Turkmenistan: Excesses of the regime’s extended family funded by nation’s dwindling wealth

Turkmenistan sits by dint of pure kismet atop vast seams of hydrocarbon wealth, much of which has been squandered by the two dictators its citizens’ have had the misfortune to be ruled by since seceding from the Soviet Union nearly three decades ago.

Today, its people might as well be living in impoverished Yemen, a country with a fraction of the fossil fuel reserves available to the central Asian state, but where similar injustices and poverty reflect a nation without access to such life-changing amounts of gas and oil fields, and their commensurate numerical riches. It is though in Turkmenistan where one could be forgiven for thinking that such subterranean fortune had eluded its reported six million inhabitants, a figure hotly disputed by all evidence pointing to the real, rounded down number perhaps a third less than the official version.

One does not associate the queuing by citizens for basic foodstuffs with the image of a nation replete with high-demand non-renewables. This though is the reality in a country that has frittered away untold billions of dollars on vanity projects in which packs of roaming white elephants are often the only visitors. Throw in the president’s love of bizarre statuary commemorating anything from horses, bicycles, to himself that do not lack in modesty, poor taste, or expense spared, Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedow continues to exhibit a tacit desire to make Turkmenistan his own personal playground, where through his country’s official stance of Neutrality prying eyes from the outside into his country’s affairs are just as unwelcome as much as he forsakes the welfare of his own citizens – seen more as an impediment to his relentless pursuit of self-deification.

Most nations whose income relies on what lies beneath establish Sovereign Wealth Funds(SWF) that ensure economic diversification once the taps begin to run dry by producing alternative revenue streams, thus preventing a scenario of the chickens returning home to roost from all the eggs being placed in one basket. Perhaps Berdymukhamedow assumes his deserted capital Ashgabat, the most marbled city on earth, and Potemkin-esque coastal resort of Awaza are SWF projects of sorts that will bring in the revenue once the Caspian Sea has given up its last cubic metre of gas. Whilst such thinking is unlikely, this outcome will only theoretically arise once the president has long since left the building, into exile or otherwise.

It is unclear just how long Turkmenistan’s gas reserves will last. Although all well and good to say it has x amount of years remaining based on annual domestic consumption, notwithstanding disputes and fluctuations in demand the overwhelming amount of its hydrocarbon assets head towards Russia and China, two huge, insatiable markets. The long-running saga of the TAPI – Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India – pipeline represents a diversification of sorts, albeit within the country’s core revenue maker, but reaching cross-border consensus with a war-torn state and two others who are the best of enemies is by no means a foregone conclusion. Opening up other markets for its non-renewables is one thing, prudently using the revenue garnered from them is quite another.

Aside from an obsession with marble – former dentist Berdymukhamedow obviously has a thing for white that can hide the rot beneath – native horses, and being seen cycling, drifting around in high-performance vehicles and schmoozing with dim-witted, ignorant, or simply venal Western celebrities, can it be demonstrably proven where all the money goes? A land of plenty it is not for the everyday citizens not feasting at the master’s table, many who have been pictured scavenging through bins, queuing at ATM machines and for flour, bread, and cooking oil. It would though seem that Berdymukhamedow has a sizable household to take care of, at the expense of the much larger Turkmen family to whom he is meant to be their guiding light on the path to enlightenment.

Footage has emerged of a distant relative of the president enjoying all the privileges, and many more besides, of a lifestyle to make both Mammon and Croesus blush. The individual in question is so far removed from Berdymukhamedow that an official familial term for the son of a brother of the president’s brother-in-law does not readily come to mind, nor should he be the recipient of such unearned, financial favour.

Such grotesque largesse lavished on seemingly anyone with their feet under the president’s table does though highlight Berdymukhamedow’s dictator credentials, to whom in the modern era only Kim Jong-un can surpass. It is only a lack of a nuclear capability which prevents Turkmenistan from occupying the top tier of tyrannical states, although arguably the free-pass given to Ashgabat by the international community is something, notwithstanding Pyongyang’s tiresome sabre-rattling and threats of warmongering, that Kim would presumably prefer. With an entourage unknown in number and status, familial and crony, it would seem that the country’s open chequing account is accessible to a wide circle of Berdymukhamedow’s extended family and toadying lickspittle, although the very arbitrary nature of a dictator’s characteristic frequent changes of heart ensures that those in favour may not always be so.

There is though compelling evidence featured in a YouTube clip brought to light by Eurasianet(see link below) of the astonishing excesses that even a distant ‘through marriage’ relative of Berdymukhamedow can enjoy, pouring further oil on the plight of hardworking citizens who expect little but receive less whilst the country’s wealth is blown on high-end consumables and materialism by vainglorious cling-ons without any credentials – other than to have completely by chance hit the jackpot through a tenuous connection to the ruling administration. For anyone in doubt as to the real motivation of the president’s behaviour and iron-fisted reign over Turkmenistan, we only have to view the gluttonous consumption and vacuous life of Kemal Rejepov as the egregious public face of a vile totalitarian regime that hides behind meticulously choreographed photo opportunities, and outwardly benevolent but strongman shows of strength and prowess – all in the name of filling citizens with the fear of their own nation’s deity.

With great wealth comes responsibility to steward it wisely, not only in the here and now but also in a way that provides for and acknowledges a changing future. In examples of countries and individuals who through no reasons other than fate, chance, and strategic manoeuvring into favour have all the money and more for which they could ever wish personality traits redolent with the worst of human tendencies have through the ages reared their ugly heads, assuming themselves to be untouchable and worthy of a higher realm. In this sense life today is no different than past millennia, but while those of this persuasion should beware the Ides of March and enjoy their fleeting gorging from Turkmenistan’s trough while they can, there does not appear to be a likelihood any time soon that the heavily entrenched and probable dynastic status quo will be defenestrated from power.

Source material and further information:

Eurasianet: https://eurasianet.org/turkmenistan-birthday-boy-blows-off-putin

Turkmenistan: Berdymukhamedow to celebrate independence – from which few have benefited more than he

All appearances would suggest that Turkmenistan president Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedow continues to refuse to allow trifling humanitarian issues within the former Soviet republic of Central Asia to distract his focus from the real issues at hand.

Kismet has decreed that Turkmenistan sits atop untold Hydrocarbon wealth which many of its ‘stan’ neighbours can only dream. And yet, without the countless cubic metres of natural gas beneath the Caspian Sea Turkmenistan would be another Yemen, desolate and impoverished with few means by which to support its own people.

There is therefore little question that the money is or at least has been there to build a modern, progressive country on paper far more fortunate than many of the other constituent parts of the former Soviet Union, and realign the societal inequalities as much bywords as a by-product of secession from Moscow almost 30 years ago.

