Central Asia

The Eighth Session of the EurASec Interparliamentary Assembly met yesterday in St. Petersburg to discuss further economic cooperation, education, and coordinated anti-terrorist activities, particularly in regard to terrorist finance.  EurASec is an economic collective security joined by Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. The IPA is the legislative arm of EurASec, designed to help the passage of common legal frameworks that meet EurASec aims.

Since Russia had chaired the IPA for the previous two years, a review of that tenure was conducted.  Outgoing chair Mr. Boris Gryzlov noted that 39 normative legal acts had been enacted.  The new chair for the IPA is Tajikistan’s Mr. Makhmadsaid Ubaidulloyev.  Rotation is in alphabetical order by state.

Customs Union:
According to Belarus-based news reports, the negotiations for the burgeoning EurASec economic community have stalled on the matter of accession clauses to the treaty.  Kazakhstan is particularly interested in crafting this community for its WTO bid.  The initial signatories were to be the Russian Federation, Kazakhstan, and Belarus.  Mr. Nazarbaev has recently reached out to Kyrgyzstan in the hope that they will eventually also join this community.

Parliamentary University:
KazInform reported that the EurASec Parliamentary University is now underway, with the somewhat ominous-sounding name of International Centre for Re-training of Specialists.  The idea was first floated and commissioned during last year’s May session. 

Expanding economic ties with South Asia and the Pacific were also noted.

Map: escapetravel.com 

The Republic of Iran and the Republic of Tajikistan signed a Memorandum of Understanding in regard to increased direct investment in the Tajik Republic.

What’s upcoming:  facilitation of Iranian business investment; the reconstruction of one cement plant and the construction of another; some large-scale construction projects; and the development of an auto plant.  This last does not sound like a great breakthrough, as Iran’s technological development of automobiles has been hampered by various sanction regimes and disinvestment due to isolationism.

Tajikistan is also welcoming Iranian agriculture investment in sugar beet production and agricultural mechanization, by reducing tariffication and ceding water and power easements to these new investors. 

Read the details here.

Every year, a new typhoid epidemic: 

The most famous one in 2003, during the Central Asian Games, hosted in Dushanbe.  Officials made one public service announcement, while residents and visitors continued to get sick.  Tajikistan does better with this obligation now, because they are reporting that:

Right now, in Kulyab, Tajikistan, there are 62 confirmed cases of typhoid, and 17 more in outlying areas of the township. 

The culprit, according to IWPR, is aging water systems, with pipe first laid in the 1930’s under Soviet management, and only partially revitalized in the 1970’s.

According to the US Center for Disease Control (CDC), typhoid results through infection by Salmonella typhi. Only humans contract this disease, through contact with sewage or unclean water or from people who are shedding Salmonella bacteria who have handled food.  Salmonella creates high fever, and if left untreated, compromises the integrity of intestinal walls, creating permeable ulcers, perforation, and death.  This life-threatening illness is therefore a large problem in the developing world, where water safety is not assured.  World-wide, 21.5 million people are affected by this disease.
Much of the typhoid incidence in Tajikistan is also due to insufficient chlorination of water.  The Water Quality & Health Council has a relatively short article on why chlorine is considered optimal for water purification: the main point appears to be that chlorine not only kills existing bacteria such as Salmonella and E. coli, but also has a residual antibacterial affect. 

According to the Chlorine Institute, there are at least three processes used to make chlorine, all three involving electrolyzing a chloride salt.  The oldest and least environmentally sound method (Note: the Chlorine Institute did not go here) uses mercury as the cathode.  During the 1990’s, without Soviet oversight and during the Tajik Civil War, Tajikistan’s existing chlorination plant was damaged or unsupervised, and mercury from these plants has also escaped into the water table.  Revitalizing or re-tooling Tajikistan’s chlorine manufacture is an infrastructure project well worth support by one of Tajikistan’s allies. 

Insufficient or inconstant power to municipal water systems creates another problem in maintaining water purity.  When pumps are sometimes stopped, water does not flow, and untreated water slips into treated water.  Therefore, work toward Tajikistan’s energy security should also be understood as work toward water security as well.

Photos & Diagrams: BBC; Sanger Institute; Greener-Industry.org.

