, the RATS has also adopted unspecified “early-warning and prevention measures” designed to “help keep the overall security situation of SCO member countries stable.”
On March 27, 2008, the RATS Council approved agreements to combat weapons smuggling and train the counterterrorist personnel. One year later, the RATS adopted a draft action plan to combat terrorism, separatism, and extremism during the 2010-2012 period. At their June 16, 2009 summit in Yekaterinburg, the SCO heads of state signed a Counter-Terrorism Convention that established a more comprehensive legal foundation for greater cooperation among SCO governments in this area.
Although SCO leaders consistently deny any intention to create a Eurasian version of NATO, since 2003, the SCO has organized a number of large-scale “anti-terrorist exercises” that have involved their armed forces and paramilitary units as well as intelligence and law enforcement personnel. The most important SCO exercises – which have included units from all or almost all the member states – have been those that have occurred since 2005 under the “Peace Mission” moniker. They justify these large security exercises as a necessary response to the challenge of countering modern terrorist movements equipped with increasingly sophisticated firepower.
IMPLICATIONS: Along with the small SCO Secretariat, the RATS remains the SCO’s only standing institutions despite proposals to create other permanent bodies. Even so, the RATS powers are sharply delineated, partly reflecting the emphasis that the SCO members place on their national sovereignty. The Executive Committee staff prepares documents for consideration by the national governments as well as by SCO collective decision making bodies, in which each government has a veto. The RATS does not have the authority to make decisions on their own. It also does not try to identify or eliminate terrorists; this is done by the member governments.
Similarly, the RATS does not have an operational role but instead seeks to enhance SCO members’ counterterrorism capabilities indirectly. Its main goal is to work with the corresponding counterterrorist agencies of the members (typically the ministry of interior or another law enforcement body) in order to make their work more effective, especially by enhancing their cooperation with other SCO members. For example, the RATS helps organize workshops, conferences, and other mechanisms that allow member governments to exchange insights and experience. SCO members recently met to share lessons learned regarding how to maintain security at large public events, such as the Olympics or international conferences. The RATS also strives to reduce impediments to SCO-wide cooperation, such as by harmonizing national laws and practices.
According to members of the SCO Executive Committee interviewed in Tashkent in September 2012, all these 13 countries affiliated with the SCO as full members, formal observers, and official “dialogue partners” participate to some degree in the RATS activities. For example, Sri Lanka, which recently defeated a protracted insurgency whose guerrillas used suicide tactics to kill prominent politicians and others, has been sharing helpful insights regarding countering suicide bombers. Russia, China, and more recently Kazakhstan contribute the most to the RATS budget and therefore receive the most staff member posts. The other countries contribute as they can, with the Kyrgyz Republic being cited as a country whose dire economic conditions limit monetary contributions at present.
The RATS has the same problem compiling an integrated terrorist list as other multinational bodies such as the United Nations. Each government defines terrorism somewhat differently and they can have diverging perceptions of the main causes of terrorism and how best to counter them. For example, the government of China does not officially regard al-Qaeda as a terrorist movement. India likewise does not legally define the Hizb at-Tahr?r, an Islamist extremist movement that professes to reject violence, as a terrorist organization.
These divergences also explain why the SCO governments, assisted by their law enforcement experts and legal scholars, needed many years to draft a Counter-Terrorism Convention, establishing a comprehensive legal foundation for their cooperation in this area. The convention, which was signed at the June 2009 heads of state summit, is still awaiting ratification among the member governments.
Formal relations with the anti-terrorist bodies of the CIS and the CSTO remain minimal, such as their sending observers to one another’s exercises, but informal ties can be strong since they involve many of the same people and agencies, and people. Conversely, the SCO’s ability to coordinate with non-member countries, such as the U.S., is constrained because the SCO RATS does not have a legal basis to work with national governments lacking a formal affiliation with the SCO. However, indirect cooperation can occur through the SCO’s engagement with the UN, the OSCE and Interpol, all of which have a major U.S. presence.
Internet security has been raised at every SCO meeting of the last few years and that the events in North Africa and the Middle East have heightened interest in cyber threats even further. But in this and other areas, every SCO country acts on the basis of its own laws and capabilities. Each SCO member has a specialized cyber security unit dedicated to this threat. The RATS can provide guidance legal guidance and make recommendations but it cannot enforce transnational standards.
A new challenge is that the SCO heads-of-state have agreed that the RATS should become more involved in countering narcotics trafficking. Until now, the RATS has focused exclusively on organizations and individuals involved in violent terrorist incidents as well as related illegal transnational activities such as money laundering to support terrorist financing. The RATS has established an expert group to assess how to extend its activities to the counternarcotics domain. Some terrorists engage in drug trafficking, but Central Asian trafficking in narcotics encompasses many non-terrorist actors who seek lucre rather than jihad.
One complexity is that the RATS would need to deal with a different set of SCO member agencies than usual in the counternarcotics area. The RATS has cooperated most closely with a single national security agency in each member government, the one most heavily focused on countering terrorism. This is typically but not always the ministry of interior. While in some countries the same body deals with terrorist and narcotics threats, others, including Russia, have a separate agency dedicated to countering illegal drugs. The RATS will also need to undertake considerable legal work to extend its activities to the counternarcotics domain.
CONCLUSIONS: The recent renewal of Eurasia’s security challenges – as manifested by the Taliban resurgence in Afghanistan, the political instability in Kyrgyzstan, as well as the Islamist violence in Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and other Eurasian countries – has refocused the SCO on counterterrorism. Not only has this issue most animated the SCO’s development, but fighting terrorists now serves as a convenient mechanism to sustain the organization’s vitality after years when efforts to develop other sought-after functional areas for cooperation – such as economic development, cultural ties, and energy partnerships – have made little progress. Counterterrorism is the one issue that most easily mobilizes a favorable collective response from the SCO governments.
AUTHOR’S BIO: Dr. Richard Weitz is a Senior Fellow and Associate Director of the Center for Future Security Strategies at the Hudson Institute.