Where there once was a lot of money, there is now far less; perhaps virtually none. Succeeding Turkmenistan’s first president Saparmurat Niyazov, a man whose whims, excesses, and cult of personality have since only proved to be a dry run for what was to follow, Berdymukhamedow, a former dentist, has cranked up levels of narcissism, delusions of grandeur and self-proclaimed wisdom all with a streak of malevolence behind carefully choreographed smiles, of which Niyazov would’ve been proud, or perhaps jealous.

Viewed as the country’s protector and sagacious guide Berdymukhamedow has translated his self-deification into executing many incongruous architectural fantasies to apparently showcase his acumen, and that Turkmenistan has the ingenuity and imagination to be taken seriously on the world stage.

For someone who has declared the country’s stance as being officially neutral, in effect pursuing a course of Isolationism, an obsession with pushing a certain image of futuristic edifices and ambitious but ultimately White Elephant projects endorsed by Western celebrities including Jack Nicklaus, generates more than a whiff of hypocrisy. Quite simply, the state of Turkmenistan today reflects a man out of control but at the same time untouchable, with all foes vanquished and imprisoned, or worse, and those closest to him kept quiet, and happy, with lucrative kickbacks from the inflated budgets of capital projects. The financial resources earned by Turkmenistan are therefore not simply seen as the country’s but the president’s too, allowing Berdymukhamedow to blow billions on what he believes to be for the good of the nation.

An autocratic mindset does not though countenance the real needs of a nation or its people. Where is the bling, glitz, and glamour in ensuring citizens are adequately fed, paid, and housed when the money could instead be channelled towards schemes that are more Potemkin-esque in their delivery, being all for show but with little behind the shiny but often flimsy veneer. All in the name of ‘because he can’ rather than having any genuine basis for conception and realisation, money continues to sluice away into marbling a deserted Ashgabat and feeding the president’s love of a good statue. How such things can be justified in the mind of a dictator we will never know, but therein lies the rub: if you aren’t a despot you just wouldn’t understand, darling.

Two pertinent examples of the vast distance between Berdymukhamedow’s priorities and the reality within Turkmenistan have recently reared their rather ugly, but familiar heads. Pictures of Ashgabat residents rifling through garbage skips once more highlights the plight of many ordinary citizens living under increasingly harsh economic conditions contrast sharply with the president’s desire to build a near-1,000 feet high obelisk to mark 30 years of independence from Soviet rule. Not only is the president ‘going large’ but is in effect seeking to justify yet another of his pointless schemes by associating its construction with the country becoming free to determine its own destiny. It can be vigorously argued that secession was the worst thing that could have happened to Turkmenistan when one considers the type of men who have taken it forth into the 21st century. Far from being a cause for celebration, the country’s citizens will rue the day Ashgabat freed itself from Moscow’s rule, when life was far from perfect but at least guaranteed greater equality, reliable employment and access to basic foodstuffs.

As with Niyazov it is therefore the president, family, and the shady cast of hangers on who have benefited most from independence, exploiting the power vacuum of uncertainty that swept through the capitals of the former Soviet bloc to varying degrees of catastrophe, corruption, and the sale on the cheap of the state’s family silver. To build an obelisk that rivals Paris’ Eiffel Tower in height only serves to cock a snook at critics inside and beyond the country’s borders, and once more reassert the president’s omnipotence.

The obvious inequities within Turkmenistan have no truck with the president, who sees his everyday countrymen as those to look down upon, and to be sweated as assets until their usefulness has been exhausted. For someone who takes the view that his boundless wisdom can only be displayed through the creation of building projects that the limited minds of those without his perspicuity cannot fathom, criticism will therefore be of little consequence.

For those suffering hardship that no citizen in the 21st century should have to endure, an exercise of constructing yet another expensive vanity project is another stab at the hope that one day the Berdymukhamedow presidency will be usurped, when in fact its powerbase is set to be consolidated by son and heir apparent Serdar, a mean and joyless individual whose likely succession will only heap greater misery and inequality onto an oppressed, and shrinking population.

While the world likes to focus on the horrors that leak out from and at the hands of North Korea’s brutal Mount Paektu bloodline, there is still an attitude of approaching the seemingly eccentric but otherwise harmless Berdymukhamedow as a comedic figure of fun, someone lending an air of levity to the otherwise staid world of modern day politics. Who wouldn’t want a president running their country with a penchant for driving fast cars, unerringly shooting every target at which he aims, and composing electro-synth tracks with his grandson? This is the image of a benevolent dictator that the president wishes for the world to see – despite all the while pursuing a line of Isolationism that politely requests outsiders to keep out of his and the country’s business – and time after time the world’s media fall for the shtick.

Only be being rid of the regime and its potential familial successors does Turkmenistan have any chance of surviving as a viable nation for its dwindling population. The more time passes with the status quo in situ the sooner the country will become a private playground for the ruling elite and its coterie, while those citizens unable to leave will become further marginalised and increasingly destitute. What pressure can be brought to bear is limited by the country’s position of neutrality, and a lack of footage that escapes the government censors other than that of Berdymukhamedow playing a Putinesque Alpha Male strongman.

With a dangerous and potentially porous border with Afghanistan threatening to cause headaches in Ashgabat and beyond, the president is more likely to be shored up by foreign powers to prevent a Taliban-inspired invasion into Central Asia, where fertile ground for recruiting the next generation of Jihadists is commonplace and established. The reality is that there will never be enough desire to dethrone Berdymukhamedow, or any regime within a Hydrocarbon-rich country, in particular when destabilization could let a reconsolidated Taliban through an unguarded back door.

For Turkmenistan’s citizens effectively sacrificed by the international community supposedly for the greater good, the future looks exceptionally bleak.

Source material and further information:

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty: http://www.rferl.org/a/turkmenistan-poverty-eating-garbage-fighting-for-scraps-/30411688.html

Eurasianet: https://eurasianet.org/turkmenistan-shots-fired

Turkmenistan: A population size at odds with a reality that’s in short supply

The size of the current population residing within Turkmenistan is once more being hotly debated, with the next countrywide census slated for a somewhat distant 2022. Strangely, the country is already being readied for the event, with perhaps such an ample length of time allowing for President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedow to get his excuses in early, and to ensure the outward flow of citizens to be nipped in the bud.

When secession from the former Soviet Union had been achieved Turkmenistan’s population figure was approximately 3.7 million, which presumably just considered those who remained within its borders and not citizens who had managed to flee the overarching Soviet system.

A 20% spike in population barely half a decade after achieving independence is in my view a credible figure, which allows for repatriation from other regions of the Soviet Union of those, and their families, perhaps exiled under previous regimes, and those returning from overseas to live in a country now free to determine its own destiny. My view is though that such an influx wouldn’t immediately improve Turkmenistan’s birth rate, with many returnees potentially being of older generations.

