Louis O'Neill leaves OSCE top job in Moldova

In 2006, O'Neill declared fraud in Transdniestria's independence referendum. But he wasn't there and didn't send any observers

CHISINAU (Tiraspol Times) - The American head of the Moldova mission of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, OSCE, is being replaced. Louis O'Neill, 39, is heading back to the United States after failing to win the trust of the authorities of Pridnestrovie (Transdniestria, informally) and in the wake of a smuggling scandal involving the illegal removal of cultural artifacts from nearby Russia.

Louis O'Neill came to the mission only in July 2006, but quickly failed to win friends in Tiraspol, the capital of Pridnestrovie.

When Pridnestrovie held a democratic referendum in September 2006, OSCE was invited to provide independent election observers but O'Neill refused to send anyone. Instead of letting staff monitor the voting process, he preferred to stay in Chisinau where he immediately declared the results fraudulent. 174 international observers and 215 accredited journalists, mostly from Western Europe, disagreed with O'Neill and observed no evidence of any irregularities. Unlike O'Neill and the OSCE, they were present in Tiraspol during the course of the referendum.

Issuing categorical statements about a voting process which Louis O'Neill and his organization did not even observe was among a series of acts which created a less-than-ideal atmosphere between the OSCE and the elected government in Tiraspol, PMR. Some analysts privately noted that the actions of O'Neill created a "reverse Midas" atmosphere in which conflict non-resolution was all but guaranteed.

In an earlier assignment which dealt with Nagorno-Karabakh, Louis O'Neill also failed to resolve the conflict before he was shuffled into another job.

Early in his job in Moldova, Louis O'Neill made light of a report analyzing Pridnestrovie's claim to statehood under international law, leading observers to doubt if he had even read the text.

This year, the head of mission again failed to make friends and influence people when he was caught with a consignment of Russian art which he illegally attempted to remove from the country. Customs officials who attempted to arrest him were intimated by O'Neill's U.S. Diplomatic Passport and his claim of diplomatic immunity, despite the fact that O'Neill has no such immunity in Russia and that a claim of such nonexistent immunity is in fact an illegal attribution of privilege.

O'Neill during a prior visit to NKR: When the U.S. tried to impose its will, the conflict stayed frozen. (Photo credit: Louis O’Neill)

A civil society youth organization in Tiraspol issued a statement welcoming the replacement of O'Neill with someone more professional and skilled in conflict management.

" - In this post Louis O'Neill acted as a unprofessional, irresponsible, preconceived and frankly ill-bred person, which by his caddish style of behavior discredited his prestigious international organization," said Alena Arshinova of youth group Proriv ("Breakthrough").

" - The height of his cynicism was the frank support of the economic blockade which Moldova began against Pridnestrovie in March 2006. And the completely unprecedented smuggling scandal in which Louis O'Neill was directly involved in removing cultural artifacts from Russia," said Arshinova in a statement published by the organization's Lenta PMR news agency this Sunday.

Security, but no Cooperation

To keep up appearances, Louis O'Neill will be allowed to resign so he is not officially fired from the job. An unnamed source at the OSCE mission in Moldova, who was quoted by news agency New Region, says that the American diplomat will formally stay in his job with pay until 16 November 2007.

Michael Garner, an American expert who has written extensively about Pridnestrovie-Moldova conflict resolution, sees the Louis O'Neill tenure as an abject failure, especially in light of the OSCE's name and its avowed role in Moldova.

" - Heading the local branch of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, you would first of all expect someone who had organizational skills. Whose work would provide added security to the inhabitants of the region. An expert in Cooperation. And, finally, a European," says Garner.

" - In the case of O'Neill, we have a person who is not from Europe, yet he rules the roost of an organization that has "Europe" in the name, and he does so from an office inside Europe. Organizational skills? He managed to deliver two washing machines to Transdniestria. That was the amount of his aid for over a year, as far I know. Of course, Moldova got much more," notes Garner dryly.

