It also recognized that no single, standardized model of political, economic, social, cultural and ethical development and practices could be forced on the 88% of humanity that lives outside the Euro-Atlantic world, not a parliamentary system devised in the British Isles centuries ago nor a consumerist culture and pseudo-civilization designed on Madison Avenue and in Hollywood.
That genuine structural problems exist in the political systems of SCO member states is indisputable. Five of the six were thrust into sudden independence in 1991 with the near instantaneous break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the USSR's former Central Asian republics were among the most adversely affected by that catastrophic occurrence. Social dislocation, economic destitution, cross-border armed incursions and general destabilization are not conducive to the optimal development of electoral and other political institutions.
The SCO Declaration evinced a recognition that even if trends in all nations and societies should evolve in the direction of government that is equitable, accountable, accessible and humane, each nation and culture will arrive at that destination by its own path as well as that of universal principles.
The West that presumes to dictate, often to the point of blackmail and bombs, that its increasingly constricted and impracticable model of governance must be enforced always and everywhere, even where the native soil rejects such transplantation, would be better advised to examine its own deficiencies.
The standard bearer of Western values, the United States, held federal elections last year in which two billion dollars of private funds were expended in an effort to buy influence. And that in a system where only two established political parties are given automatic ballot status and thus have a monopoly on fielding candidates broadly and surely in winning posts.
Time For US And NATO To Leave Central Asia
The Declaration adopted at the 2005 SCO summit also contained this provision:
"Considering the completion of the active military stage of antiterrorist operation in Afghanistan, the member states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation consider it necessary that respective members of the
antiterrorist coalition set a final timeline for their temporary use of the above-mentioned objects of infrastructure and stay of their military contingent on the territories of the SCO member states." [12]
Which is to say that the US and NATO had outlived whatever usefulness their presence in South and Central Asia had served and it was now time for them to leave.
A Chinese daily expressed the matter in these terms:
"The Declaration points out that the SCO member countries have the ability and responsibility to safeguard the security of the Central Asian region, and calls on Western countries to leave Central Asia. That is the most noticeable signal given by the Summit to the world." [13]
On July 7 of 2006 Uzbekistan issued an eviction notice to the 800 US military personnel housed in its base at Karshi-Khanabad, stating that the use of the base had been allowed "for the sole purpose of ousting Taliban rulers from Afghanistan" which had been achieved almost four years earlier.
The government demarche said "Any other prospects for a U.S. military presence in Uzbekistan were not considered by the Uzbek side." [14]
On the 17th Kyrgyzstan's newly elected President Kurmanbek Bakiyev "stressed ...that with the appeasement of the situation in Afghanistan, it is the time for the United States to schedule its pullout of forces from the base in his country," where an estimated 1,500 US and NATO military personnel were stationed.
On July 20 Tajik Foreign Minister Talbak Nazarov said "it is time for the United States and its allies to set a date to pull their conventional troops out of Central Asia as the situation in Afghanistan has stabilized," with local reference to the use of the former Soviet Kulyab airbase and the use of Tajikistan's airspace. [15]
"Nazarov reiterated the call made jointly by the six member states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) earlier this month that the US-led anti-terror coalition should set a deadline for the withdrawal of their troops and the temporary use of infrastructure in Central Asian countries." [16]
Later in the month Russia signed an agreement with the government of Tajikistan for the use of a military base in the country.
The US Secretary of State at the time, Condoleezza Rice, denounced the SCO Declaration's call for the removal of US and NATO bases in Central Asia with the pat response that "there is still a lot of terrorist activity in Afghanistan and US troops were needed to train the Afghan army to counter it," [17], a state of affairs that from the Western perspective persists to this day, four years later, and into the indefinite future with the war now fully extended into Pakistan.
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