Cheap gas or democracy? US's Turkmen problem

World briefing

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Simon Tisdall
Friday January 26, 2007
The Guardian

His patronymic included, Gurbanguli Myalikgulyevich Berdymukhamedov can probably claim to have the longest name of any national leader. But Mr B is giving short shrift to opposition hopes of a more open, democratic Turkmenistan as the central Asian country plods towards presidential elections on February 11. His almost inevitable victory over token rivals poses a larger problem for the US and Europe, whose interest in promoting "freedom's march" is surpassed only by their appetite for cheap energy.

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Turkmenistan has some of the world's biggest natural gas fields, producing the equivalent of 11% of total EU consumption annually. But its pipeline export routes remain firmly under Russian control, a legacy of the Soviet era. Last September Moscow's state energy giant Gazprom won access to the large Yolotan field and an option on any surpluses until 2009. The deal marked the end of President Saparmurat Niyazov's bid to weaken Russia's grip. And in any case, in December Niyazov, known as Turkmenbashi the Great, died after 21 years running one of the world's most oppressive dictatorships.

Apparently oblivious to concerns about democratic transition, Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, was quick to cement ties with Mr Berdymukhamedov, a Niyazov favourite, who was named interim president. The two men exchanged assurances about a continuing, close energy relationship.

Washington has not been totally inactive, sending two mid-level envoys to Ashgabat. But having tolerated Niyazov's authoritarian personality cult and courted his energy favours, its public statements about the succession have been cautious. The European Commission declared this month that the EU should expand its strategic stake in central Asia, human rights notwithstanding. But exiled Turkmen opposition leaders say that by turning a blind eye to a looming electoral travesty, western countries are passing up "a historic second chance" to advance democratic reform and reverse Moscow's energy dominance to their own advantage.

"Niyazov was a selfish, kleptocratic despot," said Nurmuhammet Hanamov, chairman of the exiled Republican party of Turkmenistan, writing in the Washington Post - and now, he suggested, there was a danger of history repeating itself. All the other official presidential candidates belonged to the ruling Democratic party, the media were under strict state control, and the supposedly independent election chief had already stated that Mr Berdymukhamedov was the best man for the job.

All the same, the country's ruling clique is leaving little to chance. The Institute for War and Peace Reporting has published emigre reports that domestic security and surveillance have been stepped up "to ensure nothing happened to derail Berdymukhamedov's journey to power". And despite his reform promises, Robert Arsenault of the International League for Human Rights suggested little would change without concerted outside pressure. "The future of Turkmenistan and its more than five million people is up for grabs," he told the Baltimore Sun. "The US has a splendid opportunity to use its diplomatic influence to effect a democratic outcome."

But as was the case last year across the Caspian in democratically challenged Azerbaijan, Washington, harbouring hopes of energy deals, appears to prefer not to rock the boat. A friendly Turkmenistan, bordering Iran and Afghanistan, also has high strategic value. That has led exiled opposition presidential nominee Khudaiberdy Orazov to appeal to the US not to acquiesce in a cynical "gas for dictatorship" deal.

"Please show that human rights and human freedoms [are] not some abstract concept with you and that you are ready to fight for them, not only in the places that you find convenient, but wherever it is happening in the world," he said.

It is not clear who, if anybody, is listening.

Taking Up the Slack in Central Asia

A few years back, European relations with Central Asian states were fairly quiet. And, at least as far as appearances went, the US, due to its close relationship with Uzbekistan, seemed to be less principled or more pragmatic (depending on your point of view) compared to Europe. RFE/RL today carries a story that shows just how pragmatic Europe (or at least the German-speaking parts of it) is getting about Central Asia. In fact, the focus of the story, EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner, is sounding quite a bit like defenders of US policy toward Uzbekistan from a few years ago.

“I think it’s not a matter of securing the energy resources only — it’s really a matter of engaging with these [Central Asian] countries,” Ferrero-Waldner told Reuters. “If we don’t engage with these countries, these countries will turn eastwards and turn to Russia and China. And I think it’s highly important that [Central Asians] also look very strongly towards Europe.”

