Central Asia 2008: Year in Review
by Patrick Frost
Just a few days ago I was jotting down some of the major happenings in the Afghanistan and Central Asian region this past year and a few significant items came to mind, but it was not until I went over my resources, news clippings, and former posts did I realize that there were stories everywhere. The opening of Turkmenistan, small yes but still an opening, the rise of Dmitri Medvedev in Russia, the horrific winter in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, which too clearly laid before its citizens the weaknesses of their governments, and much, much more. I will cover the economic crisis, subjects that received too little coverage, misconceptions, and put forth some predictions for the coming year regarding our CA region, but for now let us go over the events in the year 2008.
The year began with Afghanistan's government and society under a severe and determined Taliban-led insurgent attack. NATO, who was and remains in pursuit of more troops from its members, was actually partnering up with Moscow in Afghanistan's Central Asian neighbor states in order to help supply routes. Now as the year is nearing a close, Russia and the United States are involved in what I would call a "mini Cold War' since the Georgia conflict and this may hinder further cooperation in and around Afghanistan in the coming year. Regarding Russia, the transition from Putin to Medvedev was surprisingly smooth and it now appears that they are indeed sharing power (though it looks like things are being nicely set up for a Putin return to the presidency). Before we leave Russia, the Georgian conflict indeed had immediate ramifications for the region, first at the annual SCO summit where though pressured none of the CA states recognized the two breakaway Georgian states, second in a serious of rapid fire oil/gas dealings by Putin in the region, and the events of last August will probably reverberate for years to come.
Back to Afghanistan, the conflict has grown since the year began, and is widely now seen in a more regional light, especially in regards to Pakistan, where most of the insurgents find safety. A disturbing trend in the conflict involves the increasing deluge of militants from other CA states, providing evermore recruits for the Taliban's cause. President Karzai has been under increasing pressure to bring progress to the country and is keeping one, two, probably three eyes on the upcoming presidential election early next year. Though the Afghan situation has had its brighter moments, it starting to be seen as possibly a task too large for the US and NATO, but this has not stopped American commitment as both this years presidential advocates advocated bringing in more troops to the conflict, not bringing them home. Though, I found the presidential debates mostly devoid of a serious discussion of the war's problems and whether or not more troops was a "good idea' or not, President-elect Barack Obama did seem to have a worthwhile diplomatic visit to the troubled country, meeting with Karzai and US military leaders.
One of the first stories I covered on this blog were Freedom House's Freedom of the World rankings, and unfortunately, our CA governments did not fair well. Though much has changed in the region and in the world since 2008 began, one constant is the fact that most CA states are governed by autocrats, who show little sign of letting their power slip. However, this did not stop the EU or the US from entering into economic dealings with them, mainly regarding oil and gas rights. However, the spread of democracy and the liberalization of government policies was indeed on the US agenda in dealings with the CA states, especially regarding Kazakhstan, which will become Chair of the OSCE in 2010.
Above, I mentioned the opening of Turkmenistan, and it is true that Ashgabat's President Berdymuhamedov has distanced itself from the Niyazov era in many ways, especially regarding the cult of personality and making sure the world's powers knew that it was open for business. However, a few months ago there was a serious clash between government forces and unidentified civilians (militant Islamists, human rights protesters?), that had the look of an Andijon II. The Turkmen state quickly swept the incident under the rug. So progress has occurred, but some things don't change quick enough.
There were many other important and newsworthy stories from the region during the year: China's crackdown of Uighur extremists and citizens alike before and during the Olympics, some in response to a major terrorist attack against Chinese border patrol. The battle for a water agreement between up and down stream CA states was constantly on the agenda for all the region's governments, and though an agreement was finally made, it is still just short-term and it is likely I will be writing about this conflict again next year. Lastly, nearly all of the region's citizens suffered from rising food prices, with the poor almost definitely suffering the most pain.
My predecessor Bonnie Boyd completed a 2007 Central Asia Year in Review which you can find to your right and here. She made predictions regarding the CA region for 2008 and since that year is nearly come to pass, how bout we go over them? No, you don't want to? Well, too bad, I'm gonna do it anyway. Bonnie's predictions will be in blocked font and my assessments will be right below in normal type. I myself will do a separate 2008 Year in Review and at the end of this post will be the main questions I will attempt to answer.