In March 2006 and 9 months before the death of its first president, Saparmurat Niyazov, Turkmenistan’s population was said to have peaked at 6.79 million, a barely believable increase in 3 million in the space of 15 years. Even allowing for the return of those in self-imposed exile or that not of their own choosing, any subsequent increase in birth rate, which, as previously mentioned would have suffered a time lag because of the age of many returnees, it is highly unlikely that Turkmenistan’s population ballooned by 45-50% between the period of secession and Niyazov’s death in 2006.

Most in the Soviet Union’s former ‘stans’ will have harboured high hopes for the perceived freedoms attached with being unyoked from Moscow, but history always suggests that being careful of what you wish for should always be factored into the initial euphoria attached to achieving independence.

The 90’s was a decade of incredible upheaval within the former Soviet Union, its constituent parts no longer ‘guided’ by an uncompromising overlord intent on, in the main, with respecting the identity of individual republics but not countenancing any insubordination towards or thoughts of independence away from Moscow. In what was a far from ideal system jobs and housing were though a given, even if one had little choice on where to live and work.

Independence quite often came at a price, not only throughout the republics but also within Russia itself. Self-determination allowed anyone with charisma and chutzpah to propel themselves forward as the political strongmen needed to stabilise now independent republics through euphoric but turbulent transitional periods. Writ large into the tacit manifestos of many would-be and eventual presidents were what they could extricate for themselves, in particular natural resources and utilities, once notionally owned by all under a specious Communist system but in actuality rigidly controlled and jealously guarded by the state. The rise of the oligarch was in many ways the back door for presidents to hive off the family silver to those from whom kickbacks would be expected. Almost overnight a system built on stringent state control became available to the highest bidder.

A self-styled charismatic political strongman, incumbent Turkmen president Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedow has done much to live up to the archetypal image of a post-Soviet era dictator. Dressing up his unfettered whims and fancies as being for the good of the country, Arkadag* has turned parts of Turkmenistan into a theme park that nobody will ever use, quite simply because he can, at all times with the country’s chequebook in his back pocket.

Although pursuing a rather specious policy of neutrality with the wider world, Berdymukhamedow is instead isolating his country and attempting to insulate his actions from international condemnation. It is therefore with some irony that whilst the president shows off a Turkmenistan resplendent with infrastructure and facilities that only he could have conceived and brought to fruition, there is little desire to justify their need and cost to a world to be impressed, but kept at arm’s length. Whether he can see it himself, or if in fact Berdymukhamedow cannot grasp what those looking from the outside in have long since realised, is that far from making grand material statements that give the correct impression of Turkmenistan he is merely a deluded fanatic, where substance is in short supply on scratching a very Potemkin-esque surface.

It should not be forgotten that without Turkmenistan’s hydrocarbon riches that none of this would have been possible. Despite man’s inherent love of power it is unlikely that Niyazov and Berdymukhamedow, his former dentist, would have jostled for power had Turkmenistan been akin to Yemen, rather than a scaled-down United Arab Emirates, albeit without a Sovereign Wealth Fund(SWF) for when the taps eventually run dry.

With such an abuse of power and profligacy of Turkmenistan’s dwindling wealth it is hardly surprising that a more accurate figure of 5.4-6.2 million citizens has reportedly dropped to 3.6 million under the Berdymukhamedow presidency. For those that can escape, through remittance work and studying overseas the nightmare is though far from over. With assistance from state-of-the-art German surveillance equipment Turkmenistan is now able to spy on its citizens wherever they may be, in the home or university dormitory.

It is unclear, if the family’s left behind by those fleeing the country suffer the consequences, a la North Korea, but the toll on the lives of people who remain in the country and those not within the president’s select coterie from an endemic lack of basic foodstuffs and the forced labour within the country’s cotton fields is without question. The construction of expensive, white elephant stadia, a falcon-shaped airport terminal building, Jack Nicklaus-endorsed golf course and the president’s weakness for statuary are categorically not for the benefit of the Turkmen people, but the president living out his fantasies with someone else’s money.

Whilst it is perhaps naive to assume the Soviet-published figure of Turkmenistan’s population prior to independence was accurate, the numbers released from subsequent censi are more telling, if only for their obvious fabrication. There is little to be gained from inflating the size of population, unless it is to dispel facts, not rumours, that all is far from well within Turkmenistan. Should though Berdymukhamedow decide to grossly exaggerate the number of those living within his country for his own agenda, this could precipitate the construction of a fresh round of fantasy projects designed to cater for an ever-grow(n)ing population. Despite the lavish avian-influenced Ashgabat Airport this remains a ‘look but don’t touch’ facility, from where many are prevented from leaving and few encouraged to arrive. More a case of build it and they will try to leave, not come.

Pursuing a course of neutrality is in effect designed to prevent those from the outside in meddling with the affair of Turkmenistan, or to be exact those of Berdymukhamedow. It is then somewhat baffling that the president underestimates the power of Social Media and the Internet, notwithstanding the difficulty to access both within the country. On the one hand he wishes to isolate his country and prevent rightful condemnation of his administration, but at the same time cannot resist trumpeting about his latest architectural achievement, designed to impress the outside world and futilely sate his gluttonous ego.

Such are the conditions on the ground in modern day Turkmenistan that the forthcoming census, albeit two years hence, and its published findings will be given little in the way of credence. There are, after all, few if any positives for the Berdymukhamedow presidency if 30% of the population have vanished during his reign. A position of neutrality/isolationism does though prevent the accusation of foreign meddling and undermining from the outside of the census process. It is therefore expected that Turkmenistan’s depleted population will once more see a ‘rise’ in size come 2022.

*Arkadag translates as protector in the Turkmen language.

Source material and further information:

Trend News Agency: https://en.trend.az/casia/turkmenistan/3182249.html

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty: http://www.rferl.org/a/how-many-people-live-in-turkmenistan-the-official-figure-is-hard-to-believe/30393686.html

 

 

Turkmenistan: A hollow facade of neutrality in a country at odds with its own people

It is unclear if Armenian president Armen Sarkissian is completely ignorant of the ruinous cul-de-sac down which President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedow is taking Turkmenistan, or if the content of a recent letter to his despotic counterpart to mark the annual Day of Neutrality was intended to be so ironic that it veered towards black comedy.

Intending to strike a congratulatory tone with Ashgabat Sargissian’s words of wisdom and cognisance of the realities of everyday life under Berdymukhamedow’s failed presidency included praise for Turkmenistan’s citizens, who are seemingly preoccupied with establishing harmonious relations with neighbouring state whilst queuing at ATMs and for basic foodstuffs whilst their leader blows money on statues, including of horses and dogs, and other futile vanity projects.

