Central Asian review
#1. Five Royal Presidents Rule
Their Kingdoms
#2. Picking Less and Less Cotton Central Asia
is paying a high price for its feudal past by David Raterman
#3. Uzbekistan: Islam
Karimov's Everlasting First Term by Felix Corley
#4. Kyrgyzstan: Askar
Akayev's Diminishing Democracy
#5. Watching Chechnya From Within. A
hit-and-run report from Grozny, explanations can't keep up with reality
by Thomas de Waal
#6. Xinjiang Province Faces
Explosive Ethnic Mix
#1. Five Royal
Presidents Rule Their Kingdoms
The Turkmenistan Institute of Human Rights and other fantastic stories from
Central Asia
by Oleg Panfilov
from Transitions: October 1998 <http://www/ijt.cz>
Vladimir Lenin used to say that the Central Asian republics of the Soviet
Union skipped the stage of capitalism by switching directly from feudalism
to socialism. Today, one might say they've skipped democracy to return to
feudalism.
Central Asia's return to the political principles of the Middle Ages is
tied to those most modern of commodities: oil and gas. Their fate bound to
the liquid riches underneath their soil, the region's leaders have
consolidated power in the old Soviet style: through creation of a new class
of nomenklatura, domination of the economy through an elite with
demonstrated political loyalty, and control of the press. Even the
permission to practice Islam--the single most significant reform in the
region since the dissolution of the Soviet Union--has come, with only a few
exceptions, under the parameters of the state. The black gold underneath
the steppes enables local presidents to play their own games with the West
and with their own people--who have virtually no historical experience with
democracy.
The visit last year of Turkmenistan President Saparmurat Niyazov to
Washington showed that even a dictator is worthy of negotiations, if his
country has natural gas deposits for U.S. companies to exploit and
transport. Despite the unsavory nature of its regime, Turkmenistan will
remain largely untouched because of its strategic location on an oil
pipeline route through Afghanistan and Pakistan to the Arabian Sea. Kazakh
authorities will continue to destroy whatever remains of the independent
press, and no one will come forth to object as long as there is plenty of
oil in Kazakhstan.
THE 90 PERCENT MEN
From 1990 to 1991, in a string of elections, the former Soviet nomenklatura
asserted its leadership over the nascent Central Asian republics. The
presidents of Uzbekistan, Kazakstan, and Turkmenistan--Islam Karimov,
Nursultan Nazarbaev, and Niyazov, respectively--all served on the Politburo
of the Communist Party during the Soviet regime and toiled in the
serpentine route to power within the Communist system. Imomali Rakhmonov,
the Tajik president, was the director of a state farm, rising from the
mid-level nomenklatura. Kyrgyzstan's President Askar Akayev is the only one
among the Central Asian presidents to have been without any major
experience of nomenklatura-like intrigues (he was a chief of the Department
of Science of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kyrgyzstan in
1986-1987). All five have been re-elected to their posts without serious
opposition, garnering over 90 percent of the votes and securing comfortable
lives in the national palaces.
Of all the Central Asian countries, Tajikistan is the only one with a real
opposition. Rakhmonov has been involved in a struggle with his major
political rival, Abdulmalik Abdullodzhonov, whom he defeated in the 1994
election. Abdullodzhonov accused Rakhmonov of numerous legal violations
during that election, allegations that continue to gain popular support.
Thus, Rakhmonov could be the one vulnerable figure of the five. But if the
country's civil war, which has left more than 30,000 dead, continues to
flare (despite a tentative peace accord signed in September 1997),
elections will be all but impossible to organize in the near future.
THE USES OF ISLAM
All the current Central Asian presidents have a rather pragmatic attitude
toward Islam; when it's necessary for political profit and communication
with the Muslim clergy, they don't forget to remind the public that they
themselves are Muslims. At the same time, the growth of the Taliban in
Afghanistan and other fundamentalist movements continues to threaten
stability throughout the region. Thus, in each of the Central Asian
countries a strange and officially imposed dichotomy between "official" and
"unofficial" Islam has appeared. Official Islam refers to those religious
institutions which are under control of the state authorities. Unofficial Is
lam includes all other Muslims--fundamentalists and all those who believe
that Islam cannot be controlled by the state power--who are accused of
being extremists.
In Uzbekistan, Karimov is involved in a bitter struggle against those
"other" Muslims. Over the past year, he has ordered the arrest and
imprisonment of hundreds of Muslim clergymen and supporters of the Islamic
revival. In Tajikistan, such an attempt to get rid of the Muslim opposition
resulted in a civil war. Today, the Islamic United Tajik Opposition,
operating largely underground until the peace accord last September, has
metamorphosed into the Party of Islamic Revival, giving the movement a
political as well as a military arm.
Unlike their southern neighbors, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan lack a stable,
deep-rooted Muslim culture, primarily due to their strong, pre-Islamic
nomadic traditions and the relatively high percentage of non-Islamic
Russians in the population. Kyrgyzstan does sustain a relatively free press
and a credible judiciary system for handling disputes. In Kazakhstan,
however, the strong arm of Nazarbaev takes the place of Islamic traditions.
