Relaunch of ETG Site
Dear all:
Our team did a relaunch of the ETG web site, which is now online. Therefore we’ll close our blog here at WordPress and move back to our genuine adress (www.eurasiantransition.org).
Please visit it, bookmark or use the rss-feed.
ETG wishes you all a peaceful Christmas and a happy and successful year 2009.
Eurasian Transition Group
No Real Improvement In Turkmenistan’s Human Rights, Expert Says
Francois Petre, a Eastern Europe and Central Asia program officer for the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), says there has been no real improvement in the human rights situation in Turkmenistan in recent times.
Petre told RFE/RL’s Turkmen Service that the improvements that have been made are “facade improvements.” She says “Turkmenistan seems to be keen to have a good image abroad.”
The FIDH has urged Turkmenistan to allow trade unions, journalists, and civil organizations to operate freely in the country.
Petre said Turkmenistan should begin “implementing all the recommendations from the UN Committee for Human Rights, as [Turkmenistan] has been the subject of several procedures at the UN level.”
In a statement today, Human Rights Watch called on Turkmenistan to free what it described as hundreds of activists locked up in jail on politically motivated charges. The call came after Ashgabat released prominent civil rights activist Valeri Pal on December 7.
“The government should immediately and unconditionally release the other activists, whose only crime was their peaceful human rights work,” Human Rights Watch said in a statement. “Hundreds of people, perhaps more, languish in Turkmen prisons following unfair trials on what appeared to be politically motivated charges.”
Source: RFE/RL
GERMANY, AUSTRIA EMBRACE REALPOLITIK IN THEIR DEALINGS WITH ASHGABAT
The global economic slowdown appears to be giving Turkmenistan’s leader, Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, a boost.
Turkmenistan’s own relative isolation has proven a benefit during these tough economic times, shielding Ashgabat from some of the worst effects of the worldwide credit crunch. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. At the same time, the crisis has infused European governments, especially Germany, with a sense of urgency to conclude new deals that help embattled exporters. The fact that Berdymukhamedov’s administration seems to be one of the few governments in the world today with money to spend is prompting European states to de-emphasize Ashgabat’s troubled record on civil society development. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].
This dynamic was on full display during Berdymukhamedov’s recent tour of Germany and Austria. Both states rolled out the red carpet for the Turkmen leader, in what some observers described as a grand display of realpolitik.
Several factors are prompting German political leaders to set aside civil society-related issues when it comes to Turkmenistan. Foremost in the minds of many is Turkmenistan’s vast energy reserves and Europe’s voracious appetite for natural gas. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. In addition, Ashgabat represents a potentially lucrative market for German technology. And finally, 2009 is an election year in Germany, meaning politicians are giving priority to business deals that improve corporate profits and preserve jobs at home.
“Turkmenistan prioritizes economic development, and the European Union also is strongly inclined in this direction,” Andrea Schmitz, a researcher at the Berlin-based German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), said. “Seeing this, and in the light of the interests of large parts of the German industry, the government in Berlin has little margin to help with an improvement of the human rights situation — as long as this help isn’t really welcome.”
Just last year, German Chancellor Angela Merkel rejected the idea of hosting a state visit by Berdymukhamedov, according to political insiders in Berlin. Instead, Germany dispatched delegations to Ashgabat. The global fiscal crisis caused attitudes in Berlin to change quickly, however.
In the German capital, Berdymukhamedov met with Merkel and her main rival for power, Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, as well as with Federal President Horst Köhler and Economics Minister Michael Glos. “Human rights issues are important, but not enforceable in the short term. Democratization takes its time. That’s ‘realpolitik’ instead of naive idealism”, said Alexander Rahr, the director of the Russian/Eurasia Program of the German Council on Foreign Relations.
While no blockbuster business deals were announced during the German visit, observers say a lot of ground was broken. German officials, including Glos, heralded Ashgabat as a potential investment destination, while urging further reforms designed to protect investor rights and better regulate economic activity. Berdymukhamedov, meanwhile, impressed German executives with a speech in Berlin, delivered in German, during an economic forum, according to Rahr, who participated in the event. The two sides also focused on promoting the ratification of an Interim Trade Agreement between the EU and Turkmenistan. “Ratification would boost EU-Turkmen relations and enable the establishment of another EU [diplomatic] representation in Central Asia,” Schmitz said.
