A new report by the United Nations drug agency sheds light on the nuts and bolts of narcotics transit from Afghanistan through Central Asia, highlighting the former Soviet republics’ lackluster efforts at interdiction.
The 106-page report by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), released this month, describes how smugglers traffic heroin and opium from Afghanistan, the world’s largest producer, to Russia, the world’s largest consumer. Ninety tons of highly pure heroin, roughly a quarter of the substance exiting Afghanistan, passes through Central Asia annually. Yet in 2010 authorities in the region seized less than 3 percent of it. And despite international efforts to help, that number keeps falling.
Central Asia’s entrenched corruption makes the region a perfect smuggling route, says the report. Senior officials are complicit in the trade, or at least take bribes to look the other way, especially in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. A lack of cooperation among neighbors also offers a boon to traffickers.
The stakes are huge.
“UNODC estimates that in 2010 drug traffickers in Central Asia made a net profit of $1.4 billion from heroin sales. Much of this profit was likely incurred by Tajik traffickers, given that Tajikistan is estimated to handle most of the flow,” said the report. They profit by marking up the heroin by as much as 600 percent once it gets to Russia. Between 70 and 75 percent of the drugs travel by road, leaving a trail of new addicts across Central Asia.
In Kyrgyzstan, and throughout much of the former Soviet Union, a child with cerebral palsy, impaired hearing or autism is segregated in a so-called special school, cut off from “normal” children. Under this system, a recent study found, almost half of all children with special needs – nearly 10,000 kids – simply don’t go to school at all, robbing both the children, and society at large, of opportunities to learn and integrate.
About 150 people carrying banners reading “Education for All Children in Kyrgyzstan” and “We are All Different but Equal” rallied in front of the Education Ministry in Bishkek on May 17 to challenge the segregation and ask the ministry to ensure equal education for all. Educating children together is best both for the children, all of them, and society at large, the activists said. Several officials from the ministry mingled with the peaceful crowd.
The rally is part of a series of events to push for the ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which Kyrgyzstan signed last autumn, but has not ratified. Azat Israilov, one of the event’s organizers, said that the event is meant to call attention to specific education provisions in the Convention and raise awareness about the difficulties that children with special needs face accessing education in Kyrgyzstan.
“We want all children to be able to study together like the Convention requires,” said Israilov.
Article 24 of the Convention obligates governments to “ensure an inclusive education system at all levels … enabling persons with disabilities to participate effectively in a free society.” Signing the Convention was an important step, Israilov said, but only ratification by parliament would give it legal weight.
The Economist has questioned the plausibility of a study conducted by leading UK charity Save the Children, which lauded a trio of Central Asian states for winning the war on child malnutrition.
The annual State of the World’s Mothers report is backed by “spurious statistics,” The Economist says.
The study finds that Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan have made huge strides in reducing child malnutrition. It singles out Uzbekistan (alongside Angola) as one of “two priority countries that have made the fastest progress in reducing child malnutrition – both cut stunting rates in half in about 10 years.”
Uzbekistan topped the list of states that have made the greatest strides. Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan came fifth and sixth respectively.
As The Economist pointed out, half of the top six success stories identified by Save the Children are in Central Asia (while number six is North Korea). “This finding is – how can one put it politely? – counter-intuitive,” The Economist commented.
“Number one on the list is Uzbekistan, a vicious dictatorship which imprisons political opponents and has been the site of mass killings,” it continued, while Turkmenistan “had for many years one of the world’s stranger dictators [Saparmurat Niyazov] who renamed the days of the week after himself and his family.” (Turkmenistan is still run by a dictator who is fostering his own personality cult.)
Over the past year, human rights activists in Kyrgyzstan have directed increasing attention at bride kidnapping. Though illegal, and notoriously difficult to quantify, the practice is thought to be widespread, especially in rural areas.
Ombudsman Tursunbek Akun, who says legislators are little interested in the issue, announced today that up to 8,000 Kyrgyz girls are kidnapped and forced into marriage annually.
Few statistics on bride kidnapping are available, and it’s unclear how Akun did his research, but one study last year found that 45 percent of women married in the eastern town of Karakol in 2010 and 2011 had been non-consensually kidnapped.
As Azita Ranjbar reported last week, many of the girls are pressured into marriage and have little recourse to justice.
