Two Decades Later in Central Asia, Still Awaiting the Revolution

By Sasha Meyer

Western news reports on the revolutions of 1989 have been celebratory. But in Russia the mood has been somber. Russian writers want to know what went wrong. Among them, Sergey Kovalev, a Soviet-era dissident, laments that Soviet dissidents by and large failed to form into an effective political opposition once the Soviet collapse was under way. That thought has been echoed by Aleksandr Podrabinek, who argues that power simply shifted from one group of former apparatchiks to another. Lev Ponomarev distinguishes between two types of dissidents – those who started out the era outside the system, and those who were insiders – and decides that the latter had managerial experience, and it was they who came to power; he cites Aleksandr Yakovlev, Boris Yeltsin and Anatoly Sobchak among them. It is from the confluence of factors raised by all these writers that Russia gets its largely Soviet flavor of governance.

Central Asia, too, has been run the last two decades by such figures – Islam Karimov in Uzbekistan, Nursultan Nazarbaev in Kazakhstan, and so on. The only exception has been Askar Akayev, Kyrgyzstan’s former president. Taking stock of their performance, it’s useful to consider the achievements of what other originally backwater nations achieved in similar two-decade periods of time.

In 1968, South Korea was still a poor country, with a per-capita GDP equal to that of North Korea. Twenty years later, its car makers were selling upscale vehicles in the U.S., the world's most competitive market, and its economy had overtaken Belgium's. Most recently, its Korea Electric Power this week beat out marquee French, Japanese and U.S. consortia to win a contract to build four nuclear power plants in the United Arab Emirates.

In 1986, Vietnam was still reeling from the impact of the wars with China, France, and the U.S. Food shortages were common. A little over two decades later, Vietnam has one of the world's fastest-growing economies. It doesn't just export the usual paraphernalia of international trade: clothing, shoes and appliances. The country is turning into a high-tech hub, hosting IBM's cloud computing facilities and Intel's $1 billion chip-making plant, among others.

In the early 1980s, Turkey had an anemic and quasi-statist economy. Again, a little over 20 years later, Turkish companies make more than half of all TVs sold in Europe. Its apparel such as Mavi jeans are sold at upmarket stores like Nordstrom. Elsewhere, as Hugh Pope writes in Sons of the Conquerors, ”Turkish manufacturers' reputation had grown enough, in fact, that some Chinese clothing designers imitated higher-quality Turkish styles and brands.” The strength goes beyond consumer goods – Turkey has contracted to supply parts for America's F-35, the world’s most advanced jet fighter.

In the meantime, Central Asia has followed a trajectory that resembles Africa's in the years after gaining independence. Passages from Ryszard Kapuscinski's Shadow of the Sun read like today's Central Asia. The gaining of independence, he writes,

“was characterized by a universal optimism, enthusiasm, euphoria. People were convinced that freedom meant a better roof over their heads, a large bowl of rice, a first pair of shoes. A miracle would take place – the multiplying of loaves, fishes, and wine.”

“[But] nothing of the sort occurred. On the contrary. optimism quickly turned to disenchantment and pessimism. The people's bitterness, fury, hatred was now directed against their own elites, who were rapidly and greedily stuffing their pockets.”

“[And] in the years since independence, fundamental human rights were brutally violated by the government. People were denied the right to live in freedom and with mutual respect. They were not allowed to have their own opinions. Organized political gangsterism and the politics of falsehood turned all elections into a farce. Instead of serving the nation, politicians were busy stealing.”

The recent obituary of Omar Bongo, president for life of Gabon, could be a résumé of his Central Asian peers:

Mr Bongo made no distinction between Gabon and his private property. He had ruled there so long, 42 years, that they had become one. It was therefore perfectly natural that an oil company, granted a large concession for coastal drilling, should slip him regular suitcases stuffed with cash. It was natural that $2.6 million in aid money should be used to decorate his private jet, that government funds should pay for the Italian marble cladding his palace, and that his wife Edith's sea-blue Maybach, in which she was driven round Paris, should be paid for with a cheque drawn on the Gabonese treasury. Of the $130 million in his personal accounts at Citibank in New York, it was probable – though Citibank never asked, and nobody ever managed to pin a charge on him – that much of it was derived from the GDP of his country.

The suggestion of fiddling public finances flummoxed and infuriated him. Corruption, he once explained to a reporter, was not an African word. No more was nepotism: He simply looked after his family, supplying them with villas in Nice as well as the ministries of defense and foreign affairs. When French judges in 2009 froze nine of his 70 bank accounts, he was outraged. An attack on him was obviously an attempt to destabilize his country. He was equally indignant when in 2004, after a "Miss Humanity" pageant was held in Libreville, Miss Peru charged him with sexual harassment for summoning her to the palace and, he hoped, to his nifty behind-the-paneling bed. If something was in Gabon, by nature or chance, he evidently had first dibs on it.

