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Megan Stephenson from the International Council for Democratic Institutions and State Sovereignty (ICDISS)

RALEIGH (Tiraspol Times) - With its Slav heritage and preference for Russia and Eastern Orthodox culture, Pridnestrovie has not been good at finding friends in the West. One of the exceptions is a small international group made up of academics, government workers and former diplomats who see the country as a new and emerging state which needs to be taken seriously by the international community.

The International Council for Democratic Institutions and State Sovereignty, abbreviated ICDISS, is an international non-governmental organization which specializes in nation building issues. The organization focuses its activities in two areas: The first is nation-building in failed states (although it prefers to refer to such states as weak or conflict states); the second is nation-building in new or emerging states, some of the latter being unrecognized countries with de facto sovereignty.

In this interview spokesperson Megan Stephenson explains what they do and refutes critics who feel that the private organization should not be involved in helping the institution building efforts of Pridnestrovie.

Briefly, what's your spiel?

" - We in the West are missing a big opportunity to engage the new and emerging states. They are looking for help – any help, and not necessarily material help – and support. A small team can do it. The cost, politically and monetarily, is much less than what it would otherwise cost to be a guarantor power. Fortunately, there are some in the think tanks and at the fringes of government who get it. The biggest name in this field is probably professor Michael P. Scharf at the Public International Law & Policy Group which has provided “out of the box” thinking to help new and emerging states like Montenegro and Nagorno-Karabakh. Then there is the International Crisis Group which took Kosovo under its wing as early as 1998, and which this year recommended recognition for Somaliland, and our group which has worked with Transnistria. There are others, too. Taken together, such NGOs can be more creative and daring with their solution proposals than governments. This, in turn, allows them to make headway when governments can't. The investment is small and the benefit is potentially as good or better as the traditional guarantor state approach. Inspired by Scharf, who was also a key player in setting up the Saddam tribunal in Iraq, there are now another four or five other teams who are also beginning to work in the same field. It is worth keeping an eye on how it works out because it could be the way for the West to gain leverage when other doors are otherwise closed. If the approach is ignored, we in the West are missing a big opportunity to engage the new and emerging states. It sometimes means we have to meet these states halfway, but I personally don't see that as a negative. To me, that is just a requirement of basic human decency. I am proud of our heritage of tolerance for others."

Now the big question: Why Pridnestrovie?

" - One of our founding members called it the Rodney Dangerfield of countries because it just can't get any respect. But we have been monitoring the situation since 1999, with its ups and downs. Then, in 2005, it looked like Transnistria was serious about changing. Even the EU recognized that it was moving towards more pluralism, and when Yevgeny Shevchuk's block won against Igor Smirnov's supporters in their December 2005 elections for parliament, we decided that the conditions were probably right for an “out of the box” strategy and a bit of rapprochement. Their economy has opened up a lot, too, since 2002 in particular, and it is no secret that in general, the path to liberal democracy is tied to economic development. Open trade and growing economic freedom tend to bring advances in democracy, too."

So you are pro-Shevchuk and anti-Smirnov?

" - No, not at all. The International Council for Democratic Institutions and State Sovereignty is an apolitical body. We always stress that our mandate is entirely devoid of any political advocacy and that we remain preference-neutral with regards to countries, governments or political systems. But we saw the surprise win of Shevchuk's group as a larger shift and more indicative of a political system which was changing, opening up to the world and eager for reform. Those are conditions where we can enter to contribute our experience, and hopefully not work on barren ground. It is not a perfect democracy but if it was, we wouldn't be needed. The conditions where we can be of assistance are in situations where there things are not perfect, but where there is at least a willingness among some sectors of the host country to institute changes which bring about more democracy, and, in the process, build the credibility of the institutions of the state. The relevance, strength and effectiveness of a country's institutions will in turn solidify the sovereignty of the state. The opposite is also true. This is the lesson of failed states in Africa, for instance."

Are you in favor of sovereign statehood for Pridnestrovie?