Although bride kidnapping is illegal under Article 155 of Kyrgyzstan’s Criminal Code, prosecutions are almost unheard of. The state can intervene only if a complaint is filed directly by the victim. But, in many bride-kidnapping cases, the woman is isolated within the home of the abductor, and must overcome daunting obstacles to contact her relatives or the police. Even if her family is aware that she has been kidnapped, they are usually powerless to press charges against the abductor on behalf of the woman. In conservative villages, opposing a bride kidnapping can also bring the family shame.
Moreover, many victims have few legal rights because local religious leaders, rather than the state, certify their marriage ceremonies. Without a government-issued marriage certificate, the courts can do little to protect a woman and her children should she try to leave her husband.
Interethnic tensions between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks in southern Kyrgyzstan have slipped out of the headlines, but analysts say the threat of renewed violence is still a real concern. And if there’s one Kyrgyz politician who loves to stoke the tensions, it’s Jyldyz Joldosheva, a parliamentary deputy from the ultranationalist Ata-Jurt party.
Since the June 2010 ethnic violence, when approximately 450 people died, Joldosheva has regularly traded on anti-Uzbek sentiment. She has often claimed to have proof that members of the Uzbek “diaspora” are plotting against their hosts, the Kyrgyz. Her language relegates Uzbeks to outsider status, although they have lived in the area that is now southern Kyrgyzstan for hundreds of years.
Now she’s getting her supporters riled up with the newsflash that Uzbek high school students are taking their state exams in their native language. This displeases people, AKIpress cited Joldosheva as saying on April 18. She’s demanding an explanation from Education Minister Kanat Sadykov, while other deputies, perhaps bowing to the xenophobic climate, are falling in line behind her. One warns that his constituents are rallying at parliament’s gates, demanding the exams be stopped. The Education Ministry says the tests have been carried out in Kyrgyz, Russian and Uzbek since 2001; of approximately 40,000 students who took the exam last year, about 1,000 took it in Uzbek.
Joldosheva’s rhetoric is divisive in and of itself, but in a post-conflict situation it could be explosive.
A top U.S. military official has finished a trip around Central Asia, and while most of the official news about his visits with the region's leaders was prettyvague, there were a couple of interesting items from Kyrgyzstan.
After meeting with the U.S. official, CENTCOM commander General James Mattis, the chair of Kyrgyzstan's national security council Busurmankul Tabaldiyev suggested that Kyrgyzstan is open to keeping the Manas air base open after 2014. That would be a shift from recent public rhetoric from Bishkek, which has stressed the need to close the base as soon as the current agreement expires in 2014. From 24.kg, quoting Tabaldiyev:
Kyrgyzstan is interested in ensuring security and stability in the country and is ready to participate fully in the efforts of the international community to assist Afghanistan. The Kyrgyz side expressed its readiness to assist the U.S. government to continue after 2014, but in the interests of the country, the views of the people and the security of Kyrgyzstan.
In his meeting with Mattis, Tabaldiyev also apparently broached the topic of getting drone aircraft from the U.S., reports RFE/RL:
Tabaldiev told RFE/RL the request was for U.S. drones to be left for Kyrgyzstan during the withdrawal of NATO troops from Afghanistan due by the end of 2014.
...Mattis, leader of the U.S. delegation, reportedly replied that Washington is ready to consider the request.
A decrease in output at Kyrgyzstan’s largest gold mine may do serious harm to the country’s economy, which depends on Kumtor for roughly 12 percent of its GDP and significant tax revenues, say officials.
This week, Toronto-listed Centerra Gold downgraded its production forecast for 2012 by about a third thanks to ice and waste formations that grew in the high-altitude open-pit mine during a workers’ dispute last month, Reuters reports.
Centerra, which is one-third owned by the Kyrgyz government, had expected to produce 575,000 to 625,000 ounces of gold at Kumtor this year. It now hopes for approximately 400,000 ounces.
Ice began to form during the 10-day strike, the company said in a March 27 statement, warning that any further disruptions – either another walkout or roadblocks, which nearby communities commonly employ to demand concessions – “could have a significant impact on Kumtor achieving its revised forecast production.”
On March 29, Temir Sariev, minister of economy and antimonopoly policy, said he was “alarmed” by the new forecast, adding that the national budget depended on output similar to 2011, when the mine produced 583,156 ounces of gold. The deputy head of the National Bank said falling production would hurt overall GDP in 2012.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin exhibits his pleasure at meeting Kyrgyzstan President Almazbek Atambayev.