To alter the course would be simple. Consider what China did in 1979 – land reform that, by freeing peasants in a largely agricultural society, instantly improved the lot of many, and generated the cash needed to modernize the industry. Not incidentally, it also generated broad public support for the government, and helped to strengthen political stability.

Uzbekistan would achieve a big advance by halting the production of its biggest current crop – cotton – and planting native fruit in its place. Uzbekistan grows cotton – a subtropical, water-thirsty crop – on some 1.5 million hectares in this arid region, earning about $1 billion from exports. On the cost side of the ledger is a massive loss of land to salt, polluted river water unfit even for agricultural use, growing international criticism of child labor during harvest time, and tension with neighbors over water rights from the Amu Darya and Syr Darya. Cotton simply doesn’t pay. As a comparison, Chile earns $1.26 billion from the export of grapes harvested on just 182,000 hectares; it causes no environmental damage, and brings in an additional $1.37 billion from wine exports. All in all, the South American country makes $3.34 billion selling various fruit. Emulating its success in Central Asia should be simple given that the region is home to many varieties of fruit and walnuts. Agribusiness is a serious source of cash even in more advanced economies like Portugal and New Zealand, as well as in high-tech powerhouses like South Korea, which is a top-ten producer of onions. So, far the only place in the neighborhood to adopt this strategy is the neighboring Chinese province of Xinjiang, which exports apples to Kazakhstan and pears to the United States. Xinjiang also exports its products to Mongolia, Japan and Malaysia.

The stumbling block is probably the prevailing mindset among officials in the region. Russian researcher Olga Kryshtanovskaka has found that up to 83% of government positions in Russia are held by former members of the Soviet nomenklatura. The figure for Central Asia is probably higher as its bureaucracy survived the Soviet collapse intact.

Soviet-era writers have been scathing about this upper layer of society, which comprises just 0.1% of the population. Soviet-era writer Michail Voslensky called the nomeklatura “an invisible aristocracy whose reign is more oppressive than that of the czars.” Hungarian essayist György Konrád caustically writes that the nomenklatura often fail economically, trained as they are in a Communist system in which "the more stupid lead the more intelligent, because it has made political reliability a more important job requirement than ability." There is traction to this thinking. For instance, a Western diplomat based in Tajikistan says of local officials in a report by the International Crisis Group, "We are not just dealing with selfishness and greed, but incredible incompetence at all levels.”

The question then is whether there will be new faces in the political elites, and whether they will make a break with Soviet-era attitudes, as has happened in Georgia and to a lesser degree in Ukraine.

Or whether the region will continue to be like Gabon and Egypt – in the former, the new president is the son of the late Omar Bongo; in the latter, the combination of a youthful population bulge and governmental economic incompetence is creating an increasingly religious and conservative society, possibly opening the door to the Pakistani outcome in the longer term.

The Children of the Autocrats

Last summer, Timur Kulibayev, Kazakhstan President Nazarbayev's son-in-law, was fired from his position atop Samruk, the fund that invests the country's oil earnings. Then, he vanished from the public eye. That didn't seem all that important -- after all, Kulibayev was always an exceedingly low-profile official despite directing Kazakhstan's oil industry, and also the Nazarbayev family wealth. Even when rumors started that Kulibayev was in serious trouble with his father-in-law, one recalled previous occasions when Nazarbayev removed family members from positions of importance, only to restore them a year or two later.

Yet, I raise Kulibayev because a story from the British tabloid News of the World has been circulating the Internet about a London-based Kazakh socialite who has recently given birth to his son. Despite the story's yellow-press providence, I'm told reliably that it's essentially true -- the woman, a former Oxford University student named Gaukhar Berkalieva (pictured with Kulibayev), did give birth in December to a boy named Adam, and Kulibayev is indeed the father. (The story rated tabloid real estate because Berkalieva, who goes publicly by the name Goga Ashkenazi, had a couple of dates with Prince Andrew; in addition, the paper somehow obtained topless shots of her.)

As we learned in trials and news conferences last month, Nazarbayev has exiled his other son-in-law, Rakhat Aliyev, over alleged crimes that make the Alexander Litvinenko affair look mild. Aliyev is accused of smuggling all manner of weapons, radioactive materials and poisons into Kazakhstan, with the goal of overthrowing his father-in-law and seizing power. Aliyev lives in Austria, where he depicts himself as a democratic oppositionist.