In Turkmenistan, where Niyazov has renamed himself Turkmenbashi (father of
the Turkmen), his total destruction of the opposition enables him to
present himself in the role of prophet and messiah. Each morning, state
radio and television (no independent broadcasters exist) transmit the words
of a prayer that includes an oath of allegiance to the president along with
the traditional appeal to Allah: "My native land! I am always with you in
my thoughts and in my heart. Let my arm be paralyzed if I cause any harm to
you. Let my power of speech be lost in case I cast any aspersions on you.
Let my breathing be interrupted at the time of betrayal of the motherland,
the president, and your sacred banner."
DEMOCRATS ON PAPER
The texts of the Central Asian constitutions--each has one--were tailored
to look attractive to the United Nations but have little application in the
countries' political lives. Each proclaims freedom of the press and freedom
of speech, but as in Soviet times, those freedoms are limited to the
presidents and their supporters.
In Turkmenistan, the assertion of power has been the most naked of all the
Central Asian republics. The country's most recent parliamentary elections
took place in December 1994 and offered a single candidate for each of the
50 seats. According to official statistics, 98 percent of the voters took
part in the elections. Since then, not one disagreement was recorded
between the deputies and the president.
Turkmenistan is the first post-Soviet state to establish an institute of
human rights. This looks like a mockery considering that a powerful cadre
of special services guards the limitless domain of Turkmenbashi. The
president monitors practically everything: foreign and domestic newspapers;
independent religious activity; attempts to establish new businesses. All
foreigners visiting Turkmenistan are required to stay in state hotels,
where they can be observed. Every town in Turkmenistan is overrun with
monuments to the president; every state organization features huge
portraits of the president; and streets, squares, schools, universities,
factories, collective farms in all localities, and even one town--formerly
Krasnovodsk--bear the name of Turkmenbashi.
Uzbek democracy looks quite similar. Neither Uzbekistan nor Turkmenistan
permit legal opposition parties; they were abolished several years ago.
Some representatives of the opposition were imprisoned; some had to leave
the Commonwealth of Independent States countries; some had to stop their
political activities. In Uzbekistan, several small parties seem to have
been allowed to exist simply to help the country avoid criticism from the
West; the parties play little actual role in the nation's public and
political life. Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are the only countries in which
real political life is still possible--in Tajikistan primarily because of
military successes achieved by the opposition.
Three of the countries--Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and
Turkmenistan--indisputably lead in the suppression of freedom of speech. In
Tajikistan, several private newspapers and magazines exist, but critical
remarks about Rakhmonov and his government never appear in them. More than
60 journalists have been killed in Tajikistan since 1992, and more than 100
were forced to leave the country.
In Uzbekistan, the government prohibits the registration of independent and
private newspapers. None of the private radio stations or cable television
stations broadcasts political news, focusing instead on music and
entertainment. The information agency Zhakhon has been established as an
affiliated structure of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and is responsible
for creating an impression of Uzbek policies that outsiders will find
"correct."
In Turkmenistan, all of the national newspapers, as well as all five
regional newspapers, have only one founder--the Turkmenbashi. The leading
newspaper, Neutral Turkmenistan, usually contains about a dozen articles
devoted exclusively to the president or articles eulogizing his
accomplishments--even if the article is about the successes of Turkmen
milkmaids.
The Kazakh media had a relatively free rein for its first five years or so
of independence, until Nazarbaev realized that such freedom could be
dangerous for him. Opposition politicians used to appear in print and on
television and radio with criticisms of the government. But since issuing a
television frequency to a close supporter two years ago, Nazarbaev has been
doing everything in his power to put an end to the remnants of independence
in the country's media, and in the last six months he has stepped up
harassment and intimidation of independent journalists and journals.
Playing on Russia's distaste for foreign intervention in the region,
Central Asian leaders are strengthening their longevity by presenting
themselves to the West as a bulwark against Islamic extremism, while
establishing close economic ties with their neighbors in China, Pakistan,
and India. But at the root of their hold on power is the abundance of raw
materials now under their control; the oil and the gas that flow beneath
their deserts and steppes are the fuel that sustains their power.
Oleg Panfilov is head of the monitoring group of the Foundation for Defense
of Glasnost in Moscow, and deputy editor in chief of the magazine Central
Asia.
#2. Picking Less and Less Cotton
Central Asia is paying a high price for its feudal past
by David Raterman
from Transitions: October 1998 <http://www/ijt.cz>
Dushanbe--Cotton was long king in Central Asia. The Soviet Union ranked
third in the world in cotton production, with most of it being grown in
Central Asia. China, across the border, ranked first, followed by the
United States. Today, Uzbekistan is the world's third-largest cotton
producer, with cotton remaining an important crop in the other four Central
Asian republics as well. But the cotton crop is suffering. "In 1980, when
we picked 1,000,000 tons of raw cotton, we obtained 3 tons per hectare,"
recalls Tajikistan's deputy minister of agriculture, Azizbek Sharipov.