The Russian government is unhappy about Kyrgyzstan President Almazbek Atambayev's recent moves regarding Kyrgyz-Russian military relations, Itar-Tass reports, suggesting a public effort by the Kremlin to knock Atambayev down a notch. Moscow's complaints include Atambayev's statement that Russia's Kant air base in Kyrgyzstan is unnecessary, criticism of the Collective Security Treaty Organization head Nikolay Bordyuzha, and tough bargaining over a torpedo plant. Russia is even concerned that Atambayev might go wobbly on his vow to kick the U.S. out of Manas in 2014, the news agency reports:
Russia is very dissatisfied with the policy of Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev elected last October, the Vedomosti cited a high-ranking Russian official as saying to reporters on Wednesday. In February Atambayev stated about a probable shutdown of the Russian military base in Kant, though the agreement about the deployment of the military base in 2009 was extended for 49 years. “The military base did not bring much benefit,” Atambayev said. Last February the president demanded from Russia to pay off the debt for the military base at 15 million dollars and the Defence Ministry repaid the debt.
Atambayev’s statement sounded like the thunder in the sky creates new problems not only for bilateral relations, but also for the CSTO activities. “If earlier the CSTO brought together six allied countries and one country with the special position that is Uzbekistan, after the presidential elections in Kyrgyzstan we received a president, who does not realize always what he is saying,” the Russian official said. He is also not convinced that Atambayev will keep his promise to shutdown the US military base Manas by 2014.
A nodding donkey in Kyrgyzstan’s Batken Province, near Uzbekistan’s Sokh enclave.
Azerbaijan’s state oil company, SOCAR, is negotiating with authorities in Kyrgyzstan to set up a refinery in the country. While the project may help the Kyrgyz economy, it remains unclear whether it will help wean Bishkek off Russian energy supplies or force Kyrgyzstan simply to swap its dependence on Russian refined fuel for a dependence on Russian crude oil.
A delegation from SOCAR visited Bishkek in early March. According to Kyrgyzstan’s Ministry of Energy, the group was in Kyrgyzstan to survey locations in Chui Province, and discuss investment, tax, and trade regulations. Negotiations also touched on the country’s shaky electricity supply and its modest oil and gas reserves. The visit follows a January meeting between Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev and SOCAR President Rovnag Abdullayev in Bishkek.
Under the proposed deal, SOCAR would complete construction by the end of 2013, at a cost of $100 million. The facility would have an annual output of 2 million tons of refined products. At least 40 percent of this would exceed Kyrgyzstan’s domestic demand and be designated for foreign markets. Tajikistan would be an obvious destination, as it, like Kyrgyzstan, is dependent on Russia for refined oil products, but the Azeri-Press Agency (APA) has said that China is also a likely market.
U.S. Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Chad J. McNeeley
Leon Panetta speaks with the Manas Transit Center commander, Colonel James Jacobsen
U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta visited Bishkek on Tuesday, meeting with Kyrgyzstan officials to discuss extending the lease of the Manas air base that the U.S. operates there. Kyrgyzstan's president, Almazbek Atambayev, has consistently said that he wants the U.S. out of there by 2014, and the U.S. seems to be treading carefully, giving the soft sell and not seeking to renegotiate the base's lease just yet. From the Armed Forces Press Service:
A senior defense official said that arrangement is in place through July 2014, and that the secretary will not negotiate any additional use of the facility on this trip. Rather, the official added, the visit is intended to underscore to the Kyrgyz government and to Atambyev, who was inaugurated in December, that the United States government views its relationship with Kyrgyzstan as central to Central Asian regional security.
Still, extending the base lease was still clearly on the agenda, even if implicitly. Via Reuters:
A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there were no negotiations to keep Manas past 2014.
Still, the official suggested that the Pentagon wasn't taking Atambayev's position on Manas as the final word on the matter, saying there may be some "wiggle room."
Using the phrase "wiggle room" suggests that the U.S. is looking for a short-term extension -- i.e.long enough to get troops and equipment out of Afghanistan -- but not to stay in the base indefinitely. Atambayev presumably wouldn't have a problem with that -- as long as the price is right. This is probably the first step in a long process.