Going further to wish the people of Turkmenistan peace and prosperity it isn’t though from outside the country’s borders where a threat to such existential ideals emanates, but from their own president. Ruling the hydrocarbon-rich country in a North Korea-lite manner has resulted in a heavily surveilled, paranoid society that fears being ‘shopped’ by their nearest and dearest for even the most trivial ‘offences’. There is little in the way of societal peace in Berdymukhamedow’s Turkmenistan, where democracy is non-existent, access to food and hard cash are far from guaranteed and any form of public, and even privately expressed dissent is brutally squashed.

Any country where hydrocarbon wealth is the main source of income is by default characterised as prosperous, but in Turkmenistan this has not translated into an equitable society replete with opportunity, abundance, and stability. It is arguable that the country is the most corrupt, unbalanced nation on earth today, where the country’s riches are used by the president as if they are his own, earned from his wisdom, ingenuity, and acuity of mind. Sitting atop vast reserves of gas and/or oil is nothing but quirks of nature and kismet, and sadly fertile territory for opportunist dictators. It goes without saying that had Turkmenistan been a Yemen rather than a Qatar of Central Asia, the dentist of previous ruler Saparmurat Niyazov wouldn’t have been as eager to become the fledgling nation’s second president.

Turkmenistan’s neutrality which would seem to distance itself from wading into conflicts outside of its own sovereign territory is at odds with Berdymukhamedow seemingly being at war with his own people. Using the country as a blank canvas on which to display his crass vulgarity the president appears to regard his countrymen as beneath him and with disdain, people not to be trusted or regarded with compassion. Ostensibly his madcap projects, including a Jack Nicklaus-designed golf course, Awaza coastal resort, and the falcon-shaped airport terminal building, the latter costing a reported $2 billion, are ‘for the people’ but in reality are the result of Berdymukhamedow’s wild flights of fancy often the preserve of the monied, and vainglorious.

Projects conceived for self-deification and to elevate Turkmenistan, sorry the president, to an imagined position of power within the region and wider world are in actuality more of the white elephant variety, which will wither on the vine and fall into inevitable disrepair. If nothing else, these schemes and more to complement countless examples of statuary were built at the president’s behest because quite simply he could, with nobody to stop him. Those closest to him often benefit from securing construction contracts, inflated far and away above the market rate. The only limitations seemingly being his own imagination and the country’s shrinking deposit account.

If therefore Turkmenistan’s much vaunted place on the list of neutral countries seems perverse and ironic, that’s because it is. Berdymukhamedow’s peace, prosperity, wealth and happiness are not in doubt as he regards himself as Turkmenistan, and not just its commander in chief. Neutrality ensures that Turkmenistan will not involve itself in conflicts outside of its own borders but in effect is more an isolationist approach adopted to serve the president’s own agenda. Crucially for Berdymukhamedow this stance ensures the international community will continue to pay lip service to those crying foul over Turkmenistan’s appalling Human Rights record and a modus operandi completely at odds with how to run a country, apart from into the ground. More a quid pro quo arrangement, President Berdymukhamedow wishes to deter prying eyes from seeing how he uses his country as his private playground and theme park, somewhat conflicting with the image he wishes to portray through a succession of Potemkin-esque projects. It is though impossible in the modern era, even for dictatorships, to completely sanitise what appears online; should the preferred image of Turkmenistan that Berdymukhamedow wishes to present be in the public domain, he should also expect the treatment of workers shanghaied to bring the country’s cotton cash crop to market to equally present a pertinent snapshot of the grim reality he has thrust upon the nation.

More a spoilt big kid than a head of state, the 62-year old can stamp his foot to get what he wants, with nobody within or outside of Turkmenistan willing or able to take on a country carefully dressed as a neutral, pacific nation but one in reality being taken on a nightmare journey towards oblivion.

Source material and further information:

ARMENPRESS: https://armenpress.am/eng/news/998805.html

Turkmenistan and North Korea: Autocratic regimes rely on opacity and agendas to oppress citizens and bamboozle those on the outside

Once again we visit Turkmenistan, the land of irony, where truth and fiction become entwined to a point where there can be little to differentiate these polar opposites.

Every bad guy needs a patsy, someone who will take the rap when merely following orders – usually on the pain of death, imprisonment or some other punitive sanction.

It seems Turkmen president Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedow has identified his stooge, the now former Interior Minister Isgender Mulikov, whose supposed crimes include embezzlement and the taking of significant bribes. Now, nobody would suggest such behaviour by a government official is anything but inappropriate, with summary dismissal from the president’s inner circle being a large price to pay but an inevitable and fitting outcome. Did though Mulikov take a fall for his perceived crimes, or is there a darker, unconnected reason behind his naming and shaming, and imprisonment?

It would though be remiss of me to overlook the almost satirical backstory behind Mulikov’s dismissal and subsequent incarceration. Accused of being receptive of huge bribes to facilitate the purchase of high-end material goods, the former minister of the interior has in effect been brought to book for exactly what his president allegedly routinely undertakes. Spending the country’s money on top of the range sports apparatus, performance vehicles and vulgar Potemkin-esque edifices are presumably justified as being in the national interest but instead form part of a wider mosaic of Berdymukhamedow treating Turkmenistan as a blank canvas on which to realise his wildest and unchecked schemes, whilst using the nation’s cheque book to do so.

From an avian-influenced airport terminal building – rumoured to cost £2 billion – through which few foreigners will enter the country and from where many locals are prevented from leaving, to a golf course designed by Jack Nicklaus more of a vacant savannah for the nation’s white elephants, and the almost ghost town-like Caspian Sea resort of Awaza it is not hard to come to the conclusion for who Berdymukhamedow is working. Furthermore, money diverted from the sale of Turkmenistan’s vast gas reserves and presumably its cotton cash crop ends up in the hands of parastatal companies operated by friends, family members, and cronies who, with the lack of democracy in the most closed society outside of North Korea, keep the president in power. Awash with finery and material goods that perhaps over 95% of the country’s population will never own, let alone see first-hand, Berdymukhamedow’s chutzpah to point the finger at a government minister for committing acts he is all too familiar with himself, is as laughable as it is depressing.

An alternative reason for Mulikov’s defenestration and lengthy prison sentence suggests he was colluding with businessman Charymukhammed Kulov and Meylis Nobatov, the former head of the State Migration Service, to topple the president in what would in theory be a welcome coup, but not if initiated by an equally venal individual. If of course Mulikov was entirely innocent of all charges except seeking to effectuate a positive change of regime within Turkmenistan, the rubber stamping of his guilt and incarceration by the state-controlled judiciary was a foregone conclusion.

