Afghanistan and Central Asia

A triumph in the Rule of Law: Mr. Seidenfeld is acquitted on all charges!!!  Over at the Save Mark Seidenfeld site, Derek Bloom has listed the findings of the court, which include:

That in refutation of all allegations, Mr. Seidenfeld neither kept back money or equipment for his own personal gain. 

That he should be freed immediately, and that he has the right to sue his accusers for damages inflicted. 

Mark Seidenfeld has been in jail since December 7, 2005, on frivolous and insidious charges–but no longer.  Based upon an article in the New York Times, I first wrote about this case on April 25, 2007, and looked at some of the evidence on  May 2, 2007, with other updates.

Best wishes to Mr. Seidenfeld in all his endeavours, and also to the Kazakhstan law officials, especially the judge, who got to the bottom of the whole affair and insisted upon justice.

There be dragons–or at least, living legends: swimming around in Scotland’s Loch Ness and, as reported this week, in Lake Kanasi in Xinjiang Province.  This definitely proves a theory that the initial uh, foundation for the species is somewhere in the vicinity of the, mmm, Barents Sea, but migrated south during the Ice Age–just ahead of those pesky glaciers.

Just look: and unless you understand Chinese, you don’t need your sound:

Which is something indeed to think about, especially if you are contemplating a visit to Xinjiang and plan to take any boating excursions. 

The last Loch Ness monster sighting turned out to be a partially-besieged parade float that drifted downriver on its way to Wales.

Not wishing to be left behind–and wanting a monster of its very own–an expedition of U.S. species-hunters last week took off to find the Big Foot, sometimes called “Sasquatch.”  Unfortunately it took 35 years for North America to definitively prove that the last filmed sighting of the B.F. was a gigantopithecus advocate cavorting around in a gorilla suit.

I think it would be more in the spirit of competition to have a Lake Huron Monster.  But I guess it’s a little tougher to migrate from the Barents Sea to Ontario / Michigan, so we won’t expect a sighting anytime soon.

Just kidding. 

Have a nice weekend, everybody.

Over at Registan.net, Nathan is discussing a minor backlash in the blogosphere against Kazakhstan’s potential investment in Westinghouse.  Toshiba, which currently owns 77% of Westinghouse, will be selling this share for USD 486.3 million to Kazatomprom, the Kazakhstani nuclear agency.

This is a good deal for the U.S.–protests notwithstanding–which is why the U.S. approved the sale.  Kazatomprom has 30% of world uranium reserves.  As Europe increasingly turns to nuclear power, uranium, like oil, will begin to resemble oil markets in matters of supply constraint and therefore price.   The sale encourages an avenue for increased supply to Westinghouse plants.  It also allows Kazakhstan to diversify its economy and forge further links in global markets.

 Furthermore, Japan and the U.S. have interests in Kazakhstan and with each other.  This is all about mutual cooperation, and mutual investment.  It’s a win-win. 

Thanks to Nathan for bringing this forward.

Alisher Iminzhanov, a Kyrgyzstani leader of the outcast group Hizb-ut-Tahrir, was detained in Osh on July 17th.  His arrest has been cast as a preventive measure for the festivities associated with the annual summer SCO summit, which starts on August 16th.  Kyrgyzstan believes that at least 5,000 supporters of HuT within its borders.

What is Hizb ut-Tahrir?
Hizb-ut-Tahrir (Party of Liberation) is an Islamic religious group that believes in the eventuality of a new Caliphate.  The movement was founded in 1953 by a Sufi Islam scholar, Taqiuddin al-Nabhani.  According to Wikipedia:

Hizb ut-Tahrir has set out a three-stage plan of action to achieve its goals:

1. Establish a community of HuT members who work together in the same way as the companions of Muhammad. Members should accept the goals and methods of the organization as their own and be ready to work to fulfill these goals.
2. Build public opinion among the Muslim masses for the caliphate and the other Islamic concepts that will lead to a revival of Islamic thought.
3. Once public opinion is achieved in a target Muslim country through debate and persuasion, the group hopes to obtain support from army generals, leaders, and other influential figures or bodies to facilitate the change of the government. The government would be replaced by one that implements Islam “generally and comprehensively”, carrying Islamic thought to people throughout the world.
[See HuT pamphlet]

A less sympathetic description of HuT plan by Dosym Satpayev, director of a Kazakh think tank Assessment Risks Group, is that HuT

“plans its development in three stages… First they convert new members. Secondly, they establish a network of secret cells, and finally, they try to infiltrate the government to work to legalize their party and its aims.”

