Page 2 of 2 SPEAKING
FREELY Danger lurks in
Turkmenistan By Andrei
Tsygankov
the elites. Clan
visibility will become more pronounced in the
political process, although some prominent members
of a prominent clan will remain, to quote George
Orwell, "more equal than other".
Over
time, one can even expect a privatization and a
progression to the stage of capitalism without
rule of law similar to the one that took place in
Russia during the 1990s. The larger society will
remain divorced from
meaningful participation in politics and will have
to be satisfied with some very modest improvements
in standards of living.
As tenuous as they
might be, there are some signs that members of
Turkmenistan's ruling class may indeed be in the
process of finding the described compromise. Among
these signs is the speed with which the current
elite removed the Speaker of the Parliament,
Ovezgeldi Atayev, by arresting him and amending
the constitution to clear the path for acting
Prime Minister Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov, a
candidate of choice as Niyazov's successor. Some
analysts have gone so far as to speculate that the
tyrant responsible for brutal purges was
"assisted" in his death.
Elites have also
promised modest reforms and put forward six
candidates to participate in "elections", which
may be just another way to flesh out a basis for a
political compromise. So far, there have been no
open disagreements between the official successor
and General Akmyrat Rejepov, who served as
Niyazov's chief of security and remains, by far,
the most powerful member of the ruling class.
The alternative path is even less rosy. If
the elites fail to negotiate an acceptable
compromise, one cannot exclude political, military
and even social destabilization. In this society,
guns, drugs and social desperation may prove to be
at least as powerful forces as social networks
capable of facilitating peaceful resolution of
political conflicts. Some high-position members of
Niyazov's government are known for their ties with
the Taliban, al-Qaeda and Afghanistan's drug
lords.
Cultivating those ties may well
become a way to defend political interests in an
intra-elite struggle. Losing control in that
struggle is not impossible and, as with
neighboring Afghanistan, Uzbekistan and Iran, the
vacuum of instability may be quickly filled by
Sunni or Shi'ite Islamists. Then what has been
prevented in Tajikistan in the 1990s and
addressed, with a limited success, in Afghanistan
in the early 2000s may still come to pass in
Turkmenistan.
For the outside world, there
are no good options. Of the two described
scenarios, however, the intra-elite pact is the
lesser evil and must be carefully assisted.
Outside powers will do well to avoid attempting to
pressure the Turkmen regime into submission by
force or sanctions. For instance, some brave
politicians in Russia have suggested a way of
"democratizing" the regime by invading the country
of 5 million people.
This is an extremely
dangerous proposition given Russia's own internal
weakness, the volatile geopolitics of the region,
and the delicate cross-religious balance in the
world. Use of force is sure to destabilize the
region further and to escalate the ongoing global
war of civilizations. Economic and political
pressures too are more likely to facilitate the
instability scenario, particularly if great powers
of the region do not agree on an overall strategy
of isolating the Turkmen regime.
It is
currently hard to imagine Russia, the European
Union, the United States, China and Iran agreeing
on such a strategy, and so far the record has not
been encouraging. Perhaps they could agree that
Turkmenistan should be influenced, not pressured,
and try to lay out some ground rules of what may
be viewed as legitimate ways of influencing the
regime.
Andrei P Tsygankov is
program chair of the International Studies
Association and associate professor of
international relations and political science.
(Copyright 2007 Andrei P Tsygankov.)
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