On the eve of President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov's scheduled trip to Moscow on December 23, the Turkmen envoy to Russia is trying to make nice, after months of acrimonious exchange between the two countries.
In an interview with Viktoriya Panfilova of the daily Nezavisimaya Gazeta , Turkmen Ambassador Halinazar Agahanov defends his country against charges in the Russian media that Ashgabat doesn't really have enough gas to feed all its customers, citing the estimates of 26.2 trillion cubic meters in reserves, supplied by the British consulting firm Gaffney, Clines & Associates. The diplomat then tries to smooth troubled relations by invoking the long tradition of cooperation between Russian and Turkmenistan, despite both having large reserves of hydrocarbons. Yet, inevitably Turkmenistan's litany grievances shines through.
Agahanov points out that for a long time, Ashgabat was entirely dependent on only one gas pipeline, the Central Asia-Center (CAC) line maintained by Russia. "We recall very well the situation in the mid-1990s, when the leadership of Russia's Gazprom tried rather brutally to dictate terms for the purchase of Turkmen gas, and even shut off the line completely for two years," says Agahanov. "You'll agree that this is an abnormal situation, when the leading branch of the economy of one country is put under dependence on the bureaucratic interests of a partner in the gas business," he added.
Turkmen musicians, Library of Congress, November 2011
The US and Turkmenistan organized a series of concerts and exhibits for "Turkmenistan Culture Days" in Washington, DC, the US Embassy and State News Agency of Turkmenistan reported.
A Turkmen delegation was received at the State Department and the Library of Congress to discuss bilateral cooperation and further exchanges. A musical program included the ghidjak, a traditional stringed instrument with a bow similar to a violin’s, and the dutar, a two-stringed lute.
The Turkmen government saw the program as an opportunity to show off President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov's role in preserving culture, and the US was hoping to familiarize the American public with the art of a country most could not find on a map, although it is increasingly important to American geopolitical interests. State Department writers helped the cause by describing the art scene in Turkmenistan as “reinvigorated”.
Turkmen theater and film director Annageldi Garajayev said Turkmenistan’s policy of "arts revival" involves new facilities for theater and is “creating opportunities.” He cited "new arts festivals, two new concert and cinema series, an opera revival, a successful Turkmen chamber orchestra and two new television channels devoted to culture."
The University of Maryland organized a meeting for the visiting Turkmen "cultural workers," as the Turkmen state media dubbed them, using the old Soviet phrase, and the Meridian International Center hosted an exhibition of Turkmen art,
Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov bowing to the Koran during his presidential inauguration, February 16, 2007.
Orchestrating Turkmenistan's sole state-controlled party, government-organized social movements, and labor unions as well as loyal elders and officials, President Berdymukhamedov has nominated himself as president for elections to take place February 12, 2012.
No other candidate has appeared on the scene.
At a ceremony December 15, the Turkmen leader wheeled out the state's lone Democratic Party as well as the state-run labor, women, youth and war veterans' organizations to applaud his candidacy, the opposition website gundogar.org reported, citing the Russian news agency RIA Novosti.
Merd Ishangulyyev, a pensioner and local town elder, stepped forward to formally make the nomination, unanimously supported by all the other loyalists at the meeting. With every major state-controlled organization now behind the president, it's difficult to understand how even symbolically, other candidates might emerge. Any potential rivals would still theoretically have a chance if a local initiative group of citizens were formed under the law, then registered at the discretion of local officials, and finally allowed to meet -- with everyone at the meeting showing their passports.
In the 2007 elections that brought Berdymukhamedov to power, several docile alternative candidates were permitted to run as candidates. Their purpose seemed to be to articulate themes for the carefully-controlled state media previewing Berdymukhamedov's eventual reforms in agriculture, education, and health care.
But so far, not even those kind of puppet candidates have emerged.
President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov and President Dmitry Medvedev in Dushanbe in September 2011
Veteran Russian Central Asia correspondent Arkady Dubnov has a feature in Moscow News this week about the growing crisis for Russians in Turkmenistan with dual passports. As we noted, chrono-tm.org reported last week that notices have begun appearing in travel agencies that starting in 2013, tickets to Russia can only be purchased if a Turkmen passport and a Russian visa are shown.
Russians have been under pressure for some time to give up their Russian passport if they wish to receive the new Turkmen passport.
As Dubnov notes, the chief advantage for dual passport holders has been the ability to easily travel back and forth between Russia and Turkmenistan -- the average Turkmen would not find it anywhere near as easy to travel abroad.
Dubnov cites "informed sources" in Ashgabat that told him of a "new wave of panic" seizing Russians still left in Turkmenistan. The sources said, citing a registry in the Russian consulate, that there are about 120,000 people with dual Russian and Turkmen passports remaining in Turkmenistan. Prices on apartments have reportedly fallen by 30 percent, because people are trying to get out quickly and are selling their homes for a lower price. Parents who sent their children to kindergarten this fall found that they were required to indicate if they had Russian citizenship, and that fueled worries as well.
Rashid Meredeov, Turkmenistan's Foreign Minister, is rumored to have said to those in his close circle that "Russia has already ceased to be a factor in Turkmen foreign policy," Dubnov reports.
Here's a shocker: a former Turkmen cultural official is criticizing the lack of democracy in Turkmenistan in Ashgabat, i.e. not from exile or abroad, but speaking inside the country -- and publicly, and using his own name. That's extremely rare in Turkmenistan because of the great risks involved.
"If someone wants to set up a political party today, there is no legislation for doing so," he said. "There are people who want to create a party. But they are told [by the Mejlis] that 'there is no law on establishing political parties.' Everything is blocked."
As we reported last week, President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov's pocket parliamentarians have been trying to snow the public in state-controlled media interviews that they will have "democratic" elections ostensibly open to free nominations.
There's no mention at all at the lack of enabling legislation for parties -- which is definitely required in a country where the constitutional norms for freedom of association aren't upheld and there's no independent judiciary to enforce them.
While the prospect is held out for registering citizens' nominations groups in the absence of parties, such registration will be totally at the discretion of local officials and various technical hurdles will likely prevent the emergence of truly independent alternative candidates.
Turkmenistan's Ministry of Health in Ashgabat, July 2010
Turkmenistan's minister of health has been reprimanded by the president for "unsatisfactory performance," the opposition website gundogar.org reported, citing the presidential news service.
President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, himself a trained dentist and former health minister, issued a strict reprimand to Kurbanmamed Ilyasov, current minister of health and the medical industry, for "allowing shortcomings in compliance with labor discipline."
The dressing-down took place in real time, on one of the government video conferences that the Turkmen leader is increasingly using to control his subordinates across the country.
Lest you think the public rebuke might be related to Turkmenistan's actual poor health care system, as documented in reports such as the 2010 study by Doctors without Borders (which has since left the country in frustration with the bureaucracy) -- it wasn't about medicine.
Instead, Berdymukhamedov criticized his hapless health minister for failing to build yet another set of health facilities on time, and for falling behind the break-neck pace that the Turkmen dictator has set for constructing dazzling new state-of-the-art clinics.
The minister was warned that if he did not shape up immediately, he would be released from his duties.
Ilyasov was appointed as minister in April 2010, taking the place of Ata Serdarov, who was sent to serve as ambassador to Armenia. (He happens to be President Berdymukhamedov's cousin.) Previously, Ilyasov served as minister of tourism and sports.
This prompts us to ask: is there a doctor in the house?
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon and his wife visit Turkmenbashi Ruhi Mosque and Turkmenbashi mausoleum, April 2010
The UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has concluded its latest session, where it reviewed the Turkmen government's report on its compliance with the treaty on these rights.
Areas of concern included the negative consequences of the policy of “Turkmenisation” which resulted in discrimination against minorities, the strong negative traditional practices discriminating against women, high levels of unemployment, the absence of independent unions, the lack of information on the extent of human trafficking, child marriages, the forced relocation of human rights activists, and widespread hospital closures. The Committee recommended that the State party address discrimination against minorities and women, enhance access to employment, criminalize domestic violence, uphold the freedom of religion enshrined in the Constitution, and cease the practice of censorship of electronic communication and blocking of internet.
What a contrast with the the UN's web site in Ashgabat, where the conclusions of this particular UN treaty body's review -- like others before it -- are simply not published on its site.
Instead, there are only positive and upbeat stories like this one about the granting of Turkmen nationality to 3,000 stateless people.
The former British defense secretary Geoff Hoon, now chief executive for the joint British-Italian helicopter manufacturer AgustaWestland , received an audience with President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov on December 1, the government daily Neitral'niy Turkmenistan reported, citing the State News Agency of Turkmenistan (TDH).
TDH quoted Hoon as saying that Turkmenistan had earned a reputation in international business circles as "a solid and reliable partner." Apparently he hasn't spoken to Russia's MTS, kicked out of Turkmenistan last year.
Like many other pilgrims beating a path to Berdymukhamedov's palace door, Hoon "expressed sincere admiration for the contemporary look of the white marbled Turkmen capital which has now become one of the most beautiful cities of the world," said TDH.
Hoon pitched some unspecified projects, and the Turkmen leader listened "with interest" and said they deserved "attentive, detailed study." He said that Turkmenistan intends to expand and modernize its aviation.
The former British defense secretary moved to the leadership position at AgustaWestland last May.
Hoon, who was defense secretary from 1999 to 2005, was suspended from the Parliamentary Labour Party in disgrace in 2010 after being secretly filmed by the television show Dispatches offering his consultancy services for £3,000 a day, the military news site defencemanagement.com reports.
Lately, the Turkmen government has been putting the squeeze on Russian passport holders in Turkmenistan, trying to get them to drop their Russian papers and accept Turkmen passports to access the benefits of citizenship, including travel.
Turkmen travel agents have begun posting announcements that starting in July 2013, air tickets for destinations abroad will only be sold upon presentation of the new Turkmen international passport, Chronicles of Turkmenistan (chrono-tm.org) reports.
What this means in practice is that people with dual Russian and old Turkmen passports who try to buy tickets to Moscow at the Ashgabat airport are finding out that they cannot travel without a Russian entry visa. Students trying to travel to foreign universities may be stopped at the border and warned about a travel ban.
People with Russian passports still living in Turkmenistan are increasingly feeling the heat:
“This is another reminder that that we have to make a decision whether to renounce Russian citizenship or leave Turkmenistan for good”, – an Ashgabat resident, a dual national, told chrono-tm.org.
Already, Russians and even some Turkmens with Russian passports are leaving Turkmenistan and essentially going into exile in Russia or other neighboring states, fearful that they may be trapped in Turkmenistan without the right to travel otherwise.
Under various pretexts, Turkmen authorities have been refusing to issue new Turkmen passports to anyone who is still holding a Russian passport. In the last year, they have been demanding that applicants sign papers to renounce their Russian citizenship.
A prominent leader of the ethnic Kazakh community in Turkmenistan has been prevented from leaving Ashgabat to make a visit to Kazakhstan, RFE/RL's Kazakh Service reports.
Bisengul Begdesinov, 56, told RFE/RL today that on December 2 Turkmen border guards did not allow him to board a plane from Ashgabat to Almaty, saying that the Prosecutor-General's Office had barred him from leaving the country.
In May, Ashgabat's Kopetdag district court found Begdesinov guilty of fraud and bribery in dealing with ethnic Kazakhs intending to move to neighboring Kazakhstan. The court gave Begdesinov a suspended sentence of five years in jail.
He left the courtroom a free man but was obliged to register with and regularly report to Ashgabat's parole officers.
Begdesinov told RFE/RL that Turkmen law allows individuals with suspended sentences to leave the country for short periods of time. He said the decision to bar him from visiting other countries might be an attempt to officially register a parole violation.
There were some 90,000 ethnic Kazakhs living in Turkmenistan in 1995. Thousands have since left the country for Kazakhstan in a repatriation process promoted by the Kazakh government.
Copyright (c) 2011. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036
The Karakum, or "black sand" desert, covers 70 percent of Turkmenistan’s surface. Population is sparse there, with only one person per 2.5 miles. Rain might come once in a decade. Underneath this austere territory lies the ancient city of Merv, near today's Mary, whose ruins are still studied by scholars around the world, as well as a great deal of oil and gas, making Turkmenistan's reserves among the largest in the world.
Little of the country’s closed political system has changed since President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov succeeded long-time dictator Saparmurat Niyazov – the Turkmenbashi, or “father of all Turkmen” – in 2006. Civic activists continue to be harassed, detained, or forced to leave the country. All lines of power lead to the president, who maintains a harsh top-down management of subordinate officials who are constantly reprimanded, shuffled around, or dismissed for "shortcomings" and "negligence."
With so much of what happens in Turkmenistan hidden or deliberately suppressed, it is our hope to sift through what stories do emerge in domestic and international media, and attempt to see the true dimensions of a country whose impoverished people rarely see the benefits of their nation's tremendous wealth.
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