EurasiaNet
Why Are Central Asia's Presidents Blowing Off NATO?
Central Asia's presidents would have a lot to talk about at the NATO summit taking place in Chicago, given that the summit is focusing on Afghanistan and the Central Asian states play a key role in NATO transport to the theater. But all five of Central Asia's presidents are a no-show at the NATO summit in Chicago, in spite of being on NATO's official list of "leaders expected to attend" and being regular attendees of the last few summits. Instead, they all seem to have sent their foreign ministers.
It's a strange snub, and intriguing because these five countries never do anything in coordination. Information on their decisions are of course hard to come by, and so it's not certain if they are in fact coordinated, but it sure seems that way.
One Kyrgyzstan analyst, Orozbek Moldaliyev, told KyrTag that it's because of Russia:
"One can make various guesses and speculation about why none of the leaders of Central Asian countries responded to the invitation and why all of them are sending their foreign ministers. One of the main reasons, which is on the surface, could be solidarity with Russia," Moldaliyev told KyrTAg.
Moldaliyev pointed out the recent CSTO directive to harmonize members' foreign policies, which is as reasonable explanation as any for the collective no-show, especially since Armenia's Serzh Sargsyan also seems to be skipping it.
Turkey: A Lethal Drone Attack Hits Turkish-American Military Cooperation
The attack, which took place near a village called Uludere on the Turkey-Iraq border, came after the Turkish military came to believe that a convoy of PKK fighters was trying to enter Turkey through a mountain trail. After Turkish warplanes struck the convoy, based on intelligence provided by an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), it turned out that it was actually made up of villagers -- mostly teenagers -- smuggling fuel into Turkey. Although the Turkish government promised to investigate the incident and has also paid the victims' families compensation, there has still been no explanation as to what caused the intelligence failure that led to 34 innocent people being killed.
The WSJ article from two days ago adds a new and dramatic wrinkle to the story: the original intelligence about the convoy was given to the Turkish military by an American UAV. Reports the Journal:
It was a U.S. Predator drone that spotted the men and pack animals, officials said, and American officers alerted Turkey.
The U.S. drone flew away after reporting the caravan's movements, leaving the Turkish military to decide whether to attack, according to an internal assessment by the U.S. Defense Department, described to The Wall Street Journal. "The Turks made the call," a senior U.S. defense official said. "It wasn't an American decision."
Armenia: A Pioneering Winery Brings Winemaking Back to its Roots
While history and archeological finds may back up the region's "birthplace of wine" claim, the quality of the wine produced there -- at least in decades past -- mostly made a mockery of it. That is beginning to change, though. Georgian wines have, in recent years, made great strides in quality and have started earning international attention and acclaim. Wines produced from indigenous grapes grown in vineyards in eastern Turkey have also started to show promise.
Now an ambitious entrepreneur wants to revive Armenia's historic, but mostly dormant, winemaking tradition. Zorah, an Armenian boutique winery that just released its first vintage, was founded some ten years ago by Zorik Gharibian, an Armenian who grew up in Iran and Italy, where he now works in the fashion industry. Enlisting the help of a pair of Italian wine experts, Gharibian is making red wine using the indigenous areni grape and traditional methods, such as letting part of the wine's fermentation take place in large clay jars that are buried underground (Georgians use a similar technique).
Turkey: Public Theaters in the Crosshairs of Culture War
Turkey’s government is embroiled in a bitter dispute with secular-minded actors over freedom of expression in public theaters. Officials insist they respect the concept of artistic freedom, but Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has publicly derided stage actors as “Jacobins” who undermine traditional Turkish values.
Turkey: Kyrgyz Nomads Struggle to Make Peace with Settled Existence
The hills of eastern Anatolia are better suited for sheep herding than for keeping yaks. Some 1,100 Kyrgyz found this out the hard way when they migrated to Turkey 30 years ago from Afghanistan's remote Wakhan Corridor.
