Afghanistan and Central Asia

Last week, President Berdymukhamedov signed an amnesty for eleven political prisoners sentenced under the Niyazov regime.  Of chief importance in the list was the former Chief Mufti of Turkmenistan, Nasrullah Ibn Ibdullah.  Another prisoner released was 70 years old.  All of the prisoners released were implicated in the assassination attempt on Turkmenbashi in November of 2002.  I can’t be sure about this, but I believe the Mufti was arrested to give credence to the charges of terrorism involved in the assassination attempt.  Since a “gang of international mercenaries of Caucasian origin was also blamed,” there’s no telling what Niyazov believed or didn’t believe.  We only know what happened: a little of what happened.

November 25, 2002:
On this day in Turkmenistan, President Niyazov’s motorcade was assaulted by machine gun fire from a Kamaz lorry near the Olympic stadium on Turkmenbashi Avenue in Ashgabat.  Mr. Niyazov escaped unscathed, but some of his bodyguards were wounded.  In the ensuing fracas, Mr. Niyazov denounced four former officials of his government, all expatriate at the time.  In the crackdown, forty-six people were eventually accused.  There are some who say that the assassination attempt was a staged piece of theatre; but Niyazov called it an act of terrorism. 

One of the prominent former officials of his government, Boris Shikhmuradov, had been a Foreign Minister for Turkmenistan and popular within diplomatic circles.  Upon the advent of accusations, Prima News Agency got in touch with Mr. Shikhmuradov for an interview on December 6th.  In that interview, Mr. Shikhmuradov was very forthcoming about the problems the Turkmenbashi was having with his rule:

repeated purges of the law enforcement agencies and the government, a disaster with the cotton harvest, Turkmen diplomacy failure at CIS summit in Kazakhstan and Caspian summit in Ashgabat, failure of negotiations with the Russian authoriteis about the supply of gas; dead-end situations with trans-Caspian and Trans-Afghan gas lines, and infamous failure of the negotiations with Uzbekistan about border disputes.  And on top of that also regular scandalous press, constant pressure from human rights organizations and OSCE . . .  also a story about the disappearance of USD 41.5 million from the country’s Centrobank. 

Later in the interview, he said Niyazov “invented enemies and is now mercilessly doing away with them.”  It was a drama to shift attention away from failures and to make the citizenry quiet.  Twenty days later, Mr. Shikhmuradov gave himself up to state security in order to stop the mass arrests in Turkmenistan.

After a trial where he was clearly tortured and medicated to incomprehensibility, Mr. Shikhmuradov was sentenced to life without parole in a closed, but videotaped trial.  By January 23, 2003, forty-six prisoners were tried and jailed.  Turkmenbashi had expelled the Uzbekistan Embassy from Turkmenistan, saying that President Karimov had some connections to the plot.  This created a reciprocal response, and Turkmenistan plunged into the isolationism already beginning to plague the state’s relations.  

I believe that this is the point where Turkmenbashi began to be run by his security services en toto, and through a final piece of blackmail.   In any case, it was a watershed event that changed the course of Turkmen relations for another four years and has left a lingering effect.

Of the at least 46 jailed over the plot, now eleven are freed.  Some are surely dead.  But we don’t know this for sure.   A better human rights regime in Turkmenistan would allow us to know more about prisoner treatment, and the status of the 35 extant prisoners of the assassination attempt that still remains such a mystery.  Over time, Central Asia-watchers and human-rights advocates can hope that increased transparency will be allowed in Turkmenistan.  With judicious diplomacy and some luck, Mr. Berdymukhamedov may continue to move in the direction of reform.  It seems that it is part of the orchestrated, incremental improvements and consolidations that he continues to make in Turkmenistan’s rule. 

Further reading:
Turaev, F. (2003, January 6).  Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan: Central Asia’s new Cold War?  Transitions Online.  Available at Transitions online for a fee or at the CIAOnet database.
Olcott, M. (2003, November 21). at Eurasianet
Dr. Olcott’s most recent plea to free Mr. Shikhmuradov
Prima News Agency and BBC covered this case intensively, as did Eurasianet’s Turkmenistan Project. 

Photos: Chris Hodges for the truck; Prima.ru and BBC.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 23rd, 2007 at 9:47 am and is filed under Turkmenistan, Human Rights. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.