[Joint House and Senate Hearing, 112 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
CENTRAL ASIA AND THE ARAB SPRING:
GROWING PRESSURE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS?
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HEARING
before the
COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE
ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
MAY 11, 2011
__________
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COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE
LEGISLATIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS
HOUSE
SENATE
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey, BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland,
Chairman Co-Chairman
JOSEPH R. PITTS, Pennsylvania SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island
ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, Alabama TOM UDALL, New Mexico
PHIL GINGREY, Georgia JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire
MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut
ALCEE L. HASTINGS, Florida ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi
LOUISE McINTOSH SLAUGHTER, SAXBY CHAMBLISS, Georgia
New York MARCO RUBIO, Florida
MIKE McINTYRE, North Carolina KELLY AYOTTE, New Hampshire
STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
EXECUTIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS
MICHAEL H. POSNER, Department of State
MICHAEL C. CAMUNNEZ, Department of Commerce
ALEXANDER VERSHBOW, Department of Defense
(ii)
CENTRAL ASIA AND THE ARAB SPRING:
GROWING PRESSURE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS?
----------
May 11, 2011
COMMISSIONERS
Page
Hon. Christopher H. Smith, Chairman, Commission on Security and
Cooperation in Europe.......................................... 1
Hon. Steve Cohen, Commissioner, Commission on Security and
Cooperation in Europe.......................................... 3
WITNESSES
Ambassador Robert O. Blake, Assistant Secretary of State for
South and Central Asian Affairs, U.S. Department of State...... 4
Paul Goble, Professor, Institute of World Politics............... 13
Dr. Stephen J. Blank, Professor of National Security Affairs,
U.S. Army War College.......................................... 17
Dr. Scott Radnitz, Assistant Professor, University of Washington. 19
Gulam Umarov, Sunshine Coalition, Uzbekistan..................... 21
APPENDICES
Prepared statement of Hon. Christopher H. Smith.................. 38
Prepared statement of Hon. Benjamin L. Cardin.................... 39
Prepared statement of Hon. Alcee L. Hastings..................... 40
Prepared statement of Amb. Robert O. Blake....................... 41
Prepared statement of Paul Goble................................. 44
Prepared statement of Dr. Stephen J. Blank....................... 47
Prepared statement of Dr. Scott Radnitz.......................... 64
Prepared statement of Gulam Umarov............................... 67
(iii)
CENTRAL ASIA AND THE ARAB SPRING:
GROWING PRESSURE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS?
----------
May 11, 2011
Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe
Washington, DC
The hearing was held at 2 p.m. in room 2322, Rayburn House
Office Building, Washington, DC, Hon. Christopher H. Smith,
Chairman, Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe,
presiding.
Commissioners present: Hon. Christopher H. Smith, Chairman,
Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe; and Hon.
Steve Cohen, Commissioner, Commission on Security and
Cooperation in Europe.
Witnesses present: Ambassador Robert O. Blake, Assistant
Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs, U.S.
Department of State; Paul Goble, Professor, Institute of World
Politics; Dr. Stephen J. Blank, Professor of National Security
Affairs, U.S. Army War College; Dr. Scott Radnitz, Assistant
Professor, University of Washington; and Gulam Umarov, Sunshine
Coalition, Uzbekistan.
HON. CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, CHAIRMAN, COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND
COOPERATION IN EUROPE
The Commission will come to order.
Good afternoon. Sorry for the delay to all of our witnesses
and guests; the House is in a series of votes. Matter of fact,
I'm going to head back momentarily; we'll suspend. And
hopefully, the other members will be able to come back and join
us for the remainder of the hearing.
Welcome to this hearing on the potential impact of the
Middle East revolutions on Central Asia. Though it is far too
early to know what will come of the Arab Spring even in the
Middle East itself, it is clear that the revolutions and
uprisings have already changed the Middle East, and it may well
yet change other parts of the world.
This hearing will inquire whether the uprisings and protest
movements in the Middle East and North Africa might inspire and
invigorate popular movements for democracy in post-Soviet
Central Asia, or even trigger similar uprisings and crackdowns,
and what our government's policy ought to be.
Obviously, much distinguishes the countries and peoples of
Central Asia from those of the Middle East, but they also have
a lot in common, especially in what they have suffered. Broadly
speaking, in both regions, people are ruled by undemocratic and
corrupt dictators, many of whom have been in power for decades.
Where they exist, parliaments are largely rubber-stamp
institutions, and the judiciary is either corrupt or beholden
to the executive. National resources and state authority have
been illegitimately appropriated by small groups of people
closely bound to the ruling class.
There are many differences between Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, but presidential
longevity in office is a defining regional characteristic.
Central Asian dictators have monopolized power for two decades
since the independence movement began, while the public has
effectively been removed from politics. Only Kyrgyzstan is a
striking exception to this rule: In that country, street
protests have toppled two heads of state since 2005, and last
year, the country commenced parliamentary governance.
Sadly, in most of Central Asia, democratic reform and
observance of human rights commitments have progressed little
in the 20 years since independence. In general, elections have
been controlled and rigged; rarely has the OSCE given them a
passing grade. Opposition parties have been harassed--where
they are permitted at all--and independent media, where it
exists, has been put on a very short leash.
In the most repressive states, there is little or no space
for civil society to function. Access to the Internet is
tightly controlled; religious liberty, particularly for
nontraditional religious groups, is constrained; torture and
mistreatment in custody are routine; corruption is common at
all levels, and thwarts not only human rights but also economic
development.
Central Asian leaders often claim that their citizens are
not ready for democracy because of their history and culture.
This is insulting, bigoted, unacceptable and absolutely untrue.
It is also sadly familiar: Many Middle Eastern tyrants said the
same thing about their peoples, but the recent events in the
Middle East show once again that it is not democracies that are
unstable, but dictatorships.
The conventional wisdom is that similar protest--popular
protest movements are unlikely in Central Asia. Yet a few
months ago, that was the accepted wisdom for the Middle East as
well. It is time that we rethink and we need to challenge our
conclusions on both regions; gross and systematic human rights
violations have surely created a just sense of popular
grievance in Central Asia. And Tunisia showed that it is
impossible to predict when a people will decide that a
situation is, indeed, intolerable.
Of course, it is our hope that there will be peaceful,
democratic movements in Central Asia, and equally that the
governments will respond peacefully and with significant
reforms. Yet we need to think about the potential for violent
crackdowns and what our government policy ought to be in the
region.
I'd like to introduce our--maybe I'll wait until the other
members get back; I think that would be better. But I want to
thank Secretary Blake and our other witnesses for your
patience. And I apologize again; there is a series of votes on.
How many votes do you think?
[Off-side conversation.]
Mr. Smith. I think we have four remaining votes, and then
the Commission will convene once again. We stand in recess.
[Break.]
Mr. Smith. The chair recognizes--reconvenes its sitting,
and recognizes Mr. Cohen.
HON. STEVE COHEN, COMMISSIONER, COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND
COOPERATION IN EUROPE
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate your recognition, and
I appreciate the opportunity to sit here. This is my first
meeting as a member of this Commission. And it's an honor to
have been appointed by my leader and the speaker. I look
forward to working together on issues of importance to the
United States and Europe, and our joint solidarity and
cooperation in human rights as we see them, and the need to go
forward.
This panel today on what's occurred in Northern Africa and
the Middle East is most germane. And I welcome the testimony,
and I'm very interested to hear what you say. It's been
inspiring to see all of the folks who seem to be yearning for
democracy, and I think they are--and they should. But it's
always a constant battle; we have to be vigilant and make sure
that the bad guys don't take over.
So I look forward to learning today, and then working with
the Chairman who I have great respect for, and his work on
human rights over the years. And with that, I thank you for
allowing me to come here. I also look forward to the second
panel where Mr. Umarov will be testifying; he's a graduate of
the University of Memphis, which is above water and doing well,
as is our city. And I look forward to his story. And I yield
back for the remainder of my time.
Mr. Smith. Mr. Cohen, thank you very much. I'd like to now
introduce Bob Blake, who is a career foreign service officer.
Ambassador Blake entered the foreign service in 1985; he has
served at the American embassies in Tunisia, Algeria, Nigeria
and Egypt. He has held a number of positions at the State
Department in Washington, including senior desk officer for
Turkey, deputy executive secretary and executive assistant to
the undersecretary for political affairs.
Ambassador Blake served as deputy chief of mission at the
U.S. mission in New Delhi, India, from 2003 to 2006, and as
ambassador to Sri Lanka and the Maldives from 2006 to May 2009,
and as assistant secretary for South and Central Asian affairs
from May 2009 to the present.
Ambassador Blake earned his B.A. from Harvard College in
1980, and an M.A. in international relations from Johns Hopkins
School of Advanced International Studies in 1984.
Mr. Ambassador, welcome. And thank you for your patience as
we went through a long series of votes.
AMBASSADOR ROBERT O. BLAKE, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE FOR
SOUTH AND CENTRAL ASIAN AFFAIRS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Well, thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. It's a great
pleasure to be here with you and Mr. Cohen today, and I
appreciate the invitation to discuss this very important topic.
With your permission, I have a longer statement for the
record, and I'll just make a shorter statement.
Mr. Smith. Without objection, so ordered.
Amb. Blake. Mr. Chairman, differences in history, culture
and circumstances make direct comparisons between the Middle
East and Central Asia difficult. However, in some important
respects, the Central Asian countries of Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan share a
dynamic similar to those causing the upheavals in the Middle
East, including unemployment, poverty, corruption, little
outlet for meaningful political discourse, and a lack of
opportunity particularly for young people.
However, there are also significant differences with the
North African and Middle East countries, which in our view make
popular uprisings in the near term less likely in Central Asia.
First, the economic situation is not as dire in Central Asia.
IMF unemployment projections for 2011 in Central Asia range
from a low of .2 percent in Uzbekistan to a high of 5.7 percent
in Kazakhstan, compared to 9.2 percent and 14.7 percent in
Egypt and Tunisia respectively--of course, that's all official
data.
Second, significant proportions of the workforce in poor
countries such as Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan have found work
outside the country, primarily in Russia, easing unemployment
and providing a very valuable source of remittances for those
poor countries.
Third, the hydrocarbon wealth of countries like Kazakhstan
and Turkmenistan has enabled them to cushion the impact of
economic hardships in those countries.
While citizens in Egypt and Tunisia and elsewhere have
turned to Facebook and Twitter as forums through which to
interact, organize and exchange ideas, the vast majority of
Central Asia lacks access to the Internet, with 14 percent
Internet penetration in Kazakhstan in 2008 marking the highest
of all the Central Asian countries.
Although Internet access has since grown, governments have
succeeded in blocking outside influences and tightly
controlling domestic media through harassment, prosecution and
imprisonment of journalists. The lack of independent media
allows governments to control the dissemination of news and
information.
Another factor is the lack of meaningful political
opposition in most of Central Asia. With the exception of
Kyrgyzstan, significant opposition parties are largely
nonexistent, and organized opposition groups are for the most
part either illegal or tightly constrained by the authorities.
While these same conditions seem oppressive to Western
observers, residents in some parts of Central Asia value this
stability and are wary of the turmoil and unpredictability in
recent years in neighboring Afghanistan and, to a certain
extent, Kyrgyzstan.
Still, the profound change that is taking place across
North Africa and the Middle East has profound lessons for
Central Asian governments and societies. One of the messages we
have given to our friends in Central Asia is that they need to
pay attention to these events and to their implications.
In my meetings with Central Asian leaders over the last
several months, I have encouraged them to provide more
political space and allow for more religious freedom to allow
for the development of robust civil society and democratic
institutions, and to chart a course for economic reform.
Leaders in Central Asia express support for gradual change,
and concern that too much freedom too fast could lead to chaos
and upheaval. They are suspicious of democratic reforms, and
with some exceptions have maintained tight restrictions on
political, social, religious and economic life. We think that's
mistaken. Democracy, as we advocate it, is not violent or
revolutionary. It is peaceful, tolerant, evolutionary, and
demonstrated primarily through the ballot box and a free civil
society.
To strengthen our engagement in Central Asia, we instituted
in 2009 annual bilateral consultations that I chair with the
foreign ministers and deputy foreign ministers in each of these
countries. I'm happy that Helsinki Commission staff have
participated in many of these meetings. Each of these
consultations constitutes a face-to-face, structured dialogue
based on a jointly developed, comprehensive agenda that
includes human rights and media freedom.
We've also used the annual consultations as a forum to
engage civil society and the business community in the Central
Asian countries. In the annual consultations that we held
earlier this year in Kazakhstan, for example, the Kazakhstani
deputy foreign minister co-hosted with me a meeting with
Kazakhstani civil society in the foreign ministry, a welcome
precedent that we hope to duplicate elsewhere.
In the 20 years since independence, the leaderships in
Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan have
frequently and publicly called for building democratic
institutions. They have given speeches and issued decrees, but
have done little to put them into practice.
As you've said, Mr. Chairman, Kyrgyzstan has been the
primary exception in Central Asia. The democratic gains there
made since the April 2010 events are cause for optimism, even
as the ethnic violence in June of last year demonstrates the
fragility of democracy in that country.
Kyrgyzstan faces its next test in presidential elections
scheduled for later this year. We look forward to working with
the Helsinki Commission and others to help organize
international support and monitoring efforts.
Other Central Asian states are at different stages in their
democratic development, but there are signs of some hope in
all. Kazakhstan hosted the first OSCE summit in 11 years last
December, which included a robust civil society component which
Secretary Clinton found extremely encouraging. Kazakhstan has
also made some progress towards meeting its Madrid commitments
on political pluralism and reform of media and electoral law,
although much more needs to be done.
President Karimov of Uzbekistan gave a speech in November
of 2010 calling for greater political pluralism and civil
society development. Uzbekistan has done little thus far to
turn this vision into a reality, but we will encourage the
president and his team to meet the commitments that he made in
that speech.
Tajikistan has the region's only legal Islamic party, the
Islamic Revival Party of Tajikistan, even though that party and
other opposition officials continue to be subject to various
forms of harassment.
Even in Turkmenistan, President Berdimuhamedov has spoken
publicly of the need to expand space for other voices in the
political system.
Mr. Chairman, in conclusion, nearly 36 years ago, leaders
from North America, Europe and the Soviet Union came together
to sign the Helsinki Accords, committing themselves to a core
set of human rights, including the fundamental freedoms of
association, expression, peaceful assembly, thought and
religion.
As Secretary Clinton presciently asserted at last year's
OSCE summit in Astana, and as events this spring underscore,
these values remain relevant today and are critical to the
building of sustainable societies and nations that are
committed to creating better opportunities for their citizens.
I thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I look forward to your
questions.
Mr. Smith. Ambassador Blake, thank you very much for your
work and for your testimony here today. And I do want to thank
you for, you know, being so effective over these many years of
a very, very stellar foreign service career.
Amb. Blake. Thank you.
Mr. Smith. I do want to ask you just a couple of questions.
When Kazakhstan was seeking to be chair-in-office of the OSCE,
I opposed it and spoke out repeatedly against it, both at the
parliamentary assemblies and through our venues that we would
hold as part of a commission.
I made it very clear to Kazakh government here in
Washington that significant progress needed to be made before
they got that position. Obviously, I didn't win; they got the
chairmanship-in-office. And frankly, hopefully, the message or
the consequences will be positive ones.
But I would appreciate your take on how well or poorly
they've done with regards to making improvements in human
rights. I mean, you hope they catch the good infection working
with ODIHR and working with other instrumentalities of the
OSCE, working with other governments. But you know, the record
seems not to point in that direction. Your view?
Amb. Blake. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me just say
with respect to Kazakhstan that we did support their
chairmanship-in-office, and we did support their holding a
summit. And I think in retrospect that we feel that was a good
decision on our part.
I think in the run-up to the OSCE summit, Kazakhstan played
quite a significant role on many human rights issues. They
hosted a conference on tolerance in Astana; they allowed a
whole series of quite robust civil society events, again, in
the week running up to the conference itself, I think
surprising many of the skeptics. And I think they have taken
some steps, but not all steps, to fulfill their Madrid
commitments, as I said.
They've allowed at least two political parties now to serve
in the Majilis, and so the--in the next elections that will
take place next year in 2012, for the first time will provide
automatically for another opposition party in the Majilis.
They've eliminated some forms of criminal liability for
libel, which if you talk to civil society in Kazakhstan, as we
do frequently, that's their number-one demand. And now they're
also looking at implementing their own national human rights
action plan, which was drafted by Yevgeny Zhovtis who remains
in jail and is, again, a case that we bring up frequently with
our Kazakhstan friends.
So I think there is progress. Could there be more progress?
Definitely. And we will continue to work towards that.
Mr. Smith. Let me ask you with regards to--I know we now
have an ambassador-at-large for religious freedom. And
certainly, Uzbekistan remains one of the most egregious
violators as it relates to the International Religious Freedom
Act. They are a country of particular concern.
I don't think it's likely they will be soon taken off that
list. And I'm wondering what we convey to Karimov with regards
to religious persecution, what his response is.
And in light of what is, again, happening in Egypt and
elsewhere where the violence against the Coptic church, for
example, has gotten worse rather than ameliorate or get better,
are they cracking down? Are they getting worse? What's the
glide slope there?
Amb. Blake. Thank you for that very important question. I
was--[chuckles]--just talking about religious freedom with
somebody from the Commission on International Religious
Freedom. And as you know, both Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan are
countries of particular concern. We have not made any decisions
about the designations for this year, but they will be made
shortly.
With respect to all of the countries in Central Asia, but
particularly those two and Tajikistan, we have made the point
that it is very, very important for all of these countries to
allow peaceful worship, and that it's a mistake to try to
constrain or ban that in any way because it's only going to
drive it underground and make it even more destabilizing, and
in fact provide an opening for extremists who might try to
exploit that.
So we have urged that religious freedom really be one of
the pillars of what we see as a good opportunity for an
opening. And again, this is a very important part of our
dialogue. Just yesterday, our office that handles religious
freedom was meeting with the Uzbek ambassador about this, so
this remains a very important subject for us. As I say, I don't
want to try to predict what our decision is going to be on
this, but again, let me just tell you that it remains a very
important part of our dialogue.
Mr. Smith. Understood. Let me just ask you one something
along those same lines--I'll never forget years ago in Moscow,
learning from a China watcher that the Chinese government--
Beijing--had learned from what happened in the East bloc with
the break--or the demise of the Soviet Union that one of the
mainstays that gives people the ability to endure just about
anything is faith, and that--especially, beginning with
Solidarity, and the Catholic church and then the other
churches, obviously, throughout all of the East bloc that
remained truly faithful--that there were a number of people who
were not motivated by faith, but many others, including Lech
Walesa, who were able--and the Pope--to bring about a
remarkable stunning change from dictatorship to democracy and
that the Chinese government had learned this will not happen
here, which is why they have significantly ratcheted up their
persecution of all things that is faith-based, including the
Falun Gong, because they're seen as threats. If they can
control it, they allow it; if not--the ``-stans,'' the--each of
them--what do you think they're learning in terms of further
repression on religious believers, but also on any pro-
democracy individuals who might want to--in Uzbekistan, the
People's Movement of Uzbekistan, they're calling for a[n] act
of civil disobedience on June 1st. How do you think these
countries will react when some of these kinds of manifestations
take place: iron fist or open hand?
Amb. Blake. I think it's a combination of both, Mr.
Chairman, to be honest. I think the countries of Central Asia
are not so much looking at what's happening in the Arab Spring,
although they are certainly aware of it; they're looking much
more at what's happening in Afghanistan.
And they are very focused on both the transition that is
taking place in Afghanistan now--they see that our troops are
making advances in Helmand province, Kandahar, they see that a
lot of the Taliban and others that are working with them are
being driven into the north and are there now--therefore now
beginning to rub up against their own borders in Turkmenistan
and Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. They're worried about--
particularly--the porous border in Tajikistan where people are
going back and forth without too much in the way of border
security on the part of the Tajiks, just because it's a 1,400-
kilometer border and very difficult to patrol.
So they are very aware of this and, again, I think we make
the point to them that it's very, very important to draw a
distinction between those who are engaged in terrorism and
violence and those who are engaged in--who want to engage in
peaceful worship and peaceful political discourse and that, if
you drive the latter category underground and don't allow them
to do that--as you yourself said, Mr. Chairman--that's going to
be destabilizing. And so it's very, very important to allow
these release valves, if you will.
With respect to religious freedom, I think again, it's a
fairly nuanced situation. I mean, even in a place like
Kazakhstan, you see that Catholics and Protestants and Jews all
have freedom of worship there, and it's kind of the smaller
sects that are quite strictly controlled. Even in a place like
Turkmenistan, which is otherwise quite controlled, they made a
decision in 2010 to allow--to open a Catholic church there.
So, again, I think we have openings to try to work with all
of these countries, and we do, and I think that the recent
appointment of our international religious freedom ambassador
is really going to help because we're going to be working very
closely with her. I'm going to be meeting with her next week to
figure out a strategy now on how to, again, work with these
countries to persuade them that it's in their own interest to
do this--not because it's something that's some favor to the
United States--and we really believe that it is in their
interests to do it.
Mr. Smith. Thank you. Mr. Cohen?
Mr. Cohen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the
testimony, and then just looking over this--kind of hard to
fathom that in 2011 that this--the--``-stans'' have such a poor
record on human rights. And from my notes I've got here, it
suggests that the worst--it's hard to--really, I guess,
distinguish too much, but Uzbekistan is one of the worst, most
repressive, and Turkmenistan--I think they win the prize as the
most repressive. We have relations with all these countries, do
we not?
Amb. Blake. We do.
Mr. Cohen. Do we have any restrictions whatsoever on what
we do them?
Amb. Blake. We do. [Chuckles.] There are some quite
significant restrictions. In Uzbekistan, for example, there's
now a prohibition on military assistance to Uzbekistan because
of the events in Andijan in May of 2005 when officially 187
people were killed, but unofficially, many more. So yes, there
are restrictions.
Mr. Cohen. But that's military.
Amb. Blake. Correct.
Mr. Cohen. But otherwise we engage in trade.
Amb. Blake. We do.
Mr. Cohen. Do we give foreign aid to these countries?
Amb. Blake. We do. We think it's quite important. Mr.
Cohen, many of these countries--in fact, almost all of them--
are very important partners for us in Afghanistan. The majority
of supplies that are now going in for our troops in Afghanistan
transit through Central Asia, through what's known as the
Northern Distribution Network.
Mr. Cohen. So to bring democracy and the 21st century or
the 20th century into Afghanistan, we make friends with folks
that don't really do much for democracy or care too much about
human rights.
Amb. Blake. Well, we do what we need to do to support our
troops. And, again, I think the situation is more nuanced than
you might think and, as the Chairman said in his opening
statement, most of these countries are governed by people who
came up under the old Soviet Union and remain in power, and
they're suspicious of a lot of the things that we're trying to
encourage.
But at the same time, I think it's important to recognize
that there's an entire new generation that has grown up since
the breakup of the Soviet Union, that are now 20 years old, and
these are people who are quite agile with the Internet. They
know how to get around Internet restrictions, they watch
television, they watch closely what's going on in the Middle
East.
And so, again, I think it just underscores that all of
these leaders in all of these countries have to pay attention
to what's happening in the Middle East and North Africa, and
they have to provide openings--political openings, religious
freedom openings and also economic openings to allow
opportunities for these young people.
Mr. Cohen. I realize your specialty and your unique area
right now is in this area. Have you ever had responsibilities
in the--in Latin America or the Caribbean?
Amb. Blake. I have not.
Mr. Cohen. You haven't? I visited Cuba recently, and when I
was there, I was told by the bishop that they have pretty much
religious freedom, and they can worship wherever they want and
that members of the Jewish faith can worship and really there
was freedom of religion.
They're starting to have some opportunities for people to
engage in free enterprise and have more of a market economy.
I don't know how you quantify or--the conditions compare to
Cuba, but it's just kind of--I'm just thinking here about how
we don't deal with Cuba at all.
How does Cuba compare as far as human rights and religious
freedoms with this next to most repressive nation?
Amb. Blake. [Chuckles.] I'm not much of an expert on Cuba,
Mr. Cohen. But, again I think we're--
Mr. Cohen. But if it was a given that they do allow--that
the bishop says that they can worship wherever they want and
that--our representative there in Cuba from our government who
said, I go to every Catholic church in the--Havana's province
and we have worship every Sunday, and it's not a problem. If
that--with that as a given, where would they rank compared to
these countries on a level of religious freedoms?
Amb. Blake. Well, again, I think there's quite a variance
in between the countries.
A country like Kazakhstan has got a reasonably good record
on the major religions, but again there's still problems with
respect to these sects, as they call them.
Even Turkmenistan, which is probably the most controlled of
all the countries, as I said, has allowed the Catholic church
now to begin to operate and so--and we are engaged right now in
a dialogue with Turkmenistan about getting the Commission on
International Religious Freedom to go to Turkmenistan, and I
think they've agreed to allow that.
So we're just sort of setting up the parameters to make
sure that the visit, when it does take place, will actually
have real results and will not just simply be a one-off visit
in which, you know, nothing really results from it. So I think
that's a good example of the kind of engagement that we're
really trying to promote and we ourselves attach a lot of
importance to this.
Mr. Cohen. Which of these countries, if not all of them,
have nuclear weapons?
Amb. Blake. None.
Mr. Cohen. None.
Amb. Blake. Kazakhstan had nuclear weapons and renounced
them, and that was obviously a major nonproliferation step
forward.
Mr. Cohen. That's reassuring.
Amb. Blake. Yes.
Mr. Cohen. And in reading these notes that the previous
president--it doesn't give his title, I don't know if he's
president or whatever--``dictator'' is what he has here--
Niyazov ?
Amb. Blake. Niyazov.
Mr. Cohen. He eliminated open law--successor has
eliminated--oldest policy, such as banning the opera? And
circus? What did he have against the opera and circus?
