So here we have it now (distributed today), so we don't just have to listen to Russian analyst speculation or my newsletter, we can hear it from the Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia himself, in answer to some journalists in Dushanbe:
No, the US will not use Tajikistan as its backyard or a doormat on its way out of Afghanistan.
But really, the next questions for the journalists to have asked, if they had had an opportunity before the Assistant Secretary was whisked away on the tarmac, would be something like these:
o But is the US training special ops teams or intelligence-related personnel or troops so that we have a close working relationship with the oppressive government of Tajikistan regarding post-withdrawal Afghanistan?
o But just how many US troops and advisers will remain in Tajikistan, and will this number grow, and will there be any kind of informal cooperation with the abusive government of Tajikistan around something like Ayni or any other location?
o But does the US feel that it is constrained by the presence of Russian troops and Russian plans/intentions regarding Tajikistan?
o Say, why *won't* the operation take place through Tajikistan, but takes place through Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and of course Russia (60% of the NDN chokehold is in Russia)? Is life about choices among Eurasian tyrants or are there logistical issues with road or rail conditions or something?
o Could you be more specific then, if you aren't literally going to run the US troops backward out of Tajikistan, and you aren't going to literally help Tajikistan through the base in Ayni, what *will* you will be doing militarily in terms of helping the authoritarian government of Tajikistan to have stability?
Robert O. Blake, Jr. Assistant Secretary, Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs
Palace of Nations
Dushanbe, Tajikistan
February 20, 2013
Assistant Secretary Blake:
Well good evening everyone. I’ve just concluded a very productive
meeting with his Excellency President Rahmon. I had the opportunity to
thank President Rahmon for his very strong support of stabilization
efforts in Afghanistan and for his strong support of the U.S. and
international coalition efforts in Afghanistan. We discussed how we can
continue to strengthen our cooperation in the areas of border security,
counterterrorism, and counternarcotics. I congratulated President Rahmon
on the progress that Tajikistan has made in its efforts to join the
World Trade Organization that will occur very soon and I remarked that
this will be an important step in facilitating trade and regional
integration in this region. We also discussed the importance of free,
transparent and fair elections in the elections that will take place in
November; as well as the importance of allowing space for
nongovernmental organizations, for journalists, and for other members of
civil society. I will be giving a press conference tomorrow but I’ll be
glad to take one or two questions now.
Question: Did you have a chance to discuss with the President,
issues related to military cooperation, in particular, using the
territory of Tajikistan for transportation of some cargo for
Afghanistan, for some joint cooperation there? Did you discuss issues of
the use of one of our airports in the remote region of Ayni for the use
of military operations and for the purposes of military cooperation
with Afghanistan?
Assistant Secretary Blake: No, we didn’t discuss any use of
any Tajik airport either now or in the future but we did discuss, in
general, our cooperation on Afghanistan and again particularly the
importance of continuing to strengthen our cooperation in the areas of
border security and counternarcotics and counterterrorism particularly
now that this very important transition in Afghanistan is beginning.
I’ll take one more question.
Question [BBC/Tajikistan]: Does the U.S. government have an
intention to withdraw its troops very soon through the territory of
Tajikistan and if yes, how will Tajikistan benefit from it?
Assistant Secretary Blake: No, as you all know, the President
of the United States announced during his State of the Union speech that
the United States would be halving the number of troops in Afghanistan
by February of next year, but I don’t expect that that operation will
take place through Tajikistan. But nonetheless I do want to express our
support for Tajikistan’s efforts to help the stabilization for
Afghanistan and we very much count on those efforts continuing. And
again, I’ll be glad to take your questions tomorrow. Thank you very
much.
USAID provides a gift of microscopes to Turkmen medical personnel. Photo US Embassy in Ashgbat
So when I heard that Robert Blake, Assistant Secretary of State for Central and South Asia, was going to "meet with civil society representatives" on his day-long trip to Turkmenistan last week, naturally I took out my microscope here, like these Turkmen medical workers took out these handy gifts from USAID.
Not to say anything bad about people fighting the good fight and all, but...civil society? Turkmenistan? Really, guys?
I was really, really curious what they would come up with.
It's true that there are a very tiny handful of human rights defenders in Turkmenistan, or intellectuals who question the regime modestly, and such, and perhaps that's whom they met? But there's no transcript of the meeting or even a press release -- there's only a round table with journalists which is separate.
UPDATE: I've now found out about Blake's meeting, although not from his office, and as I suspected, it
was a very tiny number of people who are very beleaguered, so I won't
mention their names, so as not to put them further in the spotlight and targeted for repression. Although I do hope that this meeting with the somewhat influential United States will guarantee them in fact some modicum of protection.
I've
also been hearing more from various human rights groups about the press law,
and found it is quite fake: you must be accredited by the state to be
called "a journalist," so that freelancers and bloggers do not count and
are not protected. Remember the old American adage: the best press law
is no press law. That's why it says "Congress shall make no law..." in
the First Amendment.
There are many issues that should have been
discussed by Blake in his meetings with officials, but we don't know
what they were because they're secret (except for the answers to the
press at the round table, which were not very complete, despite his
protestations).
There are the appalling conditions in the prisons;
the long sentences to political prisoners who are missing or who don't
get visits for very long periods.
There's the entire issue of
Russian migration/citizenship which has been handled horribly by both
Russia and Turkmenistan, forcing people either to give up their jobs and homes and
flee to Russia in uncertainty, or stay in Turkmenistan but unable to
leave and live as second-class citizens.
One of the reasons I
insisted on keeping Jackson-Vanik on the books is because Turkmenistan
remains as essentially a non-market economy which restricts emigration
-- it keeps a black list of people not allowed out of -- or into --the
country.
***
So...did they mean that they were going to meet with the Galkynysh Galkynysh Galkynysh imenno Galkynysha? ("Galkynysh" is a Turkmen word that means "renewal" or "revival," and the state makes very heavy use of it for just about everything -- they renamed their gas fields by this word, and it's also the name of a fake government-organized civic movement that in fact actually got disbanded and folded into something else recently, I think. Galkynysh is also the name of Berdymukhamedov's yacht.
If you look down below at the recommended articles, you will see one BBC story, "Turkmen FM Missing for 10 Years". He likely was outright executed in the prison system or died of mistreatment. I've always been astounded that an actual foreign minister -- a man who met with all kinds of foreigners and was known around the world because of the role this gas-rich state played in the region -- could actually go missing and no one would really seem to ask for him anymore. Does anymore? There's your answer about civil society: that. When they find him -- or confess to what they have done with him, that's the day that maybe civil society might begin...
Right before Blake's plane touched down, the Turkmens churned out a new "liberal" media law. I'm sure it will be implemented in practice *cough*. As usual, with his latest house-cleaning, Berdy has kicked the latest TV director to the curb. Who would ever agree to take that job?!
Now, I'm the first to say that civil society doesn't have to exist in registered NGOs, let alone USAID or Soros grantees. If anything, the more a social movement can exist without those confines, which can be deadly in their own way, the better. Civil society can take lots of forms. In this part of the world, you can't be horribly picky. You work with what there is. If all you can do is GONGO work, you do that, just because it's better than a stick in your eye.
But when you do this sort of fake stuff, you have to keep pinching yourself and reminding yourself it's fake -- and I don't think enough people do that these days, especially younger people. They come to believe the fiction that USAID is helping "the community" when they do this or that in a place like Turkmenistan. In fact, they are helping strengthening the autocratic government. It's like the questions I asked about the Navy Seabees, God bless them, when they go help the Stroibat in Tajikistan. This has its blessings, but it's good to ask what at the end of the day it is reinforcing, an abusive coercive army that is displacing what could be a viable private sector in construction or...
No doubt some bureaucrats somewhere are trying to tease out the tendrils of this new press law and call it some sort of "improvement"...
To be sure, various things go on in Turkmenistan that are touching or quaint or that provide people with a sense of "humanity" that gives them hope that "maybe" civil society is possible. Of course, if civil society means the ability to go to a Western film show, then we've lowered our standards and we're not thinking of institutions anymore, but just semblances.
Turkmens were moved as any one would be of the horrific massacre of school children in Newtown, Massachusetts, and they left out flowers and stuffed animals just like people around the world.
US Embassy Ashgabat 2012.
And Turkmens learn "California Dreamin' to sing for a foreign guest".
But while endearing and human, it's humanity, not civil society, which is what enables societies to be humane as well as human.
I was looking at some photos of North Korean scenes the other day and I saw one that showed a couple and their child having a picnic in a park. The father was bouncing the child up and down. Sure, North Koreans have picnics, even in their totalitarian horror. Even so, it reminded me of Erik Bulatov's painting DANGER with the picnic. The borders loom...
The US had toned down the human rights/democracy/civil society rhetoric quite a bit in dealing with Turkmenistan in the earlier years of Berdymukhamedov's reign. I think they wanted to make sure they didn't queer any gas deals.
But now that those deals have remained elusive for some 6 years now, and all those promised blocs for Chevron and ConocoPhilips and such aren't materializing, the US has gotten a little bit more forward-leaning on the human rights portfolio.
So now someone like Blake will actually weave these words into his speeches but of course in an entirely anodyne fashion:
As I said earlier, we had a good discussion on human rights issues, some
of the new laws that have been passed here in Turkmenistan, as well as
on educational and exchange programs that are of great importance.