"Nowadays crop capacity has been reduced to 1.5 tons per hectare."
Even before the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991, agriculture was on the
decline, and so was cotton production. Independence of the Central Asian
republics did not halt the slide. The newly independent states simply did
not have enough money to meet basic agricultural needs such as seeds,
fertilizers, pesticides, and spare parts for tractors. A precarious
recovery is now under way, but it is slow and uneven. The Central Asian
republics reap smaller harvests than in China, where the 1997 harvest of
wheat was 4,087 kilograms per hectare. In Kyrgyzstan the wheat harvest for
the same year was 2,305 kilograms; in Tajikistan it was 1,918; in
Uzbekistan, 1,700; in Kazakhstan, 840; and in Turkmenistan, just 575
kilograms.
Independence changed little in the region's quasi-feudal systems. State
farms are still run by directors who in turn are responsible to regional
political leaders, then ministers of agriculture, and finally the
presidents. In Central Asia, regional political leaders, much like the
khans and emirs of former times, retain much power. In Tajikistan, for
example, the heads of regional executive committees have great influence on
industries in their patch, with agriculture being the most important. The
Leninskii District typifies continuing feudal traditions. Khol Meshrabov,
chairman of the executive committee, regularly names one candidate for
leadership of the private farmers' association. At a recent meeting with
private farmers and the deputy minister of agriculture, he even stated
exactly how much cotton he wanted grown.
But as has been proven in command economies, when crops are planned
top-down by the authorities instead of bottom-up by the farmers, production
levels remain unimpressive. Tajikistan, for example, is a food-deficit
country, with up to 40 percent of its children suffering from malnutrition,
according to a 1996 report. If all arable land were used effectively, the
deficit would be greatly reduced, if not eliminated.
Most laborers in cotton fields are paid about $8 per month, and many do not
always receive their salaries. As is common in former Soviet republics,
laborers cannot just leave their collective or state farms and move to
cities to find work because citizens need a city residence permit in their
passports. People are still tied to the land, just as they were during
tsarist times.
PRODUCTION BOOST
Gorno Badakshan, Tajikistan's eastern autonomous region, makes up more than
40 percent of the country's territory but only 3 percent of its population.
According to Deputy Agriculture Minister Azizbek Sharipov, all collective
and state farms in that region have been privatized, largely because of
privatization projects such as the one connected with the Aga Khan
Foundation (AKF), which is backed by several North American donors.
Privatization has boosted production. According to AKF statistics, after
fall 1997 the private farms in Gorno Badakshan produced about 2.5 times as
much wheat, potatoes, and other vegetables as collective or state farms in
that region. In the Leninskii District, the development and relief
organization for which I work achieved similar results with its Private
Farmers Support Project. Begun in September 1996, in the first year alone
potato production increased 300 percent per hectare, while wheat production
increased 98 percent.
The success rates for private farmers in Tajikistan are even more
remarkable considering that much of the privatized land was previously
deemed not arable, and that half of private farmers are new to agriculture,
having switched during the past few years from teaching, economics, and
medicine. Furthermore, the Leninskii District borders opposition-held
territory where several battles occured during the project's first year.
Changes in agriculture have not been enacted uniformly. Laws supporting
privatization are supported in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, but not in
Tajikistan and Turkmenistan; in Uzbekistan, opinions are divided.The level
of change varies, depending on the crops, governments, and infrastructures
involved. In Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, where cotton has
been the main crop for more than a century, government leaders have little
incentive to change the structure of collective and state farms, altruism
aside: many government leaders, just like feudal lords before the 1917
revolution, have personal stakes, such as reaping a percentage of profits
in one way or another, and therefore fear change.
In Kazakhstan, which shares a border with Russia and is the region's
largest republic in terms of both territory and population, wheat has
always been the primary crop, with cotton production concentrated in the
south. While in Tajikistan private farmers are given 99-year rights of land
use but do not receive ownership (though rights can be inherited and,
according to a 20 June decree, can now be sold), Kazakhstan has embarked on
a program that eventually will allow any citizen to buy and sell land.
Though the Kazakh system also allows long-term rights of land use, soon all
private farmers will have the opportunity to use land as collateral to gain
inputs on credit.
Kyrgyzstan, for which wheat and cotton have both been important crops, is
moving in the same direction as Kazakhstan, particularly regarding
agriculture and natural resources. Concerning the transparency of its
markets, Kyrgyzstan is the most advanced Central Asian republic, but its
agricultural development has been limited because of its harsh mountainous
terrain.
The irrigation system in all the Central Asian republics is in great need
of assistance, but none of the republics have enough money to maintain or
repair it. The important cotton crop occupies the bulk of the irrigation
system. But without water, any reform or restructuring is wasted.
An important step in the economic transition is modernizing the market
infrastructure of the five republics. According to Tom Hensleigh, regional
director of the nongovernmental organization Mercy Corps International,
even with reform only 20 percent of privatized land in Kazakhstan can be
profitable. "The greatest inhibitor is the lack of market infrastructure,"
he said. There is a lack of coordination in distributing quality seeds,
fertilizers, and chemicals, as well as no good system of delivering
production to markets.