Amb. Blake. [Chuckles.] You'll have to ask him that, Mr.
Cohen. I don't know.
Mr. Cohen. Yeah. Well, I'm not too keen on the opera
either, but banning it? Banning it's certainly a mistake. I
yield back the remainder of my time.
Mr. Smith. Let me ask you one final question, Mr.
Ambassador, and that is on the issue of human trafficking.
Amb. Blake. Sure.
Mr. Smith. We know that the TIP report will be coming out
very shortly----
Amb. Blake. Yes, sir.
Mr. Smith. ----early June. And I just wanted to ask you--
Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan--are all
watch list countries, and obviously we're now at that point
where they need to be moving up or down. It's no longer a
parking lot, and I'm just wondering what your sense is as to
progress that they are making, each of those countries.
Amb. Blake. Thank you very much for that question, Mr.
Chairman, and let me just say that on trafficking in persons,
this is something that I personally and that my bureau has
attached a lot of importance, and we've made this a real
priority of ours over the last two years--not just in Central
Asia, but in South Asia where India and Bangladesh are also
Tier 2 watch-list countries.
And you know, I think that our efforts and of course those
with Luis CdeBaca and his whole team have borne some fruit.
Obviously I don't want to get ahead of the decisionmaking
process here, but I'm proud to say that we've made a lot of
progress in Tajikistan. I think we've made good progress in
Uzbekistan as well where, for the first time--and you'll
appreciate this, Mr. Chairman, because you worked a lot on
these issues--Uzbekistan has agreed to set up a committee--an
interagency committee--to implement and establish an action
plan to implement its ILO convention requirements. And so,
that's a fairly significant statement, because in the past,
we've had problems even getting them to allow the ILO into the
country to do this kind of stuff.
So I think that, again, Uzbekistan--and now, they still
have to do that, of course--but the fact that they're talking
about now, again, an action plan and really taking steps
forward on this--they've always had a pretty good record on the
sex trafficking side, and they've done quite a lot on that, but
the labor, as you know, particularly on the cotton harvest, has
been a real issue.
And so I think that this is a real step forward. Now we're
going to have to decide how we therefore factor that into our
rankings and that's a subject that's under discussion.
Likewise, I can't say we've made as much progress on
Turkmenistan. I mean, I think there we got to do more. But
overall our record, I think you'll see, in the SCA bureau's
going to be--we're going to have a pretty positive record in,
if not graduating several countries, at least keeping them on
Tier 2 watch list with kind of solid action plans to move them
up. So this is something we've really worked hard on and will
continue to work hard on.
Mr. Smith. Appreciate that. Appreciate your work on that.
Is your sense that the possibility of being sanctioned if they
were to drop to Tier 3, did that play any role? I mean,
hopefully you used it to its maximum--
Amb. Blake. Yeah. I'm not so sure it's the sanctions part
of it. It's just sort of being the Tier 3, being put in the
international penalty box that really worries a lot of
countries, and so in that sense, it can be useful in some ways.
And we try--and certainly we try to leverage that as best we
can.
Mr. Smith. [Chuckles.] Leverage away. Mr. Ambassador, thank
you so much.
Mr. Cohen. One other question--thank you, Mr. Chair--I've
got a learning curve. As I said, this is my maiden voyage----
Amb. Blake. Please, please.
Mr. Cohen. ----and I read here how this--the president here
in Uzbekistan got his sole challenger to say he would vote for
the incumbent. You know, that's terrible, but nevertheless I
kind of like it with my elections coming up--[laughter]--[you
know ?] how he achieved that?
[Laughter.]
Mr. Cohen. What did he--how did he--that's pretty strange,
isn't it?
Amb. Blake. I--I don't know--I would be hard-pressed to
name who that challenger even was, Mr. Chairman, so I'm not--
Mr. Cohen--
Mr. Cohen. He was a long shot.
Amb. Blake. [Chuckles.]
Mr. Cohen. And then he's got these two daughters he put in
nice spots in Geneva and Paris; the one was named one of the
``world's worst daughters.'' I didn't know there was such a
list. Does Mr. Trump have any children on that list?
Amb. Blake. I have no comment on that, sir. [Chuckles.]
Mr. Cohen. You're a good State Department employee. I'm
going to check that list out, though. Interesting, thank you.
Mr. Smith. Mr. Ambassador, thank you again so much and look
forward to working with you going forward.
Amb. Blake. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Smith. And call us if we can ever be of any
assistance--
Amb. Blake. I appreciate it. Thank you so much.
Mr. Smith. Thank you.
Mr. Cohen. [Off mic.] That's some bad stuff.
Mr. Smith. Thank you. I'd like to now welcome our second
panel, beginning with a man who is no stranger to our
Commission, Paul Goble, who is a renowned specialist on ethnic
and religious questions in Eurasia, whose daily blogs are read
by experts and journalists all over the world.
He is currently a professor at the Institute of World
Politics in Washington. Previously, he served in various
capacities in the State Department, CIA and International
Broadcasting Bureau, as well as Voice of America and Radio Free
Europe, Radio Liberty and the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace. He writes frequently on ethnic and
religious issues, and has edited five volumes on ethnicity and
religion in the former Soviet space.
Paul Goble is an old friend, as I said. Matter of fact,
I'll never forget when we had--when I had one of my first
hearings on the issue of the rising tide of anti-Semitic
behavior in the OSCE and the U.S. back in the '90s right after
the Soviet Union's demise, or soon thereafter. It was Paul
Goble who talked about how it had been privatized, if my memory
is correct, and that what used to be done by governments was
being taken over by private citizens with the acquiescence of
government. And it was a very, very keen insight, and certainly
was accurate then, and unfortunately in some places remains
accurate.
Dr. Stephen Blank is a professor of national security
affairs at the Strategic Studies Institute at the U.S. Army War
College in Pennsylvania--since 1989. In 1998 to 2001, he was
Douglas MacArthur professor of research at the War College. He
has published or edited 15 books and hundreds of articles and
monographs on the Soviet, Russian, U.S., Asian and European
military and foreign policies, as well as testifying frequently
for Congress on Russia, China and Central Asia, and consulting
for the CIA, major think tanks and foundations.
Scott Radditz--Radnitz, I'm sorry--is assistant professor
in the Jackson School of International Studies at the
University of Virginia--sorry, the University of Washington,
Seattle. I was working with somebody from Virginia--
University--earlier; I apologize. So that's the University of
Washington in Seattle.
He received his Ph.D. in political science at MIT in 2007.
His research deals with protests, state building and
authoritarianism, with an emphasis on Central Asia and the
Caucasus. Dr. Radnitz's book ``Weapons of the Wealthy:
Predatory Regimes and Elite-Led Protests in Central Asia'' was
published by Cornell University Press in 2010.
This is Dr. Radnitz's first appearance before the
Commission. And the other Commissioners look forward to what he
has to say.
And then finally, we'll hear from Gulam Umarov, who was
born in Uzbekistan and attended high school in Starkville,
Mississippi. After graduating from the University of Memphis,
he returned to Uzbekistan where he launched the first Uzbek-
owned private telecommunications company.
In 2005, Gulam's father Sanjar Umarov founded an
independent political movement called the Sunshine Coalition.
After the Andijan events in May of 2005, widespread repression
of human rights activists began. Gulam left Uzbekistan for the
U.S. in September, and Sanjar was arrested in October.
In March of 2006, he was convicted and sentenced to 14-and-
a-half years in prison. In the United States, Gulam tried to
get his father released while representing the Sunshine
Coalition. He also managed various programs funded by the
National Endowment for Democracy, the Center for International
and Private Enterprise and Freedom House.
Sanjar Umarov was released from prison in November of 2009.
Since then, Gulam has been serving as president of the Silk
Road Group. I'm very pleased to welcome him to the Commission,
and look forward to each of our very distinguished panelists'
comments today before the Commission.
We'll begin with Paul Goble.
PAUL GOBLE, PROFESSOR, INSTITUTE OF WORLD POLITICS
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Smith. Without objection, the full statement will be
made a part of the record.
Mr. Goble. Nowhere in the world has the Arab Spring given
greater promise of real political change for democracy and
freedom than in the authoritarian states of post-Soviet Central
Asia. The reasons for that are clear, but not always clearly
understood. It is not because these countries are also Muslim-
majority states, and it is not because they too are ruled by
brutal authoritarian regimes.
There are Muslim-majority states where the Arab Spring has
not had an impact, and is unlikely to. And there are
authoritarian regimes which either by brutality or accident
have blocked the spread of the ideas of the Arab spring.
Rather, it is because the events in the Arab world have
dispelled the myth promoted by the governments of the region
that fundamental change is impossible or dangerous, and that
the populations there must put up with the status quo because
the regimes that rule over them enjoy international support as
bulwarks against Islamic fundamentalism and supporters of the
international effort against terrorism in Afghanistan and
elsewhere.
It is important to understand that this development is not
something that is going to lead to immediate change, or to
demonstrations in the street, and overthrow governments in
weeks or months. But it is a fundamental change in mental
attitudes, which matters a great deal.
The argument that the governments in Central Asia are using
did not save the authoritarian regimes in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya
and elsewhere, and they will not save the authoritarian regimes
in post-Soviet Central Asia, although it is entirely possible
that the support they've received from abroad and will continue
to receive from abroad, as well as their own repression, will
keep them in office for some time. But when a people changes
its views of what is possible, that is the beginning of the
change in the societies and the polities on the ground.
But just as the Arab Spring has affected the peoples of
this region, so too it has impressed the rulers there. It has
convinced them that they must take even more draconian measures
in order to retain their hold on power. And the changes the
Arab Spring have wrought in the consciousness of the peoples of
Central Asia thus pose a serious challenge to us. Some of the
regimes there may believe that they can get away with
suppressing the opposition with extreme violence as long as
they blame Islamists or outside agitators, as Uzbekistan
president Islam Karimov did this week, everything will be well,
and as long as they support the northern supply route into
Afghanistan.
Consequently, it is terribly important that the United
States find a way of encouraging these governments to yield to
democracy rather than taking actions to defend their own power
that will ultimately lead to a conflagration which will produce
in Central Asia exactly what they say they are fighting
against. They are the biggest producers of an Islamist threat
by their own repressive policies. That is not something we are
very articulate about as a government and as a people, and it
is absolutely essential we say that.
That is no easy task, but the Obama administration, I
believe, deserves a great deal of credit for the way in which
it managed the situation in Egypt. With all the to-ing and fro-
ing, nonetheless this combined message was conveyed. And that
approach, one that led to the exit of an increasingly weak
authoritarian president and has opened the way for the
possibility of genuine democratic change, I believe, provides a
model for what we should consider doing when as is inevitable
the peoples of Central Asia move to demand their rights.
Whether that will happen this year or next, I do not know. What
I do believe is that the changes in the minds of these people
will change the way in which the future of that region
proceeds.
First and foremost, the people of Central Asia now know
that a spring in their countries is no longer impossible. They
have not believed that for 20 years. There was great hope after
1991 that they would be in the position to create democratic
societies, even though in almost none of these countries was
there a genuine national movement seeking independence.
In Uzbekistan, it is sometimes said that Uzbekistan did not
leave the Soviet Union; the Soviet Union left Uzbekistan. But
over the intervening period, we have seen the governments of
these regions, and, it should be said, some of their foreign
supporters indicate that the current arrangements must be
maintained because any possible change risks something even
worse: Especially since 9/11, there has been the view that any
change from authoritarianism could open the way to Islamist
fundamentalism, which gets it exactly wrong: It is the absence
of change toward democracy, it is the absence of being willing
to make concessions, that makes Islamist fundamentalism more
likely in Central Asia in the coming years.
The reason that authoritarian leaders use such arguments
and come down so hard on any display of collective demands for
freedom is that such demands are contagious. When people in any
country dare to be free, to live not by lies, as Solzhenitsyn
said, or to be not afraid, as the Holy Father said in Poland.
Others elsewhere are inspired to do the same, and that is
why there have been waves of democratization. We saw a wave of
democratization in '91 and '92 which was beaten down in the
name of stability; we are now going to see another wave
inspired by outside events that will spread through the region.
I think we have to understand that the greatest defeat to
al-Qaida in the last month was not so much the execution of
Osama bin Laden, as welcome as that event was; it is rather the
movements of the peoples in the Middle East demanding the
rights of electoral democracy and the basic human rights that
no one should take away from them. That is the true answer to
what bin Laden has been propagating.
But if we understand that for the Middle East, we should
understand it in spades for Central Asia rather than assuming
that we have no choice but to support authoritarian regimes who
promise minimal stability short term so that we can supply our
troops in Afghanistan. That is a recipe to creating eventually
states in this region which will be more hostile to us than
anyone can imagine.
Clearly, as the events of the Arab Spring showed, the
peoples of Central Asia are going to need friends and support
from abroad. What happened in Cairo was the action of the
Egyptian people, but it was with the support of millions of
others around the world who were watching television and
reading and sending text messages. And we need to be open to
the possibility that we can do the same, and will do the same,
in Central Asia. Unfortunately, there are reasons to think that
we are going to be less likely to do that in Central Asia,
which puts the timing of the Arab Spring for Central Asia off
some time. On the one hand, we know a great deal more as a
country and a government about Egypt than we do about the
countries in Central Asia. It is still unfortunate that in our
government, these countries are routinely collectively linked
as the
``-stans,'' or even worse in some quarters, not thought of as
countries. We still are talking about former republics, almost.
And it is the case that we are increasingly taking a short-
term approach to dealing with them, and worrying about
Afghanistan above everything else. I'm quite concerned that if
that continues, we will see in Central Asia within finite
time--that is, within several years--at least one Islamist
state, and probably more. And that is something that would be
much worse than any instability that would be produced by
support for basic human rights.
We need to get beyond focusing on specific problems like
drug flow, human trafficking, corruption and the like, and
start--and as important as all of those things are--but rather
begin to understand that they are integral parts of the corrupt
authoritarian regimes that exist in this part of the world, and
we need to begin addressing the fundamental problem. That is
something which unfortunately many in this city do not yet
appear to grasp.
But if we are to be a true friend to the Central Asians, we
need to understand that the only approach which gives hope of a
truly better freedom--or future for them is a commitment by us
to the careful and continuing promotion of human rights and
democracy in that region, rather than assuming that occasional
statements are enough.
Again, I want to stress that what I'm talking about is a
mental change, is a mental sea change in the attitudes of
people. That happened in Eastern Europe in the early '70s; it
was not for some years later that we saw the fruition of 1989.
It happened in the Soviet Union, perhaps we can say in 1985; it
did not reach fruition there until 1991.
But we should remember a story which circulated in Eastern
Europe in 1968 because it tells us exactly what all this means.
There was a Soviet anecdote at that time about two dogs meeting
at the border of Poland and Czechoslovakia, the time of the
Prague Spring. The Polish dog in this story is sleek and fat,
while the Czechoslovak dog is skin and bones. The Czechoslovak
dog, who is heading toward Poland, asked the Polish dog why he
was heading toward Czechoslovakia. The Polish dog replies that
he is doing so because he would like just once in his life to
bark.
What we are beginning to see is that people are beginning
to have an understanding that they may have a chance to bark--
[chuckles]--and that is the real message of the spring, rather
than the details. It is the beginning of a sea change, a
recognition that that which is on the ground now need not
remain there in the future.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Smith. Well, thank you very much for your testimony.
Dr. Blank?
DR. STEPHEN J. BLANK, PROFESSOR OF NATIONAL SECURITY AFFAIRS,
U.S. ARMY WAR COLLEGE
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Congressman Smith, it is once
again a great honor to testify to this Commission on a matter
of critical importance. The Arab revolutions of 2011 have
captured the world's attention and demonstrated the power of
the revolutionary idea to spread like wildfire.
In this regard, they resemble Europe's revolutions of 1848
and 1989 that were also analogized to the spring. But it is
precisely this very capacity for rapid spread, and as in 1848,
for subsequent resistance by imperiled autocracies, that is on
Russia, China and every Central Asian government's political
agenda even if those states will not admit it. And Russia and
China are important here because they stand behind the
governments of Central Asia.
Even if these governments suppress news of these
revolutions, they and their partners in the Russian and Chinese
governments are extremely concerned about the possibility of
this crisis spreading to their doorstep. Indeed, we already see
demonstrations in Azerbaijan, hardly the worst of these
regimes, and there is talk of demonstrations in Uzbekistan, one
of the very worst regimes in the area.
As of May 2011, governments have fallen in Tunisia and
Egypt, and are on the point of falling in Yemen. However,
violence has been used or imported by rulers with some success
in Syria, Libya and Bahrain, attesting to the determination of
these pillars of the old order to retain their power and
prerogatives, and perhaps their staying power.
Indeed, even in the newly constituted governments of
Tunisia and Egypt, it is by no means certain that democracy in
one of its variants will ultimately prevail. It already appears
that the best-organized party and movement in Egypt is the
Muslim Brotherhood and the constellation of Salafist
organizations around it.
As happened in 1848, democrats could fail, and new
despotisms backed by force could come to the fore, or old ones
could reconstitute or reinvent themselves. It is indeed quite
conceivable that despite the excitement of the Arab Spring, the
practical alternatives before different Arab societies could
boil down to the new form of military authoritarianism, or
Islamic and clearly anti-liberal and anti-democratic parties.
For a revolution to break out in Central Asia in the
immediate or foreseeable future, it is likewise by no means
certain that it would bring liberals or convinced democrats to
power. Democratic outcomes cannot be taken for granted, and
euphoria is clearly unwarranted.
Moreover, these regimes have very powerful advantages: They
exercise total control over their media, and are intensifying
those controls. They have organized their own forces to
suppress not only external threats, but also internal
uprisings.
As Secretary Blake testified, they have a safety valve as
long as the Russian economy continues to grow because they can
then export many of their unemployed young men, the usual
incendiary element in demonstrations, to Russia for work, and
benefit from their remittances. And most crucially, they can
count on Russian and possibly Chinese military protection
should there be a revolutionary crisis.
They may well also be able to count on U.S. political
support as well if they can credibly argue that their
opposition is Islamist and affiliated with terrorism. This
would be an especially strong argument in the context of the
war in Afghanistan.
There are also other factors working for them: Liberal
democratic political activists on the ground in Central Asia
who command genuine authority and mass support are scarce; they
have been subjected to 20 years of unrelenting and ruthless
suppression. Moreover, it is by no means clear, neither should
it be taken for granted, that Central Asian populations embrace
our concept of liberal democracy and want what we want.
And past mistakes have undermined the attraction of U.S. or
European models. There is nothing in their experience to
justify the simplistic, unfounded and misleading policy
advocacy that Central Asians want what the United States has.
Nonetheless, they do want freedom, even if the middle
classes, the historical mass support for liberal democracy, are
weak, dependent and lack organizational resources and
traditions. And civil society may be a concept without a deeply
rooted reality except in limited situations. These governments
are, as Paul said, undermining their own position and sawing
off the limb on which they stand by their repression, and are
making it more and more inevitable that the day of reckoning
when it comes will be longer, more protracted and more violent
than would otherwise be the case.
Furthermore, these regimes, backed up by Moscow and
Beijing, have learned from the color revolutions of 2003 to
[200]5, the Moldovan and Iranian elections of 2009,
demonstrations in Tibet in 2008 and Xinjiang in 2009. They have
learned the importance of blocking media transmission of
foreign news, of repressing or threatening to repress media
owners and transmission agents. They've learned to tighten up
their control over their armed forces and police, and to
stimulate xenophobic backlashes against minorities and to
batten down the political hatches on their precarious ships of
state.
My longer written statement goes into detail concerning
those tactics. But what has long been clear is the fact that
these policies not only make it likely that the inevitable day
of reckoning for them will likely be even more violent an
upheaval than would otherwise be the case, and that their
repressive policies create serious obstacles, not just to
democratization and democracy promotion, but also to regional
security and to U.S. policy.
Therefore, the U.S. Government must, under the
circumstances, balance its priority attachment to these
governments' valued allies in the war in Afghanistan with a
robust and visible commitment to democratization and its
insight into the fact that these regimes are ultimately
undermining their own term--their own long-term security by
their increasing harshness and greed.
Thank you.
Mr. Smith. Blank, thank you very much, and, without
objection, your full statement will be made a part of the
record as well. Doctor Radnitz.
DR. SCOTT RADNITZ, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF
WASHINGTON
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and
members of the Commission for letting me testify at this very
important hearing on the potential impact of the Arab Spring in
Central Asia, a region vitally important to American interests,
but one that is poorly understood and often neglected by
scholars and policymakers. If you have no objection, I'd also
to read a shorter version of my statement.
Mr. Smith. No objection.
Dr. Radnitz. Thank you.
Mr. Smith. Statement will be made part of the record.
Dr. Radnitz. The Arab Spring is a watershed event in the
history of the Middle East, a part of the world that was
unfortunately bypassed by the global trend of democratization
of the past several decades. The events in Tunisia and Egypt
offer new hope to millions whose future prospects have long
been stifled by corrupt and repressive elites. The tremendous
force behind these grassroots uprisings caught many off guard,
not least the rulers themselves.
The people of post-Soviet Central Asia have also endured
hard times over the past two decades. These countries are led
by some of the most repressive leaders on the planet. Human
rights abuses are rampant and basic freedoms are severely
curtailed.
Yet people in Central Asia, like others around the world,
yearn for democracy.
Unfortunately, I believe the grassroots uprisings in the
Arab world, while inspirational to many, are unlikely to take
root in Central Asia due to the region's inhospitable soil.
I want to highlight two sets of factors that I think are
most relevant. First is a weakness of linkages between the
Middle East and Central Asia. Second is the capacity of
authoritarian regimes in Central Asia to withstand challenges
from below.
A critical feature of the spread of protest movements
across the Arab world is the dense cultural and economic ties
between societies. Like the Eastern European revolutions in
1989, the Arab Spring is being driven by citizens separated by
national boundaries who have never met, but nonetheless face
similar challenges and share a common identity. Arab
citizenries also share connections through various channels of
communication. People in one Arab country could rapidly learn
of protests in other states through international travelers
such as businessmen or labor migrants, by telephone or email,
and through blogs, social networking websites, and cable
channels like Al-Jazeera.
The effect of these dense networks of communication were
visible in the spread of protests from Tunisia to Egypt, Libya,
Yemen, Bahrain and beyond.
But these forces run up against major obstacles when they
reach the former Soviet Union. Even 20 years after the breakup,
the attention of former Soviet states and citizens is still
directed inward, toward the territory of the former empire.
These states share similar kinds of regimes and forms of
corruption. Their citizens still speak Russian as a first or
second language and watch Russian television, including pro-
government news broadcasts. Russian news, unsurprisingly, has
portrayed events of the Arab Spring as chaotic, violent, and
provoked by Islamic radicals. People in the former Soviet Union
continue to interact personally through ties of trade and labor
migration, and virtually through the Russian-language
blogosphere.
When events happen in the Middle East, dissidents and
opportunistic politicians in post-Soviet states may take
advantage by organizing rallies as they have done in Armenia
and Azerbaijan thus far and are rumored to be planning in other
states. But the Arab Spring is unlikely to embolden the mass
public. A success in one Arab state has a galvanizing effect on
other Arab societies, but people in the post-Soviet region have
no reason to believe that the constraints on their political
and civil liberties in their own countries have changed
significantly.
Even the societies of Central Asia, which are predominantly
Muslim, tend to look north rather than south or west. Economic,
cultural and political ties with Russia remain strong, despite
efforts of the region's leaders to distance themselves from the
former imperial corps. Young people seeking work abroad from
Central Asia learn English, or sometimes Turkish, but rarely
Arabic.
There is a recent precedent, though, for the spread of
protests between former Soviet states, and that is the so-
called ``color revolutions'' in Georgia in 2003; Ukraine, 2004;
and Kyrgyzstan, 2005. These uprisings happened in a short time
period and involved similar dynamics, in part because activists
communicated across borders and learned from one another.
At the same time, however, the region's governments also
showed a willingness to apply lessons from the mistakes of
their counterparts, and this brings me to my second point: the
resilience of Central Asian regimes. In response to these color
revolutions, rulers took measures to shore up their power.
Examples included the closure of Western nongovernmental
organizations; the expulsion of the Peace Corps from Russia;
the arrest and harassment of journalists and human rights
activists; the use of violence against peaceful demonstrators
in Azerbaijan and Belarus; the Kremlin's creation of the pro-
government youth movement Nashi and copycat groups in other
states; the investment and building up of ruling parties in
Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Georgia, and
Azerbaijan; the use of surveillance technology to monitor
public gatherings and Internet activity; and the
nationalization or increased state control of private
businesses.
The upshot of all these measures is more resilient
authoritarian regimes. Regime strength can be viewed as a kind
of natural selection, in which the weakest ones were
overthrown, while those that adapted survive.
Central Asia also suffers from a deficit of civil society
in comparison with the Middle Eastern states. Despite their
limited political freedom, Tunisia, Egypt and others in the
Middle East have organized trade unions, a history of student
activism, Islamic movements, and political parties with
grassroots appeal. Central Asia, in contrast, has few
organizations that are independent and have popular support so
that they can facilitate mass protests.
To conclude my remarks, I just want to say a word about
Kyrgyzstan, which is an exception in a lot of ways--people
believe it may give cause for hope. However, although the
country has seen many protests, these are mostly not grassroots
demands for democracy. The 2005 Tulip Revolution occurred when
businessmen and politicians led protests against Askar Akayev,
the president, after losing parliamentary races, inadvertently
causing his downfall. Since then, politician and businessmen
have continued to use street protests to advance their
interests. Ordinary people, although they sometimes protest on
their own, still find it hard to make their voices heard.
Kyrgyzstan, rather than Egypt and Tunisia, may be the most
instructive case for the future of Central Asia. As Kyrgyzstan
shows, opposition may not come from below or occur through
conventional channels such as political parties or grassroots
organizations. Threats to regimes can also come from above: for
example, rival political elites or businessmen who
strategically ally with the president, but also have their own
power base.
