Since the collapse of the USSR, there have been many achievements in the twelve states of Eurasia that were once Soviet republics (Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, the three South Caucasus, and the five Central Asian states). Parliaments and political parties have been created and elections held.
The failed August 1991 putsch against former Communist Party leader Mikhail Gorbachev marked the coup de grace for the Soviet Union. After the collapse, an atmosphere of naìve hope and inflated expectations prevailed in both the East and the West. In the former Soviet Union, people believed that prosperity and freedom could be quickly achieved following the removal of the Communist system.
The quantity of raw poppy products entering Tajikistan indicates that heroin-production laboratories may exist in the country, Tajik and Russian authorities say. Law-enforcement agencies have intercepted over 3.5 tons of narcotics so far in 2001, and some officials worry the country is gripped by an addiction crisis.
In the last month Russia's armed forces have unleashed a wave of terror against the Chechen population. Andrei Mironov, who works with the Memorial human rights group, reports that during his just-completed trip to Ingushetia, he found evidence of brazen and systematic human rights abuses.
When US President George Bush met his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in bucolic Slovenia in June, something curious was underway near the Caspian Sea. The 'neutral' government of Turkmenistan struck a deal with Russia to exchange gas for Russian arms.
Russian officials, reacting to international pressure, rejected a request to extradite a Tajik opposition newspaper editor, and released him from custody on July 11. The same day, Dodojon Atovullo, editor-in-chief of Tajikistan's opposition emigré newspaper Charogi Ruz (The Light Of Day), boarded a plane for Germany, where he currently resides.
This unbridled terror in Chechnya may portend acceleration in the authoritarian tendencies already exhibited by President Vladimir Putin. The wanton brutality may also have profound implications for Russia's neighbors in the Caucasus, especially Georgia, which borders Chechnya.
Saying Russia is violating its international commitments, Georgian leaders are calling for increased international pressure on Moscow to withdraw its troops from a military base in Abkhazia. Russian military and political leaders, however, give few indications that the soldiers will be leaving anytime soon.
Russian troops are scheduled to withdraw from two of their four military bases in Georgia by July 1, but it remains uncertain whether Moscow will meet the deadline. What seems more certain is that Moscow and Tbilisi will continue to wrangle over the issue of military bases for the foreseeable future.