Getting to the heart of what is true in a society where suspicion, surveillance and oppression are writ large through the daily events of even everyday Turkmen is therefore an impossible task. Should though anyone else on the inside get too close to the truth and mount a covert campaign to bring down the incumbent regime, it is highly likely that they too will be ratted out by someone in the president’s pay or with ambitions of being so. State of the art German surveillance equipment helps the president keep a lid on dissension both at home and abroad, in particularly Turkey, where Turkmen students seek greater educational opportunities.

There are undoubted parallels between contemporary Turkmenistan and North Korea’s Kim dynasty, who reportedly executed Jang Song-thaek, the one-time trusted uncle of Kim Jong-un, with either anti-aircraft weaponry or a pack of starving dogs. Either way, it was a grisly end for someone who the Kim regime announced was plotting to bring down the Mount Paektu Bloodline although as with events in Turkmenistan, one person’s truth rarely reflects that of another. If though there was ever a warning in history of what fanatical dictators are capable of, those harbouring desires to overthrow Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedow or any other despotic regime will need nerves of steel and learn the lessons, if any are evidently obvious, where the likes of Mulikov and Jang failed. There is though also the chance that neither were guilty of what they were officially charged, or of one of the alternatives theorized by conspiracy ideologues.

The truth will remain a rare commodity where it is inconvenient to the ruling elite, but one must also guard against automatically giving credence to alternative stories emanating from what are the most hermetically sealed countries on the planet where the regimes will stop at nothing to liquidate anyone, guilty or otherwise, threatening the status quo.

Source material and further information:

Eurasianet: https://eurasianet.org/turkmenistan-interior-minister-resurfaces-in-handcuffs

 

Turkmenistan: Cop out that once more fudges the real issues affecting an oppressed nation

The cliched image of a ‘fat cop’ more au fait with bribery and corruption than a consistent and just delivery of the rule of law is synonymous with countries whose regimes provide the inspiration for their police force, both in terms of an amoral modus operandi and in physical appearance that can often mirror the president himself.

The obvious candidate in Central Asia whose hefty build and somewhat ‘out to lunch’ appearance presents a dictatorial, despotic air of unpredictability is undoubtedly Tajik premier Emomali Rahmon. At times looking more like a well-oiled wedding guest squeezed into an unforgiving suit Rahmon nevertheless cuts an intimidating figure and one that wouldn’t look out of place on the streets of Dushanbe issuing speeding tickets and smashing headlights from behind inscrutable aviator shades.

Tajikistan has though already taken steps to weed out any corpulence within the ranks of its police force, with several officers being dismissed in 2017 for failing to meet their target weight. Whilst a paunch overhanging a trouser belt is hardly the image one would expect from a dedicated lawman it does though seem hypocritical for leaders not exactly noted for their svelte frames to condemn the overworked and underpaid purely on superficial grounds. In an area of the world where preponderant hypocrisy and controlling the controllables are firmly established as the norm, it should not come as any great surprise that the irony of such instances seems lost on leaders whose delusional behaviour and narcissism preclude them from similar courses of self-examination.

No former ‘stan’ of Central Asia has taken irony, manipulation of the truth and the image of a vainglorious leader to such extremes as Turkmenistan. President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedow, an unabashed fitness fanatic and former dentist to the previous leader may be many things but tubby isn’t one of them. Bestriding a country seen as more a private playground and blank canvas for his grandiose, futile schemes Berdymukhamedow looks every inch a suave and lean man about town, even when hair dye supplies appear to have run dangerously low. Often pictured in the heavily controlled state media riding a state of the art bike through a deserted Ashgabat, pumping iron in an improbably well-equipped but again otherwise uninhabited gym, firing guns at targets that fall before the b of the bang and shooting a quick 9/18 holes with buddy Jack Nicklaus, the president’s every public move seems to exude the benefits of a healthy lifestyle and impeccable orthodontics. It is though one thing setting the health and fitness bar high for his fellow Turkmen but quite another to expect citizens, an estimated 50% of whom are unemployed, to be able to purchase expensive cycles, golf clubs and gym memberships on paltry or non-existent wages. It is the very fact that tens of billions of hydrocarbon dollars have been siphoned off by the president and his cronies, often to construct Potemkin-esque structures which nobody is allowed to use or cannot afford to, which has precipitated huge shortages of basic foodstuffs and now hard cash in many of the country’s ATM machines.

It is though Turkmenistan’s police who are now being targeted to shape up or ship out. The hackneyed image of a rotund cop seeking his next bribe might play out as a comedic scene in the Dukes of Hazzard or depict a lazy, corrupt, and incompetent Chief Wiggum in The Simpson’s but for once Berdymukhamedow calls it right: nobody wants or expects a law enforcement agent to be too large to effectuate a successful pursuit on foot of a suspected criminal. The physical appearance of a police worker does not though address the potential for venality; a large cop could present the wrong image but be diligent and fair in his(or her) daily duties but an athletic and slim policeman with a cut of his jib of which Berdymukhamedow would surely approve could be as corrupt as the man at the top. It is therefore not appearance that need overhauling but the collective and individual mindset.

Wherever humans exist on earth the police have always had their bad eggs but an alacrity for bribery and extortion to the degree it exists in Turkmenistan has two points of origin. Firstly, wages for the country’s police are unbelievably low to a point where being employed barely outweighs its antithesis. It is under these circumstances where the topping up of salaries from bribes often stemming from trumped up violations becomes the only option, compromising the ideals of the vast majority of those who presumably took on law enforcement roles for the right reasons. This leads into the second reason.

Had President Berdymukhamedow not used Turkmenistan’s cheque book as if it was his own slush fund there would have been far more money available for the nuts and bolts of everyday life, including paying public servants a living wage. It will not be lost on those in the police service who resort to underhand ways to enhance their paltry pay that they are being denied lives above subsistence level because money has been diverted away from public services to bankroll an amount of white elephants that would make a safari park blush. Quite simply, if the president gets away with manipulating the truth and taking money from the country for his own personal whims and fantasies, he cannot complain if his example to the nation is reconstituted into a free for all, do-what-it-takes-to-survive way of life for many of its citizens.

It would seem that the way Turkmenistan works from the top down is more akin to being on the fiddle than one being played whilst the country metaphorically burns, and inexorably sinks further into interminable decline. A ploy of a country still regarded as a gas giant holding regional giants at arm’s length and playing them off against each other is not sustainable. One can only assume that the president will know when the time is right to excuse himself from his seat of office, presumably just as the call to ‘abandon ship’ is heralded by the band striking up for a final time. With a reported $23 billion squirreled away in various German bank accounts it is not unreasonable to suggest that this constitutes a Sovereign Wealth Fund not for a country’s future, but to benefit that of an individual.