Discussions between German and Turkmen leaders often turned to energy issues. Germany, as well as other EU members, is eager to reduce its dependency on Russia for gas supplies. Berdymukhamedov, in turn, is keeping his options open, not making any specific commitments to export gas via a route bypassing Russia. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].
In Germany, and more so in Austria, officials brought up the possibility of Turkmenistan’s participation in the Nabucco pipeline, which would help funnel gas from the Caspian Basin to Western Europe, while keeping the Kremlin out of the equation. The pipeline remains shrouded in questions about its feasibility, and some experts continue to question whether Nabucco will ever get built. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Yet, even if the pipeline project never materializes, the discussions could still prove fruitful, Rahr said.
“Promises are made easily, but not necessarily kept. Nabucco probably will become a non-starter, but at least it will contribute to the EU’s continuing rapprochement in the region,” Rahr said, adding that “Russia won’t be able to sustain its control over Central Asian energy resources exclusively in the long run.” Germany’s economic interests in Turkmenistan are not only limited to energy resources. About 50 German industrial and financial companies are already active in the country. Bilateral trade volume reached 161 million euros ($204 million) in 2007, according to the German Foreign Ministry. At a joint press briefing with Berdymukhamedov, Chancellor Merkel stated that “the intensity of our cooperation is still significantly below its potential.”
During her discussions with Berdymukhamedov, the chancellor reportedly stressed that Germany had a lot to offer Ashgabat, in terms of providing the equipment that is needed for infrastructure improvements. In many economic development areas, German technology “is of particular interest for the Central Asian state,” said Schmitz, the SWP researcher.
In Vienna, where Berdymukhamedov’s 140-strong delegation arrived November 16, economic and trade topics were also the focus of talks. Austrian Federal President Heinz Fischer welcomed the Turkmen president in his residence, the Hofburg, and hosted the signing of an Austrian-Turkmen memorandum on political and economic cooperation. Berdymukhamedov also met with the director of the Austrian company OMV, which is the leading member of a consortium trying to advance the Nabucco project.
Prior to Berdymukhamedov’s November 13 arrival in Germany, Human Rights Watch issued an open letter to both Merkel and Fischer, urging the two leaders to press the Turkmen leader to free political prisoners and repeal laws that enable the stifling of dissent. HRW’s plea fell on deaf ears in Berlin and Vienna. Merkel has spoken out in past years about rights abuses in Russia and other countries, most prominently when she received the Dalai Lama in the Chancellery and caused a diplomatic cooling-off with China. But at the press conference following to her conversation with Berdymukhamedov, she glossed over the human rights issue. “The European Union and Germany are, of course, also talking about questions relating to law-making, the improvement of human rights and the openness of society”, Merkel said at the short joint briefing with the Turkmen President, where no questions were accepted.
In emphasizing deals over personal freedoms in its relations with Turkmenistan, the EU may be making it more difficult to maintain stability in Central Asia, a region that is vulnerable to getting caught up in a vicious cycle of government repression and Islamic radicalism.
“Germany’s and Austria’s Turkmenistan-policy is affected by security and business interests. That may be legitimate, but if so, one should speak out frankly about it. Effectively, there’s no public political debate and no media coverage of it,” said Gerhard Mangott, an Austrian professor from the International Security Research Group and the University of Innsbruck. He went on to warn that with the present approach toward Turkmenistan, the EU risks “losing its credibility among opposition groups and civil society movements all over Central Asia.”
Source: Eurasianet
TOP EU OFFICIAL VISITS TASHKENT
Pierre Morel, the European Union Special Representative for Central Asia, arrived in Uzbekistan on December 1 for discussions designed to boost political and economic relations.
A series of EU dignitaries have visited Tashkent over the past eight weeks, including the presidents of Latvia and Bulgaria, and foreign ministers of Hungary and Romania. It is perhaps not a coincidence that all four states are former members of the Soviet bloc. Regional experts say officials from these newer EU member states have an easier rapport with Uzbek officials, and thus have played an important role in accelerating a rapprochement between Brussels and Tashkent.
“When the Latvian president gives Karimov an [state] medal, it flatters Karimov and opens him for cooperation,” said a Tashkent-based analyst, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Kazakhstan Offers Help With Ossetian, Abkhaz Talks
ASTANA (Reuters) — Kazakhstan, a former Soviet state with good ties to Russia and Georgia, believes it can help resolve the future of the rebel regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, Prime Minister Karim Masimov has told Reuters.
Georgia and Russia fought a brief war in August over South Ossetia, a pro-Moscow region which threw off Tbilisi’s rule in 1991-92 and declared independence.