David Raterman is program assistant for Care International in Tajikistan.
#3. Uzbekistan:
Islam Karimov's Everlasting First Term
by Felix Corley
from Transitions: October 1998 <http://www/ijt.cz>
Uzbek President Islam Karimov has not yet developed the personality cult of
his southern neighbor, Saparmurat Niyazov of Turkmenistan. His picture
appears every day on the front page of official newspapers--although not
quite the size of Niyazov's photos. Nor has Karimov renamed a port in his
honor. However, little moves in Uzbekistan without his approval. He
dominates the government and parliament and controls the armed forces, the
Interior Ministry forces, and the security police. These forces are the
largest in Central Asia. The president's delicate sensibilities are
protected against a new offense he had introduced to the country's criminal
code of "infringement upon the honor and dignity of the president."
Born on 30 January 1938 in the southern city of Samarkand to a Tajik mother
and an Uzbek father, Karimov lost both his parents at a young age and grew
up in an orphanage (as did Niyazov). After studying engineering, he began
his career in a factory in Tashkent, then worked for five years at the
Chkalov aviation factory in the city. In 1966 he joined the Uzbek State
Planning Agency, where he worked his way up to deputy chairman. His great
leap forward came in 1983, when he became Uzbek finance minister. In 1986
he became deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers and chairman of the
State Planning Agency. From 1989 to 1991 he was first secretary of the
Uzbek Central Committee, the top political job in the republic, answering
only to Moscow. But he also had a hand in the workings in Moscow--in 1990
he was elected to the Soviet Politburo.
Following the invention of the post of president in the late Soviet period
(Mikhail Gorbachev came up with the idea and had himself elected to it by
the Supreme Soviet in March 1990), Karimov followed suit the same month,
being chosen as president of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic by the
Uzbek Supreme Soviet (he was the only candidate). From September 1991 his
country was renamed the Uzbek Republic in the wake of the failed Moscow
coup. In December 1991 he stood as president in a national poll and won 86
percent of the vote--not too difficult when the only other candidate was
hindered at every turn and the election results manipulated. He took his
oath of office with one hand on the Koran and the other on the
constitution--although he has not paid much attention to either.
Karimov has headed the People's Democratic Party of Uzbekistan since it was
established in November 1991 when the local Communists were seeking a new
identity. The Homeland Progress Party was set up as a "loyal opposition
party" in June 1992. Three other parties have been established by the
government since the December 1994-January 1995 parliamentary elections:
the Social Democratic Party, the National Rebirth Democratic Party, and the
National Unity Social Movement.
For Karimov, who had espoused Moscow's line and spoke Russian far better
than Uzbek, championing Uzbekistan's independence meant an about-face. But
he managed that smoothly, with the help of some language coaching in Uzbek.
Parties that emerged at the end of the Soviet period have all been banned.
Unity, founded in May 1989, and Freedom, founded in April 1990, were
deregistered in 1993 when all parties were required to undergo
reregistration in the wake of the adoption of the new constitution. The
Uzbek branch of the Islamic Renaissance Party was banned in 1992 (not long
before its leader Abdulla Utaev disappeared in December 1992), and the
People's Movement of Turkestan has been denied registration.
To avoid having to stand again for election, Karimov staged a referendum in
March 1995, when electors dutifully voted to prolong his rule without new
elections until 2000.
According to the December 1992 Uzbek constitution, a president may serve
for a maximum of two terms. Parliament declared in August 1995 that the
March 1995 referendum extending Karimov's term meant he was still serving
his first term, not beginning his second. This will allow him to stand
again in 2000 (if he bothers with an election at all).
Karimov's ambitions to become the strongman of Central Asia and the
regional policeman received some support in the mid-1990s from the United
States, once it had abandoned its "Russia First" policy. But Karimov's
authoritarian rule and indifference to world opinion has dissolved any such
backing.
Aware of his negative image in the outside world, Karimov tried a charm
offensive in 1995, preceding his visit to the United States in June 1996.
In February 1995 he appointed a human rights commissioner; in May 1995
parliament set up a human rights commission. Both have been relatively
inactive. In September 1995 the country acceded to a number of
international human rights agreements, but parliament has not yet ratified
them. In the run-up to the U.S. visit, in which he met with President Bill
Clinton, Karimov announced amnesty for some political prisoners. However,
he soon abandoned any attempt to present a more acceptable face to the
West.
When Tajikistan descended into civil war between the Communist government
and Islamic rebels, Karimov gave enthusiastic military support to the
threatened regime of President Rakhmon Nabiyev. He has extended that
support to Nabiyev's successor, neo-communist Imomali Rakhmonov.
Karimov's latest offensive has been against religious activists of all
faiths. Although he has cause to fear Islamic radicals, Karimov has enacted
draconian laws that have impacted moderate Muslims and religious
minorities. In the past few years, thousands of Muslims of all opinions
have "disappeared." Addressing parliament this May to urge deputies to
support the harsh new law on religion, he declared his hatred of the
Wahhabis, a fundamentalist strand of Islam--as he dubs all Muslims who
oppose him. "Such people must be shot in the head. If necessary, I'll shoot
them myself, if you lack the resolve," he told the assembled deputies,
although this sentiment was excised from the official reports of the
speech.
Felix Corley is a contributing editor to Transitions.
#4. Kyrgyzstan:
Askar Akayev's Diminishing Democracy
by Naryn Aiyp
from Transitions: October 1998 <http://www/ijt.cz>
President Askar Akayev of Kyrgyzstan is known throughout the world as a
democrat and a succesful reformer.
But is he?
He adopted a democratic constitution, dissolved all Soviet collective farms
(albeit giving former Communist Party officials, members of his government,
relatives, and friends the opportunity to obtain state property for almost
nothing), and made his country a member of the World Trade
Organization--the first among the former Soviet republics. According to
the National Statistical Board's reports, the economic situation in
Kyrgyzstan is one of the best in the Commonwealth of Independent States.
The problem is that very few people in the country believe those reports.
In his speeches, Akayev uses different figures than those from his
Statistical Board. When asked last May whom to believe, Akayev answered
that all figures were correct. The board had announced "nominal" figures,
the president gave the "real" ones--that should explain the confusion, he
said.
Even nominal figures give a depressing picture. About 150,000 people are
registered as unemployed in Kyrgyzstan. Real figures are much worse.
Independent sources say more than 1 million people are jobless, out of a
total population of 5 million.
While the economy teeters, Akayev wages war against corruption--though much
of it emanates from his own administration. It seems primarily an effort to
buttress his own image. In 1996, he launched a campaign to weed out corrupt
officials. Several high officials were dismissed. The most high-profile was
Jumagul Saadenbekov, regional governor and former adviser to the president.
The prosecutor general started criminal proceedings against him, but
without any result--nothing more was heard of the case. Last April Akayev
appointed Saadanbekov as his ambassador to Ukraine.
Although Akayev is praised today in the West as a non-communist, in the
1980s he was department head of the Central Committee of the Kyrgyz
Communist Party, leading a campaign against so-called Kyrgyz nationalist
students. His past may have been forgotten, but his democratic image was
badly damaged when in 1995 he ordered criminal investigations to be started
against two journalists because he felt they had insulted him. The two were
sentenced by a local court to a suspended sentence, and they were barred
from journalism. Akayev joked publicly that his only mistake had been
allowing freedom of the press. Since then, several journalists have been
convicted, and newspapers have been shut down.
Akayev's attitude to the press changed after he received a cool reception
during a July 1997 visit to the United States. At the end of that year, he
proposed two draft laws on journalist rights. And in September of this
year, he proposed a new amendment to the constitution, similar to the U.S.
Constitution's first amendment, which guarantees freedom of expression.
In September 1995 parliament rejected a proposed referendum to extend
Akayev's first term in office. The next morning, the president asked
parliament to hold early elections, in December 1995. The proposal received
support. No other candidate was ready, and Akayev won a second five-year
term as president on 24 December 1995. According to the constitution, that
second term should be his last term. But government officials lobbied again
early this year for a referendum extending the terms of Akayev's
presidency--although that was unnecessary. In May Prime Minister
Kubanychbek Jumaliev offered a better trick to keep Akayev in the
presidential office: he reasoned that, because Kyrgyzstan adopted a new
constitution in 1993, Akayev's previous term in office did not count. The
Constitutional Court approved this opinion in July, so Akayev has the right
to again run for president in 2000.
Akayev has centralized almost all power in the country, into his hands. In
the beginning of September he signed a decree that gives him financial
control over all parliamentary activities.
Only one person in Kyrgyzstan dares to disagree with the president: Topchube
k Turgunaliev. He was director of the State Opera in the 1980s, became
co-chairman of the Democratic Movement of Kyrgyzstan (which united all
democratic parties and movements of the country in 1990-1993), and was in
those days an Akayev supporter. He lost his freedom when he criticized
Akayev. Turgunaliev was arrested two times (in 1995 and in 1996), tried in
1996 and 1997 and jailed. He is serving a four-year term now in a penal
settlement where he must work to earn his living--but nobody wants to hire
him. Akayev announced publicly in October 1997 that he was ready to forgive
Turgunaliev if he asked his pardon. Turgunaliev responded he had not been
guilty, so he saw no reason to beg for a pardon. Although Amnesty
International has named him a prisoner of conscience twice, nobody in
Kyrgyzstan wants to share his fate.
Naryn Aiyp, former deputy editor in chief of the independent Res Publica
weekly in Bishek, works at the Kyrgyz Service of Radio Free Europe/Radio
Liberty in Prague.
#5. Watching Chechnya From Within
A hit-and-run report from Grozny, explanations can't keep up with reality
by Thomas de Waal
from Transitions: October 1998 <http://www/ijt.cz>
The war was simple compared to this, I reflected on the last morning of my
trip to Grozny at the end of June. I had come to see Shamil Basayev,
Chechnya's most famous warrior and acting prime minister of this barely
functioning republic. He was standing outside the gates of his house in the
south of the city, dressed in tracksuit pants, a green T-shirt, and
sandals. A group of supporters, some armed, milled around him and stared at
me with open curiosity.
Among them I recognized a short, swarthy man with black, Medusa-like locks
curling down to his shoulders--Khatab, a Saudi-born Islamist fighter. After
graduating from Afghanistan to Chechnya to continue his fight against the
Russians, Khatab had stayed in Chechnya after the war and was suspected of
fostering his own brand of Islamic militancy. I introduced myself to him as
a reporter. He said he preferred English to Russian and laconically agreed
to give me an interview. But after I had spoken to Basayev, Khatab had
disappeared indoors and subsequently sent out the message that he had
changed his mind.
Many watchers of Chechnya from afar have come up with simple, diagrammatic
explanations for the current situation. The trend is especially popular
among Moscow political commentators, with their love of conspiracies and
power struggles. Chechnya is torn, the analysis goes, among a number of
groups that are vying for power and are on the brink of plunging it into
civil war. Neat lines are drawn that divide up the camps: President Aslan
Maskhadov and his former comrade-in-arms Basayev are apparently at
loggerheads. They in turn are pitted against the Wahhabis--proponents of
Saudi Arabian fundamentalist Islam who are supposedly intent on turning
Chechnya into an Islamic state.
I came to Grozny hoping to get more direct impressions as well as to ask
some questions about the two British hostages, Camilla Carr and Jon James,
who have been in captivity there since July 1997. To do this--and to avoid
being snatched myself--I needed the logistical help of the Anti-Terrorist
Center, the organization set up by the Chechen government to combat the
kidnap gangs. The center supplied four armed guards to accompany me and my
two companions (aid workers from the Center for Peacemaking and Community
Development) day and night. We always traveled in two cars and were told
not to show our faces on the street unless we absolutely had to do so. It
was an anxious time--especially at night, when the kidnappers prefer to
strike. It was also difficult to work: in two days we had only four proper
meetings with Chechen officials and could not stop on the street to talk to
ordinary people. I was advised not to linger more than two days, lest word
get around that a foreigner was in town and my presence become a liability.
The sight of Khatab at Shamil Basayev's house was but one sign of the way
Chechnya operates. The militant and the prime minister are friends. In the
webs of Chechen society, there are many different strands of thought
concerning the best future for Chechnya: it should be only nominally
Islamic and a good neighbor to Russia (President Maskhadov's view),
Islamist and allied to Dagestan (Basayev's), and militant Islamist
(Khatab's). But all three are bound together by threads of allegiance.
Basayev is not close to Maskhadov, but they respect each other and share
the common aim of constructing some kind of Chechen statehood. This makes
it unthinkable that they would ever take up arms against each other.
The main divide in Chechnya is not so much over institutions of state
power. Who would want to depose Maskhadov only to inherit the thankless
task of being the nominal president of a bankrupt and lawless republic? It
is a clash between those who want to impose some kind of central authority
on Chechnya and those who thrive on anarchy because it allows them to
maintain local fiefdoms and earn money. Maskhadov and Basayev are firmly in
the first category. Khatab, forall his unsavory past and fanatical ideas,
has been co-opted into that group by Basayev, to whom he is fully loyal.
Basayev was not disloyal to Maskhadov when I spoke to him on 29 June, but
he had a bemused tone that proclaimed his independence. He said he was not
convinced of the need for the three-week state of emergency, announced on
23 June by the president. He sidestepped my invitation to endorse the
official crackdown on the Wahhabis. I asked him if this Saudi-imported
creed was alien to Chechnya's traditions of Sufism, the more mystical form
of Islam traditional to the north Caucasus. Well, the Sufis themselves were
divided against one another, he parried, and all this talk of Wahhabism was
just invented by outsiders. Basayev proudly remarked that Chechnya did not
need Russian money. This was another deviation from official policy, which
demands that Russia fulfill its obligations under the economic agreement
signed in Moscow by Maskhadov and then-Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin
in May 1997 to pay up to $1 billion for pensions and other social needs. He
called Russia the "last empire founded on blood" and predicted Dagestan
would soon follow the same path as Chechnya. Throughout our conversation, I
could not shrug off the impression that the prime minister was improvising
as he went along.
That is not to say that the two most powerful men in Chechnya are not,
ultimately, on the same side. Starting in January, Basayev worked for six
months as acting prime minister (technically in Chechnya the president is
also supposed to hold the prime minister's job). He had given himself six
months to improve the crime situation. When he failed--losing a lot of his
prestige in Chechnya as a result--he resigned on 3 July. Almost
immediately, he was reappointed as deputy commander of the armed forces but
left that post on 25 August.
Responsibility for imposing order in Chechnya has fallen on Maskhadov
alone. His decision in June to impose a state of emergency was an attempt
to reassert himself. Extra roadblocks were thrown up in Grozny, a curfew
was established, and the newly empowered Ministry of Shariat State Security
was ordered to detain as many criminals as possible. But as far as I could
see, the curfew was the only visible effecy. Most of the trouble was
outside the city. Even in Grozny the state of emergency was not fully
effective, as was evident on 23 July when a car bomb narrowly missed
Maskhadov and killed two of his bodyguards.
Rebellion takes different forms. One is represented by Salman Raduyev, a
maverick field commander. He has held rallies in Grozny accusing the
government of cheating the poor and betraying the legacy of former
President Jokhar Dudayev, who was his wife's uncle. Raduyev's Dudayev
connection is an insurance policy against arrest: whatever Maskhadov may
feel about Dudayev privately (and I suspect his recollections are not warm
ones) he does not want to be seen as trampling on the memory of his
predecessor. Raduyev, who is a kind of a tribune of the people but probably
not a real danger, can be discounted from the list of suspects of the
assassination attempt.
Far more of a threat--and much more likely suspects--are a dozen or so
other minor warlords. Many of them practice Wahhabism, the predominant form
of Islam in Saudi Arabia, which has been aggressively exported abroad. In
the north Caucasus it is unclear to what extent the new purists are strict
Wahhabis, but fundamentalists have attracted converts among the young and
disaffected by preaching of an Islam uncorrupted by Soviet or local
influences. In Dagestan, Wahhabis have cut down ancient trees at pilgrimage
sites and told locals that they must stop visiting Sufi shrines. In
Chechnya, however, it may be that fundamentalist Islam is being used to
mask pure banditry.
Arbi Barayev is the most notorious Islamist bandit. A former fighter in the
war, he is still only in his mid-20s, extremely well-connected, and
notorious for his ruthlessness. It seems likely that his great wealth is at
least partly founded on hostage-taking. There were persistent rumors
earlier in the year that he was holding the two British aid workers
hostage. Barayev's base is the village of Urus-Martan, formerly a center of
opposition to Dudayev and now an Islamist stronghold. It is also likely
that he and his fellow rebel Abdul Malik have received some kind of support
from the former Chechen acting president, Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev.
Both Barayev and Malik were in Gudermes, Chechnya's second city, on 14 July
when the Anti-Terrorist Center hunted them down. In the ensuing shoot-out,
at least nine and possibly several dozen people were killed. Barayev and
his friends were allowed to negotiate their escape from the scene, although
Maskhadov ceremoniously proclaimed the disbanding of Barayev's defiantly
entitled Islamic Batallion. Barayev was weakened by the fight but not put
out of action. It seems he has useful friends and protectors in government
who prevented him from being detained in the drive against the Wahhabis.
In many ways, the country has returned to the situation before the war in
the summer and fall of 1994, when for a few months small armed groups
controlled different bits of the republic and financed themselves from the
black economy. In retrospect, the war of 1994-1996, with all its savagery,
was an exceptional time for Chechnya in that it united disparate groups
against the common threat of the invading Russian force. Even if the number
of men fighting on the rebel side was relatively small--never more than a
few thousand--tens of thousands more gave food, shelter, and money to the
cause of defeating the Russian army. And there was never a single report of
a Chechen actually fighting on the Russian side. Now that consensus has
disintegrated, the competing forces in Chechnya have again come to the
surface. Just as the former mayor of Grozny and Dudayev's comrade, Beslan
Gantemirov, operated openly in Urus-Martan--less than an hour from the
capital--challenging the government, so now do Barayev and his Islamist
colleagues.
Violent though times are, this is not a civil war. If different groups
resort to violence, it is generally to protect their interests rather than
to pursue political power. Maskhadov's state of emergency was a kind of
compromise tactic, trying to extend his authority without declaring all-out
war against the warlords.
There are two major constraints on Maskhadov. One is financial. The May
1997 economic agreement between Russia and Chechnya has not been
enforced--nor is it likely to be, given the current state of Russia's
public finances. The guards of the Anti-Terrorist Center complained that
they had not been paid for five months--although fortunately Chechen honor
is enough that none of them have ever succumbed to bribes from the
kidnappers. Doctors and teachers survive as best they can without salaries.
The other constraint is political. The sociological structure of Chechnya
is not conducive to civil war because there is a latent fear of causing a
cycle of blood revenge by striking the first blow. It is a society of
horizontal links and delegated power, not vertical authority. Unlike
Basayev, Maskhadov is a man of consensus. He is reluctant to upset the
balance of power in Chechnya by launching a campaign of state-sponsored
violence. When Khunkar-Pasha Israpilov, head of the Anti-Terrorist Center,
launched a raid on a powerful Wahhabi faction in Urus-Martan in March, he
did upset that balance. Two men were killed in the fight, and the two
British hostages who were supposedly there were spirited away. After that,
Israpilov lost the trust of Maskhadov for several months. He has only
recently been given the go-ahead to pursue the kidnapping gangs as
vigorously as he wants to.