Source material and further information:

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty: http://www.rferl.org/a/fat-cops-in-turkmenistan-told-lose-weight-or-lose-job-/30291506.html

 

Turkmenistan: Why are German companies all too eager to overlook the Human Rights abuses committed by the Berdymukhamedow regime?

Call it a love affair, an obsession with, or a shameless dash for cash while there is still some at the country’s disposal, Germany’s interest in Turkmenistan, a country in the iron grip of a dictator seemingly hell-bent on emulating the Kim dynasty’s template for running North Korea, shows little sign of waning.

At first glance this would seem to be a relationship based upon what one party can extract from the other, although a reported $23 billion of Turkmen money ‘resting’ in several German bank accounts would suggest the Teutonic giant has in some way entered into an ersatz quid pro quo agreement with the Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedow regime. Although a theory rooted in intrigue and hearsay, it is impossible for this correspondent to overlook such a slush fund, if anything akin to a king’s ransom should it indeed exist, that represents more a rainy-day provision for a president and his family perhaps forced into future exile. Quite aside from if the money is in fact held within Germany and placed there by who and for what purpose, this astonishing amount equates to the 2017 Gross National Product(GNP) of fellow Central Asian ‘stan’ Kyrgyzstan.

Only months after the reported demise of Berdymukhamedow transpired to be premature rumours continue to abound as to his whereabouts during the days of his supposed ‘death’. Again, Germany figured highly, where the president allegedly flew to oversee medical treatment being received by his mother. Not France, the UK, or any other country whose healthcare standards are perceived to be amongst the best on earth, but Germany.

Is therefore the Merkel administration particularly sympathetic to Turkmenistan, its rotten regime, or is this simply an example of the German private sector taking advantage of an absence of sanctions imposed on the Berdymukhamedow regime by, well, anyone, to feed on the country’s hydrocarbon riches before the taps, and money, run dry?

It has often been said that German businesses have routinely looked east for commercial opportunities, something that in theory is far easier to do since the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union. Where once there was one colossal but otherwise closed marketplace there are now fifteen, all with admittedly nuanced attitudes to embracing free market economics in the wake of Sovietisation’s broad-brush approach. Where though is the intervention from the German government, preventing the dealing with a country, or put another way the far-reaching tentacles of the Berdymukhamedow regime, that has taken levels of narcissism attendant with cults of personality to such dizzying, unprecedented heights?

Leaving no checkbox unticked on the ‘how to be a dictator’ inventory Berdymukhamedow not only surveils his people within Turkmenistan’s borders but also those studying overseas, apparently aided by German technology experts Rohde & Schwarz. Those who fail to toe the line in a country where even having the wrong literature on your bookcase could be seen as potentially seditious, could find themselves purged as a deterrent to others. Whilst snitching by those paid to hang their co-workers, neighbours, and family members out to dry is common, without the alleged help from German surveillance expertise life for those in Turkmenistan, and for its citizens abroad, would be classed as extreme difficult instead of the utterly nightmarish existence that the vast majority, aside from the ruling elite and its obsequious coterie, endure on a daily basis.

Legend had it that members of the Berdymukhamedow family and associated hangers on would requisition commercial aircraft for their own needs, a process that could include emptying jets of their ticket-paying passengers. After being suspended earlier this year from operating within the European Union(EU) Turkmenistan Airlines sought outside help to bring its EU flight services up to code, all the while continuing to operate its non-EU schedule. It did come as a surprise, but perhaps shouldn’t have, to find that German aviation behemoth Lufthansa, through its Lufthansa Consulting subsidiary, put their hand up to assist Turkmenistan’s flag carrier to once more become legally complaint, and in effect, airborne. It again represents an attitude of purely focusing on the (lucrative) task at hand and not instead from where they are being paid and who, and his ruinous and savage approach to governing, the likes of Lufthansa are tacitly endorsing.

I am not suggesting that Germany is the only country keen to get involved in what is perceived, by dint of its hydrocarbon riches, a country of significant wealth. Foreign expertise is often sought by other nations eager to exploit similar geological advantages and whilst nobody can claim the United Arab Emirates or Saudi Arabia are exemplars of democracy, they at least have created Sovereign Wealth Funds(SWF) to enable economic diversification when the earth’s finite resources have yielded their last. Dealing with Turkmenistan in any commercial capacity can only suggest that the brutal way in which the country is run by a suspicious, unpredictable leader is of little importance when there is money to be made. The realities though of working within such an environment for several companies based overseas and who have gone into Turkmenistan has often included invoices going unpaid and in extreme cases, foreign-built infrastructure being unceremoniously requisitioned by and absorbed into the state.

Without German or wider European Union sanctions imposed upon Turkmenistan nothing will change. Perhaps an attitude of failing to engage with Ashgabat will see Berdymukhamedow’s citizens slip further into poverty can be used by foreign companies to justify their presence within the country, although such specious reasoning falls at the first hurdle. A country that has earned and frittered away so much of its hydrocarbon wealth on futile, Potemkin-esque vanity projects predicated on deifying the president’s unfailing wisdom can only look to itself when questioned as to where all the money has gone. In what appears to be a non-negotiable pact between president and his subjects the riches earned by its hydrocarbon and cotton cash crops from the hands, but expense of those tasked with bringing both to market, are to be spent as the nation’s unassailable guide sees fit. The fact that it is unlikely that this will involve investing in what the country’s rapidly diminishing population require is immaterial; in the mind of the deluded and vainglorious only they know what is needed and best for their country to flourish, which is another way of saying that they have full control of the chequebook and will repurpose the country into what amounts to their own private playground, a veritable blank canvas on which to translate even the most outlandish of his ideas.

I find it sad that with so much information available on the failures of Turkmenistan as a viable state under its current regime that many foreign countries and business interests from within these continue to put money and self-interest ahead of moral considerations, and the potential damage to reputations from dancing with the devil.

Do I advocate isolating the likes of Turkmenistan from the outside world? Such a notion would be hypothetical as it would never happen whilst other nations, aware of its likely vulnerability to their blandishments, cast rapacious eyes over its riches. One could argue that from a reported loss of a third of its population to migration in the last ten years that a regime, dressed up as moral but neutral from an official Non-Aligned status, that the influence of foreign countries and their private enterprises have had absolutely no positive effect on the day to day lives of Turkmenistan’s citizens, and as such they who haven’t already escaped are living an isolated existence cut off from the rest of the world by proxy.

Although again hypothetical and whilst a controversial strategy if officially implemented, what difference would there be to those that matter, the people, if Turkmenistan was isolated by the international community until Berdymukhamedow performed an extremely unlikely volte face, or more preferable still a regime change took place that didn’t merely amount to the reins being handed over to the president’s son, Serdar?

