By Jacob Townsend (10/19/2005 issue of the CACI Analyst)

BACKGROUND: Both Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan give their counter-narcotics efforts a high public profile, partly in response to international pressure that has also furnished them with a national DCA each. This has added to the number of agencies responsible for drug control in each country, all of which are represented every ‘reporting season’ when they detail their recent successes in terms of such things as traffickers arrested and volumes of drugs seized. Overall, each of these agencies has significantly different functions but in the field of counter-narcotics their responsibilities overlap.

By Farkhad Tolipov (10/19/2005 issue of the CACI Analyst)

BACKGROUND: Since the dissolution of the former Soviet super-state, the newly independent Central Asian states have undertaken different attempts to strengthen their independence by means of modeling integration. The first name of the model was the Central Asian Commonwealth, which in the mid-1990s was changed to the Central Asian Economic Community. In 2001, the name was changed to the Central Asian Cooperation Organization (CACO).

By Khatuna Salukvadze (10/19/2005 issue of the CACI Analyst)

BACKGROUND: On October 11, the Georgian Parliament unanimously passed a resolution instructing the government to take measures for the withdrawal of Russian peacekeeping forces from the South Ossetian and Abkhazian conflict zones if their performance in South Ossetia and Abkhazia does not improve before February and July, 2006, respectively. Since the early 1990s, the Abkhazia and South Ossetia peace processes have been mediated by Russian peacekeepers deployed in both breakaway regions. In reality, the contingents stationed in the conflict zones have been used by Russia to consolidate its effective control over the regions rather than to fulfill the core functions stipulated by the peacekeeping mandate, such as preventing the militarization and the formation of illegal armed groups.