If the president's coalition collapses abruptly, it will
not necessarily lead to democracy, but may, in fact, be
violent. For 20 years, the rules of managing power in countries
such as Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan have worked to
safeguard elite interests. But these elites have no experience
in dealing with rapid political change, and may not be able to
resolve their differences peacefully when the old rules no
longer function.
In short, political change will come eventually to Central
Asia, however their governments--however stable their
governments appear on the surface. But change will not
necessarily come from below. It may instead come from within
the regime. And if this happens, we will see new opportunities
for democratization, but also a new set of challenges.
Thank you, and I look forward to answering your questions.
Mr. Smith. Doctor Radnitz, thank you for your testimony and
insights. I'd like to ask to Mr. Umarov if you would proceed.
GULAM UMAROV, SUNSHINE COALITION, UZBEKISTAN
Thank you Mr. Chairman, Mr. Cohen, for the opportunity to
discuss the future of democracy in my homeland. I would like
also to take this opportunity to personally thank the members
and staff of the Commission for their assistance and support in
securing the release of my father, Sanjar Umarov, from an
Uzbekistan prison in 2009. Our family is forever grateful for
the unwavering support of the members of Congress: Senator
Alexander, Senator Corker, representatives Mr. Cohen and Mr.
Tanner; State Department overseeing Central Asia region headed
by Honorable Assistant Secretary of State Robert Blake; and all
the governmental agencies working closely with National
Endowment for Democracy, Human Rights Watch, and other human
rights groups around the world. We particularly want to
recognize U.S. Ambassador Richard Norland and his staff at the
U.S. embassy in Tashkent for their enormous support in securing
my father's release and bringing him safely back to on American
soil.
In thinking about the impact that the Arab Spring may have
on the Central Asia republics, one needs to remember the recent
history of our region. My country, Uzbekistan, was founded on
the ruins of Soviet Union. As a result, we have never had a
tradition of democracy, individual rights, freedom of assembly,
or freedom of speech. We have always been ruled from top with
no opportunity for average people to impact our government.
Sure, people are tired of permanent rulers and tyranny. But
there is no tradition of free speech, and there is certainly no
room for any expression of dissent.
It is also important to remember that the vast majority of
Uzbekistan citizens are very, very poor. Tunisia, Egypt, Libya
and Syria, on a relative scale, possess much more wealth than
people of Uzbekistan. Their citizens, therefore, have a closer
connection to the modern world and great expectations for the
future.
Moreover, because of the terrible poverty in Uzbekistan,
young people have left the country for work in Russia and other
faraway places. Those that are left behind, especially in the
countryside, are elderly women and men. This does not mean that
people are happy with existing regime. It means their
livelihood is suppressive to this regime. Discontent grows
widespread, but almost everyone is too preoccupied trying to
put food on the table to think of anything else.
We also need to remember some of the specific
characteristics of the Uzbek regime. Time and time again,
entire extended families are destroyed because a son, a nephew
or cousin has offended even the most junior of bureaucrats in
the local administration. The use of violence, terror and
torture are so common that they have ceased to shock the
society and are, in a very sad way, accepted as the regular
order of things. It is no surprise that people stay off the
streets, fearful that the events that took place six years ago,
in May 2005, will repeat again.
Nonetheless, there is a growing expectation of change in
Uzbekistan that is based not on democratic events, but on
demographics. The current leadership is old, and behind-the-
scenes struggle for power has begun.
Evidence for this power struggle can be seen in the often
irrational actions of the government. While 2011 was supposed
to be the year of the support for small and medium businesses,
at the same time, the government began to destroy all the
marketplaces, bazaars, in major cities including the capital
city of Tashkent. This policy was adopted in the name of ``city
beautification'' and ultimately destroyed thousands of jobs and
raised the cost of living for everyone. Why? One can only
deduce that the disruption will enrich one faction of the
governing elite at the expense of another.
As a change in the government is inevitable, it will be
useful to think about ways in which the United States can
further engage with the government as it evolves.
From our experience in the field of human rights, we took
cases to the United Nations, engaged in extensive advocacy in
the United States, and pursued international legal remedies.
But of course, it would be better if you could achieve the same
aims through an open dialogue with authorities. The imposition
of sanctions or even the threat of sanctions has proven to be
counterproductive. As a result, the United States should
consider a series of incentives that could be implemented,
provided that Uzbekistan accepts responsibility for its action.
Of primary importance is a continued assistance for use--
assistance reducing threat posed by religion extremism. Let
there be no mistake: There is an active, an increasingly
assertive extremism threat in Uzbekistan. In order to address
this threat, United States needs to focus not only on police
and military action, but also on underlying causes of religious
extremism in Uzbekistan.
Among these are a widespread sense of injustice caused by
the absence of functioning civil institutions, monopolies in
virtually all spheres of business and the destruction of
Uzbekistan's most popular, most important asset: its
agriculture. There are specific initiatives that might begin to
address these issues:
A concerted effort to support the authority and operation
of the parliament. If Uzbekistan can make a real transition
towards democracy, a truly functioning parliament is essential.
Demonopolization. Over the past few years, the United
States has invested tens of millions of dollars in the
development of the Northern Distribution Network to support
operations in Afghanistan. Almost all of the economic benefits
occurring from operation of the NDN benefit a very small group
of insiders. The United States should use its investment in the
Northern Distribution Network to encourage the growth of
competition in Uzbekistan.
Finally, as has been noted by the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee, the mismanagement of the water resources in Central
Asia and Uzbekistan is causing great damage to agriculture,
which accounts for two-thirds of the population's livelihood.
The U.S. should greatly increase its support for the
development of local, national and international water
management, SIMS [ph], in the region.
In conclusion, just as Egypt has been considered the
linchpin of the Arab world, so Uzbekistan is considered to be
the linchpin of Central Asia. All good citizens of my homeland
fervently pray that we can avoid a situation where the people
utterly give up hope and take the streets. Should this happen,
it will be disaster, not only for Uzbekistan, but for the
region as a whole.
Thank you.
Mr. Smith. Mr. Umarov, thank you very much. Let me just ask
you: When you talk to the people taking to the streets, what do
you think it'll look like on June 1st? What is this called
civil disobedience--could you elaborate?
Mr. Umarov. Well, civil disobedience has been called from
abroad to Uzbekistan. In my personal belief, I don't think
anybody will go on streets or they will protest. So, yes, this
has been very promoted from the outside of Uzbekistan, but from
within Uzbekistan, no one really knows about it other than
militia, police, and the people who have access to the
Internet, which is very limited number of people.
Mr. Smith. Let me just ask you, in terms of how is
information conveyed to the Uzbek people: Are the Chinese
cyberpolice advising the Uzbek government in a way that
Lukashenko in Belarus is being, we're told, mentored in how to
use the Internet for those few people who might have it so that
dissidents are spotted and apprehended as they do in China, in
Vietnam and elsewhere? How do people get information? Is it all
through the state-run media?
Mr. Umarov. I'm sorry.
Mr. Smith. No, please.
Mr. Umarov. If this is the fact, I'm not aware of any
Chinese representatives advising our government. I just know
that our secret service is very good in making sure that
they'll stop whatever is going--whatever might happen before it
will happen. They're very good at it.
Mr. Smith. Let me just ask you, and the others who might
want to respond to any of this. Was Andijan kind of like the
Tiananmen Square of--did that send a message that if you take
to streets, you'll be killed, you'll be slaughtered? We know
that the Chinese government has had numerous--matter of fact,
the biggest was in response to the one-child-per-couple policy
where a mini-Tiananmen Square occurred and people were just
brutalized, especially women, and I held a hearing on that a
year and a half ago. But I'm wondering, did Andijan have that
chilling effect that they were looking for?
Dr. Blank. I think it would appear that Andijan had a
chilling effect on domestic unrest in Uzbekistan and perhaps in
Central Asia as a whole. But beyond that, it also crystallized
the emergence of a kind of coalition or alliance of states
determined to prevent the color revolutions at that time, or
anything like that from coming on. If you follow what these
governments learn from the color revolutions, and what they
have learned from China's and Iran's efforts to deal with
internal unrest in the examples I cited, it's very clear--and
for example, there's a big article in today's Financial Times
about this in China's case--that they have emulated each other.
There's a learning curve going on. I have little doubt that
officials in all of these states are sharing information and
experiences with each other in order to prevent this from
happening. So I would suspect that Andijan had a chilling
effect, but it also had a chilling effect not just because it
frightened anybody who might think of opposing, but because it
gave strength to the resistance of the counterrevolutionaries.
Mr. Goble. I think it was a defining moment in three ways,
just to extend what's been said. First, I think it was an
effort that was directed at a group of people who were not
primarily Islamist, but by using the invocation that they were
Islamist, the government ended up becoming an advertisement for
the worst opposition rather than the best.
Second, I think the fact that calling the people who stood
up in Andijan Islamists or Islamic radicals played so well in
so many places in Europe and the United States as a
justification, and there were a great number of people in the
West who were saying that if these were Islamist radicals it
was OK. It taught the people in the regimes how they could
present what they were doing against them.
And third, I think it is that Andijan is responsible for
some of the things that we're talking about today. And that is
the notion that societies in Central Asia, which lack many of
the traditions that we know about in Eastern Europe, are likely
when they go--when there is a public manifestation--that it
will turn to violence. And that has made it even more
difficult.
And I'd just like to footnote the business about June 1st,
I believe that has probably been arranged as a lost battalion
strategy by the Uzbek security forces that is only going to be
too pleased to say, look, no one showed up, as a way of
demobilizing the opposition.
But all of these things, all these things taken together,
have the effect of meaning that those who will continue to
oppose the regime will be the people we say we most don't want
to see in power. And that the people that we would like to be
able to see come to power will be less likely to take action.
But I really think that we're, as much as these governments
move to control the media and the Internet, the amount of a
success they have in that direction should not be overstated.
The splash effect from a small number of people, who have
access to information to spread it in society, is rather larger
than we suspect. And if you look at the way in which
revolutionary information or transformational information has
spread, you don't need all that many people to be the primary
nodes; then it becomes spread elsewhere. And I think we make a
mistake if we simply measure the number of people who have an
Internet account and say that's the measure of the impact of
the Internet on that society.
Dr. Radnitz. So I think the Andijan Massacre was also an
attempt by the government to set an example, and in particular
because the Andijan protests occurred two months after the
Kyrgyzstan revolution of 2005. And at the time there was real
fear in Uzbekistan and other places that there was another
domino to fall. And so I think at that moment the president of
Uzbekistan decided to put his foot down and say, right, this is
where it ends.
But it's also instructive of how, under certain
circumstances, people are willing to come out onto the streets
and assert their demands even though it might be dangerous. In
Andijan these protests, as Mr. Goble mentioned, occurred
without the use of technology. Facebook wasn't even around in
2005.
Word spread from person to person, through local
neighborhoods, perhaps through mosques even though Imams are
appointed by the state, and gradually it built up. And I think
somewhere around 10,000 people ended up joining these protests
in the central square in Andijan. And it was at that point, I
think, that they decided, you know, if we let this go on longer
it's going to get out of hand.
It's also worth noting that these protests didn't spread
beyond Andijan, it was a localized event. It was people
rallying around a local grievance; that is, local community
benefactors had been arrested. So it was important for Andijan,
but people in neighboring provinces of Uzbekistan perhaps saw
what was going on but didn't see that it was so relevant for
them and that's why it didn't spread more widely.
Mr. Smith. Let me ask the next question with regards to the
consequences of having the Kazaks in the chair-in-office, have
any of you looked at whether or not that had any positive
consequences or was it nothing?
Mr. Goble. Mr. Chairman, I can only agree with your
opposition to Kazakhstan being a member of the--to getting the
chairmanship-in-office. One of the great tragedies that has
happened since 1991 is propensity on the part of Western
governments to label as democracies countries that are anything
but. To act as if having ceased to be communist, the only
remaining option is to be a liberal democratic free-market ally
of the United States, and to call people democrats just because
they're not communists anymore is one of the things that we
have done that has devalued democracy in the eyes of many
people.
I believe that kind of activity played a significant role
in the recession of interest in promoting democracy in these
countries because democracy came to be seen--as defined by us
for them, as opposed to defined by us for us--as not all that
wonderful. I think that it's useful if Kazakhstan is in the
chair that people can say, you are in the chair, therefore you
should do certain things. But I think the idea that we should
reward a country that is, shall we say, far from democratic in
any real sense with that position was a mistake. And is part of
a much larger set of mistakes to label as democratic things
which are not.
I wish we would be willing to say that just because you're
[sic] a communist doesn't make you a democrat. And that's
something we have been very, very reluctant as a country to say
in this part of the world.
Dr. Blank. Yes, fine. I'd like to add that I think your
opposition to giving this plum to Kazakhstan was completely
justified. We heard that they made some minor steps forward,
but in reality during this period when they were, as you might
say, on probation, before assuming the leadership and then
after the leadership, they passed draconian Internet and media
laws, they had an election which made the president president-
for-life--they just had a snap election, and Mr. Zhovtis, who
is the author of this human rights plan, is sitting in jail on
trumped-up charges, although he was in an automobile accident.
And even more now the government is talking about creating
what can only be described as a Potemkin opposition, the
government's own opposition party, in order to ensure somehow
that when President Nazarbayev leaves office that he can be
certain that the, as the Russians would say, the dacha stays
within the family. [Laughter.] And that nothing untold would
happen to jeopardize the elite's security.
Rewarding Kazakhstan by making it OSCE chairman I think
undermines the credibility of the OSCE, it weakened its ability
to stand up for human rights under its mandate, and I think
suggests to other governments who are members of the OSCE, but
whose record leaves something to be desired, that the mandate
for human rights is not something they have to take all that
seriously.
Mr. Smith. I appreciate that. I have a markup in the
Foreign Affairs Committee on Libya resolution and the vote is
at 4:45, but Commissioner Cohen has graciously agreed to chair
the remainder of the hearing. And I do thank you for your
extraordinary insights; it does help us do our job better, and
also by extension all who will read the transcript because it
does get widespread publication. So I want to thank you so much
and please continue providing those--the information to our
Commission, it is most helpful. I thank you. Commissioner.
Mr. Cohen. Thank you, sir. Mr. Umarov, where is your father
now?
Mr. Umarov. He's in Germantown.
Mr. Cohen. Germantown?
Mr. Umarov. Germantown, yes sir.
Mr. Cohen. He didn't want to get complete freedom and move
to Midtown?
Mr. Umarov. [Chuckles.] No, not yet. He's thinking about
downtown though.
Mr. Cohen. Tell me, what did he tell you about his time
when he was in prison? How was he treated?
Mr. Umarov. He wasn't treated very well. I mean, though it
was a very long time where he had no communication with anyone
at all. His last three months before he was released he was
placed in psychiatric department in the prison hospital. I
mean, he was talking about all sorts of torture that was
applied to him where they would basically cuff him to the bed
and there was--it's not a very pretty picture.
If you look at him right now, though, he's already got the
belly and he's looking great. The only mark of the torture is
his voice; he still has the harsh voice. I mean his voice cords
were torn apart due to torture. That's the only physical--
Mr. Cohen. Was he beaten?
Mr. Umarov. Oh he was beaten and--I mean, all sorts of
things. Yes, beaten as well, on several occasions, not once.
Mr. Cohen. And his crime was forming this political party?
Mr. Umarov. Well, officially they put all different crimes,
of course. But, it was very interesting, all the problem--
trouble began right after he announced about a political
movement, Sunshine Coalition. So it was, like, literally right
afterwards. And nothing happened before and then all of a
sudden all of the relatives began having troubles. And it's not
just our family but our extended family. They were forced to
leave the country and they're still in many, many places, I
mean, different places.
Mr. Cohen. Was that typical of how the prisoners were
treated or was he treated particularly worse?
Mr. Umarov. It is typical for political prisoners. For
other prisoners, it's not quite that typical but, I mean, they
also have other ways to get even the food to them. I mean,
their relatives, their family members, at least are able to
pass the food--some packages from home to them. In our case we
couldn't even do that.
Mr. Cohen. Did you get a chance to visit your father during
those four years?
Mr. Umarov. My mother did, I hadn't had a chance because it
was too dangerous for me to go back there and it was
unpredictable if I would be arrested or not due to my activity
here in the United States.
Mr. Cohen. Where are you spending--are you spending time
totally in the United States now or are you over there as well?
Mr. Umarov. I'm totally here in the United States.
Mr. Cohen. OK. Has there been cessation of activities
against your family since your father's release?
Mr. Umarov. We haven't experienced any yet, but we'll see
what's going to happen after this public event. We'll see.
Mr. Cohen. You don't expect much on June 1st?
Mr. Umarov. On June 1st? No.
Mr. Cohen. What is this--the group that's putting this
together, the--what's the name, the People's Movement?
Mr. Umarov. The People's Movement, people from--basically
it's still the same people. I mean, one day they--it's called
one movement and another day it's another movement, but the
core of the group, it's all the same. I mean, this is the same
group of people that are trying to make a difference in the
country. I mean, they are active. But they're outside of the
country.
Mr. Cohen. They're outside of the country?
Mr. Umarov. They're outside of the country, correct.
Mr. Cohen. I see, I see. Otherwise they'd probably be
arrested, I presume?
Mr. Umarov. Most likely.
Mr. Cohen. Yeah. What's happened to the group that your
father was involved with or started? Was it the Sunshine Group,
or--?
Mr. Umarov. Sunshine Coalition? The people are still there,
they're just--it's wiser not to talk about it; at least openly.
But folks are there, organization is not functioning, but
whatever everyone else can do they're trying to do in terms of
influencing the direction that the country is going to be
going, because it's--we also, we don't want to see Uzbekistan
to become the next Afghanistan.
Mr. Cohen. When you say the next Afghanistan, and this
could be for anybody on the panel, what I find interesting is
that these countries are so repressive and have such a poor
record on human rights, political freedoms, anything we find
basic to civilization. And yet, we support these countries. Mr.
Goble, you were saying we're creating the seeds of an Islamic
takeover by not permitting democracy, these countries are--
Mr. Goble. That's right.
Mr. Cohen. And by supporting these countries in essence
we're somewhat sureties for [inaudible] to come.
Mr. Goble. I think it could be said that we are
facilitating in some respects, by looking the other way or
talking about nuanced changes, rather than being very clear
that what these countries are doing, in many cases, are
creating--are taking the kinds of actions that will lead to
eventually exactly what they say they, and we say we, are
against.
If you do not allow any kind of organized opposition, if
you make all opposition illegal, then anyone who opposes the
system is engaged in an illegal activity. What that means is
that people who are angry enough will be underground, or they
will be out of the country and come in underground. People who
are in that kind of environment are vastly more likely to
pursue an authoritarian agenda, a revolutionary agenda, that
would bring--that would, when/if it achieved power be as
repressive or even more repressive than the existing regimes
and lead to a whole variety of violence.
What we need to do, and what I fear we are unwilling to do
because we take a very short-term approach to these things, is
to make it very, very clear any time we interact with them that
they are taking steps that are against their own interests,
their own interests of stability and progress of their country,
and making the likelihood of extreme radicalism more--its
emergence more likely.
One of the reasons that we see the emergence of very
radical groups around the world is because they come out of
societies where basic possibilities of participation are
prevented, and therefore people seek other ways. I once had
occasion to tell the former president of Azerbaijan, Heydar
Aliyev, that the best thing that could happen to Azerbaijan was
his reelection with 60 percent of the vote, because if he got
60 percent of the vote that would mean there would be other
people who got 40 percent. But he came out of a society which
thought that elections are referenda and therefore 90 percent
plus is the only possible answer.
The consequence is that you deprive yourself of, not only
safety valves, not only the expression of multiple points of
view, but what is especially serious, and it's been alluded to
in several of the comments here, democracies make possible
succession. No other system does that very well. Except,
perhaps, a monarchy if you have enough children and even that
doesn't always work, as we have reason to see.
If you have elections, you have a process by which you can
replace people and go forward. We are looking in a number of
these countries to aging leaderships which will eventually go
away because the actuarial tables will kick in. And if there is
no process, there will be instability, which some of the worst
elements will exploit.
And then, when the worst elements exploit it, those who
want to maintain an authoritarian system will invoke that fact
as justification for behaving even in a more authoritarian
fashion. And we will see this cycle up in exactly the wrong
way. Because we have certain short-term goals with respect to
these countries, and because we have, I think, utterly failed
as a society in the post-communist world to make clear that
just because you're not a communist doesn't make you a
democrat, because we say some very strange things about people
who are anything but democrats, with a small ``d.''
We have made that process less--that transition in a
positive direction--less likely. We're not to blame for all of
this, we're not to blame for Islam Karimov's thuggishness. What
we're to blame for is failing to give aid and comfort by our
statements that Islam Karimov's regime is not a democratic
regime. That what it is doing is producing the extremism that
it says it is fighting. And that if it wants to fight extremism
in a serious way, it's got to open up to a more democratic
system, or you will get extremism. That is the lesson of
authoritarian regimes around the world.
Mr. Cohen. Dr. Radnitz, you wanted to comment?
Dr. Radnitz. In terms of American policies towards the
region, because you asked, why is the U.S. still working with
these authoritarian regimes. If you look over the past 20 years
the U.S. has actually pursued a wide variety of policies
towards the Central Asian countries, sometimes more engagement,
sometimes less, sometimes more incentives and foreign aid,
sometimes sanctions or the threat of sanctions.
And the result, more often than not, has been they will--
those regimes will continue to do what they're doing because
the leadership has their own interests and they do pretty well
from the system as it is; mostly thinking short-term. They also
get support from Russia and China when the U.S. withdraws our
foreign aid. And so, in the long run, I think we've discovered
that our leverage is quite limited.
I think the Obama administration's sense of its policy
toward is that, we tried emphasizing democracy and human rights
previously, we tried speaking out, shaming regimes for their
human rights abuses. In the end it hasn't made any difference
to human rights on the ground. And so the Obama administration
has been prioritizing operations in Afghanistan over all else.
Whether that's the correct policy or not, I'm not sure. But
I think we've been extremely frustrated over many years by the
fact that we tried everything and everything in the middle and
we're still stuck where we began.
Mr. Cohen. Let's assume that tomorrow Jimmy McGovern and
Dennis Kucinich take over the world and we withdraw from
Afghanistan, and then the day after that we go back to the
government like it is today. How does our government deal with
the
``-stans'' in Central Asia if Afghanistan is not a factor?
Dr. Blank. If I may, if Afghanistan is not a factor then
our current strategy towards Central Asia, regardless of who
the president may be, has disappeared because if--every
statement of official U.S. policy toward Central Asia, not just
by this administration but by the Bush administrations, both
terms, and even before that the Clinton administration, took as
a priority geopolitical interests of the United States.
Since 2001 that has been the war in Afghanistan and it is
understandable that this war, which is very important to us,
has taken priority and we can see that it has taken priority
over the promotion of democracy. Indeed, Secretary Blake's
statement today is very clear, where he said in summation, and
I quote, ``In conclusion, we seek a future in which the United
States and the countries of Central Asia work together to
foster peace,'' that means victory in Afghanistan, ``security,
economic development and prosperity, and advance the democratic
values and human rights that unite free nations in trust and
respect.'' Democratic values comes last.
And that, unfortunately, has been the case, despite the
fact that many private and public organizations within and
without the government have and are continuing to make efforts
both privately and publicly to advance human rights. So it's
not a question of Congressman Kucinich or former Senator
McGovern or, let us say, the extreme right-wing of the
Republican Party. It is rather the national interest of the
United States. It's not a partisan political--
Mr. Cohen. Oh, I understand that, but it's all about
Afghanistan, really.
Dr. Blank. It is.
Mr. Cohen. So I'm saying--but if Afghanistan disappears--
Dr. Blank. Then we have no strategy for Central Asia, plain
English.
Mr. Cohen. You don't think--but do we withdraw some of our
foreign aid, do we eliminate our air base in--
Dr. Blank. Well, on the conditions of--given the economic
conditions in the country now, and some statements to the fact
that we are going to withdraw from Central Asia and the fact
that, in the case of Manas in particular in Kyrgyzstan, there
is ferocious Russian pressure to get it out. It strikes me as
being entirely plausible that if the Afghanistan were to go
away, hypothetically, then the base in Manas would leave with
it, and with it a lot of U.S. military and economic influence
including the Northern Distribution Network.
Mr. Cohen. So we could save a lot more money with getting
out of Afghanistan than just simply the money we're spending in
Afghanistan. We could save money throughout the Central Asia
territories as well.
Dr. Blank. No, because what you would do then is probably
create a situation that brings about much more security dangers
within the region. I mean, there is a threat from Afghanistan
to the governments and that's real enough threat. But the real
threats in Central Asia are from within and between states.
If you look at Uzbekistan, for example, Uzbekistan has
terrible relations with all of its neighbors and almost went to
war with them last year. As I pointed out in my paper, all of
these states are spending more and more money on military
budgets because of, A, their determination to repress domestic
unrest and B, they feel threatened by their neighbors.
So even if Afghanistan were somehow to be converted into a
Jeffersonian democracy, that would not alleviate the
fundamental security equation in Central Asia. We would save
money from combat operations in Afghanistan, but the amount of
money being spent to maintain Manas or other government
programs in Central Asia is quite small relative to that sum.
And by creating, excuse me, a field for larger security crisis
we don't end up saving very much at all. This is not a question
of dollars and cents but of fundamental strategic conception
and policy.
Mr. Goble. It also is terribly important to understand that
making the Afghan war go away means getting the Americans out
of it. We've left Afghanistan before. The fundamental strategic
problem that Afghanistan presents is that Afghanistan and the
Pashtuns spread into the North-West Frontier province of
Pakistan which has nuclear weapons. And that the instability
that would happen in Pakistan with our departure would
necessitate ultimately some kind of re-American intervention
down the pike which would probably be even more expensive.