1. Kazakhstan: The EU and US will fail to make the most of Kazakhstan's OSCE chair, by pressing on a variety of globally-accepted issues in public and undercutting this by worrying about oil and gas in private. The best opportunity is to pick one issue of the social issues, I would choose legal reform, since it ultimately covers everything anyway,and then present a united front on this plus the energy issues‚ including uranium as well as gas.
Unfortunately, Boyd is mostly correct in this prediction as US Assistant Secretary of State for the region, Richard Boucher called the country's political liberalization progress "uneven and slow.' I went over Kazakhstan's progress, or lack there of, in this blog piece and the one positive that can be seen is the work of the OSCE Helsinki Commission in conjunction with several NGOs to help minority political parties, media outlets, and civil society groups to find room to maneuver. As was poignantly stated by Mrs. Zhukova in her lecture I discussed a few days ago, the US definitely showed two faces in dealings with Kazakhstan. Democracy and liberal rights were on the diplomatic schedule, but so were oil and gas business dealings.
2. Uzbekistan: Most likely scenario: the January presidential race in Uzbekistan will leave Islam Karimov in power, with the Uzbekistani people continuing to accept the dismal state of affairs there, or, if possible, voting with their feet to go elsewhere and swelling the already growth industry of poorly paid labor in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and the Russian Federation.
Alternate Scenario: The alternate scenario is that Mr. Karimov passes to his post-life reward a la Niyazov, causing an interesting power-play between regionally-entrenched elites within the state, punctuated by isolated demonstrations by people in the Ferghana region, and thus exporting strife to Turkmenistan but especially Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, and adding painful incidents to an already abysmal human rights record.
Well, since Karimov's heart is still beating, so I'm gonna have to go with the former. Karimov easily won his reelection and the country was relatively stable throughout the year. However, there were some political openings regarding political prisoners and foreign and domestic media outlets in exchange with more opportunities with the West, but alas, progress in these and other political venues has been slow to say the least.
3. Kyrgyzstan: The Tulip Revolution will further regionalize, presenting new opportunities for destabilizing elements. Bakiev in response will continue to tighten down on security, and democratic gains will be lost. The best hope here is Kazakhstan's interest in economic development of its neighbor and the transfer of diplomatic skills to Kyrgyz leadership,a more long-range position for democratization.
To the disappointment of the Bush administration and many others, the Tulip revolution has so far just been a Kyrgyzstan endeavor. To the pleasure of China, Russia, the region's autocrats, and many others who will live with stability, the governments in the region stayed in charge without serious resistance. Kyrgyzstan's revolution has itself stalled in many ways, as Boyd predicted, especially in regards to religious freedoms, but I would not say that all the democratic gains have been "lost.' Concerning the second part of the prediction, Kazakhstan has indeed continued its rise as the Central Asian economic and political power, but how this may lead to regional democratic gains cannot be easily seen right now.
4. Turkmenistan: President Berdymukhamedov will continue to look for economic opportunities and will create relations with those who give him the most programs for the least trouble. The state will remain isolated. The Trans-Caspian pipeline will mire down in bureaucracy, as Western states will focus upon a variety of issues rather than economic realities. Russia will continue to have the right-hand place at Turkmenistan's table, with Kazakhstan as a sometime broker or mediator for various deals.
Boyd is almost spot on with this prediction, but Turkmenistan's Berdymukhamedov has made several moves to open up his country to further economic gains, which I would argue has curtailed an important facet of its previous isolationist bent. The US and EU have made efforts to get to Turkmenistan's gas and oil reserves, and Berdymukhamedov has been listening, though concrete results and deals have not been forthcoming, including the Trans-Caspian pipeline as Moscow, especially after the Georgian crisis, has attempted to further sink its teeth into the nation's resources. I will discuss Turkmenistan's new outward-looking policy in follow up posts, where I'll tackle these questions below. Please feel free to offer opinions, arguments, and suggestions regarding this 2008 Year in Review Extravaganza.
