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Central Asia: Rotten lemons? Make
lemonade
By Pavel Ivanov
In
mid-April, Russian President Vladimir Putin met Kazakh
President Nursultan Nazarbayev in the Siberian City of
Omsk, right on the border between the two former Soviet
republics. The summit was given very little publicity in
Russia and Kazakhstan - the sides released a short
communique saying that the presidents "considered ways
of further deepening border area economic and trade
cooperation" - and passed practically unnoticed by the
world media.
That's a pity. The summit (by the
way, the third one during the past three months)
signifies Russia's recent active steps to reassert its
shattered influence in the former Central Asian
republics of the Soviet Union, at a time that the United
States is busy in the Middle East and world attention
has been focused on that part of the world. One might
say that there is nothing new in Russia's efforts in
Central Asia. Moscow historically, and also since the
breakup of the Soviet Union, has tried to exert maximum
influence there. But there is something new this time
around: the great majority of the Central Asian
countries appear to be welcoming Russia's renewed
attention.
There are several reasons for turning
them into a receptive audience for Russian plans. After
the removal of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, the
Central Asian regimes felt relieved from the threat of
the fundamentalist Islamic movements, which used to have
a safe haven across the Amu-Darya River. However, having
assisted the US in the Taliban ouster, the countries are
now deeply disappointed by Washington’s apparent
neglect. The governments in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
Tajikistan and even Uzbekistan feel betrayed: they
expected flows of direct American investment, economic
aid, new loans from the International Monetary Fund, as
well as public American support for their regimes. But
nothing of the sort has happened. After the completion
of the active military phase of the operations in
Afghanistan, the White House seems to have lost interest
in the Central Asian republics and has dramatically
diminished its presence in the region. Moreover, instead
of support for the regimes, Washington started to be
more and more critical about human rights and has
stepped up promotion of democracy in those countries.
That's the last thing the Central Asian regimes
wanted to see. In the time since the disintegration of
the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, all five Central
Asian republics have managed to develop quite solid
totalitarian political systems with a distinctive flavor
of "Oriental despotism", not surprising since the new
rulers were bred and raised inside the apparatus of the
central committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet
Union. So now American human rights and democracy
campaigns are driving them right back into the arms of
Mother Russia. Moscow has always been tolerant of
"Central Asian democratic governments". Indeed, for the
Kremlin, it is much easier to deal with selected
personalities who are known quantities rather than with
unknown people of popular choice. Moscow realizes very
clearly that after the withdrawal of much of the US
presence and support, the Central Asian leaders feel
most uncomfortable facing their own peoples,
impoverished and deprived of basic rights and freedoms.
Having watched US actions in Afghanistan and
Iraq, they cannot be sure at all that - as a next step -
Washington will not demand liberalization of their
governments, serious concessions to opposition forces
and an end to political repression. On the other hand,
they know for sure that Moscow will never demand such
unacceptable moves. Hence, bending to Russian political
and military superiority and accepting Moscow as a
guarantor of the political status quo in Central Asia is
by far the lesser evil. For the ruling elites, this is a
minor price to pay for the "bright future" Russia is
promising them and their children.
For energy
resources-rich Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, the economic
factor plays an important role, too. Expectations of
their leaders to turn their countries into new Saudi
Arabias have completely failed. US and Western oil
majors have been withdrawing from these two countries,
particularly from lucrative pipeline projects, because
of the intolerable investment climate and overwhelming
corruption of local officials. To export their
hydrocarbons, they have only one way to go - via Russian
territory, through the Russian export pipeline network.
Certainly, it puts Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan into a
very dependent position, but it brings real and very big
money, not vague Western promises. Presidents Nursultan
Nazarbayev and Saparmurat Niyazov are ready to pay the
price.
Russia, too, is now much more eager to
develop closer ties in the energy sector with the
Central Asian republics, looking for new opportunities
with its traditional partners. Moscow realizes that it
is highly unlikely that the US-installed new Iraqi
government will confirm Russian oil contracts made with
Saddam Hussein.
So the Russian leadership
believes that the timing is exactly right to make a
major push to reassert itself in Central Asia. The
recent steps in this direction speak for themselves: a
25-year contract on the export of Turkmen gas, inclusion
of Kazakhstan into the Joint Economic Space (Russia,
Belorussia and Ukraine), opening of bases for
Russian-led rapid-reaction forces for the Commonwealth
of Independent States - all coming at the end of
President Vladimir Putin’s later April visit to
Tajikistan. As one senior-ranking Russian diplomat put
it in private conversation, "You see, while Americans
are stuck in Iraq, the Palestinian issue and so forth,
we have a perfect opportunity to clean up our backyard
... We lost in Iraq, but we are much better off in
Central Asia."
So, at least the American
advisors who flooded Russia during the early years of
Boris Yeltsin's administration did not waste their time
completely: They taught Russians an American saying:
"When lemons get rotten, make lemonade."
(©2003
Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
contact content@atimes.com
for information on our sales and syndication policies.)
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