It is the inconstancy of our policy, our in-and-out in
Afghanistan, our in-and-out advocacy of democracy that has,
more than anything else, subverted what we say we want to
achieve. I'm much more worried about Afghanistan spreading into
the North-West Frontier provinces of Pakistan because Pakistan
does have nuclear weapons, than I am about its impact north.
But it will spread north, because the Northern Alliance is a
heavily Tajik organization with people across the boarder--
there the IMU is in the North-West Frontier provinces and also
in Afghanistan, which means you're talking about an Uzbek
threat emerging if there is no longer an American force to
contest it.
If we define what we were going into as only being a
counterterrorist operation that's one thing. We have now faced
a counterinsurgency which is something quite different. And
we're also facing the possibility of what is in effect an
internationalization of the war with the North-West Frontier
province being drawn in.
Now, if we make a decision that we want to save money by
not fighting in Afghanistan now, that is a decision that I can
imagine being made. The consequences of that, however, will be
that there will be the spread of the fighting that is in
Afghanistan and it will go into Pakistan and it will constitute
a greater security threat to the United States. And as we pull
out of Central Asia, as in our eyes we draw down we will see
others all too willing from the Shanghai Cooperation
Organization's end to invest in there.
And if, as we do all of this, we do not make very clear
what it is we want, I've often had the opportunity to testify
before Congress and my usual response to--the first question I
get is, what do we do? And I would say the first thing we do is
we don't lie. Don't lie to ourselves. Do not kid ourselves in
thinking that these countries are democracies because they're
no longer communist. Do not think that Afghanistan is about
us--not just about us. It is about Pakistan. And Pakistan is
decisively about American strategic interests in the Indian
Ocean area.
Mr. Cohen. Thank you, sir. Dr. Radnitz?
Dr. Radnitz. Just to bring things back to Central Asia
briefly, if the war in Afghanistan were to end, we do still
have ongoing democratization policies in Central Asia. We still
have--we give $10 or $20 million to each country a year in
foreign aid through USAID, through organizations like the
National Endowment for Democracy, NDI, IRI, we have these
ongoing programs.
It doesn't add up to a strategic vision of what we want to
happen in Central Asia, but on the level of our governments and
quasigovernmental organizations to their societies, there are
still connections that have been made and that are still being
developed. And below the radar the U.S. is still working, I
think, toward strengthening civil societies toward at least the
possibility of future democracy and toward greater development
of their societies. It's not prioritized, but this still goes
on.
And regarding the issue of the base in Central Asia, that
is, Manas Base in Kyrgyzstan, I actually don't think that that
constitutes much of stabilizing force in terms of the region.
The U.S. presence in Kyrgyzstan is very contained on the base,
it acts as a logistical stepping stone to Afghanistan and
perhaps my colleagues know better than I do, but I think if the
U.S. were to remove that base perhaps the Russians would like
to move in. But I don't see any immediate destabilizing impact,
if the war in Afghanistan had ended already, if the U.S. were
to withdraw its troops from Kyrgyzstan.
Mr. Goble. I don't think--I agree that the simple closing
of a single base would not necessarily be destabilizing,
although it could entail destabilizing consequences over time.
I would suggest that many of the programs that have just been
mentioned are very good. However, they are often predicated on
three things which I think are not true.
The first is that a DONGO or GONGO is not an NGO. A donor-
organized or government-organized nongovernmental organization
is not a nongovernmental organization. And yet we make our
assessments, in many cases, about how much progress there is to
democracy by counting DONGOs and GONGOs as if they were NGOs.
They aren't; they're something else. Otherwise you have to say
the Soviet Peace Committee was a NGO, which I don't think
anyone would really want to do.
Second, I think that the--we are very, very--we as a people
are very good at individual cases. I've said to I don't know
how many national movements, give me an Anne Frank. If you can
give me an Anne Frank for your nationality then people will pay
attention because we're very good at focusing on individual
cases, which is a good thing. The consequence, however, is that
we can be manipulated into looking at certain cases and we have
been.
And the third thing, I think, is that precisely because
these things are below the radar screen, precisely because
they're not what's being done by the top leadership and we
aren't saying these things very clearly about our broad vision
of social transformation and political opening, that people in
these regimes treat this as a necessary evil rather than as a
fundamental thing.
There are many people in these regions who say, they hear
something from our ambassador but they hear something else from
the secretary of state and if that's the case, guess who they
decide they should pay attention to? It's a high-level thing,
and if you do the under-the-radar things, which sometimes you
have to do--they're not alternatives--if you do only that, you
may find at the end of the day that you accomplish less than
you intended, than the more public kinds of expressions of
where we want to go.
Mr. Cohen. I understand we've got this room until 5:00. I
don't know what happens and who comes in at 5:00, but obviously
we go out. But let me ask you this. I know we used to have a
Radio Free Europe and now we've got--what, Radio Free Asia--
Mr. Goble. We've still got RFE/RL, it still exists.
Dr. Blank. We do have Radio Free Asia, that's more recent.
Mr. Cohen. Right. Are they at all effective at maybe
opening up--Dr. Radnitz? Are they effective in Central Asia, do
you think?
Dr. Radnitz. I have strong feelings toward the American
broadcasting programs.
I think they're extremely important, especially in these
societies where the media environment is deteriorating rapidly,
especially in rural areas of Central Asia where people may not
even be learning Russian, may not even be able to watch Russian
television broadcasts, flawed as they are. They'll instead
become captive to their own government's horrible
propagandistic news.
Mr. Cohen. Do the governments try to block the broadcast of
these--of those radio signals?
Dr. Blank. Absolutely. In the last several--and it's not
just Central Asia, it's Russia and China, and their practices
then are emulated by the local governments. Uzbekistan and
Turkmenistan have essentially created a blackout of what's
going on in the Middle East now.
Mr. Goble. I was director of research at Radio Liberty and
I was later director of communications for RFE/RL, and I'd like
to speak to this. We have created a situation which is where
the governments are in--have much greater ability to shut down
the messages. A decision has been made to shift from shortwave
broadcasting to FM broadcasting. And one of the consequences,
if you're going to broadcast on FM, what you have to do is do
it from a base somewhere in the country which means you have to
have a license from people.
In the old days, in the Cold War, Radio Free Europe/Radio
Liberty broadcasted in short-wave. We've moved away from short-
wave which is a mistake because lots of people in these
countries still have it, and we have not moved, which would be
the next revolutionary step, to direct-to-home satellite
television. If that happens, if we get to that--and that's an
expensive thing, mind you-- we would be able to have the same
kind of penetration.
And one last point about these broadcasts. The most
striking thing I have ever seen in my relations with the
leaders of these countries came when the president of Estonia
showed me the notebooks in which he had recorded each day from
1953 until 1989 whether he could listen through the jamming to
our RFE/RL, Voice of America, Deutsche Welle, and the BBC.
This is important for the following reason, and this is
something that the domestic-radio-driven policies of the BBG
have gotten us away from. What you want to do with
international broadcasting is a long-term strategy rather than
a short-term commercial selling of soap. And second, it's about
influencing key elites. It's about influencing people who are
going to matter. It is not, by the nature of things, going to
be something where you're talking about a mass audience. What
we have done in the last decade is to shift away from a concern
from reaching key elites, which is what we always did during
the Cold War--we were much more interested that--[inaudible]--
and Sakharov listened to Radio Liberty than we were that 18-
year-olds on the streets of Moscow.
I was once told by the member of the BBG that an 18-year-
old who listened to us counts just as much as the president of
the country. Well, I think that's silly, saying things like
that. I don't care whether we have 6 percent of the audience of
18-year-olds in a population, but if you can give half of the
political elite and you'll let me get them on a regular basis
to communicate the kinds of thing that RFE/RL and the Voice of
America can do well, BBC used to, we can transform the world. I
think international broadcasting played a key role in the
spread of democracy into Eastern Europe and some of the former
Soviet space and I think it can do the same elsewhere.
But we have now moved away from shortwave, which means
we're dependent on licensing in local countries, we have
shifted in many cases away from broadcasting entirely to
Internet delivery. And those are very different things in terms
of your ability to reach populations and they're very different
things in terms of host governments being able to block them.
And that's something I would hope that you and the Congress
would look at this as an issue because I think we completely
need to revisit the question of how we try to reach audiences,
rather than assuming that the proper model is the model of
selling soap on AM/FM radios in the United States.
Dr. Blank. I might add that if you go through the expert
literature on this question, it is now quite clear that
governments who have a vested interest in suppressing freedom
of information have capabilities that are no less impressive
than we do for disseminating information, and as a result, the
idea that the Internet--that because people have Internet, or
that the Internet is present in their country, that somehow
this is what's going to drive the revolution or make them
liberals and democrats and that's because they're on Facebook
and Twitter, that doesn't hold water.
It's not empirically proven and it's not factually
grounded. Certainly you can use those technologies to
disseminate information, but these governments have at their
disposal the means, effectively, to suppress and counter these
techniques and to essentially put a whole province, like the
Chinese did in 2008 and 2009 in Xinjiang, under lockdown from
the information point of view.
Mr. Goble. It is like military action, it is a constant
struggle of offence and defense, that each side can make
progress. We surrendered largely in a wholesale fashion by
deciding to go over to FM radio broadcasting in these countries
because it gave these countries the right to take away the
license anytime. And it meant that RFE/FL broadcasts in many
countries, the first question journalists and editors ask is,
will this cost us our license? That changes the nature of what
you're communicating and that's a huge thing which the drawdown
from shortwave broadcasting has cost us enormously.
Mr. Cohen. Well, I thank each of you for your testimonies
and for giving us--and for educating me some, particularly on
this issue of Radio Liberty and--because that's something I
visited when I was in Prague, and have got some interest there.
And particularly, Mr. Umarov, nice to see you, thank you on
behalf of all the members of the Tennessee delegation who
worked, and others, on your father's release, for your
statement. I'm happy--and Germantown's a wonderful place.
[Laughter.] One of the--I have a precinct in Germantown, it's a
fact that I won't--but it's a wonderful place. I live in
Midtown.
But I want to thank each of you for your testimony and I
believe--I presume like any other committee, the Commission
could possibly have questions that could be submitted later and
you'll have time to respond and then if you--all your
statements will be made a part of the record. And with that I
will declare this meeting--[sounds gavel].
[Whereupon, at 5 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
=======================================================================
Prepared Statements
----------
Prepared Statement of Hon. Christopher H. Smith, Chairman, Commission
on Security and Cooperation in Europe
Welcome to this hearing on the potential impact of the Middle
Eastern revolutions on Central Asia. Though it is far too early to know
what will come of the ``Arab Spring,'' even in the Middle East itself,
it is clear that the revolutions and uprisings have already changed the
Middle East--and it may well yet change other parts of the world.
This hearing will inquire whether the uprisings and protest
movements in the Middle East and North Africa might inspire and
invigorate popular movements for democracy in post-Soviet central
Asia--or even trigger similar uprisings, and crackdowns--and what our
government's policy should be.
Obviously, much distinguishes the countries and peoples of Central
Asia from those of the Middle East. But they also have a lot in
common--especially in what they have suffered. Broadly speaking, in
both regions people are ruled by undemocratic and corrupt dictators,
many of whom have been in power for decades. Where they exist,
parliaments are largely rubber-stamp institutions and the judiciary is
either corrupt or beholden to the executive. National resources and
state authority have been illegitimately appropriated by small groups
of people, closely bound to the ruling elites.
There are many differences between Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, but presidential longevity in
office is a defining regional characteristic. Central Asian dictators
have monopolized power for the two decades since independence while the
public has effectively been removed from politics. Only Kyrgyzstan is a
striking exception to this rule--in that country street protests have
toppled two heads of state since 2005, and last year the country
commenced parliamentary governance.
Sadly, in most of Central Asia, democratic reform and observance of
human rights commitments have progressed little in the 20 years since
independence. In general, elections have been controlled and rigged;
rarely has the OSCE given them a passing grade. Opposition parties have
been harassed--where they are permitted at all--and independent media--
where it exists--has been put on a short leash. In the most repressive
states, there is little or no space for civil society to function.
Access to the Internet is tightly controlled. Religious liberty,
particularly for non-traditional religious groups, is constrained.
Torture and mistreatment in custody are routine. Corruption is common
at all levels and thwarts not only human rights but also economic
development.
Central Asian leaders often claim that their citizens are ``not
ready'' for democracy because of their history and culture. This is
insulting, bigoted, unacceptable, and untrue. It is also sadly
familiar--many Middle Eastern tyrants said the same thing about their
peoples, but the recent events in the Middle East show, once again,
that it is not democracies that are unstable but dictatorships.
The conventional wisdom is that similar popular protest movements
are unlikely in Central Asia--yet a few months ago that was the
accepted wisdom for the Middle East. It is time we re-think and to
challenge our conclusions on both regions--gross and systematic human
rights violations have surely created a just sense of popular grievance
in Central Asia. And Tunisia showed that it is impossible to predict
when a people will decide that a situation is intolerable.
Of course it is our hope that there will be peaceful democratic
movements in central Asia, and, equally, that the governments will
respond peacefully and with significant reforms. Yet we need to think
also about the potential for violent crackdowns, and what our
government's policy should be in the region.
Prepared Statement of Hon. Benjamin L. Cardin, Co-Chairman, Commission
on Security and Cooperation in Europe
Mr. Chairman, this hearing raises an important and timely topic.
The events in the Middle East and North Africa have already redrawn the
geopolitical map, evoking fears of worse instability and religious
radicalism but also raising hopes of democratic development that will
lead to a more peaceful world.
Perhaps the main lesson from the last six months is that where
politics does not offer citizens a say in governance and redress of
grievances, the street is the only outlet. Corruption and lack of
economic opportunity fuel public resentment towards those in power, who
use their positions to line their own pockets. Unfortunately, these
conditions also characterize much of Central Asia, where leaders have
generally consolidated super-presidential systems that allow them to
remain in office while impeding the rise of any competing institutions.
The question naturally arises if similar unrest could erupt in that
region.
In many post-Soviet states over the last few months, officials have
leaped to deny the possibility of such events in their countries. ``It
could never happen here'' they claim, citing the popularity of their
presidents or the public's fear of instability or the absence of some
other prerequisites for mass demonstrations of discontent.
It is not surprising that officials in Central Asian countries
would reject the possibility that their regimes are vulnerable to the
wave that has swept over the Middle East and North Africa. Our task is
to investigate to what degree their assurances are well-founded or
whether we have reason to expect protests in Central Asia. What seems
clear already is that some leaders are concerned enough to tighten
control of new technologies--such as mobile devices that can access the
Internet--which were used in North Africa and the Middle East. For
example, Uzbekistan recently instructed mobile operators to notify
regulators of any bulk distribution of text messages with ``suspicious
content,'' to monitor social networking sites, and to be prepared to
immediately switch off their Internet networks if directed by
authorities.
Events in North Africa and the Middle East have taken many by
surprise, including the region's rulers--some of whom are now ex-
rulers. This hearing will elucidate whether Central Asian leaders have
good reason to be nervous. I look forward to hearing the views of our
witnesses.
Prepared Statement of Hon. Alcee L. Hastings, Ranking Member,
Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I commend you on holding this hearing. The
ongoing drama of the Arab Spring is clearly the most important story of
the year and possibly of our time. It is at least as significant, in my
view, than our great success in finally ridding the world of Osama bin-
Laden. In fact, developments in the Middle East and North Africa, where
people have arisen to pursue democratic change, undercut al-Qaeda's
entire narrative, while rejecting its methods. Whether these events
might spur similar outcomes in other parts of the world, specifically
Central Asia, is a natural question for this Commission to investigate.
As former President and current Special Representative on
Mediterranean Affairs of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, I have
visited all the states of Central Asia, as well all of those of the
OSCE's Mediterranean Partners. Throughout my travels in these regions,
I have been struck by certain structural similarities between them.
Setting aside Israel, both regions are primarily Muslim. Both, you
might say, are struggling with the consequences of colonialism. Both
have large and growing young populations, which are to varying degrees
frustrated by the lack of opportunity, and which have faced entrenched
elites that resist systemic reforms, even when they talk about their
necessity.
On the other hand, the states of Central Asia are full-fledged
members of the OSCE, which they voluntarily joined in 1992. They
thereby promised to carry out the organization's commitments in the
human dimension. How well they have done can be gauged in the State
Department's annual reports, which on the whole, present a pretty
depressing picture.
It is easy to become discouraged. We should remember, however, that
Central Asian countries have been independent for not quite 20 years. I
say that not to excuse their well-known shortcomings in democratization
and human rights but simply to state a fact. The lands of the Middle
East and North Africa have had far more time to build a modern polity
with accountable government and rule of law but sadly, little has been
accomplished. Only now, because of the stirring courage displayed by
many thousands of people, has the opportunity for a real paradigm shift
finally emerged.
The obvious question that arises is whether possibilities for
reform, without major uprisings, exist in Central Asia. I'm sure our
witnesses have strong opinions about that key issue but I just want to
say that I hope the answer is ``yes.'' In my contacts with Central
Asian leaders, I have always stressed the need for gradual, positive
change.
Today, everyone knows instantly what is happening all over the
globe. Both for societies seeking examples of successful pressure on
governments and for regimes determined not to yield to such pressure,
the power of precedent is important. Experiences in one country or
region naturally engender hopes or fears in others. But nothing is
inevitable and that doesn't necessarily mean similar conditions will
lead to similar conclusions.
Moreover, Tunisia and Egypt have responded quite differently to the
popular call for change than Syria or Libya, and they have more in
common with each other than any of them has with Central Asian states.
It is not so easy to make predictions about how events in one region or
country might influence outcomes in another.
These are difficult questions to answer; frankly, I am glad I don't
have to. That is precisely why we're here--to hear from smart people
who have thought long and hard about the issues. I salute their
willingness to tackle such knotty topics and I look forward to learning
from them.
Prepared Statement of Ambassador Robert O. Blake, Assistant Secretary
of State for South and Central Asian Affairs, U.S. Department of State
Chairman Cardin, Chairman Smith, members of the Commission, thank
you for inviting me to discuss with you the potential implications for
Central Asia of the ongoing events in North Africa and the Middle East.
I welcome this opportunity to consider with you the contours of U.S.
engagement in Central Asia that will most effectively promote peaceful,
democratic development.
Mr. Chairman, we are witnessing with cautious optimism events
unfolding across North Africa and the Middle East, but truly regret the
lives that have been lost and the extent to which some governments have
resorted to greater repression and violence in response. Though it is
easy to say in retrospect that these changes were going to take place
eventually, no one could have predicted the pace with which citizens of
these long repressed countries could turn the tide.
Differences in history, culture and circumstances make direct
comparisons impossible. However, in some important respects the Central
Asian countries of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan,
and Uzbekistan, with the partial exception of Kyrgyzstan, share
dynamics similar to those causing the upheavals in the Middle East,
including unemployment and chronic underemployment, poverty, corruption
at all levels of society, little or no outlet for meaningful political
discourse, and a lack of opportunity, particularly for young people.
Over 50 percent of the populations in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and
Turkmenistan are under the age of 25, and these youths face closed and
inefficient economies, with few prospects for personal advancement. If
not addressed by these governments, these circumstances are likely to
present considerable social, political, and economic challenges in
coming years.
There are also significant differences with the North Africa and
Middle East countries, which in our view make popular uprisings in the
near term less likely in Central Asia. First, the economic situation is
not as dire in Central Asia. IMF unemployment projections for 2011 in
Central Asia range from a low of 0.2% in Uzbekistan to a high of 5.7%
in Kazakhstan, compared with 9.2% and 14.7% in Egypt and Tunisia,
respectively-based on official data. Second, significant proportions of
the work force in poor countries such as Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan have
found work in Russia, easing unemployment and providing a valuable
source of remittances. Third, the hydrocarbon wealth of countries such
as Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan has enabled those countries to cushion
the impact of economic hardships. Unlike North Africa and the Middle
East, regions which have maintained considerable ties to the United
States and the West, the Central Asian states remain relatively less
exposed to the West and its history of democratic institutions,
personal freedom and liberty. Instead of travelling to the United
States or to Western Europe for employment, educational, or
recreational purposes, most citizens of Central Asia instead head north
to Russia. This lack of exposure is exacerbated by government controls
over the internet and social media.
While citizens in Egypt, Tunisia, and elsewhere have turned to
Facebook and Twitter as forums through which to interact, organize, and
exchange ideas, the vast majority of Central Asia lacks access to the
internet, with 14 percent internet penetration in Kazakhstan in 2008
the highest of all the Central Asian countries (according to the
International Telecom Union). Governments have succeeded in blocking
outside influences and tightly controlling domestic media through
harassment, prosecution, and imprisonment of journalists. The lack of
independent media allows governments to control the dissemination of
news and information.
Another factor is the lack of meaningful political opposition in
most of Central Asia. Significant opposition parties are largely
nonexistent, and organized opposition groups are for the most part
either illegal or tightly constrained by the authorities.While these
conditions seem oppressive to a western observer, residents in some
parts of Central Asia value the stability and certainty afforded by
their otherwise undemocratic governments. In Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan
the governments derive some measure of legitimacy, at least for now,
from their emphasis on stability as residents warily monitored the
turmoil and unpredictability in recent years in neighboring Kyrgyzstan
and Afghanistan.
Still, this profound change taking place across North Africa and
the Middle East demonstrates equally profound lessons for Central Asian
governments and societies. One of the messages we have given to our
friends in Central Asia is that they need to pay attention to these
events and their implications. Leaders everywhere, not just in Central
Asia, should heed the lessons of the Arab Spring. In my meetings with
Central Asian officials over the last several months, I have encouraged
them to provide more space for political, personal, and religious
freedoms, allow for the development of a robust civil society and
democratic institutions, and chart a course for economic reform.
Leaderships in Central Asia express support for gradual change, and
concern that too much freedom too fast could lead to chaos and
political upheaval. They are suspicious of democratic reforms, and with
some exceptions have maintained tight restrictions on political,
social, religious, and economic life in their countries. We think this
is a mistaken view. While democracy can be messy and at times appear
chaotic, it nevertheless provides for greater stability and security as
it provides societies a necessary and peaceful release valve for
political and economic tensions. Democratically elected governments
that respond to unfettered public opinion build greater trust and
confidence between peoples and their governments. Democracy as we
advocate it is not violent or revolutionary. It is peaceful, tolerant,
and evolutionary and demonstrated primarily through the ballot box and
a free civil society. Democracy does not equate to street violence and
economic chaos. Quite the contrary-- democracy provides hope and
realistic, peaceful approaches to address pent up problems.
We view this moment as an opportunity to re-inforce our engagement
with Central Asia on issues related to religious, political, and
personal freedoms. To strengthen our engagement in Central Asia, we
instituted in December 2009 Annual Bilateral Consultations with each
country. Each bilateral consultation constitutes a face-to-face
structured dialogue, based on a jointly developed, comprehensive agenda
which facilitates candid discussions on the full spectrum of bilateral
priorities, including human rights and media freedom. These discussions
result in work plans to address key priorities and outline practical
steps to advance U.S. policy goals. While pursuing these goals often
poses serious challenges, our robust engagement and assistance to
Central Asia have yielded important results, including support for
ongoing efforts in Afghanistan. We have also used the annual
consultations as a forum to engage civil society and the business
community in the Central Asian countries. In the annual consultations
we held earlier this year in Kazakhstan, for example, the Kazakhstani
Deputy Foreign Minister co-hosted with me a meeting with Kazakhstani
civil society in the Foreign Ministry, a welcome precedent that we hope
to duplicate elsewhere.
In the twenty years since independence, the leaderships in
Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan have frequently
and publicly called for building democratic institutions in their
countries. They have given speeches and issued decrees, but they have
done little to put them into practice. The parliaments, media, and
public institutions are still dominated by the head of state and his
views. In our engagement with these leaders, we challenge them to make
the choice for the greater stability and security that real and
responsible democracies provide. We also continue to provide support
for those elements in civil society who remain committed to building
democracy peacefully albeit under restrictive and even harsh
conditions.
Kyrgyzstan has been the primary exception in Central Asia. The
democratic gains recently made in Kyrgyzstan since the April 2010
events--the passing of a new constitution establishing a parliamentary
republic and the subsequent elections of a President and Parliament--
are cause for optimism even as the ethnic violence in June of last year
demonstrates the fragility of democracy in the country. As President
Obama told President Otunbaeva earlier this year in Washington, we are
prepared to support democratic institutions to help Kyrgyzstan succeed
as a democratic example in the region. Kyrgyzstan's democracy requires
substantial international support to build strong, publicly accountable
institutions. We estimate the U.S. provided over $140 million in
humanitarian aid, economic development, support for democratic
elections and good governance, and other foreign assistance in response
to the events in FY 2010, and we urged others to provide such support.
Kyrgyzstan faces its next test in presidential elections slated for
later this year. We look forward to working with the Helsinki
Commission and others to help organize international support and
monitoring efforts.
Other Central Asia states are at differing stages in their
democratic development, but there are some signs of hope in all.
Kazakhstan hosted the first OSCE Summit in 11 years last December,
which included a robust civil society component which Secretary Clinton
found extremely encouraging. Kazakhstan has also made some progress
toward meeting its Madrid commitments on political pluralism, and
reform of media and electoral laws, although much more needs to be
done.
President Karimov of Uzbekistan gave a speech in November 2010
calling for greater political pluralism and civil society development.
Uzbekistan has done little to turn this vision into a reality thus far,
but we will encourage President Karimov to meet the commitments he made
in that speech. Tajikistan has the region's only legal Islamic party,
the Islamic Revival Party of Tajikistan (IRPT), even though IRPT and
other opposition officials continue to be subject to various forms of
harassment. And even in Turkmenistan, President Berdimuhamedov has
spoken publicly of the need to expand space for other voices in the
political system.
