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US EXPERTS DEPLOY IN UZBEKISTAN TO ADDRESS BIO-WEAPONS
THREAT
Beatrice Hogan: 1/3/02
A contingent of US troops have deployed in a remote region
of Uzbekistan to reduce the chances of fresh bio-terrorist
attacks in the United States or elsewhere. The specific aim
of the US mission is to clean up a Soviet-era biological weapons
dump on Vozrozhdenie Island in the Aral Sea, one of the most
environmentally hazardous regions in the world. While the
American clean-up effort may help prevent anthrax and other
bio-weapons from falling into the hands of extremists, it
does not address the broad ecological threat to the Aral Sea
region.
The anthrax attacks in the United States during the fall
of 2001 prompted the American initiative on former Soviet
bio-weapons facilities. US specialists arrived on Vozrozhdenie
Island under an agreement signed October 22 between the Bush
Administration and Uzbek President Islam Karimov's government.
That deal is similar to an $8 million agreement November 5
between the United States and Kazakhstan to clean-up an anthrax
plant in Stepnogorsk. Americans and Kazakhstanis had already
been working together to dismantle the plant. Now they plan
to convert it quickly, perhaps to a soil-analysis center.
Soviet planners considered the Aral Sea, and the surrounding
Uzbek semi-autonomous region of Karakalpakstan, to be well
suited for bio- and chemical weapons research and development,
largely due to the area's isolation. The United States has
long been concerned about the possibility of bio-weapons manufactured
in the region falling into the wrong hands. Those concerns
heightened after the September 11 terrorist attacks. The Vozrozhdenie
Island cleanup agreement follows a 1999 funding arrangement
to close down a chemical weapons plant at Nukus, the capital
of Karakalpakstan.
In 1998, Vozrozhdenie Island was featured in a front-page
story in the New York Times. The story explained that when
the facility closed, scientists buried hazardous materials
in canisters, which investigators believe could still contain
live anthrax spores.
The elimination of the bio- and chemical weapons threat will
do little to improve the overall quality of life for residents
of the Aral Sea region. The territory surrounding the sea
is one of the most toxic places on earth, and the US bio-weapons
clean up does not address the major sources of pollution.
The current devastation dates to the 1950s, when Soviet authorities
decided to turn the deserts of Central Asia into a center
of cotton production. To carry out their plan they diverted
the waters of the Aral Sea's two main feeder rivers
the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya. The resulting increase in
cotton production did little to alleviate poverty in the region.
At the same time, the diversion of water caused the sea to
begin shrinking, fueling the desertification of the surrounding
countryside. Now, the ground in Karakalpakstan is covered
with a salt crust that looks like snow.
Over the years, Vozrozhdenie Island has become less remote
as the Aral Sea has shrunk. Indeed, in 2001 - for the first
time - satellite pictures showed that a long-anticipated land
bridge connecting the island to the mainland had formed. Two
years of consecutive drought combined with a continuing political
stalemate over water sharing hastened the process.
"Before, only birds could reach the island," says
Yusup Kamalov, Chairman of the Union for the Defense of the
Aral Sea and the Amu Darya. "Now [it's] wolves, foxes,
wild dogs - animals that can dig - and pick up microbes and
bring them back here."
Within a generation, the area around the island may become
uninhabitable. Experts say the Aral Sea - once the world's
fourth largest lake - will now dry up altogether unless it
gains substantial new flows of water. But this is unlikely
in the current political climate. Central Asia's current leaders
insist on maintaining the Soviet-era water distribution system,
which is noted mainly for wasting one of Central Asia's most
precious resources. Saparmyrat Niyazov, Turkmenistan's autocratic
chief, reportedly once told a World Bank official that the
Amu Darya "rightly" flows to the Caspian rather
than the Aral.
As long as Central Asian states refuse to cooperate on water
management strategies, ecologists are sure that the environmental
devastation in the Aral Sea region will continue. Years of
efforts by the international community to broker new interstate
water sharing agreements have so far been unsuccessful. Alexander
Kalashnikov, a water project management specialist at USAID
in Tashkent, says his organization now focuses on national
- rather than international - water reforms.
From the rooftop of his office building, the Academy of Natural
Sciences in Nukus, Kamalov points to the dusty riverbed of
the Amu Darya, where a Soviet-built canal cuts the water flow
almost a hundred miles from the Aral. That canal is just the
final link in a long chain of dams and canals extending all
the way up the watercourse and crossing five countries.
"There is enough water to restore the sea," Kamalov
asserts, "But Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan
just take water from the Amu Darya just to have it, not to
use it." In one Uzbek town, Urgench, residents gratuitously
water their lawns while the sea shrinks before them. [For
more information see the EurasiaNet archives]. But problems
stemming from the dams are more pressing than the dams themselves.
Dr. Oral Atanyazova, who runs a women's health organization
in Karakalpakstan Perzet, says drought conditions have contributed
to poor hygiene and health in the region. Karakalpakstan has
one of the world's highest rates of infant mortality, and
more than 90 percent of its women are anemic. Atanyazova cannot
offer a "good prognosis for the next few years."
In that context, the work on Vozrozhdenie Island should at
least remove anthrax from Karakalpakstan's immediate environment.
But the sudden burst of American interest does not comfort
public health professionals in the region. "You know
we are all dying here," says Kamalov. "But autopsies
are not performed and no one investigates the causes of death."
Editor's Note: Beatrice Hogan, a Pew Fellow in International
Journalism, spent a month in Central Asia earlier in 2001.
Her research focused on water-use-related issues.
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Posted January 3,
2002 © Eurasianet
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