Okay, it’s not Friday, it’s Wednesday.  That should be your first hint.

At Registan.net, they’ve been discussing how ridiculous things get in a hurry when news analysts get dramatic.  This is particularly related to new developments in the Nazarbaev - Aliev controversy now spinning out.

This is my mostly non-verbal warning for all Central Asia watchers to BEWARE mistaking printed material for factual reporting.  I also mis-spelled recipes on purpose. (sure I did).

For those of you who are still not sure, I am: no one is in Cozumel via flying saucer.

Photos: and I do apologize to serious news sources for taking their stuff in vain:  Fortunecity.com; Alienshift.com; Kub.kz, PamPeck.com

For the first time, Mongolia’s representative (Nyamaa Enkhbold) attended the EU-based Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM), which is held every two years.  Benito Ferrero-Waldner praised Mongolia’s progress.  New aid in the amount of Euro 17 million (USD 23 million) over the next three years almost doubles the earlier annual aid levels of Euro 3 million.  In addition, Mongolia will enjoy duty-free access to EU markets.

On a less official note, it looks like “the beautiful people” may soon be able to get their very own Mongolian condominium.  Global real estate speculation is on its way.  In general, this kind of investment is built to attract foreign investors who come to the state–and is usually grossly overbuilt, becoming part of the “casino capitalism” in resource booms, and a sign of economic wilt when the boom slows down and the buildings lose occupancy.

To manage this tide, Mongolia needs to check and make explicit some specific zoning laws.  So far, Mongolia’s privatization of public property has been incomplete–in that the issues between traditional economies, individual rights, and income benefits have not been equalled out.  Unfortunately, not everyone who travels overseas wants to immerse themselves in that state’s culture.  The Mongolian government should acknowledge that but also keep it in mind when granting concessions.  Investors also need to beware that boom-and-bust mentality.

Today in the Wall Street Journal, the President of the Uyghur-American Association and World Uyghur Congress writes about the human rights situation in China’s Xinjiang province.  Ms. Kadeer was jailed for five years in China for her activities.

Photo: Chinapage

On May 28, the President of Turkmenistan,  Mr. Berdymuhammedov, visited Kazakhstan to engage in bilateral meetings with Kazakhstan’s President Nazarbaev and crew.  The news wires are more or less blipping through these developments as they do most short news stories in Central Asia, but in aggregate these articles are describing a watershed event.  I’m so excited about this I’m finding it hard not to put exclamation points after every sentence–that is not a joke.  There are some real opportunities presented from this meeting.

1. Return to Multilateral Diplomacy:
Turkmenistan is going to re-join the CIS under observer status, an organization it abandoned in 1995.  While one cannot forecast the extent of this new diplomatic multilateralism after a scant two days, it could conceivably extend, over time, Turkmenistan could well receive new funding and new projects with collective security organizations such as the Eurasian Economic Community, the Eurasian Development Bank (a joint Russian-Kazakhstani venture) and the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO).  It might even ultimately attract Turkmenistan’s participation in Central Asia’s water regimes, and the common economic sphere which Kazakhstan has been assiduously promoting.

Turkmenistan will host the next meeting of the CIS in Ashgabat.  In 2001, the previous president barred CIS meetings in Turkmenistan.

This new development paves the way for further regional bilateralism, along the order of the agreements that Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan made at this meeting:

2. Kazakhstan & Turkmenistan’s new bilateral relations:
Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan agreed that the level of trade relations between their two states was woefully insufficient, at a turnover of USD 150 million.  They signed numerous bilateral trade agreements, including one on trade, science, technical and cultural cooperation; border coordination activities; standardized measurements, certification, and accreditation; and other items that make the cooperative basis for actual trade.  Transit and transportation agreements were also signed, for a potential bus route from Turkmenbashi [City] to Atyrau; highway reconstruction between the two states; and a new rail line.  Earlier, new air transport agreements, after a two-year hiatus, were reinstated.

3.  Bilateralism also leads to multilateral trade:
Last of all, Kazakhstan’s bilateral diplomacy with Turkmenistan could lead to the development of the Trans-Caspian pipeline, which will bring Turkmen gas westward to the SCP lines that run to Erzerum.  A projected signing date was mentioned in September, 2007.