To be clear: I am not predicting extensive changes in the near
term. The Arab Spring notwithstanding, democracy is a long-term
process, and we will work with all of our Central Asian partners to
help them develop stronger democratic institutions and more open
societies.
Conclusion
Mr. Chairman, nearly thirty-six years ago leaders from North
America, Europe, and the Soviet Union came together to sign the
Helsinki Accords, committing themselves to a core set of human rights,
including the fundamental freedoms of association, expression, peaceful
assembly, thought, and religion. It was argued by those gathered in
Helsinki in 1975 that security among states was directly connected to
the way that those states treat their own citizens. AsSecretary Clinton
presciently asserted at last year's OSCE summit in Astana and as events
this Spring further underscore, these values remain relevant today and
are critical to the building of sustainable societies and nations that
are committed to creating better opportunities for all of their
citizens.
In conclusion, we seek a future in which the United States and the
countries of Central Asia work together to foster peace, security,
economic development and prosperity, and advance the democratic values
and human rights that unite free nations in trust and in respect. We
recognize that the pace of change will be defined by the citizens of
the countries of Central Asia and that our efforts must focus on long-
term, meaningful results.
The most important lesson gleaned from the events that have
occurred in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and elsewhere is that governments
must respond to the needs and the desires of their people. People
everywhere want to provide for their families and to ensure that their
families have proper education, and adequate livelihoods. And people
everywhere want to have basic democratic freedoms.
Thank you. I look forward to your questions.
Prepared Statement of Paul Goble, Professor, Intitute of World Politics
A Renewed Sense of the Possibility of Change: The Peoples of Central
Asia Respond to the Arab Spring
Nowhere in the world has the Arab Spring given greater promise of
real political change toward democracy and freedom than in the
authoritarian states of post-Soviet Central Asia. The reasons for that
are clear but not always clearly understood. It is not because these
countries are also Muslim majority states, and it is not because they
too are ruled by brittle authoritarian regimes. There are Muslim
majority states where the Arab Spring has not had an impact, and there
are authoritarian regimes which, either by brutality or accident, have
blocked the spread of the idea people in the Middle East are seeking to
promote.
Rather it is because the events in the Arab world have dispelled
the myth promoted by these governments that fundamental change is
impossible or dangerous and that the populations must put up with the
status quo because these regimes enjoy international support as
bulwarks against Islamist fundamentalism and supporters of the
international effort against terrorism in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
Those arguments did not save the authoritarian regimes in Egypt,
Tunisia, Libya and elsewhere in the Middle East, and they will not save
the authoritarian regimes in post-Soviet Central Asia. The peoples of
those countries have been transfixed and transformed by the Arab
Spring. They see that the arguments of their rulers no longer are
convincing, and they see that the West and above all the United States,
which often has pursued a policy of convenience with regard to these
regimes, has changed as well. As a result, an increasing number of the
people of these countries are ready to try to gain what is their
natural right, freedom and democracy.
But just as the Arab Spring has affected the people, so too it has
impressed the rulers in Central Asia. It has convinced them that they
must take even more draconian measures in order to retain their hold on
power. And the changes the Arab Spring have wrought in the
consciousness of the peoples of Central Asia thus pose a serious
challenge to Western governments including our own. Some of the regimes
in that region may believe that they can get away with suppressing the
opposition with extreme violence and that as long as they blame
Islamists or outside agitators, as Uzbekistan President Islam Karimov
did this week, all will be well. Consequently, the United States must
find a way of encouraging these governments to give way to democracy
rather than taking actions to defend their own power that will
ultimately lead to a conflagration.
That is no easy task, but the Obama Administration deserves a great
deal of credit for the way in which in managed the situation in Egypt.
And that approach, one that led to the exit of an increasingly weak
authoritarian president and opened the way to the possibility of
genuine democratic change, in which the next elections will not be the
last ones, provides a serious model for how the United States should
behave when, as I hope and believe, the Arab Spring will be succeeded
by a Central Asian Spring, allowing the peoples of that region at last
to gain what they were denied in 1991--genuine freedom, real democracy,
and the human rights that all peoples should enjoy.
In my brief remarks today, I would like to focus on three things:
first, the way in which the Arab Spring has affected thinking in
Central Asia both among the populations and among the powers that be,
underscoring the differences among the peoples of those states; second,
the particular risks of regime change in the countries of that region,
again country by country; and third, the way in which the U.S. and the
international community can best proceed to ensure the next step toward
genuine freedom for the peoples of this region.
Spring is Not an Impossible Dream
The peoples of the post-Soviet countries of Central Asia have been
told by their rulers that they must accept the status quo both because
it is the only one that can prevent still worse things, including the
imposition of Islamism, and because it enjoys widespread international
support from Western democracies who for one reason or another believe
that such authoritarian regimes are either useful or even more
necessary for peoples like themselves. But the events in the Arab
Spring have made such arguments less compelling than they were. After
all, the governments that have been toppled in the Arab world made
exactly the same arguments with perhaps even greater effec--until it
became obvious that the peoples of that region no longer accepted them
and that the West had begun to recognize that these claims were
unjustified and wrong.
The reason that authoritarian leaders use such arguments and come
down so hard on any display of collective demands for freedom is that
such demands are contagious. When people in country dare to be free, to
live not by lies, and to not be afraid, others elsewhere are inspired
to do the same. That is why there have been waves of democratization
across large parts of the world at various points in the last
generation, and it is why there is a new wave which has started in the
Middle East but which will not end there.
In defense of their positions, authoritarian regimes rely not only
on propaganda and police methods. They also rely on direct control of
what people can find out about what is going on elsewhere. But the
ability of these regimes to do that is small and declining. The
Internet and other forms of social media mean that it is almost
impossible to cut key groups off from learning what others are doing in
other countries. That does not mean that regimes won't try--almost all
of the regimes in Central Asia are doing so--but rather it means that
they will not succeed. And the splash effect of such knowledge is
larger than many understand.
Statistics on Internet penetration are less important than the fact
of such penetration. If a few people can learn the truth, they can tell
others. And that process means that even if the number of Web surfers
in Central Asia is still small, the number of those who benefit from
such knowledge is far larger. Indeed, one can argue that in many of
these countries, it has reached critical mass. And to the extent that
the Internet is supplemented by international broadcasting, both
radio--and for obvious reasons, it has to be shortwave--and direct-to-
home television broadcasting, the expansion in the spread of
information will lead over time to the expansion of human freedom.
On this as on all other measures, there are enormous differences
among the countries of this region, just as there are enormous
differences among the countries of the Arab world. Consequently, just
as the outcomes at any one point in the Arab world have ranged from
quiescence to peaceful demonstrations to mass violence, so too the
range of patterns in the Central Asian countries is likely to be large.
At the same time, however, because within the Arab world and within the
Central Asian world, people in one country often take their cue from
what is happening in another in their region, so too a breakthrough in
one Central Asian country, such as Kyrgystan, in response to
developments in the Arab world, is likely to play out across the other
Central Asian states more or less quickly.
Elections Rather Than Bullets Defeat Islamism
As an increasing number of American commentators are now pointing
out, the execution of Osama bin Laden is likely to have a smaller on
the future of terrorism than are the actions of Egyptians, Tunisians
and Libyans who are pressing for democratic rights. Indeed, the least
reflection will lead to the conclusion that the actions on the streets
of Cairo are a more definitive defeat of Al Qaeda than even the
liquidation of bin Laden. This message is increasingly being absorbed
among U.S. government leaders, who are ever more inclined to recognize
that the purchase of short-term stability through reliance on
authoritarian rulers gives a false sense of security.
That eliminates one of the key arguments that authoritarian rulers
in Central Asia have advanced, many Central Asian populations have
accepted, and that many Western governments including our own have made
the basis of policy. Supporting a dictator who claims he can hold off
Islamist extremism is a fool's errand: Such regimes are more likely to
produce Islamist responses than are democratic ones. That does not mean
that managing the transition from dictatorship to democracy is easy: It
is obvious that those who support democracy must ensure that no free
election will be the last one in any country.
But as Washington's approach in Egypt has shown, that is not an
impossible task. There are ways to develop safeguards against
backsliding, and there are ways to marginalize the extremists. That is
one of the things that democracy truly understood does best. Another
thing democracy does extremely well is allow for succession, an issue
that arose in the first instance in Egypt and that will arise soon in
many Central Asian countries whose presidents are aging Soviet-era
officials. If such individuals can be led to see that they will be
remembered as fathers of their countries if they allow the emergence of
a genuine opposition via elections, they will be more likely to take
that step than if they are encouraged to ``keep the lid on'' Islamic
assertiveness.
Everyone Needs Friends
As the events of the Arab Spring show, people who aspire to
democracy need friends abroad, but they need friends who understand
that support from abroad must be carefully calibrated lest it allow
authoritarian regimes to claim that the democratic movement is a cat's
paw for foreigners or it provoke the regimes into even more violent
action in ``defense of the nation.'' The United States showed that kind
of understanding in the case of Egypt, carefully calibrating its
statements and actions to the situation on the ground. But it has been
less successful elsewhere in the Arab world not only because the
leaders are less willing to see reason and yield to the people but also
because the United States has either immediate interests it wants to
protect or has less knowledge of the situation.
Unfortunately for the peoples of Central Asia, both of those
factors are even more on view there. The US relies on several of the
Central Asian countries for the passage of logistical support to the
US-led effort in Afghanistan and not surprisingly does not want to see
anything happen that might disrupt the flow of needed military
supplies. And the US knows far less about Central Asia than it does
about the Arab world. Few American representatives there speak the
national languages, instead continuing to rely on the former imperial
one; few US officials appear to view the Central Asian countries as
independent actors in their own right, instead viewing them as part of
Moscow's droit de regard. (The infamous case in which an American
president thanked the Russian president in public for allowing a US
base in Uzbekistan but did not thank the president of Uzbekistan is a
symbol of this.)
There is little appreciation of the nature of Central Asian
societies and the opportunities they have for development in a positive
way. Instead, the focus in Washington is almost exclusively on the
problems they represent: drug flows, human trafficking, corruption,
violence, and unemployment among the urban young. All of these things
are true, but they are neither the whole story nor can they be
adequately addressed by authoritarian measures. Indeed, addressed in
the ways that the regimes of this region have, these problems
collectively can be the breeding ground for further violence and the
replacement of the current authoritarian regimes by perhaps even more
authoritarian Islamist ones.
That is something that the US does not yet appear to grasp, but if
we are to be a friend to these peoples, we must understand that the
only approach which gives hope of a truly better future for them is a
commitment by us to the careful and continuing promotion of human
rights and demography. Our doing that will add to the courage of those
who are already inspired by the Arab Spring and will thus promote a
change of seasons in Central Asia as well.
The authoritarian governments of Central Asia have maintained
themselves not only by pointing to the threat that any change would
bring Islamist regimes to power--something they make more likely the
longer they are in office--but also by arguing that they have provided
security and increasing prosperity for their peoples. In fact, they
have provided neither. The peoples of Central Asia are less secure and
less well off than they were. But even if it were true that they had
done so, that is not enough for the peoples of the region, and it
should not be enough for us.
In thinking about the situation in the post-Arab Spring Central
Asia, one cannot fail to recall a Soviet anecdote from 1968. The story
has it that two dogs meet at the border of Poland and Czechoslovakia.
The Polish dog is sleek and fat, while the Czechoslovak dog is skin and
bones. The Czechoslovak dog who is heading toward Poland asks the
Polish dog why he is heading toward Czechoslovakia. The Polish dog
replies he is doing so because he would like, for once in his life, to
bark.
That message reverberated through Eastern Europe and then through
the USSR with increasing power. It convinced many that, in Mikhail
Gorbachev's words, ``we cannot continue to live like that''--and more
important still it led them to conclude that they didn't have to any
more. That is what the peoples of Central Asia are learning from the
Arab Spring. They want what all people want and deserve, and with the
help of the people and government who pioneered human rights, they have
a chance to gain sometime soon what they were promised but did not get
twenty years ago.
Prepared Statement of Dr. Stephen J. Blank, Professor of National
Security Affairs, U.S. Army War College
Introduction
The Arab revolutions of 2011 have captured the world's attention
and demonstrated the power of the revolutionary idea to spread like
wildfire. In these regards they resemble Europe's revolutions of 1848
and 1989 that also were analogized to the spring. But it is this very
capacity for rapid spread and (as in 1848) for subsequent resistance by
imperiled autocracies that is on Russia, China, and every Central Asian
government's political agenda even if those states will not admit it.
Even if they suppress news of these revolutions, they and their
partners in the Russian and Chinese governments are extremely concerned
about the possibility of this crisis spreading to their doorstep.
Indeed, we already see demonstrations in Azerbaijan, by no means the
worst of these regimes. And there is talk of demonstrations in
Uzbekistan, one of the very worst regimes in the area.\1\
As of May 2011 governments have fallen in Tunisia and Egypt and are
on the point of falling in Yemen. However, violence has been used, or
imported by rulers with some success in Syria, Libya, and Bahrain,
attesting to the determination of these pillars of the old order to
retain their power and prerogatives and perhaps their staying power.
Indeed, even in the newly constituted governments of Tunisia and Egypt
it is by no means certain that democracy in one of its variants will
ultimately prevail. It already appears that the best organized party
and movement in Egypt is the Muslim Brotherhood and the constellation
of Salafist organizations around it. As happened in 1848 the democrats
could fail and new despotisms, backed by force, could come to the fore
or old ones could reconstitute or reinvent themselves. It is quite
conceivable that despite the excitement of the Arab spring the
practical alternatives before different Arab societies could boil down
to some new form of military authoritarianism or Islamic and clearly
anti-liberal and anti-democratic parties. That outcome would
undoubtedly retard the appearance of democratic movements across
Eurasia and give comfort to the current upholders of the status quo.
But even if a revolution broke out in Central Asia in the immediate or
foreseeable future it is likewise, by no means certain that it would
bring liberals or convinced Democrats to power.\2\ Democratic outcomes
cannot be taken for granted and euphoria is clearly unwarranted.
Moreover, these regimes have some very powerful advantages. They
exercise total control over their media and are intensifying those
controls as noted below. They also have organized their armed forces to
suppress not only external threats but also internal uprisings.\3\ They
also have a safety valve as long as the Russian economy continues to
grow because they can then export many of their unemployed young men,
the usual incendiary element in demonstrations, to Russia for work and
benefit from their remittances.\4\ And they can count on Russian and
possibly Chinese military protection should a revolutionary crisis
occur. They may well be able to count on US political support as well,
at least for a time, even though the Administraton is now counseling
governments like Kazakhstan to undertake reforms. This would espeically
be true if they can credibly argue that their opposition is Islamist
and affiliated with terorrism.\5\ This would be an especially strong
argument in the context of the war in Afghanistan.
There are also other domestic factors working for them. Liberal
Democratic political actors on the ground in Central Asia who command
genuine authority and mass support are scarce and have been subjected
to twenty years of unrelenting and ruthless suppression. Moreover, it
is by no means clear, neither should it be taken for granted, that
Central Asian populations want our concept of liberal democracy, i.e.
want what we want. Moreover, past mistakes have undermined the
attraction of the US or European models. Culturally and historically
there is almost nothing in their experience to justify such
simplisitic, unfounded, and misleading policy advocacy or
prescriptions.\6\ The middle classes, the historical mass support base
for liberal democracy, are quite weak, dependent, and lack
organizational resources and traditions. Civil society may be a concept
without a deeply rooted reality here except in limited situations.
Moreover, the region faces enormous political and economic challenges
both within each state and on a reigonal basis. Nevertheless, there is
no doubt that these rulers are afraid.
Tajikistan's President, Emomali Rahmon told his Parliament on April
20, 2011 that,
Much has been said and written about the possibility of the
repetition of such events in Central Asia,--I want to reiterate
that the wise people of Tajikistan, who were once the victims
of such events, know the meaning of peace and stability. They
are aware of the importance of peace and stability.--They have
gone through civil wars; therefore, they reject military
solutions to any problem.\7\
Similarly Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov recently
said that abundance of goods at domestic markets, especially food, and
cheap prices are key indicators of progress and stability.\8\ As a
result governments in the region are doing their best to leave nothing
to chance.\9\
The Status Quo and Its Defenders
Twenty years after the fall of Communism at least two of Central
Asia's states may fairly be described as failing states, i.e.
Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan while Paul Quinn-Judge of the International
Crisis Group believes that Uzbekistan is not far behind.\10\ Indeed, a
succession crisis there, which he deems inevitable given the absence of
any discernible plan or order for succession to the seventy-two year
old President, Islam Karimov, could throw Uzbekistan into that kind of
tailspin characteristic of such states. But even if Uzbekistan is not
currently failing, it, like all the other Central Asian states except
Kyrgyzstan is a strong autocratic despotism and all of them share many
characteristics of patrimonial or even in some cases Sultanistic
states. Hence succession crises may be not only something they have in
common given the nature of their governance, but also in each country
such crises could well be the major threat to the stability of the
state, not just the particular regime in question. In turn that
succession crisis and ensuing crisis of the state could possibly create
an opening for a genuine Islamic movement to attempt to seize power.
Likewise, although it does not seem likely right now, in the future one
or more of these states could fall prey to a form of unrest analogous
to what we now see in the Arab world, a succession crisis could ignite
a much deeper and broader upheaval.\11\ Kyrgyzstan's ``revolution'' of
2010 is such an example, and as suggested below, the sudden death of
Turkmen President Sapirmurad Niyazov in 2006 triggered widespread
apprehensions about just such a major crisis in Turkmenistan and even
beyond its borders.
Therefore we should be alert to the possibility of state failure in
one or more Central Asian states. Indeed, it could happen almost
suddenly without warning. A recent analysis of North Korea reminds us
that the more repressive and artificially maintained the regime is the
more sudden and precipitous is its fall. Likewise, the worse the level
of oppression, e.g. state violence as in Uzbekistan, is, the greater is
the nightmare upon liberation.\12\
For Russia, China, and the post-Soviet governments of the CIS,
these revolutions' implications for these regimes' domestic prospects
these revolutions represent a clear and present danger. Moreover, all
these rulers fully appreciate the dangers they could face if these
revolts migrate to their countries. For example, Russia's anxiety about
the possiblity of the Arab revolutions spreading to Central Asia was
the topic of a public discussion in the Duma. Accordingly members of
the Duma and Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin called on these
states to make timely reforms from above lest they be swept away like
those in North Africa. Since Russia's goals are stability, without
which these states cannot draw closer to Russia he recommended the
formation from above of a civil society, international and inter-
religious peace, responsibility of leaders for the standard of living
of the population, the development of education and work with
youth.\13\ Clearly this is not enough and no mention is made of
economic development or freedom or genuine political reform. In other
words, Russia is only willing to tolerate cosmetic reforms and it is
doubtful that Cetnral Asian leaders will go beyond those limits even if
they approach them.
Thus in Kazakhstan, President Nursultan Nazarbayev called for an
instant election rather than a palpably stage-managed referendum to
give him life tenure because that latter option was too egregious a
move in the current climate. Meanwhile in Uzbekistan, an already
draconian state in many ways, we see a further crackdown on mobile
internet media along with denials by government agencies throughout the
area that revolution is possible. Indeed, Uzbekistan has taken control
over cellular companies there instructing companies to report on any
suspicious actions by customers and on any massive distributions of
text messages through their cellular lines.\14\ Azerbaijan too has
attacked Facebook and Skype.\15\ We also see that Uzbekistan and
Turkmenistan have instituted news blackouts.\16\
Such moves emulate the draconian laws put in place by Russia and,
Iran, and Kazakhstan as a result of the earlier color revolutions of
2003-05, the Iranian elections and Xinjiang uprisings of 2009, and
China's move to intensify its already harsh controls on the Internet in
2011.\17\ These harsh moves against electronic media come on top of a
situation demonstating that press freedom in Eurasia is at its ``lowest
ebb'' in over a decade.\18\ Meanwhile, in Azerbaijan, where unrest has
been growing since late 2010 in repsonse to the regime's moves to crack
down on dissent and Islamic agitation (not necessarily the same thing),
large demonstrations are now occurring. Thus the Azeri government,
seeing the failure of earlier tactics is now trying to work with
influential Western media outlets to change public opinion so that it
will believe no changes are expected even as mild criticism is
tolerated. Similarly the government will organize tours from Western
elites to perusade people that the West is cooperating with Baku, and
it will raise pensions, salaries, and social services while either
coopting or suppressing the opposition.\19\
Clearly these regimes are whistling in the wind and have good
reason for anxiety. Such events undoubtedly stimulate Moscow's and
Beijing's anxities as well. They might also stimulate US anxieties
since the US has inclined to support these regimes as allies in the war
in Afghanistan despite their checkered domestic records, thereby
showing the military priority of US policy over the impulse towards
democracy promotion.\20\ Furthermore were a revolution to break out in
Azerbaijan there would be major grounds for foreign concern for there
is very good reason to believe that Iran is a major force behind the
opposition AIP party whose leader was imprisoned for advocating the
regime's overthrow.\21\
Certainly there are points of similarities between Arab and Central
Asian societies, e.g. youth bulges with large ranks of unemployed young
men and ``starkly autocratic regimes.'' \22\ Based on statistical
analysis Ralph Clem recently wrote that,
The empirical data available suggest a very close fit between
socioeconomic conditions in Egypt and Tunisia on the one hand
and the five Central Asian countries on the other, especially
with regard to the youthfulness of the population. In other
respects and in some countries, the pre-conditions associated
with political unrest are even more problematic in Central Asia
than in North Africa. Certainly Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan are
assessed to be more corrupt and less free than either Egypt or
Tunisia. However, Kazakhstan ranks higher than any of the North
African or Central Asian countries in the human development
indices and is less corrupt and freer than any of its
neighbors. Recognizing that none of these measures capture
perfectly the reality on the ground, and that other, non-
quantifiable influences can be crucial to political outcomes,
and if conventional wisdom regarding the importance of these
structural factors is correct in the Egyptian and Tunisian
cases, then this comparison with Central Asia portends
turbulence ahead, particularly for Uzbekistan and
Tajikistan.\23\
To be fair, Clem's conclusions are by no means universally agreed
upon. Several writers have recently argued that revolutionary upheavals
are unlikely in Central Asia in the immediate future. And it is clearly
the case that internal factors rather than external ones will be the
determining factors concerning the incidence of a revolution.\24\ But
even if one accepts the argument that the indigenous forces of
liberalism are quite weak and that the populations are not visibly
disposed at present to support democracy as in North Africa, the
domestic conditions singled out by Clem are telling in that they create
an immense amount of internal pressure for change which, if bottled up,
will sooner or later explode. And, of course, that explosion need not
assume a liberal-democratic character. At the same time, however, it
also should be pointed out that virtually every analysis of Central
Asia confirms the incidence of these pressures that Clem listed.
As discussed above, widespread official corruption, growing Islamic
fundamentalism, ethnic minority and/or clan and family concerns,
burgeoning populations the inability to provide basic social services
for the population extant, unemployment and underemployment, large-
scale out-migration and the growing dependence on remittances,
increasing involvement in the international narcotics trade and the
attendant rise of domestic drug use, as well as environmental
degradation and squabbles over increasingly scarce water supplies all
pose significant challenges to the Central Asian states now and in the
future. Add to this rising food prices, inflation, power outages,
deteriorating medical care, and an underperforming educational system
and the prospects for Central Asia appear even bleaker.\25\
Consequently an upheaval in Uzbekistan, particularly during
continuing conflict in Afghanistan, has immense geopolitical
repercussions throughout the region given Uzbekistan's centrality to
the war effort in Uzbekistan and the fact of its being the most
geopolitically central and key prize of all the Central Asian
states.\26\ Indeed, despite Uzbekistan's rank misrule it is sustained
by its alliances with all of the major powers having interests in
Central Asia and its key position astride the Northern Distribution
Network to Afghanistan (NDN) has led US diplomats, who are fully aware
of this misrule, to stress the necessity of maintaining at least
``minimally decorous relations'' with it to sustain the NDN.\27\
But Uzbekistan might be the worst governed of these states only in
a relative sense. Governance in all of these states displays the
triumph of informal relationships: clan, tribe, and/or family,
triumphing over formal and legal ones. That trend is the opposite of
most modern states. So we see in Central Asia at best an incomplete
modernization and the persistence of archaic social structures and
practices that have nonetheless become functional in these states.
Moreover, because these rulers fear any reform there is a constant
temptation and tendency towards the accumulation of ever more power and
wealth at the expense of the nation and ever-present tendencies towards
more, not less authoritarian or even quasi-totalitarian forms of rule.
Nepotism and systematic corruption are rife everywhere. And with the
rise of narcotics trafficking, widespread criminality pervades several
governments. Alternative forms of corruption and predation lead to the
same conclusion. These states' rulers enjoy control over or access to
hugely disproportionate amounts of the state's economy which in many
cases are dominated by one or two crops or raw materials like oil, gas,
cotton, copper, gold, etc. At the same time they have preserved
previous socio-economic structures like the Soviet system of cotton
farming in Uzbekistan as highly serviceable forms of socio-political
control and exploitation, e.g. child labor in Uzbek cotton farming.\28\
This phenomenon too exemplifies the melange of old and new that
characterizes the region's socio-political structures and creates so
much difficulty for analysts and external policymakers wishing to
ameliorate conditions there.
Thanks to their ability to forge this control over people and
resources Central Asian leaders have translated that power and access
into personalized forms of rule and rent seeking that displays and
characterizes all the pathologies listed above. There is abundant
evidence of widespread corruption, accelerating income differentials in
income and extremely unbalanced concentrations of wealth, and pervasive
signs of anomie and anomic behavior. Those signs take the form of
family breakdowns, huge increases in drug addiction, criminality
(including official corruption), torture of dissidents, more brutal
forms of sexual discrimination and exploitation of women, ecological
devastation, widespread poverty, ethnic intolerance (as in Osh in
2010), etc. Consequently most foreign observers see this region as
being plagued by multiple overlapping structural crises embodying all
these pathologies if not more.
