The Turkmen Opposition

From the "I don't know anything about this but I'm suspicious" files comes Nurmuhammet Hanamov's op-ed about Turkmenistan in The Washington Post:

The United States must send a clear message to Niyazov's holdouts in the "interim government" in Ashgabat: that they will not have its support unless they agree to hold free and fair elections -- ones that allow all citizens of Turkmenistan, including exiled opposition leaders and political prisoners, to take part.

In particular, exile leader "Khudaiberdy Orazov, a former chairman of the National Bank and an accomplished and energetic leader" needs to be allowed to run. He'll be able to rely on the help of the "thriving community of bright Turkmen students and intellectuals who are living in Western countries and are ready to return and help rebuild their country." Never fear, however, we and Orazov will be greeted as liberators: "According to a recent poll, Orazov's candidacy would have the support of a majority of Turkmen voters." New regime's key priorities?

Priorities for a democratically elected government during the initial post-Niyazov reconstruction must be to release all political prisoners, conduct open tenders and allow Western companies to bid for a stake in developing Turkmenistan's oil and gas fields; to consider new ways of getting our gas and oil to Western markets; to restore private property that Niyazov confiscated from Turkmen citizens; and to create a reconstruction fund using Niyazov's personal bank accounts and proceeds from the sale of oil and gas to revive the health-care and education systems.

Mmm...oil and gas fields. Seriously, for all I know this is totally legit, but it sure doesn't seem legit. The author "is the founding chairman of the Republican Party of Turkmenistan in exile. Before announcing his opposition to President Saparmurad Niyazov's regime and going into exile in 2002, Hanamov served as Turkmenistan's ambassador to Turkey and Israel and chairman of Turkmenistan's State Planning Committee."

Comments

Unless the definition of western markets has been expanded to include Russia, I don't think that they'd be particularly happy about a move like this.

Posted by daveNYC | January 3, 2007 9:56 AM

There's a Republican Party in Turkmenistan? Well, they're screwed.

Posted by Farinata X | January 3, 2007 9:59 AM

What's not "legit" about opening up their oil and gas fields to the west? Is that something that is somehow automatically suspicious? Poor countries need foreign investment to get their oil and gas out of the ground, you know.

Posted by Al | January 3, 2007 10:30 AM

More to the point, it strikes me that the entire Turkmen regime consists of people who want to continue Niyazov's policies. Check all this out. I also haven't the foggiest idea what sort of poll someone managed to produce that they claimed represented the true views of Turkmenistan's citizens, or what support the regime needs from us that we can threaten to withhold. All their big trade agreements are with the likes of Russia and Iran, unless the TAP pipeline ever gets built.

Posted by Brian Ulrich | January 3, 2007 10:32 AM

Khudaiberdy Orazov, meet Ahmed Chalabi.

Posted by PW | January 3, 2007 10:42 AM

I doubt Russia needs Turkmenistan's gas or oil. It's the largest natural gas exporter and the second largest oil exporter in the world.

Matt, I think you're being to quick assume ulterior motives. What else does Turkmenistan have to export? How much native expertise does it have, given the parlous state of education there? I take pretty much the opposite line - it could well not be legit, but it seems perfectly reasonable.

Posted by Ginger Yellow | January 3, 2007 10:46 AM

Russia doesn't want Turkmen energy for itself, it wants to maintain control of its export routes through the old Soviet pipeline network. This de facto control over Central Asian energy resources is a huge part of why Gazprom's is able to strongarm countries like Ukraine and Belarus.

Posted by Brian Ulrich | January 3, 2007 10:49 AM

These kind of developments are easy to understand if you read "Virtual Politics: Faking Democracy in the Post-Soviet World," by British scholar Andrew Wilson. In most of the post-Soviet countries, particularly in Central Asia, there is nothing resembling actual pro-democratic forces, with any influence whatsoever. There are some forces who have learned to spout Western-friendly terms like "democracy," "transparency," etc. And the more sophisticated among the ruling powers have learned how to invent their own opposition, actually creating their own contolled "safe" and controlled opposition parties to siphon off internal dissent and create window-dressing for Western eyes. The Western press has been completely suckered, painting ridiculous "good guy vs. bad guy" portraits, for example in its portrayal of the Orange Revolution in Ukraine. The U.S. government will support factions most likely to serve U.S. goals, and paint them as "democratic forces." If you think any of this represents real struggle for democracy, you're being played for a fool. It's all about division of spoils.

Posted by jbd | January 3, 2007 12:19 PM

the "thriving community of bright Turkmen students and intellectuals who are living in Western countries and are ready to return and help rebuild their country."