What are the chances that Maskhadov can succeed in asserting his authority?
He has made some marginal progress, but it is not yet enough to make him an
effective president. Russians have begun to be more sympathetic to the idea
of allowing Chechnya to receive humanitarian aid from abroad. Former
Russian Prime Minister Sergei Kirienko's 1 August meeting with Maskhadov, a
few weeks before Kirienko was sacked, showed that Moscow had belatedly
woken up to the idea that, if not for Maskhadov, the northern Caucasus
might slip into anarchy. But the Russian government still has to appoint a
permanent representative to deal with the region as a replacement for Ivan
Rybkin, former secretary of the National Security Council, who was Moscow's
troubleshooter in the north Caucasus. This is an astonishing oversight. The
outside world will understandably not venture into Chechnya when two dozen
foreigners have been taken hostage there (and mostly released only in
exchange for ransom payments). There are only three nongovernmental
organizations working in Chechnya (two of them--the Halo Trust and the
Center for Peacemaking and Community Development--are British, despite the
continued detention of the British hostages) compared to more than 100
charities working in another war-ravaged European region, Bosnia and
Herzegovina.
The humanitarian situation is getting desperate. Ruslan Ganayev, head
doctor of the Grozny Children's Hospital, said the prosthetic limbs
department in Grozny was closed; anyone with missing limbs had to travel to
Baku, Azerbaijan. He said the hospital was admitting more and more children
with tuberculosis, who were contracting the disease from infected milk.
Studies in Grozny and Urus-Martan have shown that 54 percent of the cattle
had tuberculosis, he said, but farmers have resisted the slaughter of their
only livelihood. If not for people like the doctor, who stick it out for
almost no pay and little reward, social order in Chechnya would
disintegrate altogether.
Thomas de Waal works for the BBC World Service. He is the author, with
Carlotta Gall, of Chechnya: A Small Victorious War (London: Pan, 1997),
published in the United States by New York University Press as Chechnya:
Calamity in the Caucasus.
#6. Xinjiang
Province Faces Explosive Ethnic Mix
<http://www.insidechina.com/china/news/07.html>
KASHGAR, China, Nov. 16, 1998 -- (Agence France Presse) Despite
the repeated official comments of ethnic harmony, China's Xinjiang
province is living on a time bomb with deep rooted resentment by the
native Muslim population of their Han Chinese neighbors.
"The Han are bad. There are too many of them in Xinjiang," said a native
Uighur trader selling boiled sheep heads at a stall near the Great Mosque
in this western city.
His colleague agreed. "The Han are impossible," he said, but refused the
say more.
Like most of the Uigurs in this Muslim-majority province near the border
with Kazhakstan, neither spoke much Mandarin, the official language in
China and the language of the Han, the majority ethnic group in China.
"Jiang Zemin is the president of China, but not mine," said a taxi driver
in this city which is 80 percent Muslim Uighur andlies 4,000 kilometers
(2,400 miles) from the seat of power in Beijing.
The driver scoffed at the idea of having Han Chinese friends. "What for?"
he asked clearly surprised by the idea.
In Kashgar, as in the rest of Xinjiang, the Han and the other official 47
minority groups in the province, live in very distinct districts separate from
each other.
The Han do not go to the same schools as the other groups, and while in
theory the other ethnic groups are supposed to be taught Mandarin, the
Han make no effort to learn the local dialects.
"What would be the point of learning Uighur? It is up to the minorities to
learn the official language," said a party cadre in the capital Urumqi where
the Han make up more than 80 percent of the population.
Reforms have reached Xinjiang which has seen an economic boom since
1992. But this has also meant more Chinese arriving which has put further
pressure on the already fragile ethnic balance.
Already dominant in the economy the Han are well on the way to also
becoming the majority in the province, pushing out the native Uighur.
In 1949 when the Communists came to power in China the Han were
only 300,000 strong. Now there are 6.6 million according to official
figures, 38.4 percent of the provincial population of 17.1 million.
The Uighurs make up 7.2 million.
But these figures do not include the strong military presence nor the
floating Han population which has appeared in the last few years drawn
by economic opportunity.
The situation appears to be particularly tense in Yining, a town of
380,000 people near the Kazhakstan border, which saw bloody riots
inspired by separatists in February, 1997 which left between 10 and 100
dead.
In this city where the Han make up around 50 percent of the population,
the Uighurs keep to themselves, remaining hostile to the Han.
None will take the risk of talking to a foreign journalist accompanied by a
Chinese official.
The Han vacillate between bragging and fear. "We will be the majority,"
exclaimed one official next to a giant poster which stated "The unity of the
minorities is vital for all the people."
For the ordinary Han Chinese the riots left their mark, fuelling wild
rumors.
"I heard they killed hundreds of Han and that bodies were hung from
trees," sell a grocer.
"They want us to leave. They claim Xinjiang is theirs, but the government
will support us," he added. ( (c) 1998 Agence France Presse)