Kyrgyzstan, which is anything but an autocracy, is perched
precariously on the brink of ungovernability and subject at any times
to mass unrest either ethnic or political, as its own officials admit.
And while its leaders claim to be building democracy, this only applies
to the ornamental or dignified parts of the state not its effective
governing aspects. And in its case these effective aspects of
governance are often carried out not just on the basis of regional,
clan, tribal, or ethnic affiliation, but also by thinly disguised
criminal enterprises.\29\ Therefore rhetoric aside, we cannot and
should not term Kyrgyzstan a democracy or a state that is building one.
Indeed, it is barely a consolidated state.
Tajikistan, though clearly an autocracy, is on the verge of
economic and presumably political collapse.\30\ It permanently
confronts multiple, reinforcing, and often overlapping pressures:
economic, political, climactic, and external. Even without the spark
provided by the Arab revolution it exists in a state of permanent
insecurity and as a result for a long time has had to outsource its
security to outside powers, particularly Russia. Therefore it is at the
mercy of these outside powers. Recently China forced Tajikistan to cede
it about 1 percent of its territory supposedly in return for assurances
of Tajikistan's long-term security, clearly a dubious rationale.
Tajikistan is also on very bad terms with its neighbor Uzbekistan over
questions of water and electricity use and almost went to war with it
in 2010. Tajikistan's decision to restart the Rogun dam project in 2010
triggered this spike in tensions and the Tajik media if not government
clearly worries that a war with Uzbekistan might ensue that could then
be exploited by unnamed third parties. Thus these media stories
advocate mediation by neutral parties like the EU.
Although the Sarikamysh gas fields explored by Gazprom may satisfy
Tajikistan's power needs through 2060, these reserves do not satisfy
Dushanbe's goal of using water-generated hydropower to become an energy
exporter in Central and south Asia. Thus Tajikistan and Uzbekistan
still confront each other, increasing the need for outside mediation.
But Tajikistan's problems do not end here. Instead they only begin
here. Its regime is notoriously corrupt with President Ermomali Rahmon
having built a $300 million presidential palace in a state whose annual
GDP is about $700 million. He justifies this expense by claiming it is
necessary to impress foreign heads of state. But clearly neither
Beijing nor Tashkent is sufficiently impressed to refrain from
threatening Tajikistan. Likewise, Russia, its main protector, has now
raised energy tariffs on Tajikistan just before the crucial spring
planting season when farmers need oil for their tractors. Russia used
similar tactics in 2010 to ignite the Kyrgyz revolution of that year
and to signal its unhappiness with Kyrgyz policies. Now Russia is
unhappy with Rahmonov's efforts to seal of the border with Afghanistan.
Instead Russia wants to resume control of the border, probably not just
to curtail the drug traffic from Afghanistan against which it
habitually rails. There are other issues wherein Moscow wants
Tajikistan to make an overt declaration of fealty and subservience to
it rather than pursue what its neighbors call multivector policies
towards all the outside actors. Thus Moscow wants to confirm Tajikistan
as a satellite of Russia, not an independent actor who can play other
states off against each other.
Since Tajikistan depends on Russia for its energy imports and
support on water issues this is a strong form of pressure. But it also
faces the specter of domestic unrest, possibly inspired by the Arab
revolution. Media reports criticize the regime for ``cosmetic'' reforms
that amount to very little and warn that the ``Google generation'' is
longing for radical change and very frustrated. Journalists have also
written recently ``the people's patience is limited.'' A recent public
opinion survey by TOJNews Information Company concluded that the boss
of Tajikistan's Islamic party is more trusted than is Rahmonov who got
only 6.5% of the vote, another disturbing sign of potential unrest.
Yet at the same time the threat paradigm in Central Asia is not
confined to the internal pathologies of misrule and what Max Manwaring
of the US Army War College has called illegitimate governance.\31\
Neither is the primary threat the possiblity of terorism emanating form
Afghanistan. While this would be a threat should NATO withdraw from
Afghanistan before achieving either a victory or political resolution
there, that is currently and for the foreseeable future not the main
external threat to Central Asian states. In fact, as discerning
observers recognize, there is almost as much potential for inter-state
conflict in Central Asia as there is for a domestic crisis that could
precipitate a state's disintegration.\32\ Indeed, the two phenomena
could overlap if an internal crisis inside one state exploded, and
every Central Asian leader understands this linkage and consequently
strives to the utmost to avoid it. So while security in Central Asia
must be understood in broad, holistic terms, the interaction of these
rivalries among the local governments, combined with this illegitimate
governance and external interest creates a hideously complex security
situation.
The Security Equation in Central Asia
Therefore if we were to assess the implications of the Arab Spring
or the Arab Revolution for these governments those implications might
look very different to them than they do to us. While Americans
generally welcome these trends but have some concerns for their future,
they haunt Central Asian and Russian, and Chinese rulers with the
specter of an unmitigated disaster. The first conclusions that they
drew long preceded the Arab revolutions and were inspired by the only
partially successful color revolutions in the CIS of 2003-05 if not the
Iranian, and Moldovan unrest of 2009. These regimes then learned what
is clearly the central lesson of the Arab upheaval, namely that victory
goes to he who controls the loyalty of the armed forces, usually armed
forces that are deliberately multiplied and divided into several
different formations, many of which have a primary mission of
preserving internal security and suppressing unrest. In Russia and
China we see an expansion of the number of police, paramilitary, and
miliary units and of these organizations' missions.\33\ Although little
research has been done on these organizations in Central Asia, it is
quite likely that they have been beefed up to squelch internal
manifestations of dissent as in the Andijan Massacre of 2005.\34\
Second, they have long since moved to suppress potential for
organizing, again in response to much earlier crises. Elections
throughout the CIS and China are a foregone conclusion and parties are
essentially either created from above by the regime or denuded of any
real capability for challenging the status quo.\35\ Third, they have
moved, as noted above, like China, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, and
Turkmenistan to suppress new information technologies. In fact,
according to some commentators, Russia is working to prevent a
``Facebook Revolution'' by proposing that the owners of online social
media be responsible for all content posted on their web sites.\36\
Indeed, the haste and comprehensiveness with which these regimes
have moved since 2003 to batten down all the hatches eloquently
testifies to the fact that the structures of governance thoughout much
of Eurasia remain fundamentally unstable and certainly illegitimate.
This was certainly clear in 2009 given unrest in Moldova, Iran, and
Xinjiang. These manifestations of unrest showed the power of the new
information technology and social networking programs, and how they can
be used to threaten corrupt and repressive regimes that seek to rule
through electoral fraud, repression, and internal colonialism in China.
There is also no doubt that these manifestations of unrest have serious
repercussions beyond their borders. Often the silence of official media
in authoritarian states is itself an eloquent testimony to this impact
because the rulers fear the impact of such news upon their populace. We
have evidence of deep scrutiny of Iranian events in 2009 in neighboring
Azerbaijan whose independent media thoroughly reported the news from
Iran while its official media was very quiet.\37\ Indeed, the Azeri
government actually called for stability in Iran despite its wary
relationship with Tehran, a sure sign of its anciety over the
demonstrations there.\38\
This kind of reaction to signs of spreading unrest suggests not
just that these regional governing structures are fundamentally
unstable but also that they are prone to recurring crises and may again
be entering a dynamic phase of political development. In fact these
episodes testify to the inherent fragility of anti-democratic regimes
and their recurring susceptibility to internal violence. Consequently
these regimes will try to ensure beyond any doubt that the outcome is
foreordained and then ratified as legitimate. In practice this suggests
that across Eurasia, especially if domestic tensions grow stronger in
these states we may see repeat manifestations of policies adopted
against the demonstrators of 2009. Those policies comprise the
following developments across Eurasia:
We can expect increased interference with the operation of free
media and in particular a crackdown on the information technology of
social networking. Authoritarian regimes' success in this endeavor to
date calls into question the previously unquestioned assumption that
this technology inherently favors freedom and its supporters.\39\ The
most extreme example of this kind of repression evidently occurred in
Xinjiang in 2009.
After ethnic riots took place in July 2009, the Internet was cut
off in the entire province for six months, along with most mobile text
messaging and international phone service. No one in Xinjiang could
send e-mail or access any website--domestic or foreign. Business people
had to travel to the bordering province of Gansu to communicate with
customers. Internet access and phone service have since been restored,
but with severe limitations on the number of messages that people can
send on their mobile phones per day, no access to overseas websites,
and very limited access even to domestic Chinese websites. Xinjiang-
based Internet users can only access watered-down versions of official
Chinese news and information sites, with many of the functions such as
blogging or comments disabled.\40\
This repression can also go beyond suppression of the free use of
the internet and of other forms of information technology and social
networking to include periodic or at least intermittent efforts to
isolate the country from foreign media, including expulsions of foreign
writers, denial of visas to them, interference with the internet, news
blackouts, and increased threats if not use of repression against news
outlets and their reporters. These threats need not include violence,
they can be effectively implemented by economic means, denying revenue
from advertising, or by what Russians call telephone justice, i.e.
telephone calls from authorities to compliant editors. This also means
greater efforts to develop a ``patriotic'' media and mobilize popular
support around those tamed and docile ``house organs.'' So it is quite
likely that those repressions of new and older media will also be
accompanied by favoritism for the ``patriotic'' media and the
systematic inculcation of nationalist xenophobia, something we see
already in China, Russia, and Iran. Thus Karimov, has now charged the
West with funding the Arab revolutions to gain access to oil, gas, and
mineral reserves.\41\
Increased restrictions upon opposition political movements are also
likely. This repression will occur, not just in terms of their freedom
of communication or access to the media, but also in terms of the right
to assembly and publicly protest their condition. Invariably this also
entails heightened forms of repression. In Iran in 2009 the regime
essentially blanketed the country with police forces and some officials
threatened the opposition with heavy jail terms or even with being
labeled enemies of the state.\42\ And in Xinjiang that year the
authorities followed suit and threatened any demonstrators with the
death penalty.\43\ This likely trend also means more show trials and
repressions like that of Mikhail Khodorkovsky in 2009-10 and of Iranian
protesters during the same period. These kinds of show trials may also
be used to settle factional and clan scores in Central Asia whose
states are governed by clan and patron-client politics.\44\ In whatever
form they appear they will be educational as Soviet rulers intended,
and a deterrent to political activity in their impact. Here we should
remember that Russia once again has a Gulag with political prisoners in
psychiatric institutions, repressiveness and insecurity of property and
the reintroduction of a ``boyar''-like retinue around an all-powerful
ruler who rules through a state-sponsored cult of personality.\45\
Neither can we doubt Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan's verified records of
torture of prisoners.\46\ The numerous reports of the Russian
authorities' fears of social unrest during a time of economic crisis,
the government's adoption of new repressive measures to deal with them,
and the strengthening of the CSTO's capability to intervene in Central
Asian states suggests that a strong effort will be made to suppress any
sign of political unrest in both Russia and Eurasia at the first moment
lest it connect with growing economic grievances.\47\ Indeed, Russia
has also recently enacted many new regulations designed to forestall
and repress any expression of mass unrest due to the economic crisis.
Besides this fact a recent study of Kyrgyz and Kazakh counter-
terrorism legislation openly links developing trends in these two sets
of laws that are increasingly repressive in the absence of much
terrorist activity to these states' perception of Russia whose laws
they are clearly emulating as a ``reference group'' for them, i.e. a
state that has crated the basis for persuading these states to
internalize its legislation.\48\ Thus Russia's counterterror
legislation which serves as a template for countries like Kazakhstan,
has served as a potent instrument for the repression of democratic
political activity in Russia and in these countries. As a recent study
of that legislation indicates,
Aside from provisions of counterterrorism legislation that
strip individuals of many of their basic rights and judicial
protections, the Russian law On Counteraction to Terrorism
contains a number of loopholes surrounding the definition of
terrorism. Terrorist activity, according to the Russian law,
includes among other things, ``informational or other types of
assistance'' at various stages of terrorism, as well as ``the
propaganda of terrorist ideas. Dissemination of materials or
information which urge terrorist activity, substantiate and
justify the need for such activity.'' The liability for
``informational assistance'' threatens to become a major
deterrent to the circulation of unofficial information about
terrorist attacks by broadcasting organizations. Liability for
the ``justification of terrorism'' which was established by an
amendment to Russia's Criminal Code in July 2007, has already
had a chilling effect on the freedom of speech and open debate
concerning terrorism. There are considerable risks of a
politically motivated enforcement of these legislative
proposals. The federal law on mass media has been amended with
a new restriction that prohibits public justifications of
terrorism by mass media sources. Given that terrorism has
always been a politically charged item, it is very difficult to
separate terrorism from other manifestations of politically
motivated violence. The imposition of the ban the vaguely
defined justifications of terrorism can promote editorial self-
censorship and restrictions on the freedom of expression. It
may stifle investigative journalism and promote censorship of
news media articles on contentious topics related to
terrorism.\49\
And new legislation to silence the media even more is currently
being proposed.\50\ Such actions betray a traditional Russian (not just
Soviet) military-police approach not only to terrorism, but to the
whole question of internal dissent and regime stability. Thus Andrei
Soldatov observes that the FSB and Ministry of Interior, (MVD) reacted
to these revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt by proposing to amend the
criminal code to make the owners of social networks responsible for all
content posted on their sites and to force them to register with the
state.
Kazakhstan's efforts to ban the book of Rakhat Aliyev, Nazarbayev's
ex-son in law and the 2009-10 purge of former high-ranking officials on
corruption charges also opens the door to the possibility of a larger
campaign to stifle any potential political opposition. Similar
phenomena can be expected and should not be ruled out in other Central
Asian states, especially given a prolonged economic crisis that could
shake the pillars of the state. Indeed, even though Kazakhstan was the
OSCE Chairman in 2010 its human rights situation essentially
deteriorated still further.\51\ The new media law and the law on
political parties that were supposed to embody promises made to the
OSCE for reforms signed into effect by President Nazarbayev in February
2009 do not meet OSCE standards.\52\ Certainly Kazakhstan's earlier
elections and the awarding of life tenure to Nazarbayev cannot be
portrayed as manifestations of democracy. Although Kazakh authorities
have rightly emphasized the country's basic religious tolerance, its
freedom of religion law was found to violate the country's constitution
and was withdrawn. Nonetheless it needs to be redone.
Worse, the new law on the Internet restricts freedom of expression
via the Internet and aroused a large amount of controversy.\53\ Indeed,
according to US experts this law is even more draconian than Russia's
law and could easily serve as a template for other Central Asian
governments.\54\ Beyond the fact that Nazarbayev openly advocated
limitations on the freedom of the Internet, there have been recent
massive hacker attacks on opposition websites and Internet
resources.\55\ Andrey Richter, an expert from the OSCE, has confirmed
that this law completely contradicts the promises made by Kazakh
authorities concerning civil and human rights.\56\ As Alexei Simonov,
Head of the Glasnost' Defense Fund observed,
Kazakhstan's desire to be a European power is quite
noticeable despite its Asian location. So I think that Astana
will have to listen to the opinion of human rights activists,
because the image of Kazakhstan, which is already not the most
glowing, will be ruthlessly torpedoed by these amendments [to
the law on the media and concerning the internet], Kazakhstan
will quickly find itself at the bottom, among states that are
not liked because they severely violate the human right to
freedom of speech and opinion.\57\
Although Foreign Minister Marat Tazhin and Ambassador to the US
Erlan Idrissov have repeatedly stated that a genuine multi-party
system, independent media, and term limits for the president are or
have been enacted into legislation and that Kazakhstan is ``determined
to continue our policy of democratization in conformity with
international human rights standards,'' Kazakhstan is and remains a
Potemkin democracy.\58\
Authoritarianism has remained inviolate and unchanged since 1991
and much of the social science literature that could be used to analyze
Kazakhstan's political system would point to a continuing
authoritarianism and little reform. However, there is the possibility
that Kazakhstan's commitment to the accords it made with the OSCE in
Madrid in 2007 could enable activists to utilize those principles of
international and domestic accords to launch a more vigorous campaign
for the Kazakh government to observe human rights as it committed
itself to doing and thus replicate the experience of Eastern Europe and
the Soviet Union a generation ago.\59\
It also is clearly ruled in dynastic fashion with Nazarbayev
astutely balancing clans and factions. Niyazov's death reportedly
forced Nazarbayev to start thinking about succession in 2007 and it
also alerted these clans who had hitherto not challenged him or the
regime to follow suit. The result has been something of a series of
continuing intrigues around this issue. According to Stratfor.com,
Nazarbayev decided to step down in 2010 in order to be able
to bolster whoever succeeded him and keep the peace. But the
infighting proved too strong and risky, compelling Nazarbayev's
supporters to name him ``Leader of the Nation''--meaning he
would always be in charge, not matter the position. The
declaration was more a safety net than anything. The political
theater surrounding rumors of succession decisions grew more
dramatic over the past year, leading to the decision in January
to call for a snap election for April.\60\
At the same time he had originally planned to call for a referendum
to certify his position and make it unassailable till 2020.
Unfortunately Western governments communicated their unhappiness with
this move and it certainly seemed impolitic as the Arab revolution
gathered steam. So it was shelved and a snap presidential election
called.\61\ Nevertheless the election was widely reported to have major
shortcomings and Nazarbayev's political advisor Yermukhamet Yertsybayev
told reporters that ``I think the president is going to run the country
for ten years more, and if someone in the West doesn't like it, they'll
have to get used
to it.'' \62\
However, in the meantime a game of balancing rival clans and
factions continues while members of the inner circle, especially his
daughter and son-in law, Timur Kulibayev, who are worth an estimated
$2.5 billion, become targets of corruption investigations abroad and
bywords for corruption.\63\ Under these circumstances it is not
surprising that in the wake of his election Nazarbayev announced his
intention to strengthen the Parliament and regional governments while
deconcentrating central executive power.\64\ Whatever the democratizing
implications of his plan may be or whatever ambitions for democracy
Nazarbayev has, this move widens the circles of elites, dilutes the
clans and factions close to him, and strengthens his hand to pick his
successor while diffusing power so that nobody can amass too much power
in the future. Nazarbayev's charge to his new government is to reduce
corruption although that is hard to do given the corruption at the top.
Second, Yertsybayev apparently envisages reforms from the top to create
state-led parties of power and of opposition.\65\ This system would
allegedly be a ``Presidential-Parliamentary system'' able to function
in Nazarbayev's absence. And there are rumors that Kulibayev would duly
lead the opposition party, thus confirming the continuation of a kind
of Potemkin democracy.\66\
This plan has apparently infuriated opponents of the regime but
they are in no position to stop it. It would appear that Nazarbayev's
concept of reform is to ensure a smooth transition to his successor
whoever that may be, not to strengthen the overall system's
responsiveness to society. Instead he apparently aims at building a
relatively closed but seemingly self-sustaining system of presidential-
Parliamentary relationships. But this is likely to be a chimera in the
absence of the rule of law, governmental accountability, and genuine
reform. Indeed, it may lead to new authoritarianism or to sustained
political strife after Nazarbayev leaves the scene.\67\ Since the
succession remains unresolved and nobody can stop the ruling family's
corruption or machinations to revise the constitution whenever it
likes, it is doubtful that genuine democracy can be initiated from the
top or that the nature of the state will change substantially as long
as Nazarbayev rules and possibly for some time after that. Whether it
works or not, this and other trends in Kazakhstan highlight the
unresolved nature of the succession and the fact that the astute
economic policies followed until now depend too much on one man's
wisdom. Despite his great achievements this is not the best augury for
the future. Meanwhile in Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, and
Tajikistan we do not even see this much effort to advance reforms but
it is clear that there are struggles for power and position within the
inner circles of these regimes.
Finally along with the growth of repression and electoral chicanery
we can also expect a growth in officially sponsored xenophobia and
nationalism. We already saw that in Kyrgyzstan in 20910 and it would
not be hard to stimulate such feelings since every government in
Central Asia has been busily proclaiming a kind of state nationalism
since 1991. As a result, and given the widespread phenomenon of ethnic
diasporas and minority nationalities in Central Asia there are ready
targets for such campaigns in almost all of these states.
The point is that these regimes are so aware of their inherent
fragility that they know very well that the spread of democracy or even
of reform, not to speak of revolution in any one nearby state
immediately puts them all at risk. To them ultimately there is no
difference between the spread of democracy or military defeat in their
peripheries because it will amount to the same thing, the loss of their
power. It is not by chance that in 2006 Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov
wrote that for Russia wrote that the greatest threat to Russian
security was efforts to transform the ``constitution'' of any of the
CIS members.\68\
Therefore we can expect more resistance to the US' calls for
democratization and human rights, which, in fact, have been attenuated
under the present Administration. It makes no sense to demand that
states like Turkmenistan conform to human rights obligations when we
refuse to press China or Russia, the latter being a signatory of the
Helsinki treaty, to uphold their treaty commitments. Since Russia is in
many ways an alibi and a cover for other Eurasian states who are merely
adding to their ultimate insecurity by these practices, this makes
pressing Russia to adhere to its human rights obligations doubly
important even if Moscow does not like to hear it. For if we refrain
from doing so, this only tells Russian leaders that we are not serious
in our commitment and that they can therefore disregard us with
impunity. And we leave ourselves wide open to charges of hypocrisy
throughout the CIS. Moreover, when the reckoning for these states
comes, as it surely will, we will once again be caught unprepared
without a policy response to that crisis.
Practical Policies of Repression
Another lesson that was learned even before these Arab uprisings
was to crack down on Islamic beliefs, practices, and institutions. For
example, in Azerbaijan the government has struck against both Islamic
trends and their political advocates. The latest episode in
Azerbaijan's ``twilight struggle'' between the government and the
Islamist opposition revolves around the government's ban of the Hijab
for teenage girls in Azeri high schools. As we know from other Islamic
countries like Iran, the Hijab signifies not just extreme religious
affiliation but also a political statement about the nature of the
society, state, and the role of women in society. Azerbaijan's
government, with its traditional tolerance for a looser form of Muslim
observance and Western tendencies, has opposed this kind of medievalism
and sought to ban it from its schools. Naturally this ban aroused the
ire of the apparently growing religious Islamic community leading to
demonstrations at the end of 2010 and beginning of 2011. The leader of
the outlawed and overtly pro-Iranian Islamic Party of Azerbaijan (AIP),
Movsun Samadov was then arrested on January 7 after he posted videos
denouncing President Aliyev. While this arrest may have violated his
civil rights, as we understand them, Samadov was not just opposing the
Hijab ban. Instead his screed came right out of the Iranian and Islamic
playbook. He accused Aliyev of destroying mosques, trying to ban the
Muslim call to prayer, harassing women who wish to wear the Hijab and
compared him to a 7th century caliph vilified by Shi'a Muslims. He
urged a revolution to oust the despotic regime and its personality
cult, quoted Mohammed for people to give up their lives for religion's
salvation, and asserted that Azerbaijan will face even bigger tragedies
as long as the government is fully controlled by the Zionists.
The government rightly claimed that he was not only inciting
revolution and suicide attacks on the government but that they also
found weapons in his home as he and over 20 other believers were
arrested. The AIP naturally denied all these charges and from here we
cannot ascertain who is right. But Samadov clearly was inciting
revolution and violence and his party rejected the authority of the
official Muslim religious leader of Azerbaijan who is appointed by the
government. And since the controversy began, the Iranian media has
weighed in by attacking the Azeri government for the Hijab ban,
suggesting again that it is led by or inspired by Israel to attack
Islam. In Tajikistan, President Ermomali Rahmonov has launched a
crackdown on Mosques, called home 100 students from Iran who were
allegedly being exposed to subversive religious dogmas. But over 90
percent of them are not continuing their studies. Meanwhile Rahmonov
also inveighs against ``alien'' religious sects that are allegedly
active in Tajikistan.\69\ Such moves are intended to prevent any
organized opposition from arising. Similarly in Uzbekistan the Karimov
regime has launched a new crackdown on religious Muslims.\70\
Militarization and the Threat of Inter-State Intervention
But Central Asian practical responses to the Arab revolution hardly
end here. As the Arab revolution has become an international affair,
triggering both domestic and international violence, most notably in
NATO's Libya operation, Central Asian leaders understand that first
they must maintain total control over the organs of force and
repression and that if they do not do so they risk foreign
intervention, either from Russia (and possibly China) or from their
neighbors. Though our knowledge of Central Asian militaries is
incomplete, it is clear that in the last few years we see a growing
militarization of Central Asia that has expressed itself in increased
defense spending, a tried and true method of cementing military
loyalty. This militarization is also directly attributable to the
rivalries among Central Asian states.
Kiril Nourzhanov's analysis of Central Asian threat perceptions
highlights this sense of threat from each other. Nourzhanov notes the
need to break away from a Western-derived threat paradigm that sees
everything in terms of the great power rivalry commonly called the new
great game and the main internal threat to regimes, namely insurgency
even though these are certainly real enough threats.\71\ While these
threats surely exist, they hardly comprise the only challenges to
Central Asian security. Thus he writes that,
Conventional security problems rooted in border disputes,
competition over water and mineral resources, ubiquitous
enclaves and ethnic minorities, generate conflict potential in
the region and are perceived as existential threats by the
majority of the local population. One of the very few
comprehensive studies available on the subject arrived at the
following conclusions. 1) relations among the countries of
Central Asia are far from showing mutual understanding on the
whole range of economic issues; 2) the most acute
contradictions are linked to land and water use; and 3) these
contradictions have historical roots and are objectively
difficult to resolve, hence they are liable to be actualized in
the near future in a violent form.\72\
This is not just another academic analysis. In fact, border
problems, mainly between Uzbekistan and all of its neighbors, have long
impeded and today continue to retard the development of both regional
security and prosperity.\73\ Indeed, it is not too far to say that
given the antagonism between Uzbekistan and its neighbors, especially
Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, hostile relations and even the use of force
is never far from a possibility.\74\ Nourzhanov is not alone in calling
for this new approach to regional security. As S. Frederick Starr also
noted,
On the other hand this perspective on Central Asian security
or the second alternative of seeing it in the context of local
governments' internal stability is arguably incomplete. Anyone
studying security issues in Central Asia quickly recognizes
that environmental factors--the use and control of land, water,
energy, and other raw materials, and the reclamation of
polluted lands--play an extremely important role in that
region's security and political agendas.\75\
Similarly the International Crisis Group likewise concluded that
the international community must urgently approach the issues of border
delimitiation with more urgency than before.\76\ Anyone looking at
Central Asian security can readily see that tensions over borders,
particularly between Uzbekistan and its neighbors, generate constant
inter-state tensions in Central Asia.\77\ The same is true for water
use, an issue that has already brought the EU and UN into efforts to
help arrange multilateral solutions among Central Asian states to
prevent what could easily become a war among or between them.