Azerbaijan's Navy Exercises Against Enemy Closely Resembling Iran
Recent naval exercises by Azerbaijan were conducted against a nominally "terrorist" enemy, but the details of the exercise suggested that Baku was in fact drilling for a naval engagement with another country. The exercises, called “Protection of Oil and Gas Fields, Platforms, and Export Pipelines,” took place last month, as analyst Anar Valiyev recounts in an analysis for Jamestown's Eurasia Daily Monitor. The exercises involved about 1,200 troops, 21 ships, 20 speedboats and eight helicopters, and the Azeri forces involved shot down a terrorist aircraft (?), boarded hostile ships, and most notably, "located and destroyed an enemy submarine":
[T]he nature of Azerbaijani military exercises suggested that actions are directed against an enemy possessing a helicopter, a ship and even a submarine. It is hard to imagine that certain terrorist group would be able to acquire such arms or equipment, especially when taking into consideration the fact that the Caspian Sea does not have direct access to open waters.
Valiyev concludes, reasonably, that the exercise enemy in fact represented Iran, an assumption backed up by the recent purchase of anti-ship missiles from Israel. This recalls the Caspian component last year's exercises of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, in which Russia and Kazakhstan practiced a scenario involving an attack from the south of the sea consisting of exactly the sorts of aircraft that Iran possesses.
Central Asia Key to Afghanistan Heroin Smuggling – UNODC
The 106-page report by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), released this month, describes how smugglers traffic heroin and opium from Afghanistan, the world’s largest producer, to Russia, the world’s largest consumer. Ninety tons of highly pure heroin, roughly a quarter of the substance exiting Afghanistan, passes through Central Asia annually. Yet in 2010 authorities in the region seized less than 3 percent of it. And despite international efforts to help, that number keeps falling.
Central Asia’s entrenched corruption makes the region a perfect smuggling route, says the report. Senior officials are complicit in the trade, or at least take bribes to look the other way, especially in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. A lack of cooperation among neighbors also offers a boon to traffickers.
The stakes are huge.
“UNODC estimates that in 2010 drug traffickers in Central Asia made a net profit of $1.4 billion from heroin sales. Much of this profit was likely incurred by Tajik traffickers, given that Tajikistan is estimated to handle most of the flow,” said the report. They profit by marking up the heroin by as much as 600 percent once it gets to Russia. Between 70 and 75 percent of the drugs travel by road, leaving a trail of new addicts across Central Asia.
Gay Rights in the Caucasus: Beatings, Arson and Eurovision
It was rainbow flags versus black cassocks in Tbilisi yesterday, the May 17 International Day against Homophobia, when a gay rights march came to blows with an extremist group led by several Georgian Orthodox priests.
“Do you realize what a great crime you are committing by urging small kids… to engage in a wrong sexual lifestyle?” exhorted one priest, who dismissed the marchers’ assurances that the rally was about fighting homophobia. The altercations degenerated into a fistfight after several followers of the Orthodox Parents Union, an ultraconservative group, physically assaulted LGBT rights activists.
Police made arrests on both sides, but reportedly the detainees were released quickly.
The police seem to have stayed neutral during the confrontation, but the bigger human rights test for Georgia is whether the prosecutor’s office will act on LGBT activists’ complaints against their attackers. This would mean taking on priests in a country where the Georgian Orthodox Church is the most trusted institution.
Kazakhstan: Zhanaozen Police Trials Spark Scapegoat Accusations
Zhenisbek Temirov, former head of Zhanaozen’s remand center, received a five-year prison sentence on May 17 over the death of detainee Bazarbay Kenzhebayev following a beating in police custody.
Handing down the conviction days before sentences are passed on the 49 protestors standing trial was a symbolic nod to tensions in the energy-rich town.
But critics say Temirov is just a scapegoat. Those who inflicted the vicious beating on Kenzhebayev have never been found, the critics say, and Temirov was appointed to head the remand center just the day before the violence.
The officer may have “become a scapegoat for all those who tortured, raped and abused the people of Zhanaozen during those tragic days,” wrote activist Galym Ageleuov, who has been observing the trials, on Facebook.
Despite widespread torture allegations, Temirov is the only officer to stand trial over detainee abuse.
Uzbekistan Wraps Capital in New Red Tape
As of May 14, the inhabitants of Uzbekistan’s capital have been formally divided into two groups, and must line up for the proper stamps to show it. Residents who were born in Tashkent or already have a permanent Tashkent living permit will have one stamp; outsiders, those who have come to Tashkent from the provinces, will have a different stamp.
According to Uzmetronom, a news site believed by some to be connected to Uzbekistan’s security services, the stamps allow police to “quickly determine whether the holder of the document is a native resident of the capital city or region or if he/she came to the capital from a distant region [of Uzbekistan].” Uzmetronom does not say why police must be able to quickly separate residents from non-residents.
The Ministry of the Interior says it is training officials and lawyers on the new law’s specifics, but the regulations are lengthy. Requiring all residents to get a new stamp sounds like a paperwork-generating nightmare ripe for misreading.
Tajikistan Rejects “The Dictator”
Movie theaters in Tajikistan -- a country ranked “not free” by Freedom House, where men are forced to shave their beards and the government spends millions on vanity projects while half the population lives on less than $2 a day -- will not be showing Sacha Baron Cohen’s latest film, “The Dictator.”
The spoof -- which follows an eccentric and brutal Gaddafi-style autocrat, Admiral-General Omar Aladeen (played by Cohen), on his misadventure-filled visit to New York -- conflicts with the “mentality” of the people, a film distributor in Dushanbe told Kloop.kg.
According to the news site, the film was to premiere on May 17 in the rest of Central Asia, save for Turkmenistan – whose parody-worthy late dictator, Saparmurat Niyazov (Turkmenbashi), could have easily provided some inspiration for Cohen.
Daler Davlatov, a sales manager from the company Tantan, identified by Kloop as the sole distributor of new foreign films in Tajikistan, told the news site that Tajikistan shouldn’t be compared with “Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and other countries […] because our mentality, as you know yourself, is different. That’s the only reason we didn’t include ‘The Dictator’ in the list of premieres.”
Other than Davlatov, movie industry insiders contacted by Kloop declined to comment on “The Dictator.”
Turkey: Mossad Angry Birds in Turkish Airspace?
Since the their rupture in the wake of the 2010 Mavi Marmara incident, Turkish-Israeli relations have been limping along, taking some hopeful steps forward and more worrying steps backwards. One of the problematic side effects of Turkey-Israel ties being stuck in the muck of mutual recrimination is that this state of affairs only strengthens a tendency among the Turkish public -- and, occasionally, Turkish officials -- to connect Israel to outlandish conspiracy theories. In recent years, for example, Turkish Islamists claimed a three-day heavy metal music festival in Istanbul was actually organized by a Mossad front and the head of Turkey's Higher Education Board (YOK) suggested that genetically modified tomato seeds bought from Israel could be "programmed" to harm Turks, if not destroy the whole Turkish nation.
Kyrgyzstan: Village Courts Have Mixed Record - Report
When changes were approved back in 1995 that enabled village elders in rural areas to handle small-scale legal matters, it was hoped the move would greatly improve the functioning of Kyrgyzstan’s justice system.
Eurovision: Azerbaijan's Three Days of Fame
Sabina Babayeva is not the only Azerbaijani singer preparing for Eurovision. The government apparently has a song to sing, too, and it's called (with apologies to Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Lowe) "Just You Wait."
Sick of what they term international media and rights groups' "politicization" of Eurovision, officials say that when Europe drops by Azerbaijan on May 22 for three days of pop and glamour, visitors will see for themselves that Azerbaijan is up to snuff on all fronts.
“Tourists and visitors to Azerbaijan will be able to personally make sure that Azerbaijani society is tolerant . . .Political pluralism, human rights have been fully ensured,” declared Ali Hasanov, head of the presidential administration's public and political policy department.
Azerbaijanis are wonderfully hospitable people and Baku is, in fact, looking dazzling these days. With glittering new buildings, fancy illuminations along the Caspian Sea, squeaky clean streets, and London-style taxi cabs, the oil-and-gas wealth is written all over the place.
But while the Eurovision song contest, perhaps the biggest international attention-grabber for Azerbaijan since the Nagorno-Karabakh war, has inspired an impressive overhaul of Baku, it has not led to a "remont" of Azerbaijan's civil rights record.
Report after report in recent months has focused on how, behind the snazzy buildings, the ruling elite has literally beat political dissent and free media into a corner.
Kazakhstan: Astana Touts Caspian Port as NDN Hub
The United States and Kazakhstan are exploring the idea of expanding the amount of military cargo passing through Kazakhstan into and out of Afghanistan. The focal point of the discussions is the Caspian port city of Aktau.
Pakistan's Gain in Afghan Transit Deal Central Asia's Loss?
Pakistan has agreed to reopen its border to U.S. and NATO supplies to Afghanistan, charging more than it did before -- and presumably taking money out of the pockets of Afghanistan's neighbors to the north, who were filling in while Pakistan implemented its blockade.
The new agreement with Pakistan will cost the coalition in Afghanistan an additional roughly $365 million a year, McClatchy reports, citing unnamed officials. Just days before, a U.S. senator, Claire McCaskill, reported that Pakistan's refusal to allow NATO transport to Afghanistan -- which it did in retaliation for a strike killing several Pakistani soldiers -- was costing $38 million a month. It's not clear whether those two numbers are commensurate -- as the blog Danger Room reported, the U.S. has been keeping cost figures of Afghan transit close to its vest, because it doesn't want to give Pakistan information that would allow it to drive a harder bargain. But assuming the numbers are commensurate, the new deal with Pakistan would save the U.S. a bit of money -- $8 million a month -- from what it had been paying on the NDN. $38 million times 12 also comes pretty close to the figure of $500 million per year that Deirdre Tynan reported the U.S. was paying to the NDN countries. But the Pentagon hasn't provided many details of that, either, so it's also not clear whether this is the same figure McCaskill cited.
Uzbekistan: Hey, Kids, It’s Cotton-Planting Time
Authorities in Uzbekistan don't like to discuss how they push schoolchildren, college students and teachers to toil in the country’s feudal cotton industry. But now that spring planting is underway, again a few brave activists are bringing us reports on both children and adults being dragged out of school and forced to work in the cotton fields, in dangerous conditions for no pay.
A two-page report by the Expert Working Group, one of the only independent NGOs left in Uzbekistan, provides the latest details, including testimonies. From the English version:
From the first days of May the Uzbek youth at secondary schools, lyceums and colleges in Bukhara, Samarkand, Jizzakh, Syrdarya, Khorezm regions and autonomous Republic of Karakalpakstan were forced to attend spring cotton cultivation activities. This type of work usually includes weeding and hilling of the ground. It can be suggested that the same type of practice with forced spring labor is taking place in all other areas of the country. The minors from secondary schools involved in this type of forced spring labor are 13-16 years old (7-8-9th grades of school) and minors from lyceums and colleges are 16-18 years old.
From Monday to Friday the Uzbek youth involved in forced spring labor attend the local cotton fields from 13.00 afternoon till 18.00 evening. And on Saturdays and Sundays they attend the cotton fields from 09.00 of morning till 18.00 evening. Thus on Saturdays the classes for these groups of children are cancelled. The sources say the spring forced labor for the children would last until May 20-25.
