SMALL STEPS TO LOOSEN TURKMENISTAN’S PERSONALITY CULT FUEL BIG HOPES AMONG POPULATION
4/23/07
Touching down at the airport in Ashgabat, visitors to Turkmenistan’s capital might expect to be greeted by a beaming portrait of the country’s first president, Saparmurat Niyazov, whose personality cult still thrives, despite the former dictator’s death last December. Instead, it is Turkmenistan’s stifling bureaucracy that makes the first, and lasting, impression.
Entry into the country requires as many as 11 signatures and five document checks. Another surreal experience immediately follows -- the taxi ride from the airport to the city center. The ride runs a gauntlet of white marble, a receiving line of polished buildings that reflect ghostly artificial light by night, and blinding sun by day. The extent and extravagance of the new construction multiplies as one nears the center. All along the way, a tour guide/minder, assigned by the state to all "independent travelers," proudly names each building in turn.
It is only in the center that one begins to notice huge portraits of a benevolent-looking Niyazov at major intersections, his platitudes emblazoned on the sides of factories, and the occasional gold-plated monument. While hardly subtle, the personality cult does not assault one’s senses immediately. It enters through a side door, embedding itself just below the conscious mind. By the time a weary traveler flops down on a hotel bed to watch some local television, Niyazov’s image hovering in the upper corner of the screen seems barely perceptible.
The country’s new president, Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, has not tinkered much with the outward trappings of Niyazov’s rule. Thus, Turkmenistan remains one of the world’s most tightly controlled states. But observers in Ashgabat and abroad say that the new president’s promised policy shifts, while relatively minor, just may amount to the beginnings of a thaw.
"I have heard from numerous people [inside the country] who never hesitate to be critical that indeed there does seem to be a kind of intangible diminishing in levels of fear," said Erika Dailey of the Open Society Institute’s Turkmenistan Project. "That said, very little in fact has actually changed, so I think it’s more of an atmospheric change at this point." [EurasiaNet, like the Turkmenistan Project, operates under the auspices of the Open Society Institute].
Berdymukhammedov, who won Turkmenistan’s special presidential election in February, is definitely a creature of Niyazov’s system. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive ]. He became a member of Niyazov’s cabinet in 1997, serving as health minister, and later adding the title of deputy prime minister. Given Niyazov’s revolving-door approach to personnel management, Berdymukhammedov’s longevity at the top would seem to suggest that he enjoyed a particularly close relationship with the former dictator. During the run-up to the special presidential election, Berdymukhammedov declared his loyalty to Niyazov’s general policies. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive ].
The tireless efforts of state media and tourist propaganda cannot stifle reality in Turkmenistan. All around, for those who care to look, there exist clear signs that a course correction is long overdue. The brick-sized stack of bills one receives when changing $100 indicates runaway inflation. Meanwhile, citizens quietly complain of unemployment, ethnic discrimination, and favoritism, belying the official myths of social harmony. The capital’s yawning public spaces and quiet streets tell of a population that has learned to keep its private life private.
A handful of policy announcements from Berdymukhammedov -- including plans to restore pensions that Niyazov cut, to encourage broader Internet access, and to reinstate a critical tenth year of compulsory education that offers Turkmen some chance to study outside the country -- have stirred hopes that Turkmenistan may begin to open up. "We’re returning to a normal life by tiny steps," said an elderly Ashgabat academic. The new president is a reformer, the man said, but his conservative supporters from the "old generation" are forcing him to move cautiously.
Analysts say that Berdymukhammedov depends heavily on Niyazov’s former circle of associates for support. The new president is said to lean especially on the powerful commander of the presidential guards, Akmurad Rejepov. In the days following Niyazov’s death, Rejepov is believed to have played a key role in engineering Berdymukhammedov’s rise to power from relative obscurity. Rejepov likely played a crucial role in pushing Niyazov’s constitutionally designated successor, former People’s Council Chairman Ovezgeldy Atayev, out of the way. Almost immediately after Niyazov’s death was announced, officials revealed that Atayev was under criminal investigation, rendering him ineligible to assume the presidency. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive ].
Since Berdymukhammedov’s elevation to the top spot, citizens say a slightly more optimistic mood has settled over the country. The decision to reinstate pensions, although it has yet to be enacted, has proven extremely popular for many citizens who are dependent on government handouts and subsidies. Meanwhile, movement around the country, strictly controlled under Niyazov by a system of roadside document checks, has loosened. The police presence on the roads remains high -- a 225-mile drive to the city of Mary revealed 13 checkpoints -- but now only the occasional car is pulled over, rather than all or most.
Rachel Denber, Deputy Director of the Europe and Central Asia division at Human Rights Watch, welcomed the incremental differences, but said a true thaw would begin only when Turkmenistan came to terms with its past. "People are so relieved that some of the most perverse, harmful policy changes of the Niyazov era seem to be under change right now in the social and economic sphere," she said. "That still doesn’t solve the problem of some kind of justice for two decades of destruction."
The Ashgabat academic said that a gradual approach was the only way forward for Turkmenistan, though. "I remember 1953, 1954, and it was the same," he said, recalling the years after the death of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. "With time, evolution brings change."
Posted April 23, 2007 © Eurasianet