" - We call it Transnistria internally, but if you want to use the official name for this interview, that is OK too. In our written materials we use the name Pridnestrovie out of a consideration for local sensibilities. To answer your question, however: We support the effective functioning of government first and foremost, everywhere, to the extent that this provides services and that it works in a framework of rule of law. It is a simple matter of concern for human beings and their quality of life. Issues of sovereignty are directly tied to this. Why? Because in order for the institutions of government to function with transparency, there has to be a foundation. In this particular case, there isn't. Moldova says that the place is part of Moldova, but in practical terms that is a fiction because the government institutions of the area are clearly not built on that foundation. Others say that the place is a puppet of Russia, but the government institutions of the area are not built on that foundation either and don't reference themselves in relation to the ministries of the Russian Federation. Then there is the local claim that it is a sovereign state, and this is what they apparently built their government institutions around. But that is not a sustainable claim either because no one recognizes it as a sovereign state, at least not de jure. So one way or another the issue has to be settled for the long term benefit of the citizens who need their government institutions to develop. It is cruel to keep more than half a million people in limbo for a decade and a half as political pawns."

Very well, but are you in favor of sovereign statehood for Pridnestrovie?

" - We start from the premise that one way or another, the current situation is not at all ideal for the people who live there, and we also fail to see how it can be ideal to the region as a whole, either. This means that, number one, the issue should be settled. And, all things being equal, recognized statehood is the best framework for building democratic institutions which are part of the international system and answer to their citizens and to the rest of the world. So if they have a valid claim to statehood, then that should be taken into account. If not, then the opposite should be the key focus of settlement talks with Moldova and they should re-organize, with help from the outside, their institutions in order to bring them into the institutional framework of the Republic of Moldova. This means that the key question here is not what we are in favor of, but whether or not their claim to statehood is valid. If it is, then let us help them achieve it. If it is not, then I also just answered what must be done."

Is Pridnestrovie's claim to statehood valid?

" - We sponsored a conference in Washington D.C. in April in order to determine that. It didn't look at the politics, because that is outside our scope, but focused solely on customary international law. The resulting report, entitled "State Sovereignty of PMR under international law" [1], did conclude that Pridnestrovie has a very credible claim to statehood and that some of the traditional assumptions are based on an incorrect interpretation of the facts - false premises, if you will. More work is still needed in this field, of course, but it is clear already that neither side can claim to hold 100% of the truth."

That report caused an uproar. Tiraspol loved it, but didn't you get hammered by the establishment for it?

" - I wouldn't put it that way. Some of the usual policy wonks pushing Moldova's case choked on their Cheerios because they thought that they had a monopoly on D.C. lobbying. It was telling, however, that none of them argued the contents or the conclusions of the report, which, modestly speaking, we believe are valid or we would not have put our imprint on the report. They tried to shoot the messenger because they didn't like the message. Conversely, I also think that it took Tiraspol by surprise because they are not used to seeing analytical studies which treat them with fairness and objectivity. But as uproars go, it was more like the mouse that roared."

How do you respond to claims by a commentator called Vladimir Socor that you are a front for the Kremlin?

" - Since we have followed the situation since 1999, from the sidelines, we obviously have a clear picture of Mr Socor and what he stands for. He works for one of Dick Cheney's favorite lobbying outfits, but I think he is too radical even for them at times, with his blind hatred of all things Russian. Everyone still remembers his very public run-in with William Hill, for many years the American ambassador in charge of OSCE in Chisinau. Ambassador Hill had to use less than diplomatic language to tell Socor a few good old American home truths. Socor's idea of settlement between Chisinau and Tiraspol involves something close to the annihilation of Tiraspol, a scorched earth policy which would necessarily involve the use of force and which none of the sides in the 5+2 format support. In our case, Socor is just trying to shoot the messenger because he doesnt' like the message. He thinks that by tying us to Kremlin, in his own mind, then somehow the legal conclusions will go away ... or at least not be read and studied by those who most need to look closely at these issues."

He attacks your organization directly and also claims that some of the authors disawowed the report. Comments?