The report likewise notes that “Uzbek authorities have never acknowledged the forced child labor problem and have avoided any public promise to eradicate it.”
Kyrgyzstan: Activists Demand School Access for All Children
About 150 people carrying banners reading “Education for All Children in Kyrgyzstan” and “We are All Different but Equal” rallied in front of the Education Ministry in Bishkek on May 17 to challenge the segregation and ask the ministry to ensure equal education for all. Educating children together is best both for the children, all of them, and society at large, the activists said. Several officials from the ministry mingled with the peaceful crowd.
The rally is part of a series of events to push for the ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which Kyrgyzstan signed last autumn, but has not ratified. Azat Israilov, one of the event’s organizers, said that the event is meant to call attention to specific education provisions in the Convention and raise awareness about the difficulties that children with special needs face accessing education in Kyrgyzstan.
“We want all children to be able to study together like the Convention requires,” said Israilov.
Article 24 of the Convention obligates governments to “ensure an inclusive education system at all levels … enabling persons with disabilities to participate effectively in a free society.” Signing the Convention was an important step, Israilov said, but only ratification by parliament would give it legal weight.
Azerbaijan, Georgia Revive Monastery Fight
Given the Caucasus' long record of ethnic and religious violence, alarm bells are ready to go off any time there is a quarrel over borders or churches in this neck of the woods. Both items made headlines this week in a dispute between Georgia and Azerbaijan, perhaps the friendliest countries in a region where it’s all but de rigueur not to be on speaking terms with at least one neighbor.
Muslim Azerbaijan and Christian Georgia somehow managed to stay friends during the late-Soviet and post-Soviet period, but now the feathers in Georgia are increasingly ruffled after Azerbaijani border guards stopped letting Georgian pilgrims and monks into a section of the 6th-century Davit Gareja monastery, a beautiful complex that straddles the two countries' as-yet-unofficial border.
Rich with ancient Georgian frescoes and writings, the monastery is a major cultural and spiritual hub for Georgians, but some Azerbaijani officials and historians claim that the monastery was created by ancient Albanians, reputed ancestors of the Azerbaijanis.
Georgian politicos, keen to seize a prime PR opportunity ahead of the October parliamentary elections, hurried to the site to deliver some fiery speeches, while disputes raged online and in the media.
The Georgian government has urged restraint, but it also admitted that the Soviet-era demarcation of the then Soviet republics' borders left some two percent of the complex on Azerbaijan’s territory -- a fact duly noted by some Azerbaijani news outlets.
More on the Burgers of Bishkek
For those of you who missed it, Central Asia-based Eurasianet contributor Myles Smith had a great story out of Bishkek about Begemot ("hippopotamus"), a local fast food chain that's revolutionizing the Kyrgyz food scene by selling western-style burgers. Curious to learn more about the story, I sent Smith -- a freelance analyst who has lived in Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan for the last five years -- a few questions to find out how this Central Asian McDonald's was working its way into the hearts and stomaches of Kyrgyz eaters and -- most importantly -- just how does the "hippo" burger stack up against a Big Mac and its other "western" competitors:
1. How did you come upon this story?
Actually, the central processing facility for Begemot is outside the door of my house. I constantly get people ringing the doorbell saying they are coming to apply for jobs. Eventually, I just had to find out for myself.
2. How does the Kyrgyz take on western fast food differ from the real thing?
One of the interesting aspects of Begemot’s re-invention of western fast food is that it its target market and positioning is much more similar to its western antecedents than even McDonald's own relaunch in the CIS. Since its introduction in the late 80s, McDonald's has positioned itself in Russia, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Georgia, and other CIS countries as trendy, youth-oriented, sit-down cafe. In the US, it’s a practical, fast meal option. Most people don't eat in, and despite its marketing efforts, few find the place 'cool'. Begemot is similar - a practical, pick-up option, without a lot of pizzaz.
3. Have you been able to gauge the public's response to the hippo burger?
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