Turkmenistan shakeup indicates succession worries


	March 9, 2002	atimes.com

Central Asia/Russia

Turkmenistan shakeup indicates succession worries
By Sergei Blagov

MOSCOW - Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov, also known as Turkmenbashi, or head of the Turkmens, has suddenly fired a number of his top security officials on charges of power abuses. However, Niyazov's opponents argue that the shakeup could indicate the Turkmen leader's uneasiness over the succession process.

In an unprecedented move on February 4, Niyazov went live on television and lashed out at his once most trusted loyalists, top officials of the State Security Committee, also known under its Russian-language acronym KNB. The president accused the KNB of bribery and human-rights violations. Niyazov also claimed that "some KNB officers were involved in drug trafficking and controlled the drug trade". The president accused his security apparatus of "detaining people illegally and forging evidence". Negative tendencies had emerged because the KNB's powers had been too broadly defined, according to Niyazov.

Subsequently, Niyazov held a cabinet meeting in which top officials of the Supreme Court, the Prosecutor General's Office and the Interior Ministry severely criticized KNB head General Mukhammed Nazarov. Notably, Turkmenistan's Interior Minister Poran Berdyev claimed that "within the past six months KNB officers had carried out illegal searches, planted drugs, tortured detainees, and even killed police officers. The KNB reported to nobody," according to the RIA news agency.

Moreover, Turkmen Prosecutor General Kurbanbibi Atajanova also accused KNB officers of illegal detentions and searches. "The KNB did not report these cases to the Prosecutor General's Office," she said.

As a result, Niyazov stripped Nazarov of his responsibilities as the president's chief legal adviser and coordinator of military and law enforcement bodies. Nyazov downgraded Nazarov's military rank - from a four-star to a three-star general - but retained his post of KNB head. Niyazov also fired two of Nazarov's deputies.

Moreover, Niyazov ordered the demotion of two regional security heads - Balkan velayat (province) KNB chief Colonel Gurban Annadurdyev and Mary velayat KNB head Colonel Bairamkuli Khudaikyliyev. The head of the KNB special department, Colonel Allamyrat Allakuliyev, also lost his job. All three were stripped of their military ranks and decorations. Niyazov's decree said that the three officers "blatantly violated Turkmen laws, detained citizens illegally, forced confessions by violence and intimidation and accepted bribes".

Niyazov also fired the head of the Turkmen Border Guard Service, General Tirkish Termyev, who has been replaced by former deputy defense minister Agagheldy Mamedgheldyev.

The action against top security officials was clearly supposed to demonstrate who is the boss in Turkmenistan, former Turkmen foreign minister and opposition leader Avdy Kuliyev, who is currently based in Moscow, told Asia Times Online. Since the young and energetic Nazarov was recently rumored to be Niyazov's potential successor, Nyiazov decided to make it clear that "Putin's scenario" was not going to work in Turkmenistan, said Kuliyev, referring to the events of late 1999 when former security chief Vladimir Putin became president Boris Yeltsin's handpicked successor.

The Turkmen authorities had accused Kuliyev of plotting an armed rebellion and of embezzling funds from the state coffers. In response, the self-exiled Kuliyev described the charges as fabrications by his political opponents.

Turkmenistan is a one-party state dominated by its president and his closest advisers. Niyazov, head of the Turkmen Communist Party since 1985 and president of Turkmenistan since its independence in October 1990, builds statues of himself. Niyazov, who is also prime minister, lives in a palace with a helicopter landing pad in the capital Ashgabat. His portraits are displayed on most buildings and streets in Ashgabat. In December 1999, a compliant parliament appointed him president for life.

Nonetheless, it is understood that Niyazov was worried by a recent series of defections of onetime loyalists. In recent months Niyazov has been increasingly nervous over the possible defections of his subordinates. Turkmenbashi reportedly banned his officials from spending holidays abroad. However, February's defection of Nurmuhammad Hanamov, former Turkmen ambassador to Turkey, was not an isolated incident. Also in February, former Turkmenistan Central Bank chairman Khudaiberdy Orazov announced his formal defection into dissidence.

In the meantime, Niyazov's opponents challenge Turkmenbashi's rule. Last month, Boris Shikhmuradov, the self-exiled head of the Provisional Executive Council of the People's Democratic Movement of Turkmenistan, sent a letter to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) accusing Niyazov's regime of "unleashing a new wave of terror and cruelty against its citizens" and urged that the suspension of Turkmenistan's membership in the OSCE be immediately considered. In response, Niyazov said that Russia should extradite Boris Shikhmuradov, former deputy prime minister, who is believed to visit Russia frequently.

On November 1, Shikhmuradov, also former foreign minister and Turkmenistan's ambassador to China, openly lashed out at the regime. A day later, Turkmenistan's Prosecutor General's Office announced that Shikhmuradov was wanted on charges of embezzling nearly US$30 million through illicit arms sales in 1994 when he served as deputy premier and oversaw the defense and security agencies.

In December, Shikhmuradov charged that Niyazov had ordered the killing of political prisoners, fixed elections and siphoned off huge sums of money from state coffers. Last month, Shikhmuradov reported a new wave of arrests in Turkmenistan, involving dozens of individuals in Lebap and Bakharden velayats. It is not immediately clear whether this week's shakeup of the Turkmen security apparatus was connected to criticism by exiled opposition activists.

Simultaneously, Niyazov has moved to boost Turkmenistan's international standings by reviving plans to build a potentially lucrative gas export pipeline from Turkmenistan to Pakistan. Notably, on Thursday, Niyazov held talks with visiting Afghan interim leader Hamid Karzai. They reportedly agreed to hold a trilateral meeting with Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf "soon" to discuss the pipeline project. Turkmenistan is ready to start gas exports even today, Niyazov was quoted by RIA on Thursday as saying.

The Turkmen president had high hopes over Karzai's visit, and a Turkmen-Afghan summit should become a first step in major bilateral and regional projects, including the gas pipeline, Niyazov told the US ambassador to Ashgabat on Monday. A month ago, on February 8, Karzai announced that he and Musharraf had agreed to revive the trans-Afghan gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to Pakistan.

Reviving Soviet-era wording, Niyazov told Karzai that the border between the two countries should become the border of "eternal friendship". Niyazov also signed a decree ordering the release of nine Afghan nationals sentenced to prison terms in Turkmenistan.

During Karzai's trip to Ashgabat, the two sides clinched a series of agreements, including an energy cooperation deal. Turkmenistan also pledged to help in reviving Afghanistan's health sector, and promised to receive Afghan nationals in hospitals of Mary and Lebap velayats.

Therefore, the shakeup of the Turkmen security apparatus and the defections of high-ranking officials arguably indicate a measure of domestic problems. However, it remains to be seen whether these could entail more changes in Turkmenistan's authoritarian regime any time soon.

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