CA-NEWS (TJ) - Central Asia Newswire
Martin Sieff

August 31, 2010

The regional security group, Shanghai Cooperation Organization, must demonstrate its relevance during upcoming exercisesWASHINGTON, DC - Tuesday, August 31, 2010 - Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) states are starting to send their troops to Kazakhstan to prepare for the September 9-25 "Peace Mission 2010" military exercises, the seventh time that SCO member countries will conduct such exercises.

The drill, hosted by Kazakhstan on their Matybulak air base near Gvardeisky, will welcome military contingents from China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. India, Pakistan and Iran have observer status with the SCO and will most likely send observers as well.

But member states must be aware that the stakes are higher for this year's military gathering than they have been before.

This year, the SCO faced two major internal crises that rattled one of its founding member states, Kyrgyzstan. And on both occasions, the organization did not use any of its military forces to intervene.

KyrgyzPresident Kurmanbek Bakiev was toppled on April 7 in a bloody national uprising. Then June 10-14 southern Kyrgyz experienced the worst ethnic violence in the country's independent history as Kyrgyz residents and ethnic Uzbeks clashed in the streets. Officially, 370 people died. Unofficial government estimates put the death toll closer to 3,000. Approximately 400,000 people were also displaced by the violence with 100,000 seeking temporarily refuge in neighboring Uzbekistan, another SCO member.

However, the SCO and its leading states Russia and China took care to avoid any involvement in either of the crises. They took no steps to try and keep President Bakiev in power or restore him in April, and they effectively skirted around President Otunbayeva's pleas for military help in restoring law and order in June.

That's why the SCO needs to show at this meeting of militaries that it is ready and prepared to come to the aid of its member states.

In practice, the SCO serves four main roles. First, it creates a security framework for Russia and China to peacefully cooperate and resolve any potential security conflicts on the Asian mainland.

Second, it is the body through which Russia and China cooperate in opposing and trying to roll back U.S. political and military influence in Central Asia.

Third, Russia and China have both faced violent Islamist extremist movements from Chechens in the middle Caucasus for Moscow, and from Uighurs in Xinjiang province for Beijing. Both countries have excellent relations with Iran, but they also want to prevent Islamist groups becoming any kind of serious threat to stability anywhere in Central Asia.

Finally, the annual SCO military exercises give the armed forces of both countries a prime opportunity to practice, test and develop the interoperability of their equipment, especially in communications for any possible joint military operations. Previous SCO military exercises have involved ground-support aircraft, naval forces, paratroops and tactical problems of landing armed forces on hostile defended shores.

But providing adequate security for its member states and ensuring the organization's capacity and willingness to assist struggling governments in its membership must become its next priority.

In the nine years of its existence so far, the SCO has quietly built up its reputation and influence as an important component of the international security structure of continental Asia. That reputation took quite a hit when the organization failed to play any significant role in resolving the ongoing instability within Kyrgyzstan's borders.

If the SCO is to be taken seriously by its members and by the international community, the organization cannot fail one of its own in such a spectacular and public way again. SCO member nations must take every opportunity at the military exercises in September to demonstrate why the SCO cannot be underestimated or ignored.