Are though Western powers too far gone to row back from their own and/or private enterprise dealings with Turkmenistan, in effect Berdymukhamedow? It is much harder to justify a change in moral and ethical reasoning, and not be labelled hypocritical, than to simply not engage in the first place. It is of course inevitable that political landscapes change within the so-called developed West and as such, attitudes towards foreign policy and the engagement with egregious leaders(not countries) and their modi operandi will alter accordingly. It should though be enshrined within a country’s constitution that once a foreign nation has crossed a clearly delineated threshold, especially but not exclusively pertaining to Human Rights abuses, that an immediate cessation of public and private sector involvement should take place until such a time a demonstrable, positive change has been effectuated.

By forsaking the lives of those living under an autocratic boot we tacitly elevate own importance, and financial insatiability, above that of our fellow humans. In our cosy, democratic, and materially rich but spiritually bereft nations we hear about the plight of others and sympathise in our own, superficial way. How though can the average man and woman in the street bring about positive, lasting change? For that to occur it is to our governments where we should look, and lobby, but if they are too concerned with engaging, not curtailing, those who are facilitating the oppression we so abhor and allow the private sector to do so, any future token condemnation will always be open to accusations of insincerity and hypocrisy.

It is time for moral arbiters, not those driven by economic growth and unnecessary prosperity to be more than also rans at the ballot box. Whilst many areas of modern life are subjective to individual kinks and interpretations there can surely be no argument that Human Rights abuses and the amorality of tin pot dictators who seek glory garnered from exploitation have no place in any society, country, or era.

If a country wasn’t replete with natural gas then who knows, this might already have happened. There is something extremely unpleasant about keeping hydrocarbon-rich states ‘on side’, in effect betraying an attitude of not rubbing up the wrong way a nation that you never know when you might need it. If though Turkmenistan didn’t have by a quirk of kismet the wealth under its soil, chances are Berdymukhamedow wouldn’t in the first place have jostled so successfully and opportunistically into a position to get his hands on the country’s money and fuel an agenda few could have foreseen, but with hindsight ‘goes with the territory’.

If both Climate Change, and the clueless but sadistic leaders piggybacking onto Fossil Fuel’s ephemeral gold rush to further their own skewed agendas are to be permanently reined in, it would require our reliance on the Oil and Gas industries to be brought to a shuddering, almost overnight halt. I think we all know there is little chance of that taking place whilst money can be made from the exploitation of humans and the environment, distasteful traits of Man since time immemorial.

Source material and further information:

Flight Global: http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/turkmenistan-airlines-regains-approval-for-eu-operat-461554/

Eurasianet: https://eurasianet.org/turkmenistan-not-ok-computer

Reuters: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-turkmenistan-airlines/eu-lifts-ban-on-turkmenistan-airlines-idUSKBN1WW0QJ

Trend News Agency: https://en.trend.az/casia/turkmenistan/3135700.html

Vox: http://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/5/28/18629833/climate-change-2019-green-new-deal

 

Turkmenistan: President Berdymukhamedow Continues to Have a Gas as the Country Craters

Footage of Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedow not allowing the tedious everyday affairs of state to get in the way of his hobbies are nothing new.

Recent dramatic publicity shots of the former dentist putting a rally car through its paces close to the Darvaza gas crater were though unintentionally couched with metaphors aplenty, the most glaring being the smoking Door of Hell, as the crater is also known, to where the country is being led by Berdymukhamedow’s vanity and profligacy. The president’s fiddling with white elephant projects designed to glorify his omniscient wisdom are at the expense of a country being left to burn, without intervention or international condemnation.

Rumours continue to abound as to the president’s whereabouts and even mortality. It has never been beyond the ken of Turkmenistan’s state media to leave open to interpretation when Berdymukhamedow’s latest escapades actually took place, despite outward appearances suggesting their broadcast in real time when in fact the recycling of footage captured from different angles only serves to add to the smoke and mirrors behind which the country is managed. Although suggestions that Berdymukhamedow had indeed died were soon quashed this was primarily done with footage that could have been filmed at any time, apparently put forward as proof that the president’s demise has been very much exaggerated.

Pictures of the president in earnest conference over the siting of new bus stops in the country’s capital Ashgabat and the apparent signing(and dating) of a document, the latter more legerdemain than conclusive proof, offer little evidence of the reality on the ground in perhaps the most closed, and oppressed, nation on earth outside of North Korea. The ‘doughnutting’ adjacent to and around the extremely dangerous Darvaza crater was obviously intended as the most emphatic of rebuttals to those who continue to push the conspiracy theory of the president’s untimely expiration.

If the footage in Turkmenistan’s desert, as unforgiving as the president’s regime, is to be given credence it would seem that the president’s month-long summer vacation, unusual  itself in the length of its duration, was rudely interrupted so as to assure his countrymen and an increasingly interested world that his health is without question, notwithstanding stocks of his favourite hair dye apparently being in alarmingly short supply. Was he in fact holed up in his flagship Potemkin-esque seaside development of Awaza or visiting an ailing mother in Germany, a country seemingly in a rush to assist Turkmenistan in any way it can. Only after the slated day of his return from holiday, August 15th, has been and gone will there be a better idea as to who is at least meant to be at the country’s controls, and what of its immediate future.

Replete with the hypocrisy and self-deification that comes as standard in any autocracy worth its salt the regime insists on portraying images of itself that have already been conclusively refuted. Laced with irony bordering on the almost laughable if it wasn’t so serious the recent shipment of aid to Afghanistan was intended to paint the Berdymukhamedow regime as compassionate to the plight of one of its many immediate neighbours. How though this is intended to tally with the forced repatriation of Afghans who earlier this year fled over the Turkmen border from the Taliban is unclear, although the fate awaiting them back in their homeland, whilst unsurprisingly not reported, is sadly predictable. The sending of material aid is easy for any country to undertake; should though an unexpected humanitarian situation unfold of this nature there is obviously little scope, or compassion, to veer from a preordained script. Although there is an obviously the potential to set a dangerous precedent by harbouring those fleeing terrorism from an adjacent nation, to instead return the absconders into the welcoming arms of the Taliban is as heartless as it is a sobering thought.

President Berdymukhamedow’s obsession with the Akhal-Teke breed of horse indigenous to Turkmenistan is as well-known as it is unabashed. Recent utterances from the man at the top have rightly suggested that to judge the true character of an individual one should assess their attitude towards and treatment of God’s creatures. Filmed playing with kittens belonging to his grandchildren the president leaves the casual viewer with the impression that he is a modern-day Saint Francis of Assisi and not the bumbling, capricious narcissist hellbent on taking Turkmenistan for all he can get. How though this is intended to tally with the brutal, sadistic approach adopted at his behest by local authority workers tasked to deal with stray cats and dogs in Ashgabat and elsewhere in the country, is once more unclear. This is though no cat-stroking Bond villain, with whom at least you knew where humanity and animalia stood.