This was an opportunity to say something a tad more critical about that press law with the paint not even dry on it, but, alas...
By the way, some information came out about how [Blake] would meet with representatives of civil society, and talk about human rights. I think such a conversation in Turkmenistan will be extremely uninteresting, especially given the background of America's vested interested in the region.
It's just interesting to see their approaches: in some parts of the world, they trumpet about their principled and uncompromising adherence to the struggle for human rights even to the point of hysteria, and in others -- they simply don't notice obvious things in places where it is profitable for them.
Ouch. Well, no angel he, as Russia's appalling support of the most murderous regime on the planet now after the North Koreans -- Assad in Syria -- just trumps anything any Russian wants to natter on about human rights.
But he doesn't say anything any different than US human rights activists who complain about the selectivity with which the US bashes Belarus -- because it can -- and is mute on Russia and Central Asia.
Turkmenistan does not let us send trucks or trains through their land, but they allow overflights of "non-lethal" materials and they have a "gas-and-go" arrangement at their airport -- and are building a new airport.
Question: You last visited Turkmenistan in 2011 as part of a
regional tour of Central Asia as well as Azerbaijan. During your last
visit you criticized the very slow speed and tempo of reform and
democratization in the region, and in Turkmenistan in particular. So
what has changed?
Assistant Secretary Blake: Well, in all of my meetings today I
just expressed the view of the United States that political development
needs to keep pace with economic development, and that it’s very
important for any society to have a vigorous civil society to help
ensure popular support for the programs of the government.
So we talked about the new law on mass media as well as the law on
national security agencies and, again, I urged progress on all the
fundamental freedoms, not only because those are important in their own
right, but because those will help to ensure a stable, democratic, and
prosperous future for Turkmenistan.
Question: Can you provide more specifics?
Assistant Secretary Blake: I think I’ve been pretty specific.
I've followed up with a query to him on Twitter on who these people were in "civil society"; I think it will "go nowhere".
Well, one wonders if in the conversations, Blake asks things like "Say, where's your foreign minister? He's been missing for a decade. Did you find him yet?" Or "Say, how are those young people who put up Youtube videos of that explosion in Abadan? Are they out of jail?"
I suspect the conversation doesn't go that way. And it's hard to make it go that way when the real hysterics and trumpeters are people like the regime representatives, not only about how wonderful they are, with their iodine in the water and safe baby zones and everything like that, but how awful the rest of the world is by contrast.
What you have to do with a situation like this, as I said, however, is work with what you can. Yes, it's good to have the visiting inspectors and firemen raise the tough cases. Those who have to work there have to try to do the benign things like windmills or anti-AIDS programs that they can get passed.
They have to try to find their "counterparts" in the professions and try to break their isolation. Of course, all the people allowed to meet with foreigners are groomed and cleared and you end up talking to the same ones over and over again at the Institute for Democracy and Human Rights WITH the President, in meetings where the Protector, as he is called, beams over you from a portrait. No matter, you keep trying, especially to get Turkmens to travel outside their country where they can have some new experiences.
No doubt Amb. Robert Patterson does all of these things, with his considerable experience from Leningrad to Somalia; he speaks Russian, and probably tries every little thing you can try there to try to create normalcy. But it is hard, and you can't do it alone. It would help if the US could get the EU more on the same page so that things like German doctors agreeing to preside while Berdymukhamedov, trained as a dentist, operates on a hapless Turkmen patient, don't happen and therefore don't add lustre to this lunatic.
It's about damage control, and pushing the envelope, and not conferring legitimacy on them. And hoping for a better day...
Meanwhile, in a place like Turkmenistan, it's best not to organize something called "a meeting with civil society" when it most certainly doesn't exist even in the tattered form it does in say, Uzbekistan.
This is my little blog about Tajikistan that comes out on Saturdays. I had a three-week hiatus during the region's holidays, which I call "The Land of the Eternal Yolka," and my own holidays, which were actually a chance to get some big work projects done. If you want to read past issues, click on "Tajikistan" under the categories. If you have comments leave them here or write me at catfitzny@yahoo.com where you can also get on the list to get this newsletter via email.
COMMENTS
Here we go again with the on-again, off-again social media website closures in Tajikistan which have been going on for months and which I've reported on in all my past issues.
What is the purpose of these shenanigans? Not really to shut down the sites, which likely make money for somebody, and likely related to the president and his family somewhere. It's just to let them know that "they can if they want," and they are in charge here. Post your LolCats if you will, people, but we can pull them on you at any time, for no any reason, or no reason. (Actually, they are a lot like the TOS of most of these services in that respect, because they can ban you arbitrarily at will for any reason or no reason, too!)
What's more important than whether or not these Western sites get blocked -- although they are still significant and an important outlet for some -- is how the internal sites like Asia Plus fare, and what the government or its proxies are doing to control the domestic media.
Despite the foreign minister's claim that he would get 80% of the population on the Internet, the government is going slow and keeping a tight rein on the web. And the Muslim authorities are also letting journalists know they are watching. The Council of Ulems, which is basically an arm of the state as Forum 18's Igor Rotar has explained, recently issued a statement saying that fatwahs were not to be recognized if issued from various unofficial groups. Well, at first that might seem like welcome news, if the official Islamic Council tells people that fatwahs are not going to be recognized. But all they mean is that they themselves get to be the only ones in the fatwah business.
The journalists' community is not sitting back on their hands when they hear this sort of thing; Nuriddin Karshibayev, head of the National Association of Independent Media of Tajikistan said this was a mere "recommendation" and that in any event, a fatwah "is not a lawful demand, and looks like interference in the professional activity of a journalist , which is an act punishable under criminal law". Well, good luck with that, as a state-approved and state-controlled entity like the Council of Ulems may be viewed as making "lawful demands" by the regime when it tells TV and radio "not to corrupt youth" and so on. It's obviously a tug of war. I don't know why Karshibayev said, "If the Council of Ulems believes our journalist do not know how to write materials on religious themes, please, let us organize trainings and teach them". Good Lord, that's giving them too much, as you don't want this state religious council in the business of "training" journalists. That must be merely a rhetorial device to call them out (I hope).
Here's a good article from 2010 which explains why people even turn to Islamic authorities and want to get their fatwahs in the first place: they want some authority to deal with problems that the state can't or won't address, and they want in particular a moral leader to resolve their problems like divorce and division of property. These are people's customs and heritage and they want to turn to them as the secular Soviet and post-Soviet governments aren't helpful. The question is whether these customs, as they become more enhanced, and as the government also exploits people's need for them, become either a toehold for extremism or another conveyor belt for state control or both simultaneously. Certainly the effort to close down two stores that had build informal mosques on their premises lets us know that the state doesn't like freelancing on religion and is ready to invoke both building codes and religious law to accomplish this task.
The US military is in Tajikistan. What do they do all day, as they wait for the seams to burst on their handiwork in Afghanistan next door after 2014? Well, they are trying to make "infrastructure" in keeping with the Obama Administration's notion, developed under Hillary Clinton and likely to be continued under John Kerry, of a "New Silk Road" that will replace the ground lines of communication (G-LOC) in the Northern Distribution Network with arteries for business and trade.
In Tajikistan, the Seabees are helping the Stroibat. Oh, the Stroibat! Remember them from the Soviet era? That was the division of the Soviet Red Army where a lot of hapless recruits were put to work building roads -- and still are. As I'm getting the impression from some history, it seems the tsar, then the commissars would tend to put Central Asians into the stroibat instead of combat units because they weren't sure they'd stay loyal to the cause.
Perhaps you didn't realize that Seabees despite its spelling comes from
CB, which is American for "stroibat" -- Construction Battallion. As we can learn helpfully from the US ambassador in Cambodia, now that there's much social media out there:
Since World War II, the Seabees have been building roads, airstrips, and buildings in various locales all over the world, sometimes in support of a specific military objective, as during World War II, but other times to help improve the infrastructure of a developing country.
So the American stroibat, if you will, is very much central to the notion of the New Silk Road.
In Tajkistan, as you can read below, and see all the pictures, the work has involved training their "counterparts". Except, like a lot of things in this business, they aren't really counterparts. The Navy Seabees are voluntary recruits, and they come from a country where there is a rich and developed private sector in construction, and other competing branches even of civilian construction for disasters like FEMA, not to mention the Army Corps of Engineers. And even if you look at things like the Roosevelt era and the WPA and the roads and national parks construction, the American state hasn't used the metaphor of "building socialism" in the same way as the Soviet and post-Soviet states have, literally mobilizing workers forcefully into the army, or on volunteer subbotniks and such, to get large construction projects done.
On balance, it's probably a good thing that these mid-Western kids in the US Navy are teaching the Tajik Stroibat things like how to put in shims on cross-beams.
But are they displacing what in fact could be better established in the private sector or civilian sector, rather than strengthening the Soviet-style Stroibat? I wonder. To be sure, our Seabees are going to great lengths to "strengthen the local economy," as they put it, buying their construction materials in nearby markets. Those markets might depend on the good will of some state or even religious potentate in that area; there really isn't a "free market" in the American sense.
Of such mismatches of seeming counterparts, history is made. Will the New Silk Road get built with a series of these kinds of shims, stuck into whatever seeming counterpart they can find hastily before 2015? Look down at the end to see how much money we spend on Tajikistan: a pittance -- $45 million for this last year for the non-military projects. So, maybe it's a good thing that building is getting done out of the military budget?
The military gets in where private business may still fear to tread. Maplecroft cautions against investment in these corrupt and unstable countries. Okay, well I do wonder this: how is that Tajik engineer who headed up the British gold company Oxus' efforts in Uzbekistan, who got jailed when the Uzbek government seized their assets? Eventually, this company stopped complaining publicly. Maybe they made a settlement. What happened to the engineer, Said Ashurov? It seems he is still serving a 12-year sentence for "espionage" while those with foreign passports headed for the exits.
* Tajik Government Still Messing Around with Social Media Sites
* Religious Council: No Fatwahs! Or Rather, Just Our Fatwahs, Please!
* American Stroibat Helps Tajik Stroibat - and So the New Silk Road...
The Tajik government's Communications Service chief says the Facebook
social network and the website of RFE/RL's Tajik Service will be
accessible again in two or three days.
Beg Zuhurov told journalists on January 18 that "access to some websites was disrupted because of technical problems."
The Facebook social network and RFE/RL's website in Tajik are inaccessible in Tajikistan again.
Asomuddin Atoev, the chairman of Tajikistan's Association of Internet
Service Providers, told RFE/RL that Tajikistan's leading Internet
service providers received SMS instructions from the government's
Communications Service requesting the sites be blocked.
However, the service's chief, Beg Zuhurov, told RFE/RL that his service had not given any instructions to block the sites.
Something strange happened in Tajikistan over a late December
weekend. On a Friday evening, the government’s communications agency
ordered Internet service providers (ISPs) to block 131 websites for
“technical” reasons. Then suddenly, a few days later, the ISPs were
told, in effect; ‘never mind.’
* * *
“Instead of creating a favorable environment for further development of
Tajik IT enterprises, and ensuring their access to foreign markets, the
regulator creates preposterous impediments,” said Asomiddin Atoev, the
chairman of the Association of Internet Providers. “Tajikistan recently joined the World Trade Organization.
The authorities simply do not realize the responsibility imposed by
many WTO provisions. In particular, these include the creation of a
favorable business environment, including in the IT sector, the creative
industry, and [protection of] intellectual property,” Atoev added.
(Summary translation) Theologians at the Islamic Center of Tajikistan recommend media leaders and officials of the government's Committee on Religious Affairs to refrain from giving out fatwahs (in Islam, this is an explanation of a certain problem of a religious and legal nature, and also an answer to a question of a religious nature, which a competent person provides).
"A fatwah can be giving exclusively by the ulems of the Islamic Center and our doors are open to all citizens of the country," says the appeal, which was passed at a meeting of the Council of Ulems [Theologians] of the Islamic Center of Tajikistan and distributed January 19."
"A democratic state gives the right to all people to express their opinion but in all developed countries, democracy is limited by the frameworks of the law. It is hard to imagine what would happen with our society if individual groupings, for the sake of their own interests, would interpret the canons of shariah in their own way," says the statement.
Nuriddin Karshibayev, head of the National Association of Independent Media of Tajikistan, has told Asia Plus that the ulems announcment is only a "recommendation" because the Constitution prohibits censorship.
"If the Council of Ulems believes our journalist do not know how to write materials on religious themes, please, let us organize trainings and teach them. But getting a fatwah, forgive me, that's not a lawful demand, and looks like interference in the professional activity of a journalist , which is an act punished under criminal law."
Muminabad has a population of 13,000 with 4 mosques; there are a total of 51 in the whole region.
In the village of Muminabad (see some good pictures here), in the administrative center of Muminabad district of the Khatlon region, the owners of two private stores unlawfully tried to adapt them as mosques.
Sharif Abdylkhamidov, head of the Qulyab regional department of religious affairs, said authorities blocked the store owner on Tursunzade Street in Muminabad who had put in a separate entrance and turned the second floor of the store into a mosque.
The Tajik foreign minister has officially asked Russian authorities to
provide Dushanbe with historical documents related to borders between
former Soviet republics in Central Asia.
Hamrohon Zarifi told journalists on January 17 that the documents are
needed to clarify Tajikistan's borders with neighboring Uzbekistan and
Kyrgyzstan in order to prevent problems like those experienced in
Uzbekistan's Sokh district.
The presidents of Tajikistan and Russia signed an agreement
in October to extend the presence of the Russian military base in
Tajikistan for another 30 years. But Tajikistan is dragging its feet on
the ratification of the deal, waiting first for Russia to carry out its
part of the deal, to supply duty-free petroleum products and to loosen
restrictions on labor migrants, according to a report
in the Russian newspaper Kommersant. The Kremlin wanted all of these
issues to be dealt with all at the same time, and Russian foreign
minister Sergey Lavrov just finished a visit to Dushanbe, where he attempted to iron out these issues.
Investors operating in three post-Soviet Central Asian republics face
an “extreme risk” of having their businesses expropriated, according to
a survey released last week in the UK.
Maplecroft, a Bath-based political risk consultancy, said on January 9
that it had found plenty of reasons to be wary of the business climate
in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan after “evaluating the risk to
business from discriminatory acts by the government that reduces
ownership, control or rights of private investments either gradually or
as a result of a single action.” Recent fits of resource nationalism in
Kyrgyzstan -- where the Kumtor gold mine,
operated by Toronto-based Centerra Gold, accounted for 12 percent of
GDP in 2011 and more than half the country’s industrial output – and
rampant authoritarianism in places like Tajikistan and Turkmenistan have
led Maplecroft to rank these countries among the most risky in the
world.
Ever since Rustam Emomali (the eldest son of the president of Tajikistan) began working at the Customs Agency, this service has obtained good results. This was stated today at a press conference by Nemat Rahmatov, first deputy of the Customs Service of the government of Tajikistan.
"Only in the course of the last year, 88 million somoni were sent to the country's budget by preventing contrabrand of goods. We are proud that the son of the head of state works in our agency, and we hope Rustam Emomali will continue his activity in the customs service," said Rahmatov.
Seabees assigned to Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 133 work with
the Tajik Army to rebuild, restore and remodel various buildings on
Shamsi Military Base in Tajikistan. NMCB 133 is deployed with Commander,
Task Group 56.2, promoting maritime security operations and theater
security cooperation efforts in the U.S. 5th Fleet area of
responsibility. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd
Class Derek R. Sanchez/Released)
Builder Constructionman Taylor Mendonca, assigned to Naval Mobile
Construction Battalion 133, teaches a Tajik soldier how to shim cross
slats while building a roof during an international relations project
with the Tajik Army. NMCB 133 is deployed with Commander, Task Group
56.2, promoting maritime security operations and theater security
cooperation efforts in the US. 5th Fleet area of responsibility. (U.S.
Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Derek R.
Sanchez/Released)
U.S. Navy Seabees assigned to Naval Mobile Construction Battalion (NMCB)
133 deployed to Dushanbe, Tajikistan, in November as part of a Global
Peace Operations Initiative (GPOI), the first Seabee mission in
Tajikistan.
In support of the Office of Military Cooperation (OMC) and Tajikistan
Ministry of Defense (MOD), the Seabee crew began construction alongside
the MOD's construction force, the Stroibat, on phase one of a $1 million
project at the Peace Support Operation Training Center (PSOTC) at
Shamsi Base, funded by GPOI.
To help boost the local economy and establish lasting relationships with
contractors and vendors, the building materials were procured in nearby
street vendor markets by Utilitiesman 1st Class Justin Walker, the
Seabee project supervisor, and Air Force contracting officer, 1st Lt.
Sunset Lo. The vendors delivered the materials in a timely manner,
enabling the project to move forward on schedule.
A car with US Embassy license plates (004 D 055) in Dushanbe was involved in a hit-in-run accident which killed Loik Sharali on December 29, 2012, Asia Plus reports. Police are investigating, and the US Embassy says they are cooperating.
Lots of "Yankee Go Home" in the comments there, and recollections of how the US disregarded diplomatic immunity for a Georgian diplomat who killed a girl in an accident in the US.
The 15 coaches including a restaurant car were ordered from Ukrainian
manufacturer Kriukov Car Building Works. Similar to vehicles previously
supplied to Kazakhstan, they are designed for use in temperatures
between -45°C and 40°C and are to be deployed on Dushanbe - Moscow
services.
From Congressional Research Service by Jim Nichols.
The United States has been Tajikistan's largest bilateral donor, budgeting $988.57 million of aid for Tajikistan (FREEDOM support Act and agency budgets) over the period from fiscal year 1992 through fiscal year 2010, mainly for food and other hunmanitarian needs. Budgeted assistance for FY2011 was $44.48 million, and estimated assistance for FY2012 was $45.02 million. The Administration requested $37.41 million in foreign assistance for Tajikistan in FY2013 (these FY2011-FY2013 figures exclude most Defense and Energy Department programs).
Assistant Secretary of State for Central and South Asia Robert O. Blake, Jr. put out the transcript of a speech yesterday made at Indiana University's Inner Asian and Uralic Natural Resource Center titled Toward a Great Gain, Not a New Great Game. OK, who profits, as Lenin would say?
Most of the references to human rights are generics, but there's this:
It is important to note that we always take into account the political,
economic, military and human rights situation of a partner country when
deciding what kind of security cooperation to pursue. As an example, we
provide only non-lethal assistance to Uzbekistan because of our concerns
about its human rights record. But we continue to engage, making it
clear that our relationship can reach its full potential only when
Uzbekistan meets its human rights obligations.
Non-lethal, but still military, i.e. still assistance to police and troops that might be directly or indirectly, as a system, part of human rights abuse. I don't believe human rights and democracy "rub off" from training, and that those kinds of exercises are mainly fallacious and at best, aspirational -- and really more about having contacts with regimes so that when all hell breaks loose you have people to talk to. Or even before all hell breaks loose -- in another program, the US supplies vehicles to the IUzbek nuclear institute to be able to zip around and monitor radiation at borders. During the presentation ceremony in July, Amb. George Krol explained:
The U.S. and Uzbekistan are partners in the fight against
transnational threats including international terrorism and the
proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction. The problem of
proliferation and trafficking of illicit materials is not just a problem
for our two countries but for the world, and the work performed by
Uzbekistan’s Institute of Nuclear Physics is vital to making the world
safer.
These Mitsubishis are donated for "the war on terror," and are hopefully used for their intended purpose -- if used wrongfully, it's more likely they wouldn't be involved in cracking down on dissidents so much as driving groceries home. But speculation that the US might leave military vehicles or equipment (or more seriously, sell arms) remains -- and there's nothing wrong with continuing to watch this with that speculation in mind, because it could happen quickly. For one, we have Blake's words at a press conference in August in Tashkent which are a reassurance, but also involve his own thinking of what might be expected -- but not certainty:
AP: Also in Uzbekistan, there have been some reports from Russian media
recently suggesting the possibility that during the drawdown during 2014
that military equipment might be left along. What assurances can be
made making certain that the wrong things do not end in the wrong hands,
by which I mean weaponry.
Blake: First of all, the process of allocating Excess Defense Articles
is only just beginning. We are beginning the consultations on that. It
won’t be just for Uzbekistan but for all countries partnering on NDN.
There will be quite detailed conversations with our military people
based in embassies in each of these posts, with host nation counterparts
on this thing. With respect to Uzbekistan, I do not think there will be
any lethal weapons of any kind that will be offered. I think most of
the kind of things that will be on offer will be military vehicles,
Humvees, those kind of things. It is in our interests to provide those
kinds of equipment. Uzbekistan has been a strong supporter of the NDN.
That has in turn raised their profile with international terrorist
organizations, who may want to target Uzbekistan in retribution. So, it
is very much in our interest to help Uzbekistan defend itself against
such attacks.
We are certainly prepared to think about how we can do that. I myself
have been engaged over the last year in the U.S. Congress to get a
waiver so that we can provide non-lethal military assistance to
Uzbekistan, even though they have not met a lot of the human rights
conditions that would allow for more regular military assistance. That
waiver has been approved. We are providing non-lethal military
assistance now and will continue to do so, and the EDA process will be
one way that we could help.
Around Blake's trip to Uzbekistan in August, the Uzbek regime acquitted one token activist, Shuhrat Rustamov, as Democracy Digest reported
although of course a dozen or more human rights defenders and
journalists remain, and many thousands of religious prisoners remain. I
haven't seen an independent read-out of this civil society meeting,
which was likely choreographed and selective, but at least it was a
departure from past years and trips by high-profile US officials who
avoided civil society.
The Indiana speech doesn't add anything new with regard to these intentions or the prospects of deployment of a US base, but it certainly doesn't make such speculation seem unreasonable or even "conspiratorial" as Joshua Foust has claimed. It's an evolving situation. Joshua Kucera at the Bug Pit focused on the speculation about whether a base would be negotiated and noted Blake's denials. Although no base was negotiated, he felt the trip was used by Blake to understand Karimov's motivations and intentions for leaving the CSTO. But then Kucera overlooks the real practical goal of the visit, as Democracy Digest pointed out, in describing the "sweetener" to this trip that came with the activist's court acquittal:
The ruling came as Obama administration
officials prepare to negotiate an agreement with Islam Karimov,
Uzbekistan’s authoritarian president, to permit thousands of military
vehicles, and other equipment to transit from Afghanistan through Uzbek
territory.
This week General William Fraser III, the Commander of the U.S. military
Transportation Command (TRANSCOM), visited Uzbekistan to meet with
Minister of Foreign Affairs Abdulaziz Kamilov and Minister of Defense
Kabul Berdiev to discuss issues relating to the Northern Distribution
Network through which cargo transits Uzbekistan en route to
Afghanistan. Those issues are likely less about supplying troops in their last year and more about bringing the heavy military vehicles out. All in all, the effort is to increase closer cooperation between the Uzbek and US militaries, as this other recent program for fraternization also indicates.
The UK has also, of course been very busy doing this same type of negotiations -- and this is what prompted the AP reporter to ask whether these transiting vehicles could "fall into the wrong hands," i.e. Uzbek military and/or Interior Ministry troops/police that might use it to oppress their own people as they did in Andijan in 2005 or -- I would add -- terrorists. Certainly when *thousands* of vehicles are going from point A through point B, some of them will get lost, stolen, misappropriated, and maybe given away, despite Blake's claims that this will be tightly controlled.
Kazakhstan also was described in the speech yesterday with a strange amalgam of business and human rights:
Turning to some of our specific security priorities, we have excellent
cooperation with Kazakhstan on non-proliferation issues ranging from
proliferation prevention to improvement of the regulatory framework for
strategic trade controls, and we look forward to building on our
cooperation on mutual security concerns with complementing progress in
human rights, and labor and religious freedoms.
It's too bad we couldn't have that "religious freedoms" for Uzbekistan, too.
Then for Kyrgyzstan, hopefully not by design, no mention of human rights but something about "services". Is there a "service" citizens can sign up for to get equal treatment under the law if they are ethnic minorities like Uzbeks?
In Kyrgyzstan, which also hosts the Manas Transit Center through
which all of our troops going to Afghanistan pass, we are helping the
new democratically-elected government to reform the security sector and
to address issues related to corruption and rule of law. We are also
helping the government improve services for citizens.
The NDN continues to be vital despite resumption of relations with Pakistan and truck routes opening:
The Northern Distribution Network,
or NDN, is perhaps the clearest example of the benefits to the U.S. our
security engagement with the Central Asian countries has yielded. Over
the past year, we have seen how the NDN provided critically important
alternate routes for our non-lethal cargo transiting to and from
Afghanistan, particularly when we were experiencing challenging moments
in our relationship with Pakistan.
I do wonder a) whether small business get to contract with the NDN or only the big state cronies and b) how that GM plant, which was reducing its output, is doing and c) whether there is any really stringent review going on of the corruption issue in contracts, per the waiver passed last year that still provided for six-month reviews.
But here's the part that is new -- or at least, articulated with more emphasis, and contains the seeds of concerns about further militarization of the relationship with Central Asian dictatorships, and their own further militarization throughout the region. Many people think of 2014 as a kind of cliff, after which US troops come home and only a few remain behind to turn off the lights. But the Administration now describes the post-withdrawal period as a Transformation Decade , and that Transformation Decade actually includes, well, the continued presence of troops:
In addition to our important bilateral security relationships, the
United States helps facilitate increased regional coordination and
support for Afghanistan. The Central Asian countries are vital partners
in support of the International Security Assistance Force’s efforts
against the Taliban and al-Qaida in Afghanistan, especially as
Afghanistan increasingly takes the lead for its own security, as it has
done now for over 75 percent of its population. None of us has an
interest in seeing Afghanistan ever again become a platform from which
Al-Qaida or others could attack our homeland.
The Central Asian countries will remain important partners as a NATO
Enduring Presence replaces the ISAF mission in 2014, and as Afghanistan
embarks upon its Transformation Decade between 2015 and 2024.
Afghanistan will increase coordination with NATO on internal security
and with its neighbors on shared issues such as border security and
combating flows of narcotics and other contraband [emphasis added].
The United States is likely to maintain a presence in Afghanistan,
the particulars of which will be negotiated over the next year. We are
committed to the success of Afghanistan’s security transition and to
regional security, and we have communicated this commitment to our
Central Asian partners.
Certainly there will be a lot less troops in Afghanistan, but I wonder if it's fair to say there will be more military advisor presence then in neighbouring Central Asia -- for a number of reasons, including the fact that the Central Asian governmentgs will want to have some US troops as a counter to Russian troops, and as a deterrent to Islamic insurgency springboarding from Afghanistan.
As for the concept of "Afghanistan as platform for Al Qaeda," I think the way to think about this is more like this: Al Qaeda is the platform from which attacks on our homeland and our diplomats abroad are launched. Or: Al Qaeda is the software that can be installed on any platform to attack our homeland and our diplomats abroad. And it seems pretty permanently installed in Afghanistan.
President Karimov looking chipper in Khorezm. Or at least, after studio retouches. Photo by gov.uz.
Uzbekistan's President Islam Karimov is worried about what will happen after US and NATO troops are withdrawn from Afghanistan by 2014.
At least, we think he is, but the statement only appears to have been aired on Uzbek-language television and translated by BBC October 11:
Uzbek President Islom Karimov has
said his country needs to prepare itself for possible security
challenges as NATO plans to leave neighbouring Afghanistan in 2014.
He was speaking on his tour of the northwestern region of Xorazm on 9
October, in remarks broadcast on Uzbek TV the following day. The
remarks came in a special TV broadcast detailing the president's visit
to the region.
"We need to be prepared. The
departure of the US troops tomorrow will bring unrest to Afghanistan.
This will bring us unrest with all sorts of disasters coming close to
our doorstep. We must not forget the events we went through in the 1990s
and the 2000s.
When we say Uzbekistan looks to the future, not just today, this means
we should build a strong army, one that is second to none. We must give
this a thought too," the president said, as he spoke to heads of local
farms.
But the full text of his speech on the Foreign Ministry and other government websites doesn't contain any remarks about Afghanistan. Instead, the speech is filled up with those sort of fun facts that Soviet-style dictators love to dazzle poor farmers with -- "Currently, 88 percent of general schools in the region are outfitted with gyms, compared to the 63 percent back in 2003" or "96,300 young men and women in Khorezm region are currently pursuing
knowledge and grasping [sic] modern vocations at the ninety-one academic
lyceums and professional colleges." No doubt to keep their minds off jihad
There's also a small business boom, the president claims -- and who knows, maybe some of them might have a chance to get lucrative contracts from US businesses eager to supply the NDN (but not likely, as they would have to be government approved and probably go to the First Family's cronies in big state corporations). Who does get lucky from the US government-sponsored "Industry Days"? As you can see from this slide show on surface contracts in the CENTCOM region, the US military wants to use "locally procured goods". How is that working out? Where could we find this information?
So one can't rule out the idea -- although the speculation has subsided -- that NATO might need to leave heavy equipment in the neighbouring stans.
There was some flurry of commentary when Uzbekistan opted out of the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) that it was preparing itself mentally and legally to cooperate with NATO -- and even restoration of the US base.
The forthcoming withdrawal of the Western coalition troops from
Afghanistan and possible deployment of weapons and, probably, U.S.
operating bases on the territory of some Central Asian countries is
creating a new situation in the region. It is in this context that one
should probably view Tashkent’s decision to “suspend” its membership in
the Collective Security Treaty Organization, announced in late June this
year. The CSTO Charter prohibits the deployment of third countries’
military bases on the territories of the allied countries. Uzbekistan’s
withdrawal removes legal barriers for it to host any military hardware
of NATO, including weapons that NATO forces would like to leave on their
way from Afghanistan.
This piece on a Russian media-sponsored site just makes common sense -- if the US faces problems as it withdraws from Afghanistan or experiences problems again with Pakistan, and if Uzbekistan is worried about defense, then it is fast, cheap and easy for the US to leave these heavy lethal vehicles in Uzbekistan -- although of course there's the obstacle that the NDN agreements provide only for non-lethal deliveries. (I wonder if there is a loophole here -- the agreements were for equipment going in -- what about equipment coming out? The agreement was signed with the stans last June to take the equipment out.)
Of course, Karimov is all about playing the great powers off against each other in classic fashion. Even though ultimately Karimov pulled out of the CSTO in late June, when he met with Putin in early June, the two leaders said NATO's withdrawal would mean they would step up their own cooperation, uznews.net reported.
The Uzbek president stressed that the withdrawal of foreign military
personnel from Afghanistan before a competent army is set up may
destabilise the country and the region as a whole.
“If this problem is not resolved, if it is not fully exposed as it truly
is, I think many things will unravel later, and we will simply miss the
moment,” Karimov said.
“This directly concerns the security of the Russian Federation itself.
Cooperation with our Uzbekistani partners is extremely important for
us,” the Russian president told a news conference
But as uznews.net pointed out, "On the same day when the Uzbek and Russian presidents met, Nato in
Brussels stroke a deal with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan on the
transit of military freight from Afghanistan, UzDaily.uz website has
reported."
There's also discussion that the US might sell weapons to Uzbekistan (It seems much more likely that they'd just leave military equipment behind in Uzbekistan). Columbia University's Alexander Cooley has suggested in The New York Timesthat the US would sell weapons to Tashkent:
Most controversially of all, NATO and the Central Asian states are still
negotiating over the potential transfer of military equipment, used by
coalition forces in Afghanistan, to Central Asian governments’ security
services, which have a bloody human rights record.
In January, the Obama administration lifted a ban on foreign military
sales to Uzbekistan, on national security grounds, to allow for sales of
counterterrorism equipment. American officials insist that such future
transfers will include only nonlethal items, but the Uzbek government
has long sought items like armored personnel carriers, helicopters and
drones, which could be used to suppress protests.
There is no basis in US law, official US policy, or anything US
officials have said about their plans for the regime, that indicate even
a distant interest in selling weapons to Tashkent.
So what? Laws get changed -- as we saw the law change last year barring military aid to Uzbekistan due to the Andijan massacre in 2005 and its appalling human rights record. Exigencies exist, emergencies happen, whatever. Foust notes that the Uzbeks start high and negotiate down and that Cooley is just reporting rumors from his trips to Uzbekistan.
At least Cooley travels to the region, unlike Foust, and what he reports tracks with what regional analysts are saying. I can't imagine why anyone would be so adamant about the US *not* doing this, and in such a fury to slam colleagues in the field for reporting the matter-of-fact horse-trading likely going on. What's this really about? Often these rampages of Foust's seem to be only about trying to position himself as a quotable expert to get more media attention and possibly some kind of better job than "fellow" at ASP -- in Obama II's State Department where Sen. John Kerry or some other comrade could be secretary of state.
The venerable Walter Pincus speaks up against doing business with tyrants and quotes former CENTCOM head Adm. William Fallon:
“We would envision, and this is already with the agreement of the
Afghan government, that this place would be the enduring facility . . .
within that country by which we would provide continuing support to
that nation, and hopefully be able to use that facility for other things
in the region.”
Pincus concludes: "Let’s hope those “other things” don’t include military operations to
keep in power Washington’s current “allies,” such as the current rulers
in Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan."
And sudden Foust tut kak tut -- blasting Pincus for his "curious bit of hand-wringing" and supposed exaggeration. Foust converts Pincus' legitimate concern about helping to keep these tyrants in power -- especially given already-existing efforts that bolst them, with this: "where on earth would he get the impression that anyone in Washington
wants to defend Nazarbayev or Berdimuhamedov against a coup?
But there's a difference between the US siding with Berdymukhamedov or Nararbayev or Karimov in a coup where they faced challenges from, say, insiders in the security of military sectors or oligarchs -- and the US helping these regimes fight off terrorists that might or might not be actual Islamist terrorists. The US would probably not mix in if, say, Russia-based Uzbek tycoon Alisher Usmanov decided he wanted to replace Karimov -- that would be fighting the Kremlin, too. But if some band of terrorists with the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and Afghan police or Taliban launched some raid to destabilize Karimov, sure, the existing US special forces who already advise Tashkent and have a closer relationship now with the Karimov government might intervene in a pinch -- we don't know. We can't be sure. There's nothing wrong with pointing up this scenario as one of the many bad things to come after 2014.
The US Army helped build the railway to Mazar-e-Sharif to ship supplies to NATO troops in Afghanistan. Video by American Forces Network Afghanistan.
Dragon Oil rig in Caspian. Photo by Turkmenistan Golden Age 2012.
State Department officials are usually very circumspect when it comes to Turkmenistan, a gas-rich and freedom-poor authoritarian Central Asian nation on the Caspian Sea. Turkmenistan is far more closed than Uzbekistan -- there are hardly any human rights activists or opposition figures there. Hence virtually no one for lonely foreign officials to visit, when they might get a few hours free from their minders, and have nothing to do but rattle around in the huge white marble city in the "dictator chic" genre, with broad avenues and desert-dry air.
So that's why it's news when all of a sudden, in testimony to the US Congress, Robert O. Blake, Jr., Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs, whose statements are generally as bland as canned pears, suddenly puts the phrases "pipeline" and "human rights" and "transparency" all into one paragraph:
The recent signing of gas sales and purchase agreements between Turkmenistan, Pakistan and India enables the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline to move to the commercial phase. This project is one example of the potential Turkmenistan has to be a leader in the economic prosperity of the region. We encourage Turkmenistan to build clear and transparent mechanisms for investment in its country.
In order to realize its potential, Turkmenistan must make significant steps to fulfill its international obligations on human rights. The United States consistently raises concerns about respect for human rights at every appropriate opportunity and we have offered assistance to help advance space for civil society and building democratic systems.
That's exceptional, because in recent years, the US has been so eager to court the hard-to-get President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov and line up some business with him, especially for American oil companies, that they have tended to keep any comments about human rights to carefully-choreographed private discussions. To be sure, this was a hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Subcommittee on Europe and Eurasia, where officials can expect a little more questioning than usual, but still, the rhetoric seems more edgy than in the past.
So, why is this happening now?
Well, for one, the US has been persisting in trying to work with the Turkmens now for the more than six years Berdymukhamedov has been in power, and has precious little to show for it. If anything, despite finally installing a new ambassador after a five-year hiatus, holding special business exhibitions and promotions, offering help and training and educational opportunities, the Americans have at times been kicked in the teeth. Peace Corps members with visas and air tickets in hand have been suddenly delayed and gradually their numbers whittled down to little or nothing. Students ready to leave at the airport for exchange programs are pulled off programs. Chevron and others are seemingly promised an offshore drilling permit, then never get any -- and they'd rather be onshore anyway. US officials work overtime trying to fix these situations up, and it's all kind of mysterious. Now why do the Turkmens do that? After all, we are paying them top dollar to use their country as a re-fueling station for planes bound to supply NATO troops in Afghanistan with non-lethal equipment.
What's up? Perhaps the "multi-vector policy" that rotates so widely from China to Iran to Qatar to Austria to Belarus to England and seems so affable with so many other countries with so many high-level meetings has its saw-toothed edge? Nothing shows you're independent like bashing America! The pudgy dictator has had 249 meetings with foreign dignitaries in the last year! Ok, 317. Alright, I don't know how many exactly but -- a lot, and somewhere in the miles of turgid Turkmen wire copy you can find this exact number.
So because they aren't getting anywhere despite being silent on human rights for all this time, perhaps US officials have decided that they should be a little more forward-leaning. It's a shame that human rights could be seen as a club in that respect, but that is how it's done.
There could be another reason -- Blake and others may be expecting increased NGO protests as the Asian Bank for Development takes the Turkmen-Afghanistan-Pakistan-Indian (TAPI) pipeline out for its road show this fall to various world capitals, in search of oil majors to help build the project and take on the financing and security headaches that will abound. So pre-emptively, so to speak, State has indicated that they realize there are human rights and "transparency" problems. That's for sure -- no one can really be sure just how much money Berdymukhamedov has his hands on -- and it all seems to come through his hands -- and how much he parts with to try to better his fellow citizens' lot -- as distinct from building lots of white palaces.
Nothing gets NGOs agitated like "the extractive industry" -- it easily exemplifies everything they hate about capitalism and commerce, and even if they are not anti-business, they can get behind concern for the environment which is never misplaced when it comes to drilling and pipelines.
Berdy also seems aware of this protest wave that may crest on his country, and talks up a good story about how pipelines under the sea are less dangerous than those above ground. I don't know how much people want to test those theories in a region that is prone to earthquakes, spills, sabotage (remember the April 2009 explosion?), terrorism and even wars -- and of course those vague "shortcomings in performance of work" for which hundreds of officials have been dismissed in the Era of Revival and now the Era of Happiness and Stability.
Of course, as I'm pointing out, the wrath of NGOs is somewhat misplaced on Turkmenistan, when the American companies which they love best to hate aren't even able to drill an inch into the karakum. China has already spent more than $8 billion building a pipeline out of Turkmenistan to China, and not a single demonstration, newsletter, poster, or even email appeared from the usual Western environmental groups. We have no idea what that very rapidly-build pipeline did to the environment or areas or people in Turkmenistan, and that's not only because it's a closed society, but because nobody cared to chase the Chinese National Petroleum Company -- it just doesn't get the juices flowing like US petroleum corporations. In fact, the major Western environmental organizations tend to ignore Central Asia because it's hard to get information.
So snarkiness of the predictable adversarial culture really seems misplaced, when a company like Chevron -- which in fact has been there all along and isn't "stealing in like a thief" -- hasn't even got a deal. And then there's this -- what I always ask people spouting the usual hysteria on forums: what do you cook your breakfast with every morning, firewood? Pipelines exists in a lot of places of the world where protests no longer appear (Alaska) although it might if something goes wrong again (Alaska). We'd all like to live in a world of outdoor solar-powered offices and computers and Burning Man camp-outs like Philip Rosedale, but we're not there yet.
So it's good to start early and often to hammer on the problem of "lack of transparency," but realistically, it's not going to go anywhere in Turkmenistan until the society experiences much greater changes than have been in the offing since 2006 when past dictator Saparmurat Niyazov died. The Turkmens have figured out (from paying attention to NGOs but not allowing them in their own country) to play the transparency game, and have turned the tables on Chevron and others as I've written, sulking about their supposed lack of transparency for not parting with proprietary technological secrets that no company would part with (say, how about more from the Turkmen side regarding those Gaffney, Clines Associates estimates of the reserves, eh?)
Turkmenistan is a very hard nut to crack -- and nut-cracking in general hasn't gone so well for the US in Central Asia. The US ambassador has actually accomplished a fair amount on his watch, quietly getting some political prisoners freed or getting them family visits and trying to solve the students' cases and keep a positive momentum for both educational exchange and business. There's a theory that trade is a tide that raises all boats. I've never seen that happen in any country in the world. It's claimed for China and Kazakhstan, but we only see continued problems with everything from media suppression to environmental hazards to murders -- business doesn't auto-magically install democracy any more than a USAID project does.
I really don't have a recipe for Turkmenistan other than that more people need to try to go there and report what they see, and more efforts have to be made to get the word out about what happens there, and to pay more attention to those who already get many stories out, such as Chronicles of Turkmenistan. To the extent possible, NGOs should try to follow the TAPI story to see if their interest and efforts to get more information might be some deterrence on the usual bribes and slush funds that abound around things like this.
Yet I'm skeptical that TAPI will start getting built any time soon, or that Western companies will even be involved in it, and the X marked on the map where the backhoes are going to appear may be right at the Turkmen border, not inside Turkmenistan, as Ashgabat continually repeats the refrain that they will "sell their gas at the border," and Europeans and others are taking them more at their word since the collapse of the ambitious Nabucco project.
In any event, the gas-hungry rapidly-developing countries of China and India aren't going to care a whole lot about what Westerners tell them about how they should avoid all the things that Westerners take for granted like gas-guzzling personal cars and invest instead on environmental protection and mass transport. What any environmental campaign has to start with, however, is a newsletter -- a newsletter that nobody is yet able to publish in Ashgabat.
A dapper middle-aged businessman who started a reform movement in Uzbekistan, Umarov spent four years under brutal treatment in Uzbekistan's prisons, until finally he was released and permitted to be reunited with his family, who live in Tennessee.
For an hour in a hot Washington, DC room at the Rayburn House Office Building, Umarov patiently answered the questions of Congressman Steve Cohen (D-Tennessee), a commissioner of CSCE with an impressive record advocating for human rights, about the details of his torture in prison. Umarov was repeatedly incarcerated in a cramped cell known among the prisoners as "the monkey cell," a small space of 3 x 1 meters with bars, a cold cement floor, no amenities, and an open window even when the temperature was 10 degrees. Umarov was first thrown in this punishment cell for objecting during a political education session to the fact that President Islam Karimov extended his rule in violation of the constitutional limits on the term of presidents.
I will post a link to the video and transcript when it is ready at csce.gov, it is devastating, and a must-see to understand the kind of dictatorship we are dealing with when we do business with Karimov.
Richard Solash of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty has a good summary of the briefing here. As it was a briefing, as distinct from a hearing, the floor was open to the public to ask questions. I asked whether there was any intention to make a protest about the political prisoners of Central Asia and the terrible conditions they were being held by directing it to the NATO summit. President Karimov himself and the Central Asian foreign ministers or other ministers will be attending. I asked if the closer relationship that the US now had to maintain with the Central Asian powers since losing the route through Pakistan had any impact on the human rights situation, and whether the exigency of having to maintain the GLOC (as the military calls the Ground Lines of Communication) or Northern Distribution Network (NDN) through Uzbekistan meant the US felt constrained in raising human rights issues.
My long-time colleague Catherine Cosman of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom replied:
"Many believe that because of the NDN, politically speaking, the United States is in a weaker position to raise human rights concerns with these governments. Personally, I believe that, in fact, it's the opposite, because these governments are extremely corrupt and the U.S. government pays a lot for these transit routes and so the officials in these governments stand to gain personally," she said.
"So I would say that, in fact, if [the United States] raises human rights cases and makes use of NDN connection in that way, we could see human rights gains."
The Department of Defense may see this "opportunity to raise human rights" as a bug and not a feature, but that wouldn't stop the Department of Human Rights, Labor and Democracy from making a statement -- so far the US government limits its vocal statements about political prisoners in Uzbekistan, although in connection with Press Freedom Day on May 3, they included one Uzbek prisoner, Dilmurod Sayid, a journalist jailed for uncovering local corruption who is now ill with tuberculosis, on the website established for the occasion.
Umarov said there were many deaths in detention, often of tuberculosis and AIDS, and many suicides, but it was difficult to tell if some of them were in fact victims of torture. He described the long days waiting in the cell, hearing the old van used for picking up bodies to take to the morgue creakily approaching, grinding to a halt, the rasping of the door opening, the footsteps, and then the van departing. It was very eerie and sad, and we aren't doing enough about this.
I wondered if any of the groups demonstrating in Chicago this weekend and throughout the summit could take up the issue of political prisoners. I wrote to one of the community organizers and a few of the OWS on Twitter, but didn't get answers. OWS is preoccupied with the usual radical agenda -- focusing only on the deaths of civilians killed in NATO's attacks on Libya (under 100), yet with nothing to say about the tens of thousands of civilians killed by the Taliban in Afghanistan, which kills 85 percent of the people in this war. In fact, in their call for the demonstration in Chicago, Code Pink deliberately books these deaths to NATO (in the same way they do with the 100,000 civilians deaths in the Iraq War), which is really duplicitous and morally wrong. They seem to be unable to find a way to condemn both NATO's killing of civilians, and the killing of civilians by the Taliban, Al Qaeda, and other deadly militant and terrorist groups. This has always been the problem with the anti-war movement, and it never changes in the 40 years I've been following it, with the exception of a few organizations with a broader vision.
And somehow the issue of the political prisoners just never comes up on their radar, because they are focusing only on pulling out troops and converting the funds to assist with combating global warming, and not focusing on the larger human rights and humanitarian issues of the region. They've turned out Afghan emigres in Chicago to protest the war, and turned out immigrants to protest the immigration law (one protester has already been arrested for assaulting the police). But as I used to see with the peace movements of the 1980s and 1990s, they cannot seem to find a way to protest against any kind of militarism but NATO's, and therefore inevitably help reinforce NATO's mission, in a kind of backward way.
One group that is colouring outside the lines of this heavily pre-cooked protest agenda is the Awareness Project International, an Arizona-based group originally created to organize summer camps for youth abroad to raise awareness of human rights, HIV/AIDS and global warming. Lately they seem to have more Uzbeks involved (and even heading it) and have taken on more than just education, but will be protesting forced child labor in the Uzbek cotton industry.
I was glad to see at least some group is going to Chicago to protest something about Uzbekistan, our main partner in the NDN to supply NATO troups in Afghanistan.
The group is going to focus on forced child labour, which was the focus of a picket line related to Fashion Week last year -- perhaps they could add on political prisoners and call for their release and an end to torture.
It may be hard to stand out with this singular message around Uzbekistan during the NATO protests -- there will be the din of radicalism everywhere and likely direct action and even violence and multiple arrests precisely because the protesters will go beyond the bounds of lawful assembly into civil disobedience -- and as OWS often does, play the victim instead of taking their arrests like a man, which is the deal when you commit civil disobedience, you know?
But for the long term, groups like Awareness Project, which evidently got the endorsement of the International Labor Rights Forum for this protest, can try to work with the OWS and anti-NATO protesters and get them to broaden their focus and campaigning from the myopic obsession with only America, and only the US as the imagined great evil of the world, and look at the very powers that NATO cites to justify its existence, which is the nuclear power of Russia which still maintains its political prisoners today, and its allies in the Collective Security Treaty Organization like Uzbekistan.
They could also take up the issues of political prisoners, as Dr. Umarov once was.
UPDATE: Dmitriy Nurullayev has just contacted me to say that they have added the issue of political prisoners and torture to their banners for Chicago. I hope they will be able to get their voices heard about the din.
Foreign Minister Zarifi is here in the US to attend the NATO summit next week in Chicago. None of the Central Asian presidents are coming -- hey, no need to bow and scrape. But they're invited because of how vital these countries are to the Northern Distribution Network, so they are at least sending their foreign ministers. And they should do that much, given that collectively, they get $500 million from the US for their right-of-a-way through their countries, and they should see this in some way as "their" war (but don't).
Why? Because Tajikistan is next to Afghanistan, and when we pull out our troops in 2014, what's going to blow, besides the thin veneer of urban secularism in Kabul holding back the Taliban? The Afghan border of Tajikistan, that's what, and that's of concern because Tajikistan is the poorest of the post-Soviet states and now racking up increasing incidents of terrorist attacks and the arrests and trials of extremist groups that seem to then fuel more terrorist attacks. Tajikistan is also next to Iran and shares the ancient Persian civilization.
It's a place where children still get polio -- surely a shortfall of the international community's care. although after 32 cases, the UN responded with another immunization program. If you have a poor childhood do you get to be a terrorist? No, of course not, and terrorists are often urban educated middle class people. But they develop a message that can be attractive to poor people who have no recourse. We don't know very much about the people in group trials of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan in Tajikistan and other Central Asian states.
It's a state from which a large part of the population leave for migrant work in Russia, where they are treated poorly (of the 50 or 60 or so migrant workers murdered in Russia in hate crimes every year, most are Tajiks). More than a quarter of the Tajik economy is made up of remittances from migrant laborer. Tajikistan weathered a civil war in which the largest number of journalists in the world were killed (about 50), after Algeria -- in the same pattern, by both the state and the Islamist militants).
Government nervousness about extremism is said in fact to have fueled unrest, some believe -- there's a tough new religion law that punishes even parents taking their children to the mosque. For the first time the US Commission on International Religious Freedom urged the State Department to give Tajikistan the desigation of "country of particular concern" for its deteriorating stae of religious rights.
I want to think a lot more about the hydraulic theory of terrorism that is so very, very common everywhere among human rights groups, think tanks, the government -- that is, that the very brutal tactics that the Central Asian governments use, or the US uses in the drone war and in counterinsurgency and counter-terrorism, are what create new rebels and terrorists. That's the operating conclusion and most find it to be true because indeed it does seem to follow a pattern. This is one of those debates people may have forever. Does the death penalty deter crime? No, it doesn't, crime increases. Did the death penalty at least remove that one murderer? Yes, but another sprang up in his place. And so on.
Certainly when you take a BBC reporter, charge him on suspicions of Islamic extremism merely because he reported on Hizb-ut-Tahir followers, beat him, throw him in jail, mistreat him for weeks, before finally letting him go after an international outcry, you haven't made a friend for life. Think of what we heard from the Pakistani lawyer discussing the claims of his clients who became victims of US drone attacks -- they become militarized because they have no redress. Why are people in Hizb-ut-Tahir? Because they have no sense of redress -- no place to go where their grievances are heard and addressed. Even doing part one of this proposition can go a long way to ameliorating distress in a population in dire straights, but even that part isn't done well when you tell people they can't take their children to a place of worship.
Whatever the dynamics, the US military seems sufficiently concerned to be trying to bolster Tajikistan now as a weak link in the exit strategy -- if the war spills over from Tajikistan into Afghanistan, or if it becomes a fuel pump for the revival of the civil war between a secular state and its supporters and Islamic groups, then the US is making more problems than it is solving by leaving.
Noting the "buffer" role of Tajikistan in the prevention and spreading the threats of terrorism, extremism and drug trafficking, Mattis emphasized that the U.S. is going to provide the technical assistance to the border guards and other security and law enforcement agencies in Tajikistan.
As throughout the war in Afghanistan and other wars, there's a confusion and conflation between war-fighting and police work -- so here's U.S. Army Central Command James Mattis in Dushanbe, our top army guy for the region meeting President Rakhmon to give assurances about support for equipment of police to fight terrorism. So there's a war on terror, but it's fought with support, training and equipment to police (and not army, although presumably they are trained, too.)
Tajikistan ($19.1 million): U.S. assistance is focused on ensuring the stability of Tajikistan, particularly in light of the military drawdown in Afghanistan. Programs will seek to strengthen local governance and improve education. Funding will also be used to increase food security by seeking to solve systemic problems that contribute to food shortages such as inequitable access to water, inadequate supplies of seeds and fertilizer, a lack of modern technologies, and poor farm practices.
What is training and bolstering and what does it accomplish? It's not like people who fought a civil war for six years killing tens of thousands need to learn how to fight. Presumably they need to learn how to fight more professionally and...democratically...or something
I keep seeing the images so vividly relayed by Kim Barker in the Taliban Shuffle, the trainees waving their guns around and shooting in the air and shooting themselves in the foot by accident -- and then grimly, the incidents where the trained Afghan army then shoots US soldiers. Why? Is that, er, poor training? Or is resentment building over things like the accidental Koran burning? Or was it that they were never really on our side to start with? Or are they set up by other forces in Pakistan intelligence? Or what's the deal?
At least -- if I've read this correctly -- we're giving the Tajiks nearly as much for health ($1.2 million) as we are in military aid, and that's good news.
Open Society Institute complained two years ago that the US gives more in military aid to Central Asia than it does for democracy programs. I'm the first to complain about state-tropic baggy USAID programs and don't confuse them with more effective NED or Freedom House programs that are more directly useful in helping civil society groups. Except that these organizations are expelled from most of the Central Asian countries and their grantees sometimes wind up in jail and it's actually hard to spend civil society grant money in this area of the world because of the Zen of foundation work: if it were the kind of place where you could give money easily to good causes, it wouldn't need your help.
I think it would be worth going over the budgets again and looking at the non-military but non-democdracy aid that is related to health, labor, women, etc. that may be of significant help to this poor country -- unless of course it's all being siphoned into the president's relatives pockets or something.
Four million childrens' textbooks destined for Afghanistan schools stuck at the Karachi airport -- that's just one of the problems created by the closure of the Northern Distribution Network, the distribution route for supplying NATO troops in Afghanistan, as we learn from today's press briefing at the State Department. After a series of altercations with the US, including Pakistani outrage that they weren't clued in to the raid on Osama bin Ladn on their territory, and after 24 Pakistani soldiers were killed by US troops in a raid, Pakistan refused to allow transit through their land to Afghanistan, idling hundreds of trucks and holding uploads all over.
Recently when the Pakistani lawyer Shahzad Akbar was here in New York speaking on behalf of his clients, victims of US drone attacks, I asked him why he thought the US wasn't apologizing, and why the US apology of "regret" wasn't enough. I was among the people in the audience asking whether in fact we were at war with Pakistan. Of course we aren't, formally, but then, lots of wars happen that aren't formally declared or supported by Congress. There is this fiction always around Pakistan that they are allies in the war on terrorism, get their intelligence people are always helping the Taliban, or their own franchised Taliban -- which is why the US didn't trust them with logistical information about the bin Ladn raid.
Now, this strike against the 24 was in my mind's eye, after only reading the newspapers like anyone else, was an example of "an accident" or perhaps "friendly fire". If it *were* friendly fire, however, why couldn't we apologize more profusely? After all, we apologize profusely for far less, like accidently burning the Koran or allowing a soldier with a history of violence to be overdeployed a few too many times to kill a dozen villagers on a rampage.
I've wondered about this. Was there more to it with the incident itself or the relationship with the Pakistanis?
Akbar simply pointed out that the attack was by helicopters, not drones, and lasted two-and-a-half hours. You have to wonder how something that lasted two-and-a-half hours was "accidental". And that even if you got accidental targeting data about supposed militants on the border that were in fact Pakistani soldiers, how could you keep shooting and killing for two-and-a-half hours without somebody finally reaching you and telling you to knock it off, it was the wrong people?
But we are not apologizing, possibly because this was a firefight with a unit that we believed was on the wrong side..or something...and because we're not apologizing, we're not inviting the Pakistanis to the NATO summit...and because we're not inviting them they aren't opening up the NDN, after there were a number of reports that they were relenting on this, and we were going to pay them now a lot of money, which they realized they needed now.
Another thing that puzzles me is why famed Twittering defense analyst Joshua Foust writes "Dear NATO: excluding Pakistan and Iran from a summit about Afghanistan's future is not a smart decision."
Well, they won't re-open the NDN? What's a military alliance to do? Why would they invite them to their summit, which is about the future of NATO, really, not so much the future of Afghanistan? They're leaving Afghanistan. If Pakistan is not interested in helping NATO leave, and is interested in making it as costly for NATO as possible, what cooperation can they expect from the US?
Here's the text of the news conference:
QUESTION: Do you have any updates on the status of the discussions with the Pakistanis over the reopening of the transit – of the supply routes? The foreign – the Pakistani foreign minister said this morning that they think that they have made their point now with the shutoff of the routes, and – which many are taking to be a suggestion that they’re about ready to allow you guys to start using them again. What is the status of that? And is there any update on whether they will be going to Chicago or not?
MS. NULAND: Our team is still in Islamabad working on the land route issue. My understanding this morning is that they have made considerable progress, but they are still working. They are not yet finished with the Pakistanis. I don’t have any further update from what we said on Friday with regard to an invitation to Pakistan from NATO for the summit in Chicago. You heard what Secretary General Rasmussen had to say, but I don’t have anything further.
QUESTION: And then just on – well, on the talks, who is – who’s got the lead on this? Is it you or is it the Pentagon?
MS. NULAND: My understanding is that --
QUESTION: And so when you’re saying “our team,” who is that?
MS. NULAND: -- is that it’s an interagency team I believe the State Department is leading. It’s at a technical level, but let me get that for you, Matt.
QUESTION: Is --
QUESTION: Still on Pakistan?
QUESTION: Just to follow up?
MS. NULAND: Please.
QUESTION: Is Pakistan – during those meetings there, is Pakistan attaching any sort of preconditions before they’re able to open these routes, like levying new taxes or something like that?
MS. NULAND: Well, again, I’m not going to get into the substance of the discussion, but we’re having a full review with the Government of Pakistan on how this transit system works, and all of the issues are on the table in that context.
QUESTION: And how important is that to the invitation about the – Chicago summit?
MS. NULAND: Well, I think you heard what Secretary General Rasmussen said. He didn’t make a direct link. He did say, however, that this is something that we want to resolve, that we think is important to resolve, and it’s important for support for Afghanistan.
QUESTION: Okay. And lastly, Foreign Minister Khar this morning said that there will be problems for Pakistan if land routes are not reopened. So has something been conveyed by that interagency team or the U.S. Administration to Pakistan during those meetings or otherwise to prompt that kind of a statement?
MS. NULAND: Well, I haven’t seen her statement, but I think you know this is an issue that we’ve been working on for a long time, that it’s an issue that is something that we’ve tried to cooperate with Pakistan on for a long time. The Secretary and Foreign Minister Khar spoke – I think it was a couple of days before Ambassador Grossman traveled to Islamabad to kick off the whole reengagement strategy. And it was in that context that we began the formal negotiations on the GLOCs [Ground Lines of Communication]. So it’s good news if Foreign Minister Khar is making positive statements about the importance of this for Pakistan, for Pakistan’s relationship with Afghanistan, for their relationship with us. But as I said, we haven’t yet completed the negotiations.
QUESTION: Just to follow up with this?
MS. NULAND: Yes.
QUESTION: At the same time, she also said, and also the prime minister of Pakistan, that before doors are opened, certain demands must be met by the U.S., which were given beforehand. Is there any comments? Or what are those demands? Or is U.S. ready to move forward?
MS. NULAND: Well again, I think I said here that there is a full discussion underway about all aspects of this, but we haven’t yet come to a conclusion on all the pieces.
Yeah.
QUESTION: Can I ask you --
MS. NULAND: Yeah.
QUESTION: -- something different one – related to Pakistan. Do you have any comments or any information that former Pakistan ambassador to U.S., Mr. Haqqani, he’s seeking U.S. citizenship or maybe he has applied for the U.S. citizenship?
MS. NULAND: I don’t have any information on that. But that, in any event, would be a question for the Department of Homeland Security.
QUESTION: Just going back to the negotiations for a second?
QUESTION: Pakistan --
MS. NULAND: No – yeah.
QUESTION: The interagency – one of the demands – that the Pakistanis have had for a long time before they would reopen this was an apology for the – full-on, not this kind of half apology regrets that this and previous administrations are so fond of using. Do you know if the team that’s there is – do they have the power or authority to apologize on behalf of the United States if that is indeed a Pakistani demand to reopen the supply lines? Or is that issue, as far as you’re concerned, done?
MS. NULAND: Well, the team that’s working on this is a technical team. They are looking at the issues of how you move things from here to there and what the terms for moving them are.
QUESTION: Okay. So they couldn’t – they wouldn’t be in a position to offer an apology if you just --
MS. NULAND: That question is outside their purview. But I think as --
QUESTION: But in – so, okay. Regardless of whether it’s outside or inside their purview, and you’re saying it’s outside, but is that issue for the United States done now? Is that – that’s over?
MS. NULAND: I think we’ve said that we very much regret this incident and we want to move forward and we want to reengage.
Hello, Nicole.
QUESTION: Pakistan?
MS. NULAND: Please.
QUESTION: Last week, students and parents of Afghanistan urged the Government of Pakistan to – as you know, 4 million textbooks of Afghanistan are lying stranded at the Karachi airport after those routes were closed following November 26th incident. This issue has been taken up by the Afghan president himself at the highest level, but nothing has made – nothing – new progress has been made so far. Are you aware of the issue, and why the children of Afghanistan are suffering through no fault of theirs?
MS. NULAND: I wasn’t aware of this issue, but it makes sense in the context of the land routes being closed. And it speaks to the larger issue that it’s not just about support for the ISAF mission; it’s about support for Afghanistan in general, and in this case the children of Afghanistan.
QUESTION: Staying on Afghanistan?
MS. NULAND: Please.
QUESTION: Any comment on the --
QUESTION: Has the U.S. taken up this issue with the Pakistani authorities?
MS. NULAND: On the particular issue of the textbooks, I don’t have any information. But as I said, we are working very hard on the land routes.
Yeah.
QUESTION: As you’re aware, an Afghan peace negotiator was killed over the weekend. Any comment on that? And what does it say about your strategy of Afghan-led talks to try to find a political end to the conflict?
MS. NULAND: Arshad, I think the White House actually issued a statement on this issue on Saturday or on Sunday. But let me just reiterate here that the United States strongly condemns the assassination of Afghan High Peace Council member Arsala Rahmani. The High Peace Council has been working for a durable and long-term peace in Afghanistan, and those who attack members of the Peace Council are out of step with the Afghan people.
With regard to the larger question of our efforts to try to foster an Afghan-Afghan process of reconciliation, we remain committed to trying. It’s the Afghan – it’s the Taliban who have put a pause on the talks, as Ambassador Grossman and others have made clear.
A tragedy was caused by the controversial Afrosiyob high-speed train in Uzbekistan.
According to a report from Radio Ozodlik, the Uzbek service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Aziza Fahriddinova, age 7, was killed when the wind from the fast train swept her against a post, fergananews.com reported.
Authorities were supposed to put barbed-wire fences around the tracks but never got around to it. It's "Stand by Me" come to real life.
The tragedy occurred on the line from Ok Oltin-Gulestan. The Samarkand transportation inspector is conducting an investigation.
Does this have anything to do with the Northern Distribution Network? No. Except it shows incompetence on the rails, and indifference to human safety.
EurasiaNet has reported on The Little Train That Couldn't -- the Afrosiyob -- in the past, implying that it was related to the NDN: "You might call it the train in vain. And it has troubling implications for a US plan to stoke East-West trade via a New Silk Road, as well as keep American and NATO troops well supplied in Afghanistan."
Well, everything is related to the elephants of the NDN in EurasiaNet's book, but this is a civilian train not carrying the military freight -- it's only related to the whole "New Silk Road" concept of using this same passageway for military cargo for boosting the economy in general.
EurasiaNet said the Afrosiyob, made in Spain, after starting up last October, stopped operations November 17 for unknown reasons although hinted that it either caught fire or derailed.
But it must not have been down for long because it began running again, evidently in January 2012, leading to this little girl's death.
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