Talks in Geneva between the two sides about South Ossetia have made little progress. Some “tough” discussions were held there about security issues on November 19, Interfax news agency quoted a Russian diplomat as saying.
Noting that oil- and gas-rich Kazakhstan would take the chair of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in 2010, Masimov, in an interview, said, “I strongly believe the OSCE can play a bigger role in resolving the issue of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and Kazakhstan as future chairman can play a bigger role and my president [Nursultan Nazarbaev] has already expressed interest.”
Kazakhstan’s OSCE role was delayed by a year after human rights groups criticized a lack of democracy in the country, ruled by Nazarbaev since the late Soviet period.
No Plans To Recognize
But despite Kazakhstan’s good relations with Moscow, Masimov made clear that his country did not plan to recognize the two Georgian rebel regions’ declaration of independence.
So far, only Russia and Nicaragua have recognized South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states; the United States and the European Union have condemned the move while Moscow’s former Soviet vassals have remained mostly silent.
“According to the decision of my president, we did not recognize the independence of Kosovo and we did not recognize the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia,” Masimov said. “The treatment should be equal in all cases like that, not only in the region, but worldwide.”
As one of the biggest foreign investors in Georgia, Kazakhstan wanted the situation to be resolved peacefully as soon as possible, he added.
Masimov said Kazakhstan, located at a strategic crossroads of Asia and Europe, wanted to maintain its policy of staying friends with all major powers. He listed the United States, Russia, China, and the Middle East as strategic partners.
“We prefer not to say we are friendly with someone against someone else,” he said
Nazarbaev had already held a phone conversation with U.S. President-elect Barack Obama and the call had given Kazakhstan confidence that its good relations with Washington would endure, the premier added.
New Report Documents Continued Use of Child Labor in Uzbekistan’s Cotton Sector in Fall 2008 Harvest
A new report from the International Labor Rights Forum and a group of human rights defenders in Uzbekistan documents continued child labor in cotton fields in Uzbekistan in the Fall 2008 harvest season. Contrary to the government of Uzbekistan’s assertions that it has banned forced child labor, recent information suggests it continues to compel children as young as 11 and 12 to pick cotton, closing schools and using other coercive measures to enforce compliance. Although Uzbekistan has recently signed two ILO conventions against forced and child labor, and issued a new decree ostensibly prohibiting the practice, information from around the country shows that the government continues to rely on the state-orchestrated mass mobilization of children to bring in the 2008 cotton harvest. Uzbekistan is the world’s third largest exporter of cotton, and cotton is that country’s largest source of export revenue.
To read the report, please click here
Fields of Nightmares
Tajikistan is definitely a beautiful country, but its cotton picking policies leave an indelible black mark on its reputation. Cotton picking in this country is a dirty practice that enslaves students and restricts the growth of this majestic country. Due to the greed of a few rich cotton brokers, working for the local and national government, students are essentially forced to pick cotton for about two months every year. Students are basically given three difficult options to choose from:
1. Pick cotton every day and live in squalor for two months.
2. Refuse to pick cotton and risk expulsion from school.
3. Pay a bribe to a university official or a medical doctor who will excuse them or write a “sick” note.
A friend of mine was recently denied this third option because they needed more students in the cotton fields. She explained to me that the dean of her school already had enough bribe money, and that the dean was essentially forcing her to go pick cotton or face serious repercussions.
Students have been going to pick cotton since the days of the USSR. However, back in the USSR days students were provided with better living conditions, healthier food, and cleaner water. Now students have to live in unheated, dilapidated, vermin infested sleeping quarters. Students are forced to sleep elbow to elbow on the floor or on a raised platform area. They are forced awake in the pre-dawn hours and work 8-9 hours a day 7 days a week. They labor all day on nothing more than tea and bread for breakfast and soup and tea for lunch and dinner.
The food and water quality are so bad that many parents bring healthy food and water to their beloved children. Students don’t have any access to a shower for weeks at a time despite the hot and humid conditions they endure in September and early October. Then in late October and early November it is so cold students have to sleep with their clothes and coats on and use warm blankets just to stay warm at night. The toilets are simple open pit outhouses without proper hand washing facilities.
For some students the conditions are more than they can bear and they become sick.