Due to these trends a regional arms race has taken root in Central
Asia. In 2007 alone military spending in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and
Turkmenistan rose by 48%.\78\ As Nourzhanov further notes,
The bulk of the money would be spent on heavy weapons, fixed-
wing planes, and navy vessels which is hard to explain by the
demands of a fight against terrorism alone. Remarkably the
danger of intra-regional armed conflict is not seriously
analyzed in any official document. The current Military
Doctrine of Kazakhstan (2000) which talks about the
tantalizingly abstract `probability of diminshed regional
security as a result of excessive increase in qualitative and
quantitative military might by certain states', may be regarded
as a very partial exception that proves the rule.\79\
Much evidence corroborates this last point. For example Kazakhstan
has increased defense spending by 800% in 2000-07. \80\ And the state
defense order is expected to double in 2009.\81\ Indeed, the trend
towards militarization was already evident by 2003.\82\ Nourzhanov also
notes that Central Asian leaders have put themselves or been put in an
impossible position by having to recite public paeans to regional
cooperation when they are contradicting it in their actions. Likewise,
their invocations of Western threat scenarios that prioritize terrorism
and insurgency are belied by events since only in Kyrgyzstan has there
been an
insurgency.\83\
Thus there is good reason to believe that Central Asian states fear
their neighbors as much as they do the possibility of Russian and/or
Chinese intervention. While China, in line with its overall policy
remains wary of direct military intervention in the domestic affairs of
a Central Asian state, Russia does not. Indeed, it clearly contemplates
this possibility and is implementing the means to effectuate such
intervention to prevent revolution either with a local government or
regardless of its views. In the first case, after protracted bargaining
in 2006 Uzbekistan granted Russia the right to use its airfield at
Navoi as a base, but only under special conditions. Russia will only be
able to gain access to Navoi in case of emergencies or what some
reports called ``force majeure'' contingencies. In return Russia will
provide Uzbekistan with modern navigation systems and air defense
weapons. In other words Uzbekistan wanted a guarantee of its regime's
security and Russian support in case of a crisis. But it would not
allow peacetime Russian military presence there.\84\
But in other cases Russia sees no reason to solicit the host
state's cooperation. Russia, in particular seems to be so anxious about
the possibility of unrest in Central Asia spreading from a domestically
triggered insurgency in other states like Kyrgyzstan, that here too it
has suggested has suggested joint intervention with Kazakhstan. Thus in
a 2006 assessment Ilyas Sarsembaev writes that,
Some Russian military analysts consider that if Kyrgyzstan
were overtaken by a complete political collapse, Russia and
Kazakhstan could impose some kind of protectorate until
stability could be reestablished and new elections held. In
this scenario, the United States would allow Moscow to take
action in Kyrgyzstan, because most of its own resources would
already be mobilized in Iraq and Afghanistan--and probably in
Iran and Syria. Russian help would then be welcomed and much
preferred to that of China. Indeed, if Russia did not dare to
put itself forward as a stabilizing force, China might use
Uyghur separatism.\85\
Obviously this assessment links the prospect of state collapse in
Kyrgyzstan to international rivalries (the so called new great game)
and to the possibilities of separatism among China's Uyghurs. Thus it
implicitly postulates the paradigm outlined above, i.e. a direct link
from state failure to foreign invasion or intervention and even the
threat of state dismemberment. And where there is not an actual sign of
state failure but a domestic situation that could be manipulated to
provide pretexts for intervention, Russia has already prepared the
legal ground for doing so. On August 11, 2009, Russian President Dmitry
Medvedev sent a letter to the Duma urging it to revise Russia's laws on
defense. Specifically he urged it to revise the existing laws to pass a
new law,
The draft law would supplement Clause 10 of the Federal Law On
Defence with paragraph 21 specifying that in line with the generally
accepted principles and provisions of international law, the Russian
Federation's international treaties, and the Federal Law On Defense;
Russian Armed Forces can be used in operations beyond Russia's borders
for the following purposes:
To counter an attack against Russian Armed Forces or
other troops deployed beyond Russia's borders;
To counter or prevent an aggression against another
country;
To protect Russian citizens abroad;
To combat piracy and ensure safe passage of shipping.
The draft suggests that the Federal Law On Defence be supplemented
with Clause 101, setting, in accordance with Russia's Constitution, the
procedures for decisions on use of Russian Armed Forces beyond the
country's borders.\86\
The ensuing law goes beyond providing a ``legal'' basis for the
offensive projection of Russian military force beyond Russia's borders
and thus justifying the war of 2008 and any subsequent attack against
Georgia in response to alleged attacks on ``the Russian citizens'' of
the supposedly independent states of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. It
also provides a basis for justifying the offensive use of Russian force
against every state from the Baltic to Central Asia on the selfsame
basis of supposedly defending the ``honor and dignity'' of Russian
citizens and culture from discrimination and attack. In the context of
our discussion attacks on Russians could well be or be twisted to mean
that a state has lost control of the situation at home and requires or
the situation requires direct forceful intervention from outside.
This should not surprise us. After all, in the wake of the Russo-
Georgian war President Medvedev announced that he would form now on
base his foreign policy on five principles. Among them are principles
that give Russia a license for intervening in other states where the
Russian minority's ``interests and dignity'' are allegedly at risk.
Medvedev also asserted that Russia has privileged interests with
countries which he would not define, demonstrating that Russia not only
wants to revise borders or intervene in other countries, it also
demands a sphere of influence in Eurasia as a whole.\87\
Yet even as it postulates a diminshed sovereignty thorughout
Central Asia, Russia has responded by strongly supporting the current
status quo in all of these countries, clearly believing that the only
alternative to it is worse. Thus logically, if not pragmatically its
policy is ultimtely contradictory. On the one hand it has become the
bastion and alibi for Central Aisan states behind which they hide and
whose justifications for autocracy they emulate. On the other hand, it
is a revisionist state whose policies clearly express its belief that
Central Asian states are not truly sovereign. As Yuri Fedorov writes
regarding the 2009 law on military intervention,
Russia's self-proclaimed right to defend its troops against
armed attacks affects Moscow's relations with Armenia, Belarus,
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, all of which
are parties to the Collective Security Treaty Organization
(CSTO) and, with the exception of Belarus, the Shanghai
Cooperation Organization (SCO), and which also have bilateral
arrangements on military assistance with Russia. Russian troops
and military facilities are deployed in all of these states,
with the exception of Uzbekistan. Neither the Collective
Security Treaty, nor any bilateral arrangements imply Russia's
right to make unilateral decisions about the form, scope and
very fact of employing its forces in the aforementioned states.
All of these issues were to be decided either by all parties to
the CSTO collectively, or by parties to the corresponding
bilateral treaty. Decisions on counter-terrorist activities in
the framework of the SCO are made by consensus. The new Russian
legislation did not cancel out the multilateral or bilateral
decision-making procedures yet it devalued those procedures in
a sense. If Russian troops deployed in some of these countries
are involved in international or internal conflicts, which is
quite possible, Moscow will have a pretext for using them and
duly deploying additional units in a unilateral manner. The
right to defend Russian troops on foreign soil is of particular
importance for Russia's relations with Ukraine and Moldova. The
Ukrainian government has demanded the withdrawal of the Russian
naval base after 2017, while Moldova insists on the immediate
departure of Russian troops from Transdniestria. In turn,
Moscow has set its sights on stationing its troops there
indefinitely. In such a context, skirmishes of any degree of
gravity involving Russian servicemen in these countries may
furnish Moscow with a pretext for military intervention.\88\
Kyrgyzstan's revolution in April 2010 and ensuing ethnic pogroms
against resident Uzbeks in June 2010 also exemplify Russia's propensity
to intervene to ensure its preferred domestic outcome. Although
Russia's fingerprints were all over the April 2010 coup, it and many
external observers felt that the new regime was not stable enough. Even
before the ethnic rioting began on June 10-11, Russian figures
announced that Russia and Uzbekistan had agreed that they should
intervene to stabilize the situation there.\89\ But Uzbekistan had
actually refused to do so. Indeed, President Karimov openly stated that
Kyrgyzstan's problems were exclusively its own internal affair and that
the violence and instability were being fomented from outside, i..e
probably Russia, a view also shared by the Tajik media.\90\
Instead Uzbek President Islam Karimov turned to China. We can see
this from the communiques of his meetings with President Medvedev and
Hun Jintao as they arrived for the SCO summit on June 10-11, 2010. The
communique with Medvedev was correct but formal. But Karimov's meeting
with Chinese President Hu Jintao reported a fulsome communique
extolling the millennium of relations between Uzbekistan and the
Celestial Kingdom at the start of this meeting followed by a statement
that the two presidents then conducted an extensive review of regional
and geopolitical issues that could only mean Kyrgyzstan's
stability.\91\ President Hu Jintao offered a six point formula for
Sino-Uzbek relations where point 6 called on both countries to
intensify multilateral coordination to safeguard both states' common
interests and stated that both countries must cooperate against threats
to security in Central Asia. Karimov welcomed these proposals,
suggesting quite strongly that Uzbekistan was leaning away from Moscow
towards Beijing, not least because of Moscow's unceasing efforts to
obtain a second military base in the Ferghana valley around Osh so that
it could control that valley.\92\ It also appears that Uzbekistan also
obtained China's support for a position blocking Russian intervention
in Kyrgyzstan in the SCO and the Collective Security Treaty
Organization (CSTO) where China is not a member, but also where a
clear-cut Chinese policy aligned to that of Uzbekistan, would carry
weight.
Possibly Russia lacks the necessary forces to conduct a peace
support operation in Kyrgyzstan, or does not want to have to choose
between the Kyrgyz and the Uzbeks, standard practice in Russian
``peacemaking operations,'' or else the mission was murky, protracted,
costly, and uncertain at best. Nevertheless troops were apparently
ready to go to Kyrgyzstan and at least some leaders in Moscow wanted to
carry out this operation.\93\ However, since then Moscow has prevailed
upon its military alliance in Central Asia, the Collective Security
Treaty Organization (CSTO) to develop both the forces and the
conditions for domestic intervention in member states in the event of
upheaval there.
With Bishkek's consent, the CIS Collective Security Treaty
Organization (CSTO) amended its charter in December 2010 to include
intervention in internal conflicts of member states, a change clearly
related to Kyrgyzstan's ethnic clashes.\94\
Consequently it is not just an urgent domestic policy affair for
Central Asian leaders to suppress unrest not to mention democratic
reform, by all means possible, it also is also an equally urgent matter
of the sovereignty of their states. The prospect of state failure leads
interested external actors to prepare policies of neo-colonial
subordination of Central Asia to their interests and ambitions. As we
noted above the prospect of losing power due to a revolution equates to
losing power due to defeat by an external government. Although Central
Asian claim that they have had largely stable governments for twenty
years and resent the implication that they have to learn governance
from the West, in fact the paradigm of ongoing potential instability
has much validity to it. Moreover, it teaches harsh but true lessons.
Failure to master internal security dynamics opens the way to long-
standing hard security threats. Moreover, such interventions are hardly
confined to Russia.
Many observers feared Uzbek intervention in Kyrgyzstan's ethnic
pogrom of 2010. Indeed, the default posture in dealing with major or
potentially major Central crises in Central Asia is the expectation
that they could jump sate lines and lead to a general regional or at
lest interstate crises. When Turkmenistan underwent a succession due to
the sudden death of President Niyazov in late 2006 there was widespread
apprehension internally and in Central Asia that it could lead to war
both at home and throughout the region. This particular crisis also
showed that there is an all too ready acceptance by analysts and
governments interested in the region that such crises or other kinds of
threats to state stability justify calls for foreign intervention.
When Niyazov died Senior Research Associate of International and
World Economies Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences,
Academician Vladimir Yevseyev, argued that to prevent internal
instability in both Turkmenistan and the region Russia and Kazakhstan
should play a key role in the post-Niyazov Turkmenistan.\95\ This
observation captures the fact that instability in one Central Asian
state is widely perceived as being likely to spread to neighboring
states. In other words, something like the mentality of the domino
theory is deeply rooted in elite calculations here. In the Niyazov
succession we saw a simultaneous belief in the fundamental uncertainty
of the Turkmen and even regional security equation coupled with the
belief that major change might be even worse. While many argued that a
succession struggle, could, if done in a peaceful fashion, deescalate
tensions, a violent struggle would further inflame inherent deep-seated
tensions throughout the area. Shokirjon Hakimov, the leader of
Tajikistan's opposition Social Democratic Party of Tajikistan, stated
that, ``Undoubtedly, if the forthcoming political activities in
Turkmenistan concerning the designation of the country's leader take
place in a civilized manner, then they will certainly have a positive
influence on the development of pluralism in the region.'' \96\ At the
same time, Kazakhstan's Foreign Minister Kasymzhomart Tokayev revealed
both his government's hopes and its apprehensions by saying that his
government has an interest in Turkmenistan's stability. Therefore
``Kazakhstan is not going to get involved in any wars for
Turkmenistan.'' \97\ The sentiments behind this statement speak for
themselves.
This kind of sentiment is still the case. Uzbekistan's hostile
relations with Tajikistan emerge from the following example. Uzbek
papers, obviously under governmental control, openly speculate that due
to a poor food security situation, in other terms undernourishment,
Tajikistan's situation is potentially explosive. They charge that due
to this poverty and hunger families sell their daughters to Chinese
people or engage in narcotics trafficking to make money and that the
government is not even always feeding its soldiery. Therefore they
charge that Tajikistan might be vulnerable to an Egyptian style
revolution.\98\ There are many such examples, most notably in the
general skepticism and pessimism concerning the staying power of the
new Kyrgyz government. But they are not confined, as we have seen, to
expectations or assessments concerning Kyrgyzstan's ``democracy.''
Implications for US Efforts at Democracy Promotion
All of these phenomena present a bleak picture for all foreign
efforts, private or public, US or EU, or other parties' efforts to
promote democracy in these states. To the extent that these
organizations exist they infuriate the leaders of Central Asia, and
provide ever ready pretexts for them to blame the US or other forces
for attempting to undermine them. Since it is unclear if the US has a
definite media policy for this region to make clear that such charges
are unfounded, and essentially the work of Russian and local government
propagandists seeking to blind people from comprehending their own
domestic situation or the failure of the Russian efforts at
intervention in the Ukraine and Georgia after 2003, the field has been
left open to the purveyors of such charges. Second, more recent
assessments of democracy promotion has suggested that they are too tied
to the US or other foreign governments or organizations and though well
intentioned, misconceived in terms of local realities.\99\
To the extent that the Arab revolutions continue and possibly
become more violent and to the degree that other governments fall
victim to this tide, e.g. Libya and Syria, it is likely that repressive
measures directed against these democracy promotion programs will grow.
This will be even the case if it looks to local rulers like pressure
for reform is growing in their own countries. This poses a serious
problem for US policy in the region. That policy today has the
overwhelming priority of establishing lasting ties with local
governments, particularly in the military sphere, because of our quest
for victory in Afghanistan. Every indicator of policy, whether it be
the record of defense and other assistance, the statements issued after
high-level visits, etc indicates that the priority of establishing
lasting military, political and economic ties far outstrips the
commitment on the ground to improving governance and human rights in
these countries.\100\ This is said as fact, not as critique, for one
can credibly argue that our priority is indeed the war on terrorism
centered in Afghanistan. Nonetheless we will be blamed for democracy
promotion whether or not the US promotes democracy. Our strategy must
therefore not only highlight human rights shortfalls in Central Asia,
but also in Russia and China and do so in a way more consonant with
local realities as suggested in some of the recent critiques of those
programs.\101\ To the degree that Central Asia becomes more important
for the US and we seek to build a lasting, multi-dimensional US
presence there, we have no choice but to be a strong and effective
advocate throughout Eurasia for principles that local governments have
accepted in solemn international accords. For if we fail in that task
the inevitable day of reckoning that will come will also sweep aside
our previous policy achievements that will have then be shown to be
built on sand.
\1\ ``Muhammad Tahir, Governments Move To Thwart `Arab Spring' In
Central Asia,'' Human Rights Society In Uzbekistan, Blog Archive,
http://en.hrsu.org/2011/04/28/in-the-arab-world-from-getting-a-
foothold/, April 28, 2011, and Eurasia Insight, April 28, 2011
\2\ Yevgeny Shestakov, ``Could the Revolutionary Fervor in North
Africa Reach the Former Soviet Central Asian States?'' The Telegraph,
April 1, 2011; Catherine A. Fitzpatrick, ``Will the Revolutions in the
Middle East Have an Impact on Uzbekistan?'' Eurasia Insight,
www.eurasianet.org, February 4, 2011; Georgiy Voloshin, ``Don't Expect
Mideast-Style Revolution in Central Asia,'' Global Asia, VI, NO. 1,
Spring, 2011, http://globalasia.org/1.php?c=e379
\3\ See the following articles on the Uzbek and Kyrgyz militaries,
``Interview With Major General Kabul Berdiyev, Minister of Defense of
Uzbekistan,'' Moscow, Krasnaya Zvezda Online, April 30, 2011, Open
Source Center, Foreign Broadcast Information Service, Central Eurasia
Henceforth, FBIS SOV, April 30, 2011; Sergey Sidorov, ``Interview With
Kyrgyz Defense Minister Abibila Kudayberdiyev,'' Bishkek, V Kontse
Nedeli, in Russian, April 22, 2011, FBIS SOV. May 3, 2011
\4\ Gabor Stier, ``Final Warning: Central Asian Dictators Bought
Time for Reform,''RIA Novosti, Valdai Discussion Club, April 13, 2011,
http://en.rian.ru/valdai--op/20110413/163505830.html
\5\ K.Kumkova, ``Kazakhstan: Astana Powerbrokers Wrestling With
the Succession issue,'' Eurasia Insight, May 10, 2011
\6\ Sean Roberts, Saving Democracy Promotion From Short-Term U.S.
Policy Interests in Central Asia, A Century Foundation Report, Century
Foundation, New York, 2009; and see the Discussions in Anna Kreikemeier
and Wolfgang Zellner, Eds., The Quandaries of Promoting Democracy in
Central Asia: Experiences and Perspectives From Europe and the USA:
Report of a Transatlantic Workshop at the Center for OSCE Research in
Hamburg, Centre for OSCE Research Working paper, No. 18, 2007
\7\ Tahir
\8\ Ashgabat, Turkmen TV Altyn Asyr Channel, in Turkmen, April 28,
2011, FBIS SOV, April 29, 2011
\9\ ``Governments Move To Thwart `Arab Spring' In Central Asia,''
\10\ Paul Quinn-Judge, ``Conventional Security Risks To Central
Asia: A Summary Overview,'' Paper Presented to the Conference, Energy,
Environment, and the Future of Security in Central Asia, Understanding
the Security Implications of Critical Energy and Environmental Issues,
Rome, October 15-16, 2009
\11\ Ralph S. Clem, ``From the Arab Street to the Silk Road:
Implications of the Unrest in North Africa for the Central Asian
States,'' Eurasian Geography and Economics, LII, NO, 2, 2011, pp. 228-
241
\12\ Robert D. Kaplan and Abraham M. Denmark, ``The Long goodbye:
The Future North Korea,'' World Affairs, May/June, 2011 CLXXIV, No. 1,
pp. 12-13
\13\ ``Sokhranit' Stabilnost' v Tsentral'noi Azii- Uchastniki
Parlametnariskikh Situatsii v Gosdume,'' www.duma.gov.ru/news/273/
71937/print=yes, April 13, 2011
\14\ Murat Sadykov, ``Uzbekistan Tightens Control Over Mobile
Internet,'' Eurasia Insight, March 15, 2011, www.eurasianet.org; Fyodor
Lukyanov, ``Learning From Libya and Singapore,'' Russia in Global
Affairs, January 25, 2011, http://eng.globalaffairs.ru/redcol/Learning-
from-Libya-and-Singapore-15124; ``Anti-Revolution Agenda: Seize the
Control Over Cellular Companies,'' www.neweurasia.net/cross-regional-
and-blogosphere/anti-revolution-agenda-seize the -control-over
cellular-companies, March 15, 2011; ``Uzbekistan Zashchishchaeyet Seti
Peredachi Dannykh ot Buntovtsikov,'' www.uznews.net, March 17, 2011
\15\ ``Azerbaijan Puts Skype in Its Sights,'' Eurasia Insight, May
4, 2011, www.euraisanet.org
\16\ Tahir; Fitzpatrick
\17\ ``China Creates Agency to Regulate Cyberspace,'' New York
Times, May 5, 2011, www.nytimes.com
\18\ Heather Maher, ``Report: Press Freedom `Lowest Ebb' in More
Than a Decade,'' Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty, May 5, 2011
\19\ Baku, Azadilq, in Azeri, April27, 2011, FBIS SOV, April 29,
2011
\20\ Clem, p. 236; Baktybek Abdrisaev, ``Last Flight Out of
Kyrgyzstan,'' Washington Post, February 20, 2009, p. 23; Lora Lumpe,
U.S. Military Aid to Central Asia 1999-2009: Security Priorities Trump
Human Rights and Diplomacy, Open society Institute, 2010; Assistant
Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs, Robert Blake,
``The Obama Administration' Priorities in South and Central Asia,''
Speech at the Baker Center, Rice university, Houston, Texas, January
19, 2011, http://www.state.gov/p/sca/rls/rmks/2011/155002.htm
\21\ Stephen Blank, ``Azerbaijan and Human Rights: Not As Simple
As It Looks,'' Central Asia Caucasus Analyst, February 16, 2011
\22\ Clem, p. 232
\23\ Ibid., p. 234
\24\ Roman Muzalevsky, ``Toward an Arab-Style Uprising in Central
Asia,?'' International Relations and Security Network, May 3, 2011,
www.isn.ethz.ch Voloshin
\25\ Clem, p. 238
\26\ Ibid p. 235
\27\ Ibid p. 236
\28\ ``Cotton in Uzbekistan,'' Environmental Justice Foundation,
http://www.ejfoundation.org/page142.html; ``We Live Subject to their
Orders'': A Three-Province Survey of Forced Child Labor in Uzbekistan's
2008 Cotton Harvest, International Labor Rights Forum, http://
www.laborrights.org/sites/default/files/publications-and-resources/
UzbekCottonFall08Report.pdf
\29\ Erica Marat, The State-Crime Nexus in Central Asia: State
Weakness, Organized Crime and Corruption in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan,
Washington and Uppsala: CACI&SRSP Silk Road Paper, October 2006;
``Kyrgyzstan's Powerful Criminal Gangs,'' Jane's Intelligence Digest,
February 26, 2009, http://wwwd.janes.com/subscribe/jid/doc
\30\ Paul Quinn-Judge, Tajikistan: On the Pot-holed Road to
Failed-State Status, International Crisis Group, 2009, http://
www.crisisgroup.org/en/regions/asia/central-asia/tajikistan/tajikistan-
on-the-pot-holed-road-to-failed-state-status.aspx; Stephen Blank,
Tajikistan: Rahmon Facing Pressure on All Sides,' Eurasia Insight,
March 29, 2011
\31\ Max G. Manwaring, The Inescapable Global Security Arena,
Carlisle Barracks, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War
College, 2002, pp. 2-3
\32\ Sebastien Peyrouse, ``Russia-Central Asia Advances and
Shortcomings of the Military Partnership,'' Stephen J. Blank, Ed.,
Central Asian Security Trends: Views From Europe and Russia, Carlisle
Barracks, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College, 2011,
pp. 1-2
\33\ Stephen Blank, ``Civil-Military Relations and Russian
Security,'' Stephen J. Blank, Ed., Civil-Military Relations in
Medvedev's Russia, Carlisle Barracks, PA: Strategic Studies Institute,
US Army War College 2011, pp. 1-76; Murray Scot Tanner, ``How China
Manages Internal Security Challenges and Its Impact on PLA Missions,''
Roy Kamphausen, Andrew Scobell, and David Lai, Rfd, Beyond the Strait:
PLA Missions Other Than Taiwan, Calrisle Barracks, PA, Strtegic Studies
Institute, US Army War College, 2009, pp.. 39-97
\34\ FBIS SOV, April 30, 2011; FBIS SOV, May 3, 2011; Erica Marat,
The Military and the State in Central Asia: From Red Army to
Independence, London: Routledge, 2009; Roger N. McDermott, Kazakhstan's
Defense Policy: An Assessment of the Trends, London: Create Space,
2009; Idem. Countering Global Terrorism: Developing the Antiterrorist
Capabilities of the Central Asian Militaries, Carlisle Barracks, PA:
Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College, 2004 are the only
extant studies of Central Asian militaries, clearly there is a lot we
do not know about thei8r staying power in domestic crises
\35\ Max Bader, The Curious Case of Political Party Assistance in
Central Asia, OSCE Academy Bishkek, 2010
\36\ Andrei Soldatov, ``Kremlin's Plan to Prevent a Facebook
Revolution,'' The Moscow Times, February 28, 2011
\37\ ``North of Tehran,'' Osservatore Balcani,
www.ossevatorebalcani.org/article/articleview/11520/1/407, June 30,
2009; Shahin Abbasov, ``Azerbaijan: Monitoring Iranian Events For
Political Lessons,'' Eurasia Insight, June 26, 2009
\38\ Ibid; ``Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Calls For Stability In
Iran'' Associated Press, June 19, 2009
\39\ ``Undermining Democracy: Strategies and Methods of 21st
Century Authoritarians,'' Undermining Democracy, pp. 3-4; Rebecca
Mckinnon, ``China's `Networked Authoritarianism,' '' Journal of
Democracy, XXII, NO. 2, April-June, 2011, pp. 32-46; Xiao Qiang, "The
Battle for the Chinese Internet," Journal of Democracy, XXII, No. 2,
April-June, 2011, pp. 47-61; Evgeny Internet Control,? Journal of
Democracy, XXII, NO. 2, April-June, 2011, pp. 62-72
\40\ McKinnon, p. 40
\41\ Richard Orange, ``Uzbek President Accuses the West of Funding
Arab Revolts,'' The Telegraph, May 10, 2011, www.te.graph.co.news/
worldnews/asia/uzbekistan/8505104/Uzbek-president-accuses-the-West-of-
funding-Arab-revolyts.html
\42\ Sam Dagher, ``A Peek Inside Iran Shows Protests Fading Under
Withering Gaze,'' New York Times, July 9, 2009, www.nytimes.com
\43\ Edward Wong ``China Official Threatens Death Penalty After
Riots,'' Ibid.; China Says Ethnic Violence in Check Amid Heavy Troop
Presence,''
\44\ Joanna Lillis, ``Kazakhstan Corruption Scandals An Indicator
Of Clan Infighting in Astana,?'' Eurasia Insight, July 10, 2009
\45\ Jonas Bernstein, ``Lev Ponomarev, Russia has Four Categories
of Political Prisoners,'' Eurasia Daily Monitor, February 13, 2008.
\46\ U.S. Department of State, 2010 Human Rights Report, http://
www.state.gov/documents/organization/160515.pdf, April 8, 2011. . pp.
15-16; Catherine Fitzpatrick, ``Norwegian Helsinki Committee on Turkmen
Prison: ``A Clear Order Must Go Out to End These Horrible Practices,''
Eurasia Insight, May 6, 2011
\47\ The CSTO is the subject of a forthcoming study by the author
\48\ Mariya Y. Omelicheva, Counterterrorism Policies in Central
Asia, Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2011
\49\ Mariya Y. Omelicheva, Counterterrorism Policies in Central
Asia., Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2011, p. 53
\50\ Viktor Khanayev, ``Mass Quality Added to Mediums of
Information,'' Moscow, Rossiyskaya Gazeta Online, in Russian, February
24, 2011, FBIS SOV, February 24, 2011
\51\ Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan,
``Address of H.E. Dr. Marat Tazhin, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the
Republic of Kazakhstan 16th OSCE Ministerial Council, Helsinki,
December 4, 2008'' MC.DEL/53/08 5 December 2008, (Henceforth Tazhin
Address) www.mfa.kz
\52\ Ibid.
\53\ Ibid.
\54\ Remarks of US NGO experts at the CSIS meeting with them in
Washington, May 28, 2009
\55\ Sergey Rasov, ``Outside the Access Zone,'' Moscow,
politkom.ru, in Russian, April 21-22, 2009, FBIS SOV, May 8, 2009
\56\ Ibid.
\57\ Ibid.
\58\ Remarks of Deputy Assistant Secretary of State George Krol in
CSCE Hearings; Tazhin, Speech, Republic of Kazakhstan, Statement By
H.E. Mr. Marat Tazhin, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of
Kazakhstan, At the High Level Segment, 7th Session of the UN Human
Rights Council, Geneva, March 4, 2008 (Henceforth Tazhin Speech)
\59\ Statement of Dr. Eric M. McGlinchey Before the Commission of
Security and Cooperation in Europe, United States Congress, Washington,
D.C., May 12, 2009
\60\ ``Kazakhstan's Succession Crisis: a Special Report,''
www.stratfor.com, March 31, 2011
\61\ Alexei Makarin, ``Kazakhstan: President Nursultan Nazarbayev
Will Have to Choose Successor During the New Term of Office,'' Moscow,
Kommersant, in Russian, April 4, 20 ``Kazakhstan's Leader Pushes to
Empower the Parliament,'' www.stratfor.com11, FBIS SOV, April 4, 2011
\62\ Kathy Lally, ``Kazakh President Holds Fast as Arab
Revolutions Topple Others,'' Washington Post, April 13, 2011.
www.washingtonpost.com
\63\ ``Kazakhstan's Succession Crisis: a Special Report''; William
Courtney, ``The Father of Kazakhstan,'' International Herald Tribune,
April 5, 2011
\64\ ``Kazakhstan's Leader Pushes to Empower the Parliament,''
www.straftfor.com,April 8, 2011
\65\ Vladimir Socor, ``Kazakhstan's Presidency Initiates
Discussion on Political Reforms,'' Eurasia Daily Monitor, April 15,
2011
\66\ Farangis Najibullah, ``Who Would Succeed Kazakh President
Nazarbayev,?'' Eurasia Insight, April 24, 2011
\67\ Kumkova
\68\ Sergei Ivanov, ``Russia Must Be Strong,'' Wall Street
Journal, January 11, 2006, 14.
\69\ Stephen Blank, ``Azerbaijan and Human Rights: Not As Simple
As It Looks,'' Central Asia Caucasus Analyst, February 16, 2011;
Stephen Blank, Tajikistan: Rahmon Facing Pressure on All Sides,'
Eurasia Insight, March 29, 2011
\70\ Mushfig Bayram, ``Uzbekistan: Crackdown on Devout Muslims
Continues,'' Refworld, UNHCR, from Forum 18, January 27, 2010, http://
www.unhcr.org/refworld/topic,464db4f52,,4b604d431e,0.html
\71\ Kirill Nourzhanov, ``Changing Security Threat Perceptions in
Central Asia,'' Australian Journal of International Affairs LXIII, NO.
1, 2009, p. 94
\72\ Ibid
\73\ Chingiz Umetov,``Uzbekistan-Kyrgyzstan: Border Hassles
Abound,'' Transitions Online, May 4, 2009, www.tol.cz
\74\ By June 2009 Uzbekistan had again closed its borders with
Kyrgyzstan and the later was digging trenches along that border while
relations with Tajikistan were hardly better.
\75\ Starr, p. 4; see also Roy Allison and Lena Jonson, Central
Asian Security: The New International Context, London and Washington,
D.C.: Royal Institute of International Affairs and Brookings
Institution Press, 2001 is an exception in this regard
\76\ Nourzhanov, p. 94
\77\ Umetov,
\78\ Nourzhanov, p. 95
\79\ Ibid.
\80\ Almaty, Interfax-Kazakhstan Online, in Russian, January 23,
2009, FBIS SOV, January 23, 2009
\81\ Almaty, Kazakhstan Today Online, in Russian, February 24,
2009, FBIS SOV, February 24, 2009
\82\ Stephen Blank, ``Central Asia's Strategic Revolution,''
Regional Power Plays in the Caucasus and Central Asia, NBR Analysis:
National Bureau of Research, Asia, Seattle, Washington, 2003, pp. 51-76
\83\ Nourzhanov, pp. 94-95
\84\ ``Uzbek Airfield Is Made Available to Russia in
Emergencies,'' Ferghana.ru Information Agency, December 22, 2006
\85\ Ilyas Sarsembaev,``Russia: No Strategic Partnership With
China in view,'' China Perspective, Perspectives Chinois, No. 645, May-
June 2006, p. 33
\86\ http://www.kremlin.ru/eng/sdocs/news.shtml, August 11, 2009
\87\ ``Interview given by Dmitry Medvedev to Television Channels
Channel One, Russia, NTV,'' August 31, 2008, http://www.kremlin.ru/eng/
speeches/2008/08/31/1850--type82916--206003.shtml;
\88\ Ibid.
\89\ ``Russia and Uzbekistan to Bring Stability to Kyrgyzstan,''
http://rt. com/Politics/2010-06-08/russia-uzbekistan-stabilize-
kyrgyzstan.html, June 8, 2010
\90\ Moscow, ITAR-TASS, in English, June 19, 2010, FBIS SOV, June
19, 2010; Caversham, BBC Monitoring, in English, June 19, 2010, FBIS
SOV, June 19, 2010; Tashkent, Uzbek Television Service, in Uzbek, June
18, 2010, FBIS SOV, June 18, 2010
\91\ ``Uzbekistan-China: Toward Enhancing Cooperation,'' June 10,
2010, http://www.gov.uz/en/press/politics/5730
\92\ Beijing Xinhua Domestic Service, in Chinese, June 9, 2010,
FBIS SOV, June 9, 2010
\93\ Mikhail Zygar and Konstantin Gaaze, ``The Russians Are Not
Coming,'' Moscow: Russky Newsweek Online, in Russian, June 22, 2010,
FBIS SOV, June 22, 2010; Moscow, Ekho Moskvy, June 14, 2010, FBIS SOV,
June 14, 2010; Simon Shuster, ``Why Isn't Russia Intervening in
Kyrgyzstan,?'' Time, June 16, 2010, http://www.time.com/time/world/
article/0,8599,1997055,00.html; Authors' conversations with foreign
intelligence officials, 2011
\94\ Bruce Pannier, ``Russia's Star on Rise Again in Kyrgyzstan,''
Eurasia Insight, April 9, 2011
\95\ ``Kazakhstan Should Influence Stabilization of Situation in
Turkmenistan, Russian Expert,'' The Times of Central Asia, December 22,
2006, Retrieved from Lexis-Nexis
\96\ ``Tajik Opposition Leader Mulls Impact of Turkmen
Developments,'' Dushanbe, Asia-Plus News Agency, in Russian, December
22, 2006, Retrieved from Lexis-Nexis
\97\ ``Kazakhstan Not to `Get Involved in Any Wars for
Turkmenistan','' Astana, Russia & CIS General Newsline, December 29,
2006, Retrieved from Lexis-Nexis
\98\ Blank, Tajikistan: Rahmon Facing Pressure on All Sides,'
\99\ Roberts
\100\ Lumpe, Blake,
\101\ Roberts
Prepared Statement of Dr. Scott Radnitz, Assistant Professor,
University Of Washington
Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for inviting me here to testify
about the potential impact of the Arab Spring on Central Asia, a region
vitally important to American interests, but one that is poorly
understood and often neglected by scholars and policy makers.
The Arab Spring is a watershed event in the history of the Middle
East, a part of the world that was unfortunately bypassed by the global
trend of democratization of the past several decades. The events in
Tunisia and Egypt offer new hope to millions whose future prospects
have long been stifled by a corrupt and repressive elite that
monopolizes political and economic power. The tremendous force behind
these grassroots uprisings caught many off guard--not least the rulers
themselves.
The people of post-Soviet Central Asia have also endured hard times
over the past two decades. These countries are led by some of the most
repressive rulers on the planet. Human rights abuses are rampant and
basic freedoms are severely curtailed. Due to the decline in their
living standards beginning in the early 1990s, many people are
nostalgic for the old Soviet system, where they could at least count on
basic physical and economic security, if not political freedom.
People in Central Asia, like others around the world, yearn for
democracy yet face many challenges to attaining it. Could this be their
time? I believe, unfortunately, that the barriers to democratization in
Central Asia are overwhelming. The grassroots uprisings in the Arab
world, while inspirational to many, are unlikely to take root in
Central Asia due to the region's inhospitable soil.
I want to highlight two sets of factors that I believe make
uprisings like those in the Middle East unlikely to occur in the near
future in Central Asia. First is the weakness of the personal and
technological linkages between the Middle East and Central Asia. Second
is the capacity of authoritarian regimes in Central Asia to withstand
challenges from below. I'll close with a brief comment on the prospects
for political change in Central Asia in the longer term.
A critical feature behind the tendency of protest movements in one
Arab country to migrate to another is the dense cultural and economic
ties between societies. Like the Eastern European revolutions of 1989,
the Arab spring is being driven by citizens separated by national
borders, who have never met, but who nonetheless face similar
challenges and see themselves as sharing a common predicament. Their
political systems are characterized by presidents who have held power
for decades, economies that are dominated by a narrow ruling elite,
entrenched corruption that needlessly raises the cost of public
services, and a pervasive but antiquated apparatus of propaganda that
people encounter on a daily basis on television, in newspapers, and on
billboards on their way to work.
In addition to sharing similar life experiences, Arab citizenries
are also connected to one another through various channels of
communication. People in one Arab country could rapidly learn of
protests in other states through international travelers such as
businessmen and labor migrants; by telephone and e-mail; and through
blogs, social networking websites, and cable channels like al Jazeera.
The effects of these dense networks of communication were visible in
the spread of protests from Tunisia to Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain,
and beyond. Protesters in different countries, sharing common cultural
references and life experiences, framed their grievances in similar
ways, in terms of demands for justice, of the people against the ruling
class, and as an expression of the frustrations of the young
generation, which has been prevented by older generations from sharing
in the benefits of the system.
There was also a common repertoire of protest that included an
emphasis on non-violence and a visible role for people who would draw a
sympathetic reaction from the public. Demonstrations involved humor
directed against cloistered, out-of-touch autocrats; and posters and
signs highlighting injustice and the illegitimacy of the incumbent
regime. Clearly, the perception of common identity among Arab citizens,
especially youth, was crucial in the rapid and unrelenting spread of
uprisings across national boundaries.
But these forces run up against major obstacles when they reach the
former Soviet Union (FSU). Even 20 years after the breakup, the
attention of ex-Soviet states and their citizens is still largely
directed inward, toward the territory of the former empire. States in
Central Asia, the Caucasus and the Western part of the FSU share
similar regime types and forms of corruption. Their citizens still
speak Russian as a first or second language and watch Russian
television, including pro-government news broadcasts. Russian news,
unsurprisingly, portrayed the events of the Arab Spring as chaotic,
violent, and provoked by Islamic radicals. People throughout the FSU
continue to interact through ties of trade and labor migration, and
virtually, through the Russian-language blogosphere. They commiserate
by relating their experiences of post-Soviet social disruption and
financial hardship, and find common cause in joking about their
dysfunctional political systems.
When events happen in the Middle East, dissidents and opportunistic
politicians in post-Soviet states may take advantage by organizing
rallies, as they have done in Armenia and Azerbaijan, and are rumored
to be planning in other states. But the Arab Spring is unlikely to
embolden the mass public. Whereas a success in one Arab nation has a
galvanizing effect on other Arab societies, in the post-Soviet region,
people have no reason to believe that the institutional constraints on
protest and freedom of expression in their own countries have changed
significantly.
Even the societies of Central Asia, which are predominantly Muslim,
tend to look north rather than south or west. Economic, cultural, and
political ties with Russia remain strong, despite the sporadic efforts
of the region's leaders to distance themselves from their former
imperial core. Young people who intend to seek work abroad learn
English, or sometimes Turkish-but rarely Arabic. Central Asians see
Turks as cousins, albeit patronizing ones. Central Asians consider
Arabs distant ancestors, not relatives. Religious Central Asians feel
somewhat insecure in comparison to Arabs, whom they consider ``good
Muslims'' while calling themselves ``bad Muslims'' due to the Soviet
legacy of atheism. But the dominant view among Central Asians is to see
themselves as culturally more advanced than Arabs or Afghans. They see
Arab Islam as too extreme and fundamentalism as retrograde and
dangerous. I am, of course, generalizing about the opinions of diverse
groups of people, but I believe this reflects the views of the
majority, who would be in the vanguard of a pro-democracy revolution.
There is a recent precedent for the spread of protest throughout
the FSU, and that is the so-called color revolutions in Georgia in
2003, Ukraine in 2004, and Kyrgyzstan in 2005. These uprisings happened
in a short time period and involved similar demands and tactics, in
part because activists monitored events in neighboring countries and
communicated across national boundaries. All three revolutions involved
unpopular autocrats, fraudulent elections, and large protests in the
central squares of national capitals. All three caught their nations'
leaders off guard and ended in a peaceful transfer of power. Protesters
acted with the knowledge of what had happened in previous revolutions,
and demonstrated the ability to learn from their predecessors' triumphs
and mistakes. At the same time, the region's incumbent autocrats also
showed a willingness to apply lessons from the missteps of their
counterparts. And this brings me to my second point--the resilience of
Central Asian regimes.
After the overthrow of Kyrgyz President Askar Akaev in March 2005,
the next domino that may have fallen was Uzbekistan, which faced an
unprecedented large and peaceful protest in the city of Andijan in May
of that year. As you know, it resulted in a humanitarian tragedy when
the army opened fire on the crowd and killed hundreds of people. This
was only the most severe of the measures that rulers took around the
time of the color revolutions to shore up their power. Other examples
included the closure of Western non-governmental organizations; the
expulsion of the Peace Corps from Russia; the arrest and harassment of
journalists and human rights activists; the use of violence against
peaceful demonstrators in Azerbaijan and Belarus on several occasions;
the Kremlin's creation of the pro-government youth movement Nashi and
copycat groups in other states; the investment in building up ruling
parties in Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Georgia and
Azerbaijan; the use of surveillance technology to monitor public
gatherings and Internet activity; and the nationalization or increased
state control of private businesses.
The upshot of these measures was more resilient authoritarian
regimes. Regime strength can be viewed as a kind of natural selection,
in which the weakest ones were overthrown while those that could adapt
would live on. Having endured a trial by fire in the last decade,
incumbent post-Soviet regimes are highly adept at staving off
opposition challenges without using overt repression, allowing them to
preserve stability and even claim popular legitimacy. This is most
apparent in Kazakhstan, where President Nursultan Nazarbaev appears to
be genuinely popular despite closing off all space for independent
voices. His soft touch enabled him to win the most recent presidential
elections with a reported 91% and 96% of the vote without facing street
protests. Kazakhstan's chairmanship of the OSCE, whatever its merits,
also provided his regime an international stamp of approval. This is in
contrast to the Mubarak and Ben Ali regimes, which had seemingly grown
complacent from their many decades of successfully managing power. They
appeared to have underestimated their citizens' frustration and their
willingness to brave violence to make their voices heard.
Central Asia also suffers from a deficit of civil society in
comparison with Middle Eastern states. Despite their limited political
freedoms, Tunisia, Egypt, and others have organized trade unions, a
history of student activism, Islamic movements, and political parties
with grassroots appeal. These organizations, although debilitated,
aided in attracting ordinary people once protests began. Mobilization
against authoritarian regimes is a high-risk activity, so the trust
that held these groups together was a vital asset for the opposition.
In contrast, civil society in Central Asia is very weak. In large
part due to the Soviet legacy, there are few independent organizations
with popular support through which people can be recruited to join
protests. With the exception of Kyrgyzstan, people in the region lack
collective memories of bottom-up political change, and have few
cultural resources to draw on to build support for mass protests.
This leads me to bring up one caveat to the premise of Central
Asia's political stagnation--and that is the exceptionally tumultuous
nature of politics in Kyrgyzstan. Some might even argue that Kyrgyzstan
offers a way forward for the region. Unfortunately, though the country
has seen many protests, these are mostly not grassroots demands for
greater democracy. Instead, as I show in my book Weapons of the
Wealthy, the 2005 Tulip Revolution occurred when businessmen and
politicians launched protests against President Akaev after they had
lost their parliamentary races, and inadvertently caused his downfall.
Since then, politicians have continued to mobilize mobs to assert their
interests; most street protests are elite struggles over spoils, not
grassroots demands for democracy. The violence that occurred in April
and June 2010 stemmed directly from these struggles.
The Kyrgyz case, rather than Egypt or Tunisia, can be most
instructive for the future of Central Asian regimes. As Kyrgyzstan
demonstrated, opposition to the incumbent need not emanate from below,
or occur through conventional channels such as political parties or
NGOs. Threats to regimes can also be latent, undeclared, and informal,
and can come from above: rival political elites within the regime, or
businessmen who have pledged their loyalty but also have their own
power base. A president's coalition can hold together for a long time,
but it can also unravel abruptly, for example, as a result of imminent
succession and the failure of officials to rally around a successor who
can assure their privileges. Struggles over power can also occur over a
shrinking economic pie, or from personal disagreements between
influential figures. If such as struggle leads a regime to collapse,
the unraveling will not necessarily lead to democracy and may in fact
be violent. For 20 years, the rules for managing power in countries
such as Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Azerbaijan have worked well within
the limited domain of satisfying elite interests. But these elites have
no experience dealing with rapid change, and may not be able to resolve
their differences peacefully when the old rules cease to function.
In the coming decades, there is reason to expect Central Asian
regimes to become increasingly vulnerable. With the partial exception
of Kazakhstan, leaders have neglected to invest in maintaining capital
inherited from the Soviet Union. The degradation of education systems,
in particular, is causing a crisis in human capital. When the last
generation of Soviet-educated professionals retires, it will be
difficult to find qualified people to replace them. Young people today
either seek to leave the country or invest in connections to help them
to gain access to the state's diminishing spoils, rather than develop
the skills needed to make a positive economic contribution. Unless
governments in the region make basic investments to replace decaying
capital, not only regimes, but also state institutions are at risk of
collapsing. In the long run, the U.S. might be forced to reassess how
it can best assist Central Asia: not by jumpstarting a stalled
democratization process, but, more urgently, by helping to stave off
state failure. There is a closing window of opportunity for the leaders
of the region and their external partners to avert this scenario.
Prepared Statement of Gulam Umarov, Sunshine Coalition, Uzbekistan
Thank you for the opportunity to discuss the future of democracy in
my homeland. Also, I'd like to take this opportunity to personally
thank the members and staff of the Commission for their assistance and
support in securing the release of my father, Sanjar Umarov, from an
Uzbekistan prison in 2009.
In thinking about the impact that the ``Arab spring'' may have on
the Central Asian republics, one needs to remember the recent history
of our region. My country, Uzbekistan, was founded on the ruins of the
Soviet Union. As a result, we have never had a tradition of democracy,
individual rights, freedom of assembly or freedom of speech. We have
always been ruled from the top with no opportunity for average people
to impact our government. Sure, people are tired of permanent rulers
and tyranny, but there is no tradition of free speech and there is
certainly no room for any expression of dissent.
It is also important to remember that the vast majority of
Uzbekistan's citizens are very, very poor. Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and
Syria on a relative scale, possess much more wealth than the people of
Uzbekistan. Their citizens, therefore, have a closer connection to the
modern world and greater expectations for the future. Moreover, because
of the terrible poverty in Uzbekistan, young people leave the country
for work in Russia and other far away places. Those that are left
behind, especially in the countryside, are the elderly and women. This
does not mean that people are happy with the existing regime. It means
their livelihood is submissive to this regime. Discontent grows
widespread, but almost everyone is too preoccupied, trying to put food
on the table, to think of anything else.
We also need to remember some of the specific characteristics of
the Uzbek regime. Time and time again, entire extended families are
destroyed because a son, a nephew or cousin has offended even the most
junior of bureaucrats in a local administration. The use of violence,
terror and torture are so common that they have ceased to shock society
and are, in a very sad way, accepted as the regular order of things. It
is no surprise that people stay off the streets, fearful that the
events that took place 6 years ago in May 2005 will repeat.
Nonetheless, there is a growing expectation of change in Uzbekistan
that is based not on a democratic movement, but on demographics. The
current leadership is old, and a behind-the-scenes struggle for power
has begun. Evidence of this power struggle can be seen in the often
irrational actions of the government. While 2011 was supposed to be the
year of support of small and medium Business, at the same time, the
government began to destroy all of the major markets--bazaars--in major
cities including capital city of Tashkent. This policy was adopted in
the name of city beautification and ultimately destroyed thousands of
jobs and raised the cost of living for everyone. Why? One can only
deduce that the destruction will enrich one faction of the governing
elite at the expense of another.
As change in the government is inevitable, it will be useful to
think about ways in which the United States can further engage with the
government as it evolves. From my experience in the field of human
rights, we took cases to the UN, engaged in extensive advocacy in the
United States, and pursued international legal remedies, but of course
it would be better if you could achieve the same aims through open
dialog with the authorities. The imposition of ``sanctions'', or even
the threat of sanctions, has proven to be, counterproductive.
As a result, the United States should consider a series of
incentives that could be implemented, provided that Uzbekistan accepts
responsibility for its actions. A primary importance is the continued
assistance reducing threat posed by religious extremism. Let there be
no mistake, there is an active and increasingly assertive extremist
threat in Uzbekistan. In order to address this threat, the United
States needs to focus not only on police and military action, but also
on the underlying causes of religious extremism in Uzbekistan. Among
these are a wide spread sense of injustice caused by the absence of
functioning civil institutions, monopolies in virtually all spheres of
business and the destruction of Uzbekistan's most important asset,
agriculture. Three specific initiatives that might begin to address
these issues are:
A concerted effort to support the authority and operation
of the Parliament. If Uzbekistan can make a real transition towards
democracy, a truly functioning Parliament is essential.
De-monopolization. Over the past three years, the US has
invested tens of millions of dollars in the development of the Northern
Distribution Network to support operations in Afghanistan. Almost all
of the economic benefits accruing from the operation of the NDN benefit
a very small group of insiders. The US should use its investment in the
NDN to encourage the growth of competition in Uzbekistan.
Finally, as has been noted by the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee, the mismanagement of water resources in Central
Asia and Uzbekistan is causing great damage to agriculture, which
accounts for 2/3s of the population's livelihood. The U.S. should
greatly increase its support for the development of local, national,
and international water management schemes in the region.
In conclusion, just as Egypt has been considered the lynch pin of
the Arab world, so Uzbekistan is considered the lynch pin of Central
Asia. All good citizens of my homeland fervently pray that we can avoid
a situation where the people utterly give up hope and take to the
streets. Should this happen, it would be a disaster not only for
Uzbekistan but the region as a whole.
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