If there really is a significant exile community. While there was heavy emigration from Turkmenistan in the past 15 years, IINM it was mostly ethnic Russians, who probably have little if any interest in trying to rebuild the country. There also are many ethnic Turkmen people in Iran, but once again they may not be interested in returning.

Posted by Peter | January 3, 2007 12:21 PM

Why include Hanamov's mini-bio at the end? It's out of sync with the rest of the post. Hanamov seems like a standard Turkmenistani politician, such as they are.

Answer: The mini-bio contains the word "Israel". This is a "trigger word" that lets readers of this blog know that this man, Hanamov, is aligned with
Israel-->neoconservatives-->Bush, which is really all they need to know.

Posted by Mr. Noah | January 3, 2007 1:46 PM

I don't know anything about Orazov, and I'm generally suspicious of foreign exile communities who lobby the editorial staff at the NYT or the Post.

That said, Turkmenistan was a tragically misgoverned country, and efforts by the White House to promote democratic reforms there by means of diplomatic arm-twisting (as opposed to, say, launching "Operation Turkmen Freedom") are probably worthwhile.

Ted Rall, say whatever you will about him, had an intriguing article on Turkmenistan for MoJo during a pre-9/11 Central Asian road-trip, and the list of "Presidential decrees" in the wikipedia article on the late Turkmen dictator Saparmurat Niyazov is highly illuminating. For example, the Turkmen words for bread and the month of April were changed to the name of his late mother, Gurbansoltanedzhe. You just can't make this shit up.

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | January 3, 2007 2:07 PM

The ones in Iran won't be returning, because Turkmenistan wasn't their home to begin with.

Posted by Wade | January 3, 2007 2:13 PM

Poor countries need foreign investment to get their oil and gas out of the ground, you know. - Al

Seems to me, though, that at some point, if a poor country gets stuck being a de facto resource colony to its, um, foreign investors, that's not too good a deal for it, eh? Seems to me that successful countries, such as this one, are in part successful 'cause we kicked out foreign investors (in those days, they were "merchantilists" and "colonialists") ...

Posted by DAS | January 3, 2007 2:20 PM

This just seems like more business as usual in the post-Soviet part of the world.

On one side, we have western-oriented privatizers and liberalizers, with western governments and finacial backers lined up behind them, all with high hopes of landing a bigger piece of the local energy action, and with varying degrees of earnestness about real political reform. The governments seek to command another square on the chessboard. Some NGOs might be players thrown into the mix as well.

On the other side we have the current stake-holders in the state-run energy industries of the target country, the country's political elites (usually the same people, at least under the table); and the Russian interests in the country.

Turkmenistan seems to have followed a more independent (though weird) course than some other former Soviet Republics, and doesn't have as many ethnic Russians as many of these countries do. It has recently negotiated a better deal with Russia/Gazprom for sale of its gas, after playing hardball for several years.

Apparently there is a new pipeline leading out of Turkmenistan to Iran, and another planned to go under the Caspian Sea and into Turkey. Pursuing these alternative export projects seems to be the chief thing Orazov is offering western backers, with closer political realtions no doubt thrown into the mix as well. Turkmenistan obviously has very attractive strategic avantageous for US planners, given current US preoccupations, since it shares a border with Iran and Afghanistan, and has an extended Caspian coastline.

Apparently the scheduled revolution for Turkmenistan is to be called the "flour revolution", as Watan is planning on sending train loads of flour into the country.

It always seems like everyone who is a high-profile exile player from one of these states is under the shadow of embezzlement charges. The governing elites runs a corrupt racket, and all their high-level cronies are on the take. This buys them insurance. Since they are all collectively involved in an embezzlement scheme, if anyone breaks ranks with the elite, he is automatically subject to prosecution.

I think Gazprom does actually want the gas, not just control of pipelines. That's not because it needs the gas, but just because it can sell it at a profit. If Turkmenistan were a company, Gazprom would just buy it. Since it is a country, it has to buy the gas. My understanding is that Gazprom does not just sell gas that it and its subsidiaries have extracted themselves, but also buys gas from other suppliers.

Posted by Dan Kervick | January 3, 2007 2:30 PM

Answer: The mini-bio contains the word "Israel". This is a "trigger word" that lets readers of this blog know that this man, Hanamov, is aligned with
Israel-->neoconservatives-->Bush, which is really all they need to know.

Successive diplomatic postings to Israel and Turkey from Turkmenistan shows someone who was a third-tier player in the off again, on again (more off than on during Bush) wanna-be Mideast U.S-Turkish-Israeli triumvirate.

Posted by Ed Marshall | January 3, 2007 8:24 PM