A few weeks ago I visited one of these forced labor camps. I found students lying on their mats in the afternoon in a state of sickness induced deep sleep. Another girl complained that her liver hurt her and she looked dehydrated and malnourished. She said she had notified a teacher that her liver hurt and that she wanted to see a doctor. However, no doctor was ever provided to her or the other sick students. The sick students needed clean water, clean clothes, clean bedding and medical services but none of these were available to them. The girl with the hurt liver was yelled at by an especially mean male teacher and forced to walk out to the field in the hot sun.
These practices are against several universal human rights. In article 23 from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights it states, “Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favorable conditions of work and to the protection against unemployment. Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.” Students’ work in the cotton fields is not of their own choosing. Every student I talked to in the cotton field said that if they had the choice they would rather be in school studying. I’ve already described that students’ working conditions are neither “just” nor “favorable.” Their pay is not even close to fair compensation for the amount of work they do. Often students only payment for their work is the scant unhealthy food rations they receive. To receive these rations students have to pick at least 15 kilos of cotton a day. If students pick more than 15 kilos their extra labor is not justly compensated by extra food or money. This is blatant exploitation and underpayment of students’ labor. It is also illegal by international law and standards.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights also deals with education in article 26. It states, “Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.” Many students here though are denied this basic human right for two months every year. The progress of this country is in serious jeopardy because young people are denied a quality higher education. In today’s world it is very important for people to be well educated so that they can understand the complex world we live in. However, local and national leaders have chosen to sacrifice this country’s future for the short term profits from the cotton harvest. Leaders know that if they can keep the people of Tajikistan undereducated they will be easier to control.
Of course school and government officials try to make these human rights abuses sound better by saying the students are just volunteers. But according to my American Heritage Dictionary a volunteer is, “a person who performs or offers a service of his or her own free will.” These students are definitely not volunteers. They are called volunteers because students are tricked and coerced into signing a blank sheet of paper. University officials tell students they have to sign this blank sheet of paper, and that it obligates them to volunteer their time to help the university. This “volunteer” service might entail students working to clean or repair the university for a few hours. But this signed blank sheet of paper is also used to force students to pick cotton. This blank sheet of paper is disingenuous and its primary aim is to give a legal basis for the forced cotton picking labor. School and university officials, for legal reasons, probably wouldn’t admit to expelling a student because they refused to pick cotton. Instead what they can do is mark a student absent from class for approximately 36 hours even though there weren’t any classes because the other students were picking cotton. This then gives them the authority to expel a student based on the student’s poor attendance. Most students are afraid of the negative repercussions they will face both at school and at home if they don’t go to the cotton fields. The students are the innocent victims in this awful situation. They are led astray by the adults and leaders of this country who either remain silent or actively participate in this illegal practice.
The 1998 Nobel Prize winner in economics Amartya Sen says in his book Development as Freedom that freedom leads to development. This means the more freedom a country has the more developed it will be. He says, “These substantive freedoms (that is liberty of political participation or the opportunity to receive basic education or health care) are among the constituent components of development.” He goes on to explain that, “freedoms of different kinds can strengthen one another.” Political freedoms, from free speech to elections, can help foster a better economy. In turn economic freedoms can help create more social freedoms. However, the opposite can also be true. If people’s freedoms are taken away this affects their other freedoms. Here in Tajikistan students feel like they don’t have the freedom to refuse to pick cotton. This then limits their educational and economic freedoms. They don’t get a quality and complete education and this leads to them not being able to get a job that will give them economic independence. Society here is less free and less developed because cotton picking continually denies the young generations the freedom of a quality education.
In contrast, Japan is a good example of a country that early on invested in educational development. The Meiji era (1868-1911) greatly expanded education for the Japanese people. But this occurred before generational poverty was broken in Japan. Now today Japan is a rich well developed country because it has been investing in its peoples’ education for many years. Expanding and improving education is not only the work of rich countries. It is necessary for all countries to do in if they are to develop.
Fortunately, this illegal activity that is a deterrent to development is starting to get some international press. In October 2008 an article appeared in the International Herald Times which is the global edition of the New York Times. It was entitled, “Tajik Farmers Enslaved Where Cotton is King” you can read this article by going to www.iht.com/articles/2008/10/15/asia/tajik.php. This article did a very good job of detailing the dismal plight of the cotton farmers. I sympathize with these farmers, but I’m also deeply effected by the students’ stories. Student cotton picking is an injustice and injustice anywhere leads to injustice everywhere.
David Holzmeyer (David is an American living in Khujand, Tajikistan; he teaches English at Khujand State University)
Uzbek Children In ‘HIV Outbreak’
More than 40 young children have been infected with HIV at a hospital in Uzbekistan, officials have said.