Financial Crisis in Central Asia
In the second part of our Central Asia: Year in Review, we will discuss the global recession's impact on our region.
A couple weeks ago, I went over Kazakhstan's sickening economy and their government's early efforts to stem the tide, while at the same time drawing a connection to how Kazakh and the rest of the globe's financial crisis was effecting the smaller CA states. The news now is that the situation is getting worse for all the CA actors involved.
With oil and gas prices plummeting because of declining demand Kazakhstan has already had to revise its budget. It's budget was set at what was thought to be a cautious $60 per barrel projection, and while this was a dream during the last few years, it has now become a nightmare as oil is currently selling around $54 per barrel. The Kazakh prime minister has ordered the recalculation for 2009-2011 budget, setting the price at $40! Who would have thought that two years ago. This drop in oil and gas revenues has not only played havoc on the government budget, but also on the country's once thriving construction and banking industry, which have both sprung to a halt, bankrupting many citizens. People who have bought apartment buildings yet to be made, now fear that they will never rise. Citizens are having to sell all their positions just to keep a roof over their head as banks have come calling for payments, as they themselves struggle to stay afloat, and many are not. As public anger grows, President Nazarbayev and his government are doing whatever they can to blame outside financial forces for the tremendous slowdown, as they fear greater unrest and instability.
In many ways in Central Asia, as goes Kazakhstan, Russia, and China, so goes the rest. Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan are mainly related to the global recession in indirect ways, but these still are creating quite the economic pain for their citizens. These citizens greatly depend on remittances from family members working in Russia and Kazakhstan, and because of the construction slowdown, many of the jobs which supply remittances are drying up, leaving a slow trickle effect that is starting to drown the folks back home.
The Kazakh government has been proactive, first promising to flood the real estate and banking industries with $10, then $15, and now it is being reported $21 billion dollars drawn from their National Oil Fund. However, economist Aitolkyn Kurmanova argues that the sum is not nearly enough to stop the bleeding, but that it is meant to bring calm to the population and markets and display government strength and stability.
The global crisis has found its way to Central Asia and its people are feeling its pain.
Misconceptions and Understatements
In the second to last installment of our Central Asian Year in Review I want to discuss two things: Issues and events in the CA region that have lacked media coverage commensurate with their importance and common misconceptions about our subject area.
Afghanistan is at the heart of both.
The story that has received the least amount of publicity, while being worthy of it, is the reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan by brave Afghan citizens, police, and military, UN/NATO troops, police units, NGOs, and humanitarian workers. Though the situation of the nation is unstable and the battle between the insurgents and Afghan's government and NATO has been fierce with innocent deaths occurring far to often, there has been progress and signs of society expressing freedoms before widely unknown.
Afghan girls are going to school and even when they are attacked, it is now not by government officials, but by ruthless insurgents, while a local governor condemns the act and attempts to arrest the perpetrators. Now this may seem like not much, but before 2001, it would have been the government, led by Omar and the Taliban, targeting the girls. Courageous NATO and Afghan soldiers risked their lives transporting a colossal turbine, paid for by the US, that when installed will bring electricity to thousands of Afghans and hopefully soon after jobs and opportunity. For every story like these I read in the media, there are a thousand more detailing the latest casualties and Taliban attack. It is unfortunate that the only time aid workers or Afghan police make their way onto the headlines is when they are killed.
Two other CA stories that should have received more coverage was the Turkmenistan government assault on unknown civilians during the summer. Who were the civilians, militants, ind. rights protesters, and where was the foreign governments demanding to know what happened? The story seemed to drop off the face of the earth. Secondly, though the Uighurs of China's Xinjiang received a decent amount of attention, even a spot on NBC's Olympic coverage, they were still widely overshadowed by the Tibetan situation. This happened even though there was a tremendous terrorist attack by suspected ETIM perpetrators on Chinese border guards and the Chinese government was accused of a major crackdown in response.