So is Kulibayev in a fix over humiliating Nazarbayev's second daughter? Perhaps not, since Kulibayev was included on the official guest list to pass the Olympic torch in Almaty a couple of days ago. And Nazarbayev himself has done a similar thing, fathering a daughter with Gulnara Rakisheva, a former stewardess from the presidential jet. Whatever the answer, it will be important for those wishing to do oil business in Kazakhstan.

Azerbaijan's Heydar Aliyev managed to shepherd his gambling-and-drinking son Ilham into respectability and eventual succession into the presidency. And Uzbekistan's Islam Karimov is said to be trying with his daughter, Gulnara.

But what of Nazarbayev's successor? If he does consider his position dynastic, who is left?

The Same Old Game in Uzbekistan

As they say, hope springs eternal. But when it comes to Uzbekistan, it's getting ridiculous.

Uzbekistan’s Islam Karimov, the former Soviet Union’s most malignant president, is engaged in one of his customary mid-rule alliance shifts. After a few years of bedding with Vladimir Putin, he’s showing some leg to his former intimate, Washington. He has released some political prisoners. He’s allowing Human Rights Watch to re-open its Tashkent office. He's again allowing NATO to use Termez as an entry point to Afghanistan.

All of this has triggered remarks by some human rights activists and State Department officers that Western sanctions against him are working.

But Karimov’s about-face is predictable. He has with regularity shifted between Russia and the United States since the 1991 Soviet breakup. What does not change are his main policies – iron-fist rule, torture and repression of his people, and impoverishing, Soviet-like economic policies.

It seems a quaint notion now, but in 1996, for instance, Karimov desperately wanted what was then regarded as the ultimate recognition in this part of the world – an official state visit to the White House. Washington rubbed its hands with glee, getting Karimov “in exchange” to agree among other things to currency reform, and to allow exiled opponents to return home. Within months of his Oval Office visit with President Clinton, however, it was back to the old Karimov – the currency reform was canceled, and opponents were arrested or forced back out of the country.

Now, Human Rights Watch says that Karimov’s release of political prisoners just before last week’s visit of a European delegation to Tashkent is proof that “sustained international pressure on Tashkent is effective.”

It means nothing of the sort. What it does mean is that Karimov remains a cynical – and shrewd – geopolitical player who knows precisely how to push the right buttons in both Moscow and Washington.

Photo: DGtal Plus Art & Photo
Rights: Creative Commons

Becoming Quieter on the Caspian

The prize in the Pipeline War is Turkmenistan. Russia and China -- especially the former -- are far ahead of the West in the contest. One reason has been their willingness to look the other way on the issues of human rights, rigged elections and presidents for life.

Chris Chivers of The New York Times weighed in over the weekend on the American response, which is to lower the volume on the moralizing.

There has been a U.S. policy shift on the Caspian, and that's to tell the presidents that they don't have to be like Norway to get along with Washington. As long as they stay on the good-behavior -end of the spectrum of the generally badboy former Soviet states, they're all right.

Some quiet diplomacy is needed in the region. The U.S. is right to give the benefit of the doubt, for instance, to Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov as long as he continues to methodically dismantle the legacy of his predecessor, Saparmurat Niyazov.

The aim of the U.S. policy is to help to continue to carve out some long-term breathing room for the region from Russia by championing the trans-Caspian and Nabucco natural gas pipelines to Europe. So far, Turkmenistan has been more favorable toward Russia's competing system, the Nord Stream and South Stream pipelines.

Yet there's a line not to be crossed.

One is pandering. Chivers provides an astonishing public remark by Julie Finley, U.S. ambassador to the OSCE. Speaking to Kazakhs in Europe a couple of years ago about their seizure of unflattering newspapers, Finley said, “Maybe you saved some readers some waste of time, anyway.”

And a second is Uzbekistan. Chivers describes a recent visit to Tashkent by the apparently irrepressible Admiral William Fallon, commander of the U.S. Central Command. Fallon is seeking to help thaw currently frozen relations with Uzbekistan's Islam Karimov, who holds the distinction of being the former Soviet Union's most brutal dictator.

“I told them that we couldn’t do much about the past, but that we could look at the future,” Fallon said of his discussion with the Uzbeks.

With respect, that's incorrect, Admiral Fallon. There is no respectable future relationship with Karimov until, for starters, he proves that he has stopped torturing and killing his people.

Unlike some of the region's other leaders, Karimov took no road to post-Soviet ruthlessness. He began there. My own initial sign of that was back in January 1992, two weeks after the Soviet collapse, when I crossed the street from the Hotel Uzbekistan to talk to the Pulatov brothers at Birlik, the then-Tashkent-based opposition group whose office was across the street. At the bottom of the stairs was a pool of blood. Inside, I learned from the more active of the two Pulatovs -- Abdumanop -- that his brother Abdurahim had been knocked on the head with a pipe by an unknown assailant.