Health authorities told the BBC that an investigation into the infections of the mainly new-born babies was taking place in the eastern town of Namangan.
The United Nations says Central Asia has one of the world’s fastest-growing HIV infection rates.
Unsafe blood supplies and contaminated equipment are often blamed for spreading the infection.
Stigma and secrecy
The infections in Uzbekistan are just the latest case of mass contamination in a health facility in the region.
In August, a court in Kyrgyzstan convicted nine medical workers of infecting 24 children with HIV, while last year 21 medical workers in Kazakhstan were found guilty of infecting dozens of babies.
The staff concerned pleaded not guilty, saying poor hygiene conditions were to blame.
The Uzbek cases were discovered in October, and have reportedly been referred to prosecutors.
But they have not been reported in the local media, which is tightly controlled by the government.
The officials who spoke to the BBC’s Uzbek service were only prepared to comment on condition of anonymity.
Aid workers say the stigma surrounding HIV/Aids and the atmosphere of secrecy means that many outbreaks of hospital-acquired infection do not get reported.
In July this year, Jimmy Kolker, a senior UN official on HIV/Aids, called on Central Asian governments to record and share their information on cases.
He was speaking at a meeting in Uzbekistan, which was discussing how to tackle a regional epidemic of HIV among women and children.
Source: BBC
CENTRAL ASIA: KYRGYZSTAN, TAJIKISTAN AND UZBEKISTAN CONFRONT A FINANCIAL DISASTER
A financial catastrophe is looming for Central Asia’s poorest countries, as migrant workers in the once booming powerhouses of Russia and Kazakhstan are having increasing trouble finding work, and are thus unable to send cash back to loved ones in impoverished Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
For years, remittances has have kept the Kyrgyz, Tajik and Uzbek economies afloat. Billions of dollars cross borders every year and mean the difference between crushing poverty and a modest standard of living for hundreds of thousands of families in the region.
But as the global financial crisis takes its toll on labor markets across the former Soviet Union, experts and governments alike are warning of severe economic and social consequences. Along with a decreased inward flow of hard currency, the grinding unemployment that sent so many abroad in the first place will grow worse in Central Asia, said Maria Disenova, an Almaty-based risks analyst with the Institute of Economic Strategies – Central Asia.
“Remittances from migrants are very important for [Central Asian] countries. For example, in Kyrgyzstan total remittances may be as much as 15 percent of GDP and in Uzbekistan as much as 20 percent of GDP. This definitely has a social effect because it helps the families of those migrants to cope with poverty and lack of [jobs] at home,” Disenova said.
“The slowdown in Kazakhstan has already affected migrants working here because many of them worked in the construction sector [and] many of the projects in which they were involved have been stalled,” Disenova continued.
Authorities in Bishkek, Dushanbe and Tashkent can expect to come under severe pressure in the coming months to develop programs that alleviate mounting social woes. The challenges will be all the more formidable because as a result of the general economic decline, regional governments will experience a significant drop in revenue.
“Less [money] being sent back home means more tension in those poorer countries and more strain on the governments,” Disenova said, adding that labor migration represented for regional officials a solution to the twin evils of poverty and unemployment. Now, regional governments will have no other choice but to tackle the social challenges head-on, she added.
The Kyrgyz Prime Minister, Igor Chudinov, Economic Minister, Akylbek Japarov, and the chairperson of the Kyrgyz State Committee for Migration and Employment, Aygul Ryskulova, have already sounded alarms. “Our government is, in real terms, on the threshold of a financial crisis. A decline in Kyrgyzstan’s economic situation is quite possible by February or March 2009,” Japarov said in early November, citing falling remittances and slowing Russian and Kazakh economies as key factors.
“As much as people may say that the global crisis will not touch us, declining economic growth across the world and among our leading partners – Kazakhstan, Russia and China – will leave its mark on our economy,” said Prime Minister Chudinov.
More than $800 million in remittances has been sent to Kyrgyzstan since the start of 2008, Ryskulova said. “[But] given that our migrants are also buying real property and sending cash through their acquaintances, this sum is over a billion dollars,” she added.
Official estimates from the Kyrgyz State Committee for Migration and Employment put the number of Kyrgyz migrant workers between half a million and 800,000. The Migration Service of Tajikistan says there are close to 600,000 Tajiks working abroad, among them 220,000 Tajiks who departed for Russia during the first six month of 2008.