In regards to misconceptions, I have already discussed the lack of media coverage of the progress in Afghanistan, so that is one major misconception right there. I'm not trying to say the media have been portraying situation inaccurately, but they are missing some important changes and details. My second topic of misconception was articulated rather well by Tatyana Zhukova, a Kazakh citizen who just moved to the US, who began her presentation to the World Affairs Council by going through many flawed assumptions of her country and region. Many of these were centered around the movie Borat and the assumption that all of Central Asia was a backwater. Zhukova effectively stomped on these stereotypes by showing modern architecture, stores, housing, and citizens of her home country. She also showcased the rising GDP and though much slower, average citizen incomes in Kazakhstan. Unfortunately, other CA states not blessed with energy reserves such as Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, are not witnessing quite the growth. (Here is Tatyana's professional email address if you have any further questions, tatyana.zhukova at yahoo.com)
Predictions for 2009
Making predictions is a fool's man's gamethankfully I love that game!
While one cannot foresee what exactly the future holds, some trends can be seen. For instance, it is hard to foresee any changes in the political leadership of all the Stans', as they are all deeply entrenched and seem to have learned much from Kyrgyzstan's Tulip Revolution. But other issues in the region are evolving and are worth a quick look:
Financial Crisis - As I discussed a few days ago, the region is experiencing some major economic pains stemming from the world's global downturn. However, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Regional Outlook viewed the region rather positively compared to the rest of the world, stating: "Growth is underpinned by high commodity prices, strong domestic demand, and also credibility of the authorities' economic policies. So far, the Middle East and Central Asia region has been largely resilient to the ongoing international credit crisis and the downturn in the US and other advanced economies." Though oil and gas prices are dropping rapidly, the energy rich CA states, Kazakh, Turk, and Uzbek, should be all right, especially Kazakhstan with their huge National Fund, but this does not mean that their governments and even more so their citizens won't suffer. The coming year looks much worse for the citizens of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan and their miniscule economies, as much needed loans and foreign direct investment will surely be harder to come by.
Afghanistan - 2008 was not a good year for the people of Afghanistan or for NATO force there, as the insurgents from Pakistan and the country's south continued to create instability and challenge the young government. The US and the incoming Obama administration has committed to put about 20,000 more troops into the fray, with the first few thousand set to arrive this January. The Obama administration may also be able to convince the European members of NATO to commit more troops themselves. The ability of these deployments to bring stability to the country will be something to watch and will probably largely depend on the chosen strategy to counter the insurgency. Gen. Petraeus, the mastermind behind the successful surge in Iraq, is now the Cent Com commander over the Middle East and Central Asia, but it is unlikely that a similar strategy could be successfully implemented in Afghanistan. It looks like the first deployment of US troops will protect Kabul and its surrounding provinces, so one may assume that these new troops may be used to protect civilian centers, hopefully allowing room for economic and political growth, instead of emphasizing taking the fight to the insurgents in Pakistan's tribal areas. Though I would think it will be a strong combination of the two.
Another major issue for Afghanistan in the new year will be the Presidential election. As of right now I would assume that the much maligned Hamid Karzai will win reelection. There does not seem to be any serious contenders that have the backing of either the Afghan people or the United States. The Afghan people deserve a more stable and capable government with less corruption and hopefully this will be the trend in either Karzai's second term or in his successor's.
Russian, Chinese, and American Policy in CA - In my opinion, the Obama administration's policies in Central Asia will not differ much from the Bush administrations. Obama is committed to a long-term presence in the region, mainly for the Pakistan/Afghanistan stability, and as a person with a Muslim background, should enjoy some positive feelings from the region's citizens. I would also expect to see a little less democracy promotion rhetoric and policies from his administration than the current one.
Russia's integral presence in the region will largely remain for the near to distant future as most of the CA's states' energy infrastructure and political leaders are tied to Moscow, especially regional leader Kazakhstan. Though its tremendous economic growth is slowing, China's presence and interests in the region will still be on the rise as the CA states look for foreign investments and loans. Both China and Russia will continue to try and mitigate a growing US presence in the region by emphasizing the utility and mechanisms of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) to the CA states. And for the six or seventh straight year, despite the rumors that the SCO will expand its membership to include either Pakistan, India, Iran, Mongolia, etc, the group's membership will remain in its current state.