Like everything about Hizb-ut-Tahrir, this Wikipedia article is disputed.

New constituencies and converts
A recent RFE/RL article documents the rise of women in the HuT organization.  Seven women were all charged and arrested in Uzbekistan, which frequently uses Islamic extremism as a legitimizer for arrests.  However, the article documents other indicators of women’s participation across Central Asia–handing out leaflets, for instance–and the reasons why women are becoming participants.  The reasons continue to be those associated with a low economic opportunity, and political repression is giving opportunities for it to flourish in realms beyond examination.

Families that have lost their male head of household due to economic migration, religious persecution, or imprisonment for Hizb-ut-Tahrir activities frequently turn to the organization for assistance.  Leaflet distribution, for instance, is apparently a somewhat paid activity and probably helps a destitute family gain a social services network.  This article points out that recruitment (or conversion) tends to spread within prisons as well.  Those Hizb-ut-Tahrir members who are on the run against the law find themselves in association with others of dubious legal status.  For me, the problems with prosecuting Hizb-ut-Tahrir tends to rest in these problems of association.

Reading the language of reports
Last of all, since Hizb-ut-Tahrir advocates a people’s transformation of faith and conversion, eventually, of state leaders toward a Caliphate, news that discusses Hizb-ut-Tahrir’s  ”calls to overthrow” the government can be a bit misleading.  In their tracts and in their acts–no violence has been asked for or committed.  Indeed, the State Department watches HuT pretty carefully but does not call it a terrorist organization.  However, as I noted before, it is difficult to follow its “cell” character.  The Russian Federation, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan have all banned it; other states are seriously considering such a ban, including Great Britain.

For the SCO meeting, other religious groups are also being targeted by Kyrgyztan’s security services, including: Falun Gong, Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s Church, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s TM movement. 

Further Reading:
Tajikistan arrests 99 HuT members in 2005–RFE/RL, January 2006
Wikipedia on Hizb-ut-Tahrir
Global Security on Hizb-ut-Tahrir
Forum 18–an NGO devoted to religious freedom in blogroll at right

The hazards of expertise–and listening to experts
 Articles like this, that call into question what I am doing in my life and in this venue, make me want to turn off the news and go to the closest July barbecue: I can be a witty guest, so please send invite immediately.

In a 2005 review of  Expert Political Judgement: How good is it? How can we know?, Louis Menand discusses the author’s bleak findings for those of us who follow expert opinions and try to stay interested in world developments.  According to the book’s author, Philip Tetlock, news experts and forecasters–people that comment upon the outcomes of political news/events–are worse at predicting the future than the average Joe or Jane.  And this is what Menand at least has to say:

When they’re wrong, they’re rarely held accountable. . . they insist that they were just off on timing, or blindsided by an improbable event, or almost right, or wrong for the right reasons.  They have the same repertoire of self-justification that everyone has. . .

Anyway, the work is based upon a twenty-year study of commentators, and he used statistics to help him codify the solutions.  One thing he noted was that “the more facts that a person knew, the less likely he was to predict the outcome”, because in part, the expert included more variables into his prediction without assigning probability to these factors.  In other words, choices such as State A will go to war/ State A will not go to war have a statistical probability of 50% each, but an expert will add factors such as the temperament of the leader, the economic exchanges, the trend of the most recent speeches in State A’s legislature, et cetera, using more factors to obscure probability rather than view it–a “diminishing marginal predictive return” for each fact or factoid the expert pulls forward to make his or her case.

This just sounds so contrary to the usefulness of scholarship that I had to think about it for awhile, and I believe I partly understand why: we are accustomed to writing, from say middle school on, essays where we defend a position by using specific facts to argue our case.  In other words, we are accustomed to rhetorical arguments rather than mathematical ones–personally I wouldn’t be able to stand news that included a lot of equations in order to decide the human dimension–but apparently this is wrong-spirited of me, as Tetlock has apparently proved. 

One reason experts ignore the probable: they have pet theories, which they hold to loyally, in the face of overwhelming uncertainty, and even in the face of overwhelming evidence.  
Second reason: 50-50 isn’t good enough to make a plan, especially when the outcomes are lucrative or dangerous.   
Third reason: it has to be interesting, so that we will watch them on television or read their articles and books and blog entries. 
Fourth reason: experts as well as audiences tend to self-select data.  For analysts, that means a more rigorous fact-checking of that which falsifies their theoretical knowledge; and for the public, it means that they “self-select” what they read and study.  The example Menand uses is U.S. liberals reading The Nation and conservatives The National Review.  It actually goes much deeper (or I should say, wider) than that: as a former bookstore manager, I have noted the increasing number of self-prescribing titles on the bookshelves these days.  Titles such as  these tend to aid in that self selection, from marriage to elections to World War III.  Such books cut off self-study and can be scurrilous and detestable, but they do make the reader, who actually already knows the contents, feel comfortably angry at the other side’s opinion.
Fifth reason: we believe scenarios that are filled in with details, e.g., the rhetorical argument rather than the mathematical argument.

So how do we protect ourselves from experts? And how, as potential experts, do we evaluate the world?  First, Tetlock says that experts who follow some kind of universal theory, a “one big pattern” are more likely to be wrong, where experts who believe in a kind of flexible “ad hoc” approach are more likely to be right.  This cuts out any unitary belief in “Democratic Peace Theory”, “Balance of Power”  “Great Man Theory” “Trade Peace Theory”–at least, if exercised to the exclusion of any other theories.  The problem for those who use an ad hoc approach, however, is that they never fail largely, but they don’t win largely, either.  It’s more of a gamble, but one looks more statesmanlike and profound when one is right with the “One Big Theory”.

Back in the 1990’s Susan Strange discussed the insularity of the U.S. in both academic congress–for instance, U.S.  academic journals on international relations most frequently accept U.S. authors–and in their continued use of “one big” theories when writing policy and predictions.  In contrast, she described Europeans as more able to accommodate more than one theory at a time and use them in concert when studying and planning.  We can argue the relative dogmatism of the U.S. versus Europe all day, but that’s not the point: the point is that no one-paragraph theory can encompass all the variables.  It’s also interesting that in that same talk (to Europeans) she takes them to task for self-selection and pet projects.

But once again, this only serves as a reminder against rhetorical reasoning and may very well bring us back to probability theory, and, since greater numbers of opinions tend to follow probability rather than rhetoric, “the wisdom of crowds” may well have a point.  Last of all, two quotes by eminent logicians, who would disdain the wisdom of crowds, but not that of simplicity or academic rigor rather than personal theories:

“I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance.”
Socrates, from Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers
Greek philosopher in Athens (469 BC - 399 B.C.E.)

Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.
Never increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything.
William of Ockham, English philosopher (1288- ca. 1348 C.E.)

And that’s how we are going to have to measure our experts, and their arguments, as well: by watching for clues of their world-view as prejudicial to their predictions, no matter what world-view it is; and by discarding the irrelevant in their arguments.

And now that we’ve discovered yet again how hollow the world is, I’d like to come over for barbecue: that is, if you also have potato salad.  I can bring lemonade.  You’ll find me out on the street, taking my pet theories out for a little walk around the park.

Further Reading:
Sample Chapter of Tetlock’s Book

References: See Worth Reading Page for Strange (1998 ) and Tetlock (2005); also, thanks to various quotation pages on the Internet and Wikipedia for Occam dates.

As I said in my earlier post today, Afghanistan seems to be the afterthought in the U.S. news last week– but not by those Afghanistan-watchers in the blogging community and around the Internet.  Here’s a round-up: and thanks to all who labor to bring us up to speed.

Afghanistan:
–At Afghanistan Watch, Tom Perriello gives an excellent and comprehensive picture of the status of security in Afghanistan: first, the switch from frontal assaults to the rise of an insurgent war, and then what this means for Afghanistan, its domestic security forces, and NATO elements.  Unlike Mr. Pereillo, Joshua Foust over at Registan.net is not so sanguine about the new styles of battle, although both posts address some very similar concerns and challenges.
–Barnett Rubin at Informed Comment: an academic-worthy, excellent post on how Afghanistan’s historic grievances inform the conflict of the present, from 1993 to Mr. bin-Ladin’s videos of 2001.
–Peter Marton discusses how videos can be misread or news stories mis-told, leading to a consensus of opinion through “cascades” or inter-linking that make a falsehood a consensus for action or opinion, using videos from the vehicle bombings of July 15th.  A very nice post that helps us think better–always a plus . . .
–A lot of people besides legislators are saying that NATO organization and commitment in Afghanistan is limiting the options for engagement.  The resultant military choices are limited, and, leading to civilian casualties.  This article also discusses the bumper, mega-poppy crop in Afghanistan this year.
–Also recommended: and thanks again to Afghanistanica, who is on the lookout for worthy blogs for all of us: this is a fun but thought-provoking blog, In Transit to Afghanistan, which has been added to the blogroll at right.  New articles include reviews of books on Afghanistan such as Asne Seierstad’s book and the work of Khaled Hosseini;  conspiracy theories and cultural notes on the Red Mosque events (see below (Pakistan) for links on Red Mosque).  I’m not linking a specific article because they were all of interest.

Pakistan:
–Don’t rest all U.S.-Pakistan relations on President Musharraf: in the IHT, June 6th
–We have to start this somewhere: most recent conflicts in Pakistan between military and “madrasa militants” led by pro-Taliban Abdul Rashid Ghazi centered around the Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, a complex of two blocks [See aerial photo from Google Earth (h/t NYT)]  around July 3, 2007: Numerous negotiations ensued, with hostages stuck in the basement of the mosque.  On July 9th, a delegation of religious and political officials attempted to negotiate.  July 10, after failed negotiations, thePakistani military rushed the Red Mosque; intense fighting broke out, that lasted for a sixteen hours.  Mr. Ghazi was killed in the conflict; another 38 Pakistani servicemen; more than 100 dead. 
–The Red Mosque’s China connection: Tariq Niazi describes China-Pakistan relations as profound–and mostly silent–and attributes Red Mosque incident to China’s influence on Mr. Musharraf; and Mr. al-Zawahiri has said that the Red Mosque incident must be avenged.
–Protests in wake of Red Mosque incident have threatened Mr. Musharraf;
Pakistan is attempting to re-forge relations with tribal leaders in its Western region, in order to provide stability for itself and for Afghanistan in the face of more widespread violence.  
–Analysis that the roots of this conflict are al-Qaeda’s desire to create further anarchy for both Pakistan and Afghanistan, here.
–Ahmed Rashid on Pakistan’s choices at BBC.

For those following the news lately in the U.S. at least, there has been a dearth of reporting on Afghanistan for months and maybe even years.  This past week, with so much drama enacted in Washington DC over Iraq, even Iraq news from Iraq was sidelined in favor of who-voted-what and why in the air-conditioned halls of Congress.  After reading these reports and listening to C-Span, I started to wonder if  Afghanistan would ever become a primary focus in the news, and halls of legislature, again.

Those who follow this blog know that it occasionally reports upon Afghanistan affairs and has links to blogs which specialize in the country’s affairs and the war being conducted there.   For a good long time, the conduct, goals, and capabilities of Pakistan has been a large factor in Afghanistan’s current history, and Pakistan’s affairs are increasingly difficult to separate out of .  NGOs such as the International Crisis Group and the Council of Foreign Affairs are more aware of these nuances than most U.S. news agencies; and so are many of the blogs which study Afghanistan so carefully. 

But it’s also important to look at Pakistan’s influence beyond Afghanistan.  Pakistan has increased its investment in Central Asia, and have become a part of bilateral trade and investment with Central Asian states.   Both India and Pakistan are coming forward as burgeoning major factors in Central Asia’s trade: in other words, south Asia is a small but growing trade that later will become a major factor in Central Asian political economy.  Last of all, Pakistan has very strong connections with China, and China’s goals in Central Asia, particularly for Xinjiang province and for Afghanistan’s stability, are also carried out in Pakistan as well. 

Pakistan has long wanted to access to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization , and will attend the August meetings of the SCO an observing state.   As Pakistan becomes increasingly involved with SCO affairs, we can expect China to include the state in its expansion of economic and military cooperation with the other nations we traditionally or conveniently consider Central Asian.

Here are some short backgrounders on Pakistan:
International Crisis Group, with links to more detailed reports
State Department Background notes, updated May 2007
CIA Fact Book, Pakistan
Pakistan’s Bid for SCO membership at CaCIanalyst, 2006

See also:
NATO page for International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan

I wanted to go back to a previous post of last week on Kyrgyzstan’s potential hydropower development, because I couldn’t consider all the dilemmas in one post.  One dilemma I started to set up: much of the discussion concerns what kind of capacity would be needed in order to a. serve Kyrgyzstan; b. serve Central Asia’s power needs and develop energy commerce by exporting power. 

So, to paste in from before:  The Kyrgyz legislature has recently privatized two major hydropower installations:

MW Kambarata-1 with a 1900 MW capacity;
Kambarata-2 hydropower plant with a 240 MW capacity.

The two Kamabarata plants have annual generation capacities of 5,100 million kWh and 1,100 million kWh, respectively.  These two plants have the potential to control all of the Naryn River output, which makes them even more important in terms of flood control and a kind of lever against Uzbekistan.  In addition, a third plant, the Thermal Power Plant -1, in Bishkek, with a  MW capacity, is going to be privatized.

 This particular article by Ms. Marat also reports that lawmakers in Kyrgyzstan understand that they require foreign direct investment in order to achieve infrastructure improvement.  The problem lies in first, turning over the installations to some foreign business consortium, and second, meeting the conditions of such a consortium.

Serving Kyrgyzstan
According to IWPR, the plants are only about half-completed, and the existing Toktogul hydropower plants generate 80% of Kyrgyzstan’s current needs.  These plants however, have suffered disinvestment: needing repairs and upgrades.  As Kyrgyzstan develops–which it will–Toktugul plant output would not be able to maintain this 80% of required output, even with repairs.  Second, much of Kyrgyzstan is already underserved by utility grids.  Last of all, the twenty percent remaining is primarily served by Uzbekistan gas, which frequently gets turned off when Uzbekistan’s administration is not pleased with Kyrgyz policy.  To gain energy independence from Uzbekistan can only be a plus.  Yet one must factor in some disadvantages as well: large upgrades such as envisioned with Kambarata-1 and 2 involve a certain amount of speculation and risk.

Exporting power: risks and benefits
Customer base
Advantage: There’s definitely a market for excess utility wattage.  Possible customers for Kyrgyz power could include many neighbor states: Eastern Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Western China; with cooperation from Tajikistan, part of Pakistan and India could also be served.   

Though Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and the Xinjiang region of China are increasingly developing oil, and have coal, there would still be benefits to both in accessing Kyrgyz utility power.  First, there is an ease of distribution (locational advantages).  Second, China especially desires access to clean green power in order to mitigate the climate-changing effects of coal.  Other customers, still close but not contiguous, could be developed in partnership with other states.  For instance, in partnership with Tajikistan, the Kambarata projects could bring power to Pakistan and India’s most underserved areas.  Northern Afghanistan could, in the medium or long term, become a customer for Kyrgyz and Tajik hydropower.  In partnership with Uzbekistan, Southeast Turkmenistan could also access some of this hydropower capacity. 

Disadvantage: Yet many of these customers and some of the potential states for cooperation add to the elements of risk involved in this project.  The most underserved market is of course, Afghanistan, which is also the market with the most risk.

Ownership:
Disadvantage: One of the problems for a state that owns upstream water is that it also incurs obligations to downstream states, who have a right to water under international law.  Under such law, the conduct, flow, and so forth of water must be left much the same no matter the improvements or diversions made by the upstream state.  Therefore, water, surely more valuable than even hydrocarbons, cannot be said to have a clear title (international law has unfortunately added to the burdens of upstream states).  If one adds corporate rather than state ownership of dams, hydropower / hydroelectricity plants, it is easy to see why an upstream state like Kyrgyzstan would be protective of what title it does hold to water.

Advantage: At the same time, the ambiguous ownership between domestic and international claimants can be worked out through the use of international law through treaties and/or contracts.  I would think that a production sharing agreement (PSA), where Kyrgyzstan retains its rights to water and gets to buy a share of hydropower production (much like contractual arrangements in the oil industry) should work. 

This can also be attractive to corporations.  For the corporate interests involved, having some state ownership in the project allows them to access the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation, which loans to firms undertaking development, and its Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) which insurance of parts of these types of projects.  The World Bank’s IFC also asks for structural reform at that time, i.e., it would require some anti-corruption measures such as separate funding for the project and third-party independent audits.  Income from Kyrgyzstan’s portion of the PSA would also be “earmarked” probably, under a World Bank- led lending syndicate. . .

Extent of debt:
Disadvantages: Understandably, Kyrgyzstan can look at the large costs of hydroelectric development and get cold feet.  The capacity that seems to be planned is in excess of what Kyrgyzstan can use.  Developing utility export customers such as Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Afghanistan would also require further investment in infrastructure, such as power lines across mountains and substations in seismically active areas or areas of political unrest. 

Without debt, however, no revenue can be captured and no improvements made.

Engineering and revenue concerns
There is a three-way dilemma involved: what capacity is optimal for use domestically and for export in terms of technology?  What plant capacity (or range of capacities) is mandated by existing/future water flow? What plant capacity makes outside investment attractive?  These are engineering questions and revenue-forecasting questions for which there are answers, and opinions also can underlie these answers.  

Global warming adds to the risk
Environmental benefits and barriers also inform the power plant’s attractiveness to investment.  Some underlying factors include global warming, as glacier melt is expected to increase.  A well-engineered solution could aid Kyrgyzstan and downstream states in flood control.  When the glaciers significantly recede (maybe as soon as 40 years from now according to UNESCO-Almaty) river output to these plants will also dwindle.  That would mean that Kyrgyzstan could be saddled with debt long after the project operates below capacity.

Conclusions/ possible ways forward:
1. Basic and detailed engineering studies for not just the plants, but for utility corridors.
2. Financial studies for capacities versus debt versus revenue;
3. Consulting with third-party experts to verify these figures and studies.
4. Concentrate on least risky customers (Kazakhstan/China) for export figures.
5. Set up arrangements for transparent program, with sequestered funds and quicker payment of debt
6. Set up profit sharing arrangement so that Kyrgyzstan retains part title of infrastructure, full title of resources, and proportionate responsibility for debt.
7. Enjoy energy independence from Uzbekistan.

As far as I know, much of this may have already been done. 

And quite frankly, I’m hoping that some of the folks at NewEurasia-Tajikistan (Vadim, Tajik Boy, are you out there?) or Kyrgyzstan step up to the plate with comments, because several of the Tajikistan blogging community have educated themselves on dams and power wattages.  I am more or less self-educated on utility matters, primarily by subscribing to newsletters on the power industry and reading treatises that don’t stray too far into electrical engineering equations.  Anyone with some specialized knowledge is more than welcome to step in–from Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, the World Bank or anywhere, in the engineering or utility fields, or, hey, anyone from any field.