" - But where it really matters, in security and cooperation, we have a clear example of failure. First of all, security is based on the premise that everyone feels safe. But half a million people in Transdniestria are not feeling safe as long as Moldova is hostile, is blockading them, and basically doing everything it can to eradicate their statehood aspirations. O'Neill didn't add to the security by egging Moldova on, and by refusing to accept that there is a blockade. But Transdniestria lost $700 million dollars already, and the hospitals have no supplies. People are suffering. What O'Neill should have done, if he wanted to provide security and cooperation, is simply remind Moldova that in 1997 they signed a deal with OSCE's signature on it, too, where they promised to abstain from pressure tactics. That includes economic pressure, too, of course."

Michael Garner says that security is enhanced when peace is a reality, and that a final peace settlement can only come when both sides respect the right of each other to freedom, democracy and independence. Until Moldova renounces its territorial claim on Pridnestrovie, the residents will fear the outbreak of a new war, just like the one which caused 100,000 people to flee their homes when Moldova unsuccessfully invaded Pridnestrovie in 1992.

He reserves his final verdict for O'Neill's failure to cooperate.

" - OSCE has the word co-operation in its name. But at no point during O'Neill's time in Moldova did he manage to get official government representatives from Pridnestrovie and Moldova to sit down at the same table and conduct status settlement talks eye to eye," notes Garner.

" - He could have done so easily. Just by telling Moldova that it shouldn't have ended the talks in February 2006, when it unilaterally walked away from them to the surprise and objections of his OSCE predecessor. And then by telling Moldova that it also shouldn't enforce economic pressure tactics against Transdniestria, since that is contrary to the 1997 agreement between the two."

" - If OSCE had forced Moldova to stick to its previous agreements, things could have moved forward. But he openly took Moldova's side, even when Moldova broke its word and began the illegal blockade against Transdniestria. That didn't facilitate cooperation."

George W. Bush's golden boy

In State Department circles, O'Neill is seen as a handpicked acolyte of George W. Bush and the "neo-cons" ruling the current White House. The favorite son came to the State Department directly from the White House of Bush II, as a White House fellow assigned to the U.S. State Department’s Office of Russian Affairs.

His yearlong program granted him work in the highest levels of government agencies and regular off-the-record meetings with high-ranking officials. In September 2005, Stanford Magazine reported that O’Neill had been invited on a mountain-bike ride by President Bush after Bush met with him and found out that he had been co-captain of his college cycling team.

" - Of course, you come to the former Soviet Union as a personal friend and bike-partner of W.," says one Moldovan-based OSCE staffer, off the record, "and that is like the kiss of death. Especially if you are supposed to work in conflict resolution. Over here, it closes more doors than it opens. Next time, send someone from Kazakhstan or France or whatever."

Pridnestrovie's Ministry of Foreign Affairs welcomes the replacement of Louis O'Neill with a more qualified OSCE Head of Mission to Moldova who can see both sides of the issue, and whose work is better grounded in the fundamental concepts of international law. The Foreign Ministry had earlier criticized the way that O'Neill played favorites:

" - I think it is clear for everyone to see, there is a consistent, permanent absence of political dialogue by the Republic of Moldova, spurred on by the active support from Mr O'Neill and certain observers to the negotiations," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Vitaliy Ignatiev in March 2007.

" - Unfortunately, Mr O'Neill seems to forget that he must act as the local representative of an influential international organization. In this role, he is not an American diplomat, nor is he a member of Moldova's delegation, although by his words and deeds we could easily be forgiven for mistakenly assuming this to be the case," said Ignatiev.

" - Mr O'Neill's openly supportive statements of one of the sides to the conflict, to the detriment of the other, has nothing to do with the mediation or impartiality. Such unbecoming conduct, sadly, affects not only this particular status settlement process but also the credibility of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, which over the years has been painstakingly achieved through the efforts of numerous diplomats, among them Mr O'Neill's predecessors in the post," he added in an official statement.

See also:
» American OSCE-head wanted for questioning in smuggling case
» OSCE cries fraud but did not observe vote
» Unfounded claims inflame Tiraspol; OSCE flag burns

Full interview:
» Vitaliy Ignatiev: "Status settlement needs unbiased, impartial mediation"