That sounds quite a bit like arguments that I made about US policy toward Uzbekistan a couple years back, and I think it is fairly safe to assume that though Ferrero-Waldner has engagement with Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan mostly in mind, arguments that EU engagement will produce marginal improvements over the status quo must most vigorously be applied toward convincing European states and publics to agree to reaching out to Turkmenistan and especially Uzbekistan.

Ever since Andijon, Western policy in the region has been a disjointed mess. The US has shifted its focus toward Kazakhstan, sought to maintain access to Manas airfield in Kyrgyzstan, and that is about it. Europe, with the exception of Germany, has also more or less been in a holding pattern since mid-2005. Meanwhile, Uzbekistan has been taking daily steps to overtake Turkmenistan as the universally-recognized most repressive state in the region. Is it time for someone in the West to pursue a comprehensive regional policy and reengage with Uzbekistan?

The RAND Corporation’s findings on US security assistance to Uzbekistan indicate that repackaged engagement and assistance to Uzbekistan can bear some fruit. Isolation has not accomplished anything, and any policy aimed at the entire region cannot exclude the country where nearly half the region’s population lives. If John Negroponte’s characterization of Central Asian governments as unreliable is any indication, the US is not terribly interested in either renewing ties with Uzbekistan or breathing new life into its regional policy, leaving Europe to take up the slack for the West.

Germany is at the fore in encouraging European engagement with Central Asian governments, and it is facing an uphill battle.

Germany argues engagement is the way to promote rights, but activists were concerned when it argued successfully against toughening sanctions on Uzbekistan last year and lobbied — inconclusively — for Kazakhstan to take the helm of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe in 2009.

Analysts say Germany will not find it easy to persuade all its 26 EU partners to follow an “interest-driven” policy.

Reuters packages activists’ concerns as being about German interest-driven rather than idealism-driven foreign policy. The Western experience with Uzbekistan over the past five years provides a good deal of empirical evidence about the merits and demerits of interest-driven versus idealism-driven foreign policy. Interest-driven policy accomplished little. But idealism, even though it has not been executed as I imagine most idealists would prefer, has not accomplished anything. Germany apparently feels that a little is better than nothing, especially when Europe’s interests in Central Asia are so strong.

Germany could, I suppose, go it alone if it wished. But one of the biggest problems with Western policy in Central Asia (and between agencies in US policy) has been not just that the region has rarely been treated as one region so much as a collection of neighboring states but also that Western states have not been on the same page. Though having the West as a whole on the same page would be preferable, a comprehensive EU policy would be a great achievement, and working together stands a far better chance of achieving (probably still marginal) results. Russian gas games prove to Europe that it needs Central Asia. And Central Asian governments know they do better with multiple partnerships. Developments in much of Central Asia over the last year-and-a-half have made the future look dim, and at least part of that is due to the West’s absence. Perhaps it is time for a second round of close relations.

Posted by Nathan on January 16th, 2007
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Our Next Big Mess

Dec 29, 2006

By Ted Rall

NEW YORK--Chances are that you heard more about Rosie O'Donnell's flame war with Donald Trump than the passing of Sapamurat "Turkmenbashi" Niyazov. As seems to occur with increasing frequency, America's media ignored the most important story of the year.

A handful of news outlets that bothered to cover the 66-year-old dictator's death wallowed in the humor inherent in the extravagant personality cult he built up after Turkmenistan gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. Cannier obituary writers noted that the Central Asian nation "contains many of the world's largest natural gas fields, and provides gas to Russian and European countries." (Actually, the largest. Period.) But they missed the main point of the story, one with dramatic short-term consequences for Central Asia and breathtaking dangers to the United States during the first half of the new century.

The Central Asian republics of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and--until now--Turkmenistan are all being ruled by the same former Communist Party bosses who ran them in Soviet times. Niyazov's death marks the beginning of the end for the post-Soviet authoritarian order and the beginning of a period of increasing instability, as foreign powers attempt to monopolize access to oil and natural gas resources and pipeline routes. Kazakhstan alone may possess more untapped oil reserves than Saudi Arabia and Iraq combined, and the politics and economies of the Central Asian republics are closely intertwined. What is at stake is nothing less than the security and control of the world economy.

