To be OSCE or not to be OSCE 29 Apr 2014

Following the latest event in Ukraine, the abduction of “OSCE observers”, I just finished reading an interview with Webster Tarpley conducted by Iranian Press TV.

As the western world is always suspicious of anything coming out of the (middle) east and alternative news are not very good at naming sources I set out to investigate what’s behind Tarpley’s claim that those “OSCE observers” in fact don’t have much to do with the OSCE. I will focus at four key allegations he made.

Linked articles are either German or English. Use the translator of you choice.

Tarpley claims: The OSCE said themselves that the observers are not their own guys.

Reading up on the OSCE website and Twitter feed (where they generally don’t appear as clear as verbally) this actually is true. Rather they are military observers which where requested by Ukraine under the Vienna Document.

1/4 Comms with military observers in Donetsk region lost.Team not OSCE monitors but sent by States under Vienna Doc on military transparency

— OSCE (@OSCE) 25. April 2014

The OSCE even says they only deployed monitors until 20 March 2014 (OSCE fact sheet):

Does this Monitoring Mission include military people in uniform?

No. Visits by uniformed military personnel from OSCE participating States to Ukraine are different from the OSCE Monitoring Mission.

Military experts from OSCE participating States were deployed at the request of the authorities of Ukraine in south and east Ukraine from 5 to 20 March. The visit took place under Chapter III of the Vienna Document 2011, which allows for voluntary hosting of visits by an OSCE participating State to dispel concerns about unusual military activities.

After the 20th of March, smaller inspection teams of unarmed military experts in uniform have been on the ground in Ukraine under the Vienna Document 2011 on confidence- and security-building measures. The military inspectors work on behalf of their countries. They look at military security aspects of the situation on the ground.

They even report:

In Sloviansk, the barricades on the outskirt of the city were manned with less people than in previous days and access to the city was uninterrupted.

So, the OSCE can move freely without being abducted.

Claim: The German observers are NATO military based in Geilenkirchen, Germany.

German defence minister Ursula von der Leyen (famously known as “Truppenursel” or “Kanonen-Uschi” in Germany; engl. “troops ursel”, “canon uschi”) actually gave statements to the troops while in Geilenkirchen:

I hope the captured soldiers will be released unconditionally.

And Geilenkirchen is actually home to the “NATO Airborne Early Warning and Control System (AWACS)” - a military intelligence branch. Here’s a map.

Claim: Claus Neukirch, OSCE spokesman, said that the OSCE is not involved in this.

In this interview in the austrian TV magazine ZIB he actually says that these 13 captured are not OSCE, are under the control of the German Bundeswehr (part of which AWACS is), working with the mandate defined in the Vienna Document and it’s solely the Germans negotiating:

Much saying quote at 2:43: “We did not conduct a risk assessment for this particular mission because it is not our mission.”

Also, the OSCE has a parallel mission with 125 civilian observers running in Ukraine of which nobody is missing.

Claim: The Ukrainian foreign minister pretended to meet the Secretary General of the OSCE to uphold the charade.

The Ukranian minister allegedly said:

oh, the Secretary General of the OSCE will be arriving here in order to begin negotiations or to take them over.

But according to OSCE spokeswoman Cathie Burton mister Lamberto Zannier was not on the way to ukrain and neither has such been planned.

Except for these vague references I did not manage to find credible resources substantiating this claim. It’d be great if Webster’s interview transcript would have been annotated with sources.

Conclusion

After hours of research and writing regarding this issue I see multiple possibilities here:

First, the OSCE is in fact part of this (through the Vienna Document) and is now trying to maneuver itself out of the line of fire.

Second, and I subscribe to this, the media is utterly incompetent of naming suspects, doing proper journalism. With a few exceptions, they’re just eating what they’re being fed by news agencies and other institutions.

Bloody fuck, Zeit & Co, get your insane stories straight! Those hostages are not OSCE members!

Third, even worse, the media is being used to facilitate the OSCE to create provocative circumstances which do not exist - impossible, you think? Ever heard of operation Mockingbird, sheep?

For me this smells like 1999 when the German government, which mainly consisted of the SPD party back then, used the OSCE to create the pretense of a humanitarian crisis and bomb the region. Now it’s the opposing party, CDU, which essentially does the same thing.

Wait, sheep tell me those parties are different… *scratches head*