" - It is probably just a knee jerk reaction. The guy can't help it. He has been slandering and smearing for so long that now it is second nature. We stand on our record, and it speaks for itself. Parts are written in awkward English? Baseless. Read it for yourself. Parts lifted from a Karabakh report? Baseless. We use DIFF software as part of the peer review process and to detect plagiarism. This sort of criticism is too easy to deconstruct. And with regards to Kremlin? I have never been to Russia; neither has any of the authors of the report. We don't speak Russian. We had the report translated to Russian by an outside specialist from the Department of International Relations at the San Francisco State University because we felt it would be valuable for the people of the region to comment on the concluding document of our conference. We have never been in touch with anyone from the Russian government, not even through any of their embassies. As for the comment on the alleged authors, that stems from an unauthorized partial translation which the Tiraspol state news agency made in order to publish the conclusions of the conference before we had finalized our own final version and its Russian translation. They took a list of people who had been credited as authors of primary sources for the report, but did not translate the full context of how they were listed. One of the news agencies in Russia, Regnum, saw the Olvia Press article and, without checking with us first, mistakenly reported that they were the authors. To avoid this sort of confusion in the future, we decided to only list credits in the footnotes instead, and that is what the published version of the report does. I don't see this as an issue at all. But ill-intentioned smear artists can of course make even Mother Teresa of Calcutta look bad if they want to. That's their job."

Do you know Modest Kolerov?

" - We know of him, by name. He is a public figure, handling public diplomacy for Russia's presidency. Our take is that he is sort of a Russian version of Otto Reich. Same kind of intellect, same way of working. But we have never had any contact with him, and I don't see how we ever would. The guilt-by-association argument is the oldest trick in the book when someone can't argue the facts. Socor also says that the IP address of our website is shared by a Transnistria website called Pridnestrovie.net but that is no earthshaking discovery. In late 2005, when our steering committee decided to get involved in Transnistria-work, we agreed to provide funding for information based initiatives that had been planned by their parliament earlier that same year. One of these initiatives which were partly funded by us, in early 2006, was Pridnestrovie.net and as part of our aid we agreed to provide the initial 12 months of all Internet-related costs and infrastructure. So the site is hosted with us, on a shared server. The domain registration says so, and on every single page of the site itself it fully lists our involvement. But what Socor fails to say is that the same IP has a total of 832 other sites, some of them dealing with Cabinda and Angola, East Timor, Latin America, and even with support of the Maidana movement in Ukraine. This is fact and on public record for anyone to look up. What is not a fact is that Kolerov, or anyone else from the Russian administration, is involved with our work, or with any of the other 832 websites sharing this IP. To say so is irresponsible, and is pure speculation with ulterior motives, and is absolutely not a constructive contribution to the debate over the future of the region."

Since you mention the future of the region, I would like to close on that note. What's ahead?

" - There is a lot of tension and ill will and mistrust on both sides, and commentators who have a vested interest in keeping the tension high and accusing the other side of hidden motives - even when the facts are transparent. This is where diplomats and negotiators must sort the wheat from the chaff, and keep a cool head. But even so, the situation is still tricky. That's in part because both governments have their hands tied by past statements and by the need to first of all cater to their local constituents. Even some of the outside governments, the guarantors and the observers, carry this stigma because of past baggage. One side or the other does not see this or that country as neutral, and then the whole thing deadlocks, as we have seen over and over and over again. And every time there is hope for progress, the usual stone throwers come out of the woodwork to smear and scare. But when that happens, NGOs have an important role to play: They can operate without the weight of past baggage, have fewer constituents to answer to, and are largely immune to whatever criticism gets thrown at them. Civil society in Moldova has long said that NGOs should play a bigger role, and OSCE feels the same way too. It is positive that, starting in 2005, it looks like Tiraspol now agrees. Their favorite NGOs are obviously not the same as Chisinau's favorite NGOs, but neither do they need to be. On each side of the Dniester, organizations can work independently, and when they need to reach out to each other, which they will, then they can do so in a much more dynamic way, and much easier, than governments can. This may lead to a unification under one state, with one single central government, or it may lead to consolidation of two centers of power, but no matter where it leads, NGOs will be able to play an important role in calming the waters and building the sort of bridges that are hard for the governments themselves to build."

Editors' note: The report mentioned in this interview is available for free download from the icdiss.org website: http://members.icdiss.org/pmr/b219.pdf [2]