Unless you were one of the five million desperately poor Turkmen forced to watch while your desert nation's gas wealth was systemically looted and squandered on such vanity projects as the gilt statue of Turkmenbashi that dominates the skyline of Ashkhabat and turns to face the sun (local wags say the sun turns to face it), it was easy to laugh at the ubiquitous trappings of unhinged egotism. Turkmenbashi's moon-eyed mug glared from banners hung from the façade of every government ministry and school, appeared on every denomination of currency, even on his own brands of vodka and cologne. Everything was named after him: the country's second-largest city, its airports, a large meteorite, the month of January. His not-so-little green book of aphorisms ("Time is a mace. Hit or be hit!"), the Rukhnama, became required reading for schoolchildren and motorists who sought to renew their driver's licenses.

Saddam Hussein's reputation for self-indulgence had nothing on Turkmenbashi. Niyazov's megalomania ranged from the grandiose--at the time of his death he had just completed the world's largest mosque (featuring quotes from the Rukhnama, naturally) and had ordered the construction of a man-made lake in the middle of the Karakum desert--to obsessive micromanagement. Each Turkmen student's college application was personally considered by the great man.

Even his commonsense dictates came with a bizarre twist. During the 1990s Turkmenbashi ordered that natural gas, as a national patrimony, be supplied to Turkmen homes for free. Since most people were too poor to afford matches, however, it became common practice to leave their stoves on 24-7. Where foreigners saw hilarity, Turkmen seethed with resentment; Ashkhabati motorists saved their household garbage so they could chuck it on the lawn of one of Niyazov's pink pleasure palaces.

A power struggle is underway. Within hours of Turkmenbashi's fatal heart attack his Constitutionally-mandated successor, Majlis (lower house of parliament) chairman Ovezgeldy Atayev found himself behind bars, arrested for an unspecified "criminal investigation." An obscure deputy prime minister and former dentist, Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, declared himself acting president and has arranged to have the Constitution retrofitted to validate his rule.

"Many Western analysts," reported The New York Times, "said the country was unlikely to change and that authoritarian rule would continue under any of Mr. Niyazov's successors." But Turkmen exiles who lead opposition parties are itching to fill the vacuum, if not of power, of charisma, left by Niyazov's demise. Leaders of the nation's five biggest tribes are jockeying for advantage. And five million Turkmen who can't afford matches want a piece of the action--and want to get even with the government thugs who shut down the country's hospitals and medical clinics.

Everyone is betting that Turkmenbashi's foreign policy of "positive neutrality" won't last long. Russia has already indicated its intent to reassert itself in Turkmenistan. Here's where we come in: no American president, Democrat or Republican, will allow Russia to gain control over the world's largest energy reserves without a fight. Moreover, neither Russia nor the U.S. will watch idly as Central Asia implodes and takes the world economy along for the ride. U.S. troops, currently based in Uzbekistan, could be sent in to restore order and keep the Russians out.

Signaling renewed high-level interest in Turkmenistan, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher and Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov both attended Turkmenbashi's funeral on Christmas Eve.

Uzbekistan's universally reviled despot Islam Karimov, who got away with the 2005 massacre of at least 700 civilians at Andijon because of his country's energy reserves, will almost certainly be an early casualty of civil strife in Central Asia. A witch's brew of Stalin-era ethnic gerrymandering and brutal suppression of a nascent Islamist insurgency, mixed with the collapse of Karimov's Uzbek police state, could easily take Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan--poor countries barely recovering from civil conflict and dependant on the urban-based Uzbek economy--with them. Even Kazakhstan, the most stable of a fragile lot, is susceptible to an uprising; few Kazakhs have shared in the nation's oil boom.

Whether or not Turkmenbashi's death directly affects its neighbors, it's a reminder that Central Asia's autocrats aren't getting younger. Laugh about the Leader of All Turkmen's excesses now. The storm is coming.

(Ted Rall is the author of the new book "Silk Road to Ruin: Is Central Asia the New Middle East?," an in-depth prose and graphic novel analysis of America's next big foreign policy challenge.)