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independence of the breakaway region, the Kremlin<br />

denies the access of the mission to South Ossetia and<br />

Abkhazia. The litigious dimension of the six point<br />

agreement is the definition of the territory of Georgia.<br />

The EU and the vast majority of the <strong>In</strong>ternational<br />

Community still recognize the breakaway regions as<br />

part of Georgia. <strong>This</strong> is not the case for Russia which<br />

has recognized their independence. <strong>In</strong> here lies the<br />

entire problem for EUMM. Thus far the mission has<br />

only been able to enter the breakaway region once and<br />

for a brief amount of time in the context of the <strong>In</strong>cident<br />

Prevention and Response Mechanism (IPRM). To<br />

counter the lack of accessibility, Ambassador Haven,<br />

the Head of Mission of EUMM, has called for<br />

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) to be used to<br />

monitor the breakaway region by air.<br />

As the mission cannot implement its mandate in the<br />

separatist regions, its role of confidence builder is<br />

hindered, but the most alarming feature is that the<br />

mission remains unable to investigate the Georgian<br />

claims of ethnic cleansing in South Ossetia.<br />

As part of its confidence builder and stabilization<br />

roles, EUMM frequently calls for the use of the IPRM<br />

and plays an active role in linked investigations. The<br />

IPRM is a mechanism providing for meetings between<br />

the concerned parties’ authorities to discuss and solve<br />

issues threatening the security and stability in the<br />

region. The Georgians however accuse the breakaway<br />

region of manipulating the IPRM through falsification<br />

of facts and wrongful accusation of Georgian abuse of<br />

the ceasefire agreement. 5 The same accusations are<br />

flying on both sides and meetings are often skipped by<br />

the breakaway representatives. There are therefore<br />

doubts growing on the viability of the IPRT. The most<br />

recent incident which the mission has been<br />

investigating has been the arrest of a South Ossetian<br />

man – Mr. Pliev - by the Georgian police. The<br />

Georgian authorities claim that Mr. Pliev was carrying<br />

an automatic weapon and hand grenades. On the other<br />

hand, reports from the South Ossetian administrative<br />

authorities stated that Mr. Pliev was abducted by the<br />

Georgian Police at his home. 6 As aforementioned,<br />

EUMM entered South Ossetia for the first time and has<br />

since been working on resolving the issue, working<br />

with both sides to liberate Mr Pliev. <strong>In</strong> addition, the<br />

mission has called for the people who cross the<br />

administrative border to not be processed through the<br />

justice apparatus but rather through the administrative<br />

system.<br />

5 <strong>In</strong>terview with a Georgian Official<br />

6 Hunt K. F. “EU Monitors in South Ossetia Regarding<br />

Detention”, Impunity Watch Report, 7 January 2010, Impunity<br />

Watch. Available at:<br />

http://www.impunitywatch.net/impunity_watch_europe/2010/01/eu<br />

-monitors-in-south-ossetia-regarding-detention.html<br />

Although EUMM has entered for the first time South<br />

Ossetia since its establishment (in work with the Pliev<br />

investigation), this should not be seen as sign of<br />

opening up of the region. A communiqué was issued<br />

by the South Ossetian authorities underlining clearly<br />

that the entrance of EUMM in the breakaway region<br />

was an “exception” and it would only allow the EU<br />

mission to investigate the Pliev case. 7<br />

It is important to underline that the mission can only<br />

contribute minimally to the long term stabilization in<br />

Georgia. For that, one has to look at the Geneva talks<br />

and their development, and as far as the negotiations<br />

are concerned, there have been very few positive<br />

developments. <strong>This</strong> in turn raises the question of the<br />

resolution of the conflict and also on the exit-strategy<br />

of the EU mission.<br />

EUBAM Ukraine-Moldova -1 December 2005 to 30<br />

November 2011<br />

Recently the Ukrainian and Moldovan security<br />

services met for the third time in order to exchange<br />

information and deepen cooperation for fighting illegal<br />

migration and the smuggling of goods. <strong>This</strong> re-affirms<br />

both governments will to establish efficient and<br />

transparent border control authorities.<br />

On 1 December 2009 the mission entered a new phase<br />

of exercise (phase 7) after achieving the goals set out<br />

by the previous phase. Phase 7 emphasises on capacity<br />

building and the past months have been marked by the<br />

creation of the “capacity building unit”. The unit<br />

provides extensive and specific training to the<br />

personnel of the partner countries’ (Ukraine and<br />

Moldova) border teams. Activities includes among<br />

other, technical training of the use of infra-red<br />

cameras.<br />

EUBAM issued the Common Border Security<br />

Assessment Report, to which the partner countries<br />

contributed. <strong>This</strong> is a positive step forward, as their<br />

inclusion will ultimately contribute to building the<br />

partner’s ownership of such assessment procedures of<br />

their own border control policies.<br />

EUBAM continues to work on the Targeted<br />

Monitoring Actions (TMA) and the latest launched has<br />

been the Pre-arrival <strong>In</strong>formation System (PIS). <strong>This</strong><br />

procedure is designed to decrease the workload at<br />

borders and rendering the check procedure faster by<br />

centralising the vetting procedure prior to arrival at the<br />

border post. The PIS has been evaluated by the<br />

mission, which ascertained that that there are still<br />

minor problems on implementation interpretation by<br />

the partners. However, the PIS has been received<br />

7 ibid.<br />

<strong>Europe</strong>an Security Review no. 48, February 2010, <strong>ISIS</strong> <strong>Europe</strong> page 17

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