Philipp Fluri, Viorel Cibotaru (Eds.) Defence Institution Building: Country Profiles and Needs Assessments for Armenia, Azerbaidjan, Georgia and Moldova Background Materials Geneva 2008 1 ISBN 978-966-626-397-4 Defence Institution Building: Country Profiles and Needs Assessments for Armenia, Azerbaidjan, Georgia and Moldova Background Materials / Philipp Fluri, Viorel Cibotaru (Eds.) — Луганск: «Книжковий світ», 2008. — 134 с. This present volume gives the view on the questions held by civil society organisations and non-governmental experts in the Former Soviet Union countries (Armenia, Azerbaidjan, Georgia and Moldova). For the wide range of readers. Настоящее издание освещает основные проблемы деятельности гражданских общественных и неправительственных организаций в странах бывшего Советского Союза (Армения, Азербайджан, Грузия и Молдова). Для широкого круга читателей. ISBN 978-966-626-397-4 © Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces, 2008 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface Dr. Philipp Fluri, Viorel Cibotaru .................................................................................... 5 Introduction Dr. Philipp Fluri .............................................................................................................. 7 Country Study — Armenia Aghasi Yenokyan ............................................................................................................. 9 Defence Institution Building in Azerbaijan Tamara Pataraia, Tata Makhatadze.............................................................................. 30 Defence Institution Building in Georgia Tamara Pataraia .......................................................................................................... 49 Defence Reform in Moldova Dr. Viorel Cibotaru ........................................................................................................ 74 Intelligence Reform in Moldova O. Nantoi ...................................................................................................................... 93 Law Enforcement and Policing in Moldova Iurie Pintea ................................................................................................................. 102 Annex Questionnaire .............................................................................................................. 127 3 4 PREFACE On Partnership for Peace mandates from the Swiss Ministries of Defence and Foreign Affairs, the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF) organised a series of activities in and for countries from the Former Soviet Union and the Western Balkans during 2006. The activities concerned comprised country profiles and needs assessments and various types of capacity building programmes for governmental and non-governmental experts (for details see the DCAF website at www.dcaf.ch). Preferential treatment was given to the three Caucasian republics and Moldova. The DCAF programme team, reinforced by a Senior Consultant, Dr. Hari Bucur-Marcu from the Bucharest based NATO Studies Centre, developed a comprehensive methodology for status documentation and identification of further cooperation needs. A two-pronged approach was chosen to solicit data from both governmental and non-governmental sources. Governments of all countries concerned were given the opportunity to comment on the findings before publication of a report on 15 May 2007. This report was published as Fluri/Bucur-Marcu (Eds.), Partnership Action Plan on Defence Institution Building: Country Profiles and Needs Assessments for Armenia, Azerbaidjan, Georgia and Moldova. Geneva and Bucharest 2007 This present volume gives the view on the same questions held by civil society organisations and non-governmental experts. As the international community recognises and promotes civil society expertise and public oversight of the defence and security institutions, it is only befitting that civil society should be given the right to comment on questions dealing with defence and security transition in their home countries and regions. The opinions expressed hereunder are the invited experts’ personal opinions and do not represent DCAF’s nor the Swiss government’s positions. Thanks go to Melissa George, Laurence Durig and Alison Buchanan for preparing these texts for publication. Svetlana Loboda and her team took care again of all printing aspects of this volume in the DCAF Defence and Security Sector Institution Building series. Geneva, October 2007 The Editors 5 6 INTRODUCTION The Partnership Action Plan on Defence Institution Building (PAP-DIB) aims at reinforcing efforts to initiate and carry forward reform and restructuring of defence institutions to meet the needs of Partner States of the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC) and the commitments undertaken in the context of the Partnership for Peace (PfP) Framework Document and EAPC Basic Document, as well as the relevant Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) documents, including the OSCE Code of Conduct on Politico-Military Aspects of Security. The PAP-DIB Status and Needs Report project was designed to reveal a picture of the political and conceptual readiness of nations in the Caucasus and the Republic of Moldova to develop and sustain efficient and democratically responsible defence institutions, including armed forces, under democratic and civilian control. It was also aimed at facilitating the allocation of national resources and international assistance efforts efficiently, through the identification of needs and requirements to ensure the functioning and efficiency of defence institutions and as a means of contributing to the harmonisation of operational cooperation between national and international agencies involved in defence institution building. The Status and Needs Report project explored the main issues of defence institutionalisation as stated in the PAP-DIB objectives and as agreed to by the Member States of the EAPC at the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) Summit in Istanbul in 2004.1 This assessment was based on data collected from open sources whereby a clearly defined methodology was employed. This exercise aimed to produce an accurate assessment of the current status of different issues related to defence institution building, including gaps, shortfalls, overlaps and other relevant aspects. No qualifications, ratings or comparisons should result from this assessment. The purpose of this consolidated report is to present the findings resulting from assessment of the following states: Armenia, Azerbaidjan, Georgia and the Republic of Moldova. 1 NATO On-line Library: NATO Basic Texts: Partnership Action Plan on Defence Institution Building (PAP-DIB), Brussels 7 June 2004, available on-line at http://www.nato.int/docu/basictxt/b040607e.htm 7 8 COUNTRY STUDY — ARMENIA Aghasi Yenokyan, Director, Armenian Centre for Political and International Studies. Introduction Since the 1990s, the promotion of security sector governance has become a recognised item on national and international policy agendas. Westerns democracies began to promote democratic civil-military relations in particular in post-communist Eastern Europe and post-Soviet countries bilaterally, as well as through multilateral security institutions. From an institutional perspective, democratic governance of the security sector includes civilian control over the Ministry of Defence, other security related ministries and the military establishment on the whole. These units are governed by civilian defence ministers and civil servants, who act as policy-makers and carry out management roles. There is a clear division of professional responsibility between civilians and the military. Civilian control is needed essentially to prevent the military, which is an organised body that is legally empowered to use force on behalf of the state from challenging the state’s duly constituted political authority and dominant values. It ensures that the armed forces will not endanger the basic liberties, including popular sovereignty, which they are meant to protect. The discourse on this issue builds on the shared principles of civilian direction of the armed forces. These are some of its main features: • the existence of a clear legal and constitutional framework; • the hierarchical responsibility of the military to the government through the ministry; • the significant role of Parliament in legislating on defence; • the presence of a strong non-governmental expert component within the defence sector; • the existence of a developed civil society to establish permanent dialogue between concerned groups and military. At the same time, the establishment of democratic control is not an event, but a process. Because of the previous excessive concern for military secrecy, these issues were simply excluded from public debate in the Soviet system, a legacy that has continued to the present day. The concept of civilian control and political neutrality has not always been correctly understood by the (civilian) politicians of the new independent states. It is crucial that the international democratic community provides competent assistance to states that are in the process of implementing modern models bearing in mind the different historical and sociological realities involved. The Armenian government signed an Individual Partnership Action Plan (IPAP) with the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) in December 2005, by which the most combat-ready military forces in the Caucasian region moved