The situation has declined since. Karimov regards entreaties by westerners such as Fallon not as an opportunity to re-open a perhaps positive economic path for his people, but a display of weakness, evidence that he still calls the shots in the dance with the foreigners.

It will probably require Karimov going the way of Niyazov before normal relations with the West can resume.

Photo: saidanddone
Rights: Creative Commons

What it Takes in the Former Soviet Union: Assassination, Theft, Corruption

I've seen multiple references in recent weeks to Richard Ben Cramer's classic account of the 1988 presidential campaign, What It Takes. Inveterate footnote-and-index readers such as myself miss having neither, yet it is a wonderful read, all 1,051 pages of it, narrating in colorful detail what campaign shenanigans were required to win that year. Cramer's descriptions of George H.W. Bush are particularly unforgettable.

Cramer comes to mind because of the latest news out of the former Soviet Union: Another apparent assassination plot, this time between presidential campaigns in Georgia; another stolen election by Islam Karimov in Uzbekistan; and a report that the good times attributed to Russian President Vladimir Putin may in fact not be as advertised.

Georgia: In a story published yesterday by The Sunday Times in the U.K., David Leppard, Anna Mikhailova and Mark Franchetti report on a possible assassination plot against Boris Berezovsky's former business partner, Badri Patarkatsishvili. The news peg is a 14-minute audio tape that's surfaced in which a Georgian Interior Ministry official apparently attempts to hire a Chechen killer to off Patarkatsishvili. The killer, according to the paper, is Uvais Akhmadov, "a member of a notorious gang of Chechen brothers who specialised in kidnapping and murder," as the writers put it. There's a snap presidential campaign under way at the moment, and Patarkatsishvili is challenging former president Mikheil Saakashvili. Only, Patarkatsishvili is doing so from London, where he says he fears for his life if he goes home. The thing is, we need not sympathize with Patarkatsishvili as a sort of Goldilocks -- he is a tough businessman with a long career of dealing with some of the former Soviet Union's most unsavory sorts. The important point here is what the report might imply about Saakashvili, Georgia's Columbia University-trained former leader. What has his campaign got up to in order to win election Jan. 5th?

Uzbekistan: My former Baku roommate David Stern at The New York Times reports that Karimov won yesterday's election with a reported 88.1% of the vote. Some people are calling it fraudulent since Karimov shouldn't be running -- he was constitutionally forbidden to seek a new term -- and he allowed no real opponents. In addition, there are the usual forebodings that Uzbekistan is headed for instability either during Karimov's continued rule or after he dies (the only way these fellows leave). I personally have sympathy for the stolen election crowd, but have my doubts on the instability part. Equally undemocratic Turkmenistan, for instance, just went through a transition after a presidential death without a hiccup. There's an argument that Uzbekistan isn't Turkmenistan, meaning that it already has produced a home-grown rebellion based in the Fergana Valley. I personally adhere to the muddle-along theory, meaning that even the apparently least likely states tend to muddle along.

Russia: My former Washington Post colleague Fred Hiatt weighs in today with a tart salvo at Time magazine's selection of Putin as its Person of the Year. Against Putin's unwillingness to face serious electoral competition, Hiatt writes: "Why would a leader of such steely confidence, heroic achievement and massive popularity be so afraid of political competition? Perhaps he will explain at Time's awards banquet." Hahaha, Fred. But Hiatt's central argument is serious, based on paraphrases from a must-read report in the new Foreign Affairs by my former colleagues at Stanford University's Institute for International Studies, Michael McFaul and Kathryn Stoner-Weiss. This report challenges the prevailing wisdom that, under Putin, crime has fallen, economic activity has improved and corruption lessened. McFaul and Stoner-Weiss detail at length how in fact the opposite is true in all three cases and that, specifically, Russia's economic growth is near the bottom of the 15 former Soviet states. "Whatever the apparent gains of Russia under Putin, they gains would have been greater if democracy had survived," they write.

Photo of Jesse Owens at the 1936 Olympics: pingnews.com
Rights: Creative Commons

Presidential Humor From Central Asia

Thanks to David Hoffman for this entertaining link. For identification purposes: From left to right, Uzbekistan's Islam Karimov, Kazakhstan's Nursultan Nazarbayev, Turkmenistan's Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov and Tajikistan's Imamali Rakhmanov.

Photo: chrisdecurtis
Rights: Creative Commons