Afghanistan and Central Asia

The poet Rumi, who is celebrated now in American poetry circles for his poems of love, would be 800 this year.  Jalal ad-Din Rumi was born in the year B.C.E. 1207 (that’s a politically-correct A.D., more or less) in what is now Afghanistan; his family moved from Afghanistan during the Mongol invasions, travelling through Central Asia to Baghdad, Mecca, Damascus, and eventually settling in Western Turkey.

Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.   
  –Rumi 

Rumi is closely identified with Sufi mysticism.  He was also a composer of music.  The Freer-Sackler Gallery in Washington DC (part of the Smithsonian Institution) had a celebratory evening earlier this month, featuring his music as played by Turkey’s Ahmet Ozhan ensemble (please excuse, Mr. Ozhan, the lack of proper diacritical marks on your name).  The Embassy of Turkey to the United States sponsored this first event of the Freer-Sackler’s year of Rumi celebrations.  Mr. Ozhan is considered the premier interpreter of the music of Jalal ad-Din Rumi.

The Freer-Sackler will continue to celebrate the many accomplishments of this world literary and religious figure throughout the year.  If you can’t get to the Freer, however, you can still read the world’s best-selling author by visiting your local book shop, and you can find more information about this revered author, composer, and religious figure at the following sites:

Quotes from Rumi’s work
A quick biography
Deciding on a Rumi translation
The Freer and Sackler Galleries of the Smithsonian Institution

Special thanks this week to everyone who wrote in to comment!

Just a six-month partial review of media and human rights issues in Uzbekistan:

March 26, 2007: Ferghana.ru reports that yet another journalist with international ties is being prosecuted in Uzbekistan.  Die Deutsche Welle journalist Natalya Bushuyeva has had criminal charges pressed for income tax evasion over the last five years.  
Ms. Bushuyeva is also being charged with representing herself as a journalist (for a non-Uzbekistani press agency) without a permit.

March 16, 2007: Umida Niyazova was detained in January for illegally crossing the border between Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan and smuggling subversive literature.  Currently, Ms. Niyazova is in pre-trial detention.  She faces a possible ten-year sentence.
Although the charges must be viewed as a pretext, it is worth noting that recent changes in Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan border arrangements (ostensibly to be less restrictive) have resulted in a bewildering array of requirements which make cross-border traffic more restrictive.

October 5, 2006: Ulugbek Khaidarov, a journalist, is sentenced to six years in prison for extortion.  It is believed his arrest was related to an article that attempted to track USD 100,000 dollars that had disappeared from government funds for Jizzakh province.  during his imprisonment, he was apparently dosed with psychotropic drugs.  He was acquitted on November 7, 2006 on appeal. 

Dzhamshid Karimov, a journalist and nephew of President Karimov, has remained in the custody of a psychiatric ward since August 2006.

We won’t be listening, either:  The UN Human Rights Council has decided to stop monitoring human rights abuses for Uzbekistan under the 1503 article.   The U.S. has also cut the budget for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Voice of America broadcasting and reporting in Central Asia.

Photo: University of Cambridge

Last week, President of Tajikistan Ehmomahli Rakhmonov announced that he wanted to return to the traditional (non-Slavic) spelling and pronunciation of his name.  Today, President Rakhmon dictated that the entire nation will follow him in this move.  New birth certificates, graduation papers, and other official documents will now be issued in non-Slavic spellings, whatever the preference of individuals. 

This extension of presidential preference over private considerations is very reminiscent of the late Turkmenistani President, Saparmurat Niyazov’s rule.  Niyazov dictated what would be approved in the way of facial hair, dental work, educational curriculum, and relationships between husband and wife.  It heralds the beginning of a contingent dictatorship, where people are forced to change civic and private behavior mid-course due to the whims of its leader.  When Niyazov changed the names of towns, months, and days of the week to honor himself and his family, he sacrificed civic and social continuity and stability.  These changes also contributed to Turkmenistan’s increased isolation from the rest of the world.

Though President Rakhmon has not yet descended into full  Tajikistanibashi mode, this ruling will have several short-term and medium-term effects on its own.  First of all, it creates an anti-Russian feeling in a state which has already lost considerable numbers of its ethnic Russian population through out-migration.  Second, it puts in jeopardy temporary migrants from Tajikistan in Slavic states, especially Russia, but also possibly Kazakhstan.  These migrants are already in some physical jeopardy in Russia, and retaliatory acts against them in the Russian Federation are sure to step up.  The loss to Tajikistan’s remittance economy will be considerable.  According to a January, 2007 World Bank Report on the European and Central Asian economy remittances make up 12.5% of Tajikistan’s GDP (look at figure 2.1).

Third, any financial aid from Russia will be put in jeopardy by this directive.  As already reported, Tajikistan was expecting to open a new office of the Eurasian Development Bank, 66% funded by Russia.  Russia has already given money to the World Food Program on Tajikistan’s behalf just this month.  It is hard to believe that direct investment and foreign aid from China is going to make up any shortfall if Russia’s policymakers take this amiss.

Though surrounded by Turkic peoples, Tajikistan has never been a part of “Turkestan”.  The Tajik language is related to Persian, and Tajikistan continues to seek out and find fellowship with their fellow Persians in Iran.  China is their near neighbor and perhaps their most important trading partner.  Yet even the most prosperous state needs more than one friend, and Tajikstan is far from prosperous. 

Mr. Rakhmon needs to balance his foreign policy between Russia and China even as he cements better relations with other states.  For examples, he can look toward two of his neighbors to see the consequences of domestic policy upon national diplomacy.  Kazakhstan’s President Nazarbaev exhibits the diplomatic abilities needed to survive in Central Asia.  Whatever Mr. Nazarbaev’s faults, he has managed to make Kazakhstan a good friend to the United States, the Russian Federation, China, and the European Union.  By treating with all, he has ensured Kazakhstan a place in the global economy.  By contrast, Turkmenistan, also rich in energy resources, has only one friend–Russia’s Gazprom.  Mr. Rahmonov cannot count upon the international fidelity that comes with energy resources.  [See previous post: Tajikistan courts new investment].  Thus, his need to balance between competing powers is even more necessary.  Forcing a repudiation of Russian heritage is not conducive to such a balance.

This law contributes nothing to Tajikistan’s stability and prospects.  It only caters to Presidential vanity, and it may signal the beginning of a new downward spiral for this challenged state.

Photo: Jamestown Foundation

The International Helsinki Federation on Human Rights regularly comments on Central Asia’s humanitarian issues.  So far I’ve just glanced through the report and the Country Studies for each state look much more specific and useful than the general pages on Central Asia.

One reason the general pages are not as good: domestic policies in the different states really are changing in Central Asia.  Therefore, the region as a whole is becoming harder to generalize.  That’s both good and bad news, since some states are improving and in others, human rights considerations have been nearly trampled to death.

Just as a general aside, many of the non-Central Asian, non-former Soviet Union states have some thinking to do on their human rights records as well.  The International Helsinki Foundation has reported on all OSCE states.

Portal page for Human Rights in the OSCE 2007 (events of 2006)

Kazakhstan’s medical services have been under fire recently for the deplorable medically-assisted spread of HIV virus among 96 schoolchildren via transfusions.  Eight schoolchildren in the region of Shymkent have already died.  Kazakhstan’s Health Minister, Yerbolat Dosaev, and the Southern Kazakhstan governor Bolat Jylkyshiev, were dismissed.  Twenty-one doctors and medical officials are on trial, and other medical staff have been fired. 

Part of the problem stems from the spectre of  underpaid health workers ($50.00 per month).  In order to augment their income, they require patients to make illicit payments in order to schedule medical visits.

HIV also increases susceptibility to tuberculosis.  IRIN agency writes that the tuberculosis rate in Kazakhstan, though trending downward, still records 23,000 new cases per year.  40% of TB sufferers have drug-resistant strains of the disease.  Fifty-percent of Kazakhstanis affected by TB are unemployed; fifty-percent are also 18 to 34 years of age, making TB a long-term problem for the health system and national economic productivity. 

Though this article trumpets the managment of medical service in Kazakhstan in TB care, the relationship of poverty and medical system graft evident in the HIV scandal seems to give lie to that evaluation.

And this weekend, Agence France-Presse (AFP) featured the long-term medical problems from Semipalatinsk, the Soviet Union’s above-ground nuclear testing facility.  In this article, a 58-year old victim of the nuclear fallout was told she must have a third operation on her throat: since the doctors had botched the second operation, she refused.  Her medical status as a Semipalatinsk victim was immediately revoked.  Therefore, her medical benefits were cut off.

The real question here:  After the fleeting attention from the HIV trials, what permanent systemic changes does the Health Ministry plan to make?

Information on Semipalatinsk from Kazakhstan’s Embassy to the US
More information on medical ethics –the origin of “do no harm”

I was looking for a Central Asian game that didn’t have to do with the “Great Game” in Central Asia.  Instead of one, I found many–or really, Amira did.  Her blog, The Golden Road to Samarqand (now added to Blogroll at right), has a series on Central Asian bone games.  Since her account is part intercultural journey and part — the Hoyle’s of bone games, it’s fun to read.  You can check out her whole Spring, 2006 trek to learn more.

Apparently the pieces for the games are vertebrate bones of sheep, or perhaps other animals such as yak or horse bones.  In Mongolia, the bones are called shagai; in Kazakhstan, assyk; and in Kyrgyz, chuko.  They have six sides, four relatively easy to land and two quite difficult.  This makes throwing a matter of some different skills then a ball or die, which is perfectly symmetrical.  Just to get you started:

Somewhat like soccer: Toss out a small number of bones. Choose two bones at one end of the playing area to be the goal. The idea is to get as many bones as possible through the goal-bones. You do this by flicking one bone between two other bones without hitting either of the goal-post bones.

Somewhat like horseshoes, or perhaps mega-marbles, or maybe even bocce: Line the bones up in the center of a circle, saving the biggest bone. Stand seven feet away. Throw the biggest bone in such a way as to knock the other bones out of the circle. You win whichever bones you knock out.

You can play a kind of jacks or even a sort of missile-driven kinetic go-fish, where players try to knock out pairs of bones that have landed on the same side in pairs without touching any of the other shagai.  Clearly, these bone playing-pieces are the antecedents to dice, jacks, and marbles of which we are familiar, but go see Amira’s blog for how to obtain, make, and play some of these games.  Then throw those bones!

Photos: The Golden Road to Samarqand

Bruce Pannier writes about current tensions over Manas Air Force Base near Bishkek for RFE/RL.

With the Kharsi-Khanabad AFB closed in Uzbekistan, Manas is more important than before.  One thing I did not realize right away: the USAF shares this airport with Kyrgyzstan’s private use, which has to add to the tension there.  In September 2006, there was a runway collision between a private plane with 52 passengers and a US fuel plane, which resulted in a fire and no casualties.

According to a friend of mine who travels in and out of Manas, American servicemen and women were allowed to mingle in Bishkek fairly freely until the four-day kidnapping of a US Major on September 5 of last year.  After that still-unresolved incident, Manas base security dictated that the social exchange between US military and the Kyrgyzstani locals become far more circumscribed. 

Photo: Air Force Link

The reason for warmer ties between Pakistan and Uzbekistan were noted by Sanobar Shermatova at Ferghana.ru:

Where Tashkent is concerned, the Afghani civil strife and relations with Pakistan are inseparable from the problem of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. Advancement of relations with these two countries made for a weakening of Islamic gunmen. Tashkent and Islamabad signed an accord on a joint war on terrorism and extradition treaty in 2001. With these two documents signed, Uzbekistan could be reasonably confident that gunmen of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan would enjoy no more clemency from the Pakistani authorities. The signing of the documents essentially restored bilateral relations.

Pakistan has also wanted Uzbekistan to sponsor them into the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) for years, gradually moving from a low-key bid through Uzbekistan to last year’s overt diplomacy. 

Photo: Iran Daily

Mongolia’s strong relationship with Japan received a new boost this month when Japan announced a new USD 1.5 million project to aid urban migrants in Bayanhogar, Choyr, and Erdenat.  Mongolia’s population has been urbanizing rapidly.  Many of these new urbanites live in temporary settlements and need employment and business opportunities.  Japan’s new grant provides funds, technical support and guidance for the development of 165 business opportunites.  Its goal is to aid up to 23, 749 households.

Japan’s presence in Central Asia has grown since 1992.  At the breakup of the Soviet Union, Japanese diplomacy within the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) allowed the Central Asian Republics to become eligible for OECD aid initiatives, over U.S. and French objections.  Japan also sponsored the Central Asian republics into the Asian Development Bank (ADB), making Central Asian states the first to belong to more than one regional development bank (the European Bank of Reconstruction & Development (EBRD) as well as the ADB).    Japan has pursued regular opportunities with Central Asia in direct investment and aid initiatives.  In its partnership with Mongolia, however, Japan can also address many diplomatic initiatives in East Asian affairs as well.

Several development banks have recently come to Tajikistan, planning to invest in Tajikstan’s energy security—which Tajikistan really needs.  Last year, energy distribution problems precipitated a closure of Dushanbe’s bakeries; the resulting bread riot (really a woman’s sit-down demonstration) underscored the past-due need for energy infrastructure investment in Tajikistan. 

At neweurasia.net, Gulru has written this winter has been “the hardest winter yet” since Tajikistan gained independence, with only two to three hours of heat per day in residences.

One of the great things about Gulru’s post is that it underscores the difference between knowledge and capability.  In the post, Gulru advocates specific energy conservation technology at the household level.  Such thinking underscores that Tajikistan’s people have the will to build a contemporary economy, and a clear expectation that they can help themselves.  Yet it is difficult to implement your best ideas when your first priority has to be physical survival.  Ultimately, infrastructural aid promotes economic growth, better education and medical care, more newspapers, and more food.

Uzbekistan’s gas pipeline malfunction precipitated October’s bakery demonstration, but interrupted distribution from Uzbekistan is an old story for Tajikistan (and Kyrgyzstan).  In the spring, Uzbekistan gladly accepts water for agriculture and hydroelectric power from its upstream neighbors.  When winter comes, should any aspect of the Tajikistani-Uzbekistani relationship go amiss, heating fuel cutoffs are a nearly immediate sign of Karimovian displeasure.  Water does, after all, flow downhill, but gas pipelines are controlled by valves.  Ergo, Uzbekistan’s ability to play tit-for-tat is a lot greater than Tajikistan’s.

The Asian Development Bank formed its Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation (CAREC) division in 1997.  So far, CAREC has financed several regional studies that coordinate road and train transport, power plant and electrical grid development, improving old infrastructure and building new.  The plan presupposes regional cooperation as necessary to overall regional development.  In general, the CAREC agreement has been sponsored by China through the ADB.  China’s trade with Central Asia has increased from 1997’s USD 1 billion to 2005’s USD 9.8 billion.  In October of last year, Central Asian states agreed to cooperate on certain aspects of the CAREC plan.

This month, The Brookings Institution’s Wolfensohn Center for Development in the US has allied with the CAREC group, to provide consulting in inter-regional cooperation.

The Eurasian Development Bank arrived on March 2, 2006, to talk over a new Dushanbe office and discuss new energy infrastructure financing. 
[See previous post- Newest Central Asian development bank].

On March 5, Li Jun, vice president of China Export-Import Bank met with President Ehmomali Rahmonov to discuss a USD 2.67 billion loan for two major electric transmission lines, the North-South and the Lolazar-Khatlon line.  China is also financing the Dushanbe-Chanak road construction project. (RFE/RL Newsline, No. 42, March 6, 2007). 

 Hopefully, all these new deals will keep Tajikistan’s bakery ovens hot.

Photos: Oxfam, Jeff Barbee