According to the Asian Development Bank, 79 percent of remittances to Kyrgyzstan and 98 percent of remittances to Tajikistan originated in Russia. The International Monetary Fund estimates that $1.8 billion of Tajikistan’s $3.8 billion GDP is generated by migrant workers’ remittances.
The United Nation’s Economic Commission has warned that official estimates tend to be conservative, and a working paper on remittances in the Commonwealth of Independent States found that “Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan have remittances twice the official value.”
In Uzbekistan, where the government has not released any official data on remittances, the UN estimates them to be worth at least 10 percent of GDP. Partial data indicates that the amount of remittances sent to Uzbekistan during the first half of 2008 alone approached $2 billion.
Magnifying the impact of dwindling remittances, significant prices hikes for essentials, including food and energy, are being forecast throughout Central Asia. For example, the Kyrgyz National Bank’s outlook or 2009 says the cost of bread and flour is likely to rise by 15 to 20 percent, and housing tariffs could rise by as much as 45 percent.
The cost of bread and vegetable oil in Tajikistan has more than doubled since August 2007 and most other foodstuffs have seen price hikes of 50 percent over the same span, according to the World Food program. As a result, more than 2 million Tajiks face “food insecurity” this winter, and 800,000 may face “famine” conditions, the organization said.
Source: Eurasianet
EU Preparing To Upgrade Turkmenistan Relations
EU institutions are preparing to normalise relations with Turkmenistan, laying aside human rights benchmarks in a bureaucratic process marked by apathy and mistrust.
The European Parliament’s international trade committee has invited the European Commission to brief MEPs about the political situation in the gas-rich dictatorship at its next meeting on 2 December.
The briefing will pave the way for parliament to decide on approving an Interim Trade Agreement (ITA) with Ashgabat, under a consultation procedure that would make refusal politically awkward for the treaty’s future.
The ITA would multiply the number of EU-Turkmenistan meetings and improve prospects for opening a future EU embassy. It would also send the political message that Europe wants to do business with President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov.
MEPs in February said the ITA should stay frozen until Turkmenistan releases political prisoners, gives access to UN experts on torture, lets people travel out of the country and reforms its educational system.
None of the benchmarks have been met. “This is a time when Turkmenistan is looking to the EU for partnership, for respectability. The EU needs to be consistent,” Human Rights Watch (HRW) analyst Maria Lisitsyna said.
But the European Commission in December is likely to tell MEPs that Ashgabat has done enough to show it is open to change, highlighting minor reforms such as relaxation of forced teaching of the Rukhnama, a theological tract.
“We need to encourage these efforts and engage more with the country,” commission external relations spokeswoman Christiane Hohmann said. “Non-approval of the ITA would risk sending the wrong message.”
Mistrust of NGOs
Brussels sees NGOs such as HRW as a nuisance in its attempt to steer Central Asian countries out of the Russian sphere of influence in a grand geopolitical strategy.
“It’s almost as if now that Uzbekistan has gone, they are turning all their attention to Turkmenistan,” one EU official said, after the EU in October dropped Uzbekistan sanctions despite an HRW campaign.
The commission will be preaching to the converted as far as the largest parliamentary political group, the conservative EPP-ED, is concerned.
“If we don’t talk to the Turkmen, they won’t learn about democracy and human rights from Russia or from the Chinese government,” German conservative MEP and ITA rapporteur Daniel Caspary said.
The deputy cast doubts on the reliability of HRW analysis, saying that in the past, Russian proxy groups have fed mis-information to Western NGOs.
“HRW, which I very much like, gets information from different channels and some of those channels – they don’t know who is behind them.”
Apathy also a force
Few MEPs take a strong interest in Turkmenistan, risking a situation in which a handful of pro-ITA deputies lead parliament decision-making.
The head of the Central Asia delegation, Lithuanian Liberal MEP Ona Jukneviciene, in April cancelled a delegation visit to Ashgabat because she was too busy with other things. Just one MEP turned up to a commission briefing on Turkmenistan to the human rights sub-committee in October.
The commission’s geopolitical rhetoric also masks smaller bureaucratic objectives and gives an exaggerated impression of Central Asia’s importance on its own agenda.
With Turkmenistan as the only one of the five Central Asia states where EU treaties still date back to Soviet times, some EU officials are keen to conclude the ITA to tick a box in their programme.
The commission’s top external relations official, Hugues Mingarelli, has openly said Central Asia is low on his list of priorities, with EU-Russia relations in first place.
Source: EU Observer