Perhaps assuming that a hermetically sealed Turkmenistan whose every facet of media is controlled by the state never gives up its secrets to the prying eyes of the world and his enemies, the president will perhaps be oblivious to the absurdity of these and many other examples of double-dealing leaking into the consciousnesses of today’s 24/7 rolling news generation.

There can though be few more pertinent examples than these of the reality within Turkmenistan and the mind of its despotic head of state than the ‘do as I say, not as I  do’ message being promulgated by a heartless, antipathetic and disingenuous spendthrift whose bulletproof swagger betrays the truism that only death can rein in his excesses. Whether or not Berdymukhamedow has already met his maker will become obvious in the days and weeks ahead although even his passing will offer Turkmenistan little respite should his son Serdar, seemingly the Dauphin in waiting, take the reins and unleash the next wave of familial madness upon a defenseless population.

Source material and further information:

Trend News Agency: https://en.trend.az/casia/turkmenistan/3095723.html

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty: http://www.rferl.org/a/turkmen-president-portrayed-as-animal-lover-while-strays-are-savagely-killed/30067470.html

 

 

Turkmenistan: Rumours of its Dead or Alive President Continue to Spin Around

The rumoured demise of Turkmen president Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedow seem for the time being at least to be exaggerated although quite who(now established – see Jamestown Foundation source) fed the media what appears to be false news and why has yet to be established. What though can be gleaned from one of the world’s most closed nations is that all is far from well in the marbled state of Ashgabat. Whilst this will hardly be a surprise to many observers even those most hardened to Berdymukhamedow’s histrionics and vulgar excesses will have been taken aback by the president’s current ‘is he, isn’t he’ limbo-like status.

One theory – alright, I will call it my own – is that the unknown source wanted to shine a light on the basket case-status of Turkmenistan. Western media outlets have increasingly portrayed Berdymukhamedow as a bumbling but harmless eccentric at the controls of a hydrocarbon-rich nation whose attendant wealth has allowed the president to spend, and behave, with alacrity. More genial than despotic but apparently bored by an insatiable appetite for bling, marble, and self-deification, the president’s appearance in online news stories seems to be with the intention to amuse rather than horrify. Reared on stories of fossil fuel-rich nations literally having money to burn whilst their citizens luxuriate in tax-free opulence, it is assumed that all countries who through fortuitous quirks of topographic kismet are sitting on untold riches actually use their wealth to benefit the population in real time and future generations through the creation of Sovereign Wealth Funds. For those willing to look beyond the endearing idiosyncrasies and ‘for the cameras’ legerdemain they will see for every Dubai and Azerbaijan there is a Venezuela or Turkmenistan.

My reasoning is therefore rooted in quite simply the most obvious way to generate online clicks which stimulates the chattering classes: announce the death of a ruling head of state. In an era of mass media, rolling news, and the increasingly blurred lines of what is true or unsubstantiated whether or not he or she is actually dead can become almost of secondary importance. If the aim of the game was to look behind the whole hall of mirrors to take in what lies beneath the objective of bringing the president to book would finally be achieved, although whether it would facilitate downing the whole house of cards is moot.

President Berdymukhamedow has not been seen in public for several weeks; whilst his conspicuous absence continues so will the rumours of his current status. No amount of Social Media rebuttals by Shanghaied, or simply brainwashed, Turkmen celebrities declaring the president is alive, long live the president and the insistence of Uzbek Shavkat Mirziyoev that he fielded a birthday call from the man himself will serve to placate sceptics like a verifiable public appearance before the cameras. Whilst Berdymukhamedow has been viewed since the rumours surfaced going about his daily business on state television little was given away to suggest whether this was contemporary or archived footage. The Turkmen public, much in the same way North Korea’s population are sedated by wall to wall propaganda, will become so desensitized by the perpetual rehashing of Berdymukhamedow cycling, shooting, and unveiling the next statue that they will hardly notice if what they are seeing is in the here and now or a regurgitation of historic footage shown from a subtly different angle.

Whether malicious or just plain mischievous, rumours of the president’s death could be cleared up by his appearance at a scheduled event within the country or the meeting of regional counterparts. Despite reports suggesting Berdymukhamedow is in fact on location until August 15th there doesn’t seem to be a rush to assure the general public that all is well – something one would expect in countries run along relatively normal lines. A complete media silence from the higher echelons of government is though entirely in keeping with the contempt with which the current regime has for the country’s citizens. As many as 1.8 million Turkmen have fled abroad during the Berdymukhamedow reign; the rest are seemingly treated as an inconvenience who get in the way of the president’s apparent wish to turn the former Soviet Republic into his own private playground, with the nation’s cheque book firmly ensconced in his back pocket.

The fear among many Turkmen that such an uncomfortable silence will be broken not by the confirmation of the president’s existence or mortality but the rebooting of Turkmenistan for the 21st century by Berdymukhamedow 2.0 – his son Serdar. Recently promoted to governor of Ahal province the dauphin is likely to run the country along lines that pay homage to his father’s approach, instead of distancing himself from a regime that has arguably overseen an era bleaker than any under Soviet rule. Far from being an altruistic man of the people Serdar Berdymukhamedow has already flexed his muscles in a manner that proves even the youngest apples don’t fall too far from a rotten tree.

Without suggesting unfettered approval by both the Trump and Putin administrations of Berdymukhamedow’s personal take on running a country, each will be concerned by the possible destabilizing effect of the rumour and its eventual outcome. The deal struck by Russian energy giant Gazprom for Turkmen gas is extremely modest and although a welcome revenue stream for the president’s slush fund, it pales into insignificance against that brokered a decade ago between the two parties. If Russia resumed relations with Turkmenistan purely on a humanitarian footing it will in all likelihood be disappointed as to where its rubles end up. The deal suggests that Russia is pleased to receive gas from beneath the Caspian Sea but that the seller needs Moscow more than it needs Ashgabat. On this basis it will be immaterial who is running Turkmenistan, at least while there is an absence of shenanigans that change goal posts of the deal.

A more serious ramification precipitated by continued uncertainty of the president’s welfare and location is what an apparent vacuum in power could instigate within such an oppressed, surveilled society. Stories of queuing for basic foodstuffs are legion, in a nation it shouldn’t be forgotten that has blown tens of billions of dollars on the president’s vanity projects designed to deify his protective hand on the nation’s tiller. Whilst rumblings of such justified discontent have so far been extinguished at source those Turkmen who instead of following the herd to Turkey and Russia as remittance workers have sought a way out of their asphyxiