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[Second Issue of the Day]
#7
FEATURE-Stan who? Central Asia makes new friends
By Sebastian Alison
ALMATY, Nov 2 (Reuters) - The Stans. New names on the map when the Soviet Union broke up. Few could have named them without a furtive glance at an atlas.
But the five Central Asian states of the former Soviet Union are a bridge between Russia and Afghanistan, a supply point for troops, equipment and aid into the conflict there, and an area of intense diplomatic activity. Suddenly they matter.
U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is due in Central Asia at the weekend, his second visit in weeks. General Tommy Franks, U.S. commander of the military operation in Afghanistan, has just left. A top level EU delegation is there now.
Everybody wants to be friends with the leaders of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. But serious questions have been raised over the democratic credentials of these governments.
Who are the Stans?
AUTHORITARIAN RULE
Four of the five states are still ruled by the presidents who took over on independence from the Soviet Union 10 years ago. The exception, Tajikistan, saw a change only after a civil war which killed tens of thousands between 1992 and 1997.
The others show no immediate signs of retiring. Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov, known as Turkmenbashi, or leader of all the Turkmen, and nowadays as "Turkmenbashi the Great," was offered the presidency for life by parliament in 1999.
He has since said he may hold elections and stand down in 2010. If he does, he will have held power since taking over as Communist Party boss in 1985 -- a respectable 25 years.
Kyrgyz President Askar Akayev was long seen as the best hope for democracy in the region. But his star has waned. When re-elected in 1995, he said it was the start of his first term, not his second, as a new constitution was passed in the interim.
He was re-elected last October in a poll described as flawed by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and from which his main opponent was excluded on a technicality.
In August, he said he would stand down in 2005 -- 15 years after taking the job -- but then spoiled the effect by giving away how he planned to do it:
"He declared officially that he is in his last term in office and would spend the remaining four years preparing an appropriate president to occupy his place," an official from his press service told Reuters.
Uzbek leader Islam Karimov runs one of the most authoritarian governments in the former Soviet Union. He has clamped down ruthlessly on Islamic groups, which he says plan to overthrow him and set up an Islamic state in the region.
Unknown numbers have been arrested in the eastern Fergana Valley, the heartland of Islamic revival after decades of atheistic Soviet rule.
In July this year, the U.S. State Department expressed concern over the death in Uzbek police custody of opposition figure Shavruk Rozimuradov. He is not the first to have died in unexplained circumstances.
ISLAMIC THREAT
Karimov is certainly correct that Islamic extremism represents a threat to the region. The Tajik civil war was fought between Islamic separatists and a pro-Moscow government.
In 1999 and 2000, armed rebels of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) entered Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan from remote regions of Tajikistan and killed dozens of troops in fierce fighting. Karimov says they were funded by Afghanistan, a charge denied by the ruling Taliban.
The IMU has called for the creation of an Islamic state, and U.S. President George W. Bush refers to it as on a par with the Afghan-based al-Qaeda terror network, to Karimov's delight.
The problem is that his repression of Islamic groups is seen by some diplomats in Tashkent as fostering the very religious fundamentalism he seeks to avoid.
RUSSIANS OUT
The uncertainties of independence have seen a mass exodus of Russians heading to the comparative security of home, undermining the economies of the countries they leave.
Around a million Russians have left Kazakhstan, whose population is now under 15 million, from nearly 17 million a decade ago. Just 30,000 Russians remain in Tajikistan, from half a million at independence.
The departure of the Russians and other minorities -- some 800,000 Germans have left Kazakhstan since 1991 -- feeds the region's economic problems, which in turn fuel the appeal of Islam, which in turn is used to justify authoritarian policies.
Tajikistan's average wage is $9 a month. A former employee of an Uzbek state bank, now working for a Western company, told Reuters that at the bank he ran a department of 50 staff looking after 800 clients for $25 a month.
President Niyazov says the average Turkmen wage is $4,500 a year, but residents in the capital say $30 or $40 a month is more like it.
The great exception is Kazakhstan, a vast land the size of Western Europe but which like Kyrgyzstan, does not border Afghanistan.
Among the world's most important oil and gas deposits, it has attracted foreign investment, largely liberalised its economy, and expects gross domestic product growth of 11 or 12 percent this year after 9.8 percent in 2000.
Its main city, Almaty, is becoming ever easier to live in, construction proceeds apace in the new capital, Astana, and its oil capital, Atyrau, is booming. Economic upturn is visible across the country, but is sadly lacking in the other Stans.
The United States and allies are looking for help in their war against terror from rulers who in some cases seem highly reminiscent of the omnipotent mediaeval Khans who preceded them, presiding over poor peoples with a harsh authority.
If Rumsfeld and his colleagues rid Afghanistan of terror and extremism, they will find much gratitude in the Stans. But for now the United States is turning to some unlikely new friends in its search for justice.
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