Map: Perry-Castaneda Library; Photos: XP.detritus.net; Geoinfo.amu.edu; Edmunds.com 

Tajikistan, in partnership with the World Bank, is soliciting investment in its cotton enterprises, and international agricultural concerns have another two weeks to submit bids for investment.  The forward, signed by Sharif Rahimov, the Chairman of the State Committee for Investments and State Property Management and attached to the call for bids, is beautifully-expressed:  it asserts that Tajikistan’s commitment to cotton industry is long-lasting; it points out that Tajikistan began its economic sector reforms in earnest in 1999, after a period of “Civil Unrest” and then a period of post-conflict consolidation; it then calls attention to the work of the last eight years, where significant economic reform has been undertaken.  Then:

However, we are now benefiting from a period of political and economic stability, a situation that many of our neighbouring countries are not benefiting from.

We, the Government of the Republic of Tajikistan, feel that the time is now right for a deepening of reforms, encouragement of foreign investment and a determined effort to support the private sector development of our economy. We are working closely with the wider international development community to foster and strengthen the enabling environment that will provide the structure within which the private sector will work. A number of important reforms have already been implemented in many areas of our economy. The most dramatic program for development and reform lies in the agricultural sector and specifically cotton. The President of the Republic and his Government have been working closely with donors for the past year to develop a vision for the cotton sector – a “Road Map” - that will lead to the true realisation of the potential of the sector in our Republic .

We appreciate that certain international companies may have previously had less than satisfactory experiences in investing in the cotton sector in our Republic and in exporting our baled cotton. Whilst these experiences were not connected with the actions of our Government, we can ensure investors and the wider international cotton community that we are making all possible efforts to ensure the existence of a more transparent, equitable, dependable and profitable sector for all.

Passages like this would melt a heart of stone.  They show Tajikistan not just able to evaluate previous performance, but any future performance in state to firm diplomacy.  But since businessmen do not commonly invest by heart-strings, it’s just as well that Tajikistan has made this part of a “Road Map” to success; and that it has World Bank partnership.  In particular, the International Finance Corporation of the World Bank loans money to firms engaging in development of transition economies.  More than that, they put a seal of legitimacy and create what is considered a “halo effect” on other loans to the same project.  In general, firms solicit IFC loan syndication because of this halo effect.  Likewise, the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) of the World Bank insures high-risk parts of development projects for corporations, and can also help create an insurance syndicate.  The combined efforts of IFC and MIGA frequently assure a well-funded and well-managed project, which is a guarantee to both state and corporation. 

According to this report (and bid tender), Tajikistan is the fourth largest cotton exporter in the world.  However, it does not have many value-added aspects of the industry, including ginning and baling facilities and warehouses to support those parts of cotton enterprise.  Yield per acre has been increasing due to the initiatives of some individual growers (unlike Uzbekistan, where growers are not allowed to have initiative) but is still low.  Another aspect of Tajikistan’s cotton agriculture is that it grows medium-staple and long-staple cotton (long-staple makes the silkiest yarn and is most valuable), which means that the loss of value-added processes costs even more.  Farmers and middlemen have also been given the right to negotiate price under a more free-market international regime.

Further reading:
Check out the report: it’s great. (58 pages, pdf, with lots of graphs and easy read)
BBC article, 2006
Also, for more on the theory, you can read Susan Strange (1992) States, firms, and diplomacy, a shorter summary of the more brilliant Susan Strange and John Stopford (1992) States and markets.  See Worth reading page for details on these articles/books.

I’ve been reading through poems lately, and found this one about Afghanistan.  It was written by reporter Eliza Griswold, who has been a reporter in Afghanistan, Africa, and Guantanamo.  She has a book out: Wideawake Field (2007), published by Farrar Straus & Giroux.

Buying Rations in Kabul

The Uzbek boys on Chicken Street
have never had enough to eat.
They stock from shelf to shining shelf
these G.I. meals, which boil themselves
in added water (bottled, please).
In twenty minutes, processed cheese
on jambalaya, followed by
a peanut-butter jamboree.

                              The boys, polite,
advise on which we might prefer–
beef teriyaki, turkey blight–
and thank us twice for bringing peace
as, meals in hand, we leave the store.
Of course they know that any peace
that must be kept by force
contains another name.  It’s war.

A couple more of her poems are available here.  I’m sure this one was published in The New Yorker, but I don’t have a publication date handy.

Photos: Xploreoffshore; Indymedia

Poem Copyright 2007 by Eliza Griswold