In short: these bread-and-butter bilateral arrangements create a concrete basis for ending Turkmenistan’s isolationism.  Mr. Berdymuhammedov had essentially committed to turnaround in Turkmenistan’s diplomatic stance, in league with one of the world’s best diplomats, Mr. Nazarbaev.  This bilateral relationship opens a lot of possibilities for the entire Central Asian trade framework.

In one article in Kazakhstan Today, Mr. Berdymuhammedov called Kazakhstan’s President a “great, genius leader“.  Turkmenistan.ru noted that Mr. Nazarbaev was happy to welcome Turkmenistan’s President to “Kazakhstan’s soil”.   Sounds encouraging–I certainly have my fingers crossed.

RFE/RL Interview of Daniel Kimmage on the meeting’s historic significance

Reviewing recent events:
Last week, I wrote on the Nurbank scandal and the about-face decision to investigate Mr. Aliev rather than to send him out of the country until the scandal died down.  At the time that Mr. Aliev was demoted from his Foreign Ministry position and made Ambassador to Austria, he was feeling his relative impunity well enough to a. admit that he and his wife Dariga Nazarbaeva did still own a great part of the Kazakhstan media empire, and b. to sue, for slander and libel, the wives of the men he allegedly kidnapped and tortured. 

Since then, President Nazarbaev accepted a grateful legislatures’ permission to be exempt from all constitutional term limits, with the ability to run for office indefinitely.  It is worth noting that Mr. Aliev’s father, Mukhtar Aliev, was one of the few people quoted as not in favor of this motion.  And apparently, Rakhat Aliev had been making his election plans for 2012 known within the Aliev and Nazarbaev family circles.  

But on Friday, the Kazakhstan government penalized KTK Television and Karavan, two media outlets owned by Aliev & Nazarbaeva, for failure to follow the laws concerning legal percentages of local content broadcasting.  They are closed for three months, which means a loss of market share, advertising revenue, and, quite likely, some heavy fines upon its return to broadcasting.  And on Saturday, Aliev was fired from his post as ambassador to Austria. 

Rakhat Aliev publicly denounced the new constitutional amendment and began discussing his own presidential hopes, and served all this up with accusing President Nazarbaev with election irregularities in 2005.  The coup de grace, as far as I am concerned, is in Rakhat Aliev’s newfound fidelity to electoral principles.  Only last summer, he was the one that suggested Mr. Nazarbaev be elected as president for life–only to be shouted down. 

Family feuds?
It’s not uncommon for the hook that draws people in to analyses of Kazakhstan politics to emphasize the father versus daughter/son-in-law dynamic.  And it can’t be ignored, but there are two other relevant principles to consider when looking at these events.

(more…)

On Friday, the World Food Programme condemned a spate of aid hijackings that have taken place primarily in West and Southern Afghanistan.  The amount of food stolen over the past 12 months – 500 tonnes — was worth a total of USD 350,000. 

The attacks have been increasing in incidence since April.  Food was to be distributed to refugees recently deported from Iran and others in need; most attacks have taken place on the desert stretches of road along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.  The Reuters AlertNet article discusses more exact locations.

Photo: UN Aid Mission to Afghanistan

New announcements from the Save Mark Seidenfeld site: Mr. Seidenfeld’s new charges have now been announced, after a trial delay announced in April, when initial charges appeared to have been satisfied by evidence.

The first new charge states that he took more money to pay for the originally-disputed equipment than it actually cost.  Derek Bloom over at the Save Mark Seidenfeld site is on record as saying that the difference between the two amounts is the amount of Value-Added Tax, which Mr. Seidenfeld also of course would have had to pay.  This truly seems like a ludicrous charge: except, of course, no one’s laughing. 

The second charge sounds far more dangerous: accusing Mr. Seidenfeld of forging the receipts to the sale.  This is particularly insidious, since the signature is of a man who has been dead for two years and cannot testify one way or the other. 

The trial is expected to go forward in June.

To get the full story, go here (also linked above).  It’s well worth noting that this post has the document containing the new charges linked for your perusal–in other words, hiding nothing.  You will never have this kind of access to trial documents in an expatriate trial again. 

I’ve written extensively on this trial, using primary documents: the two most important are linked above.  You can also check previous posts on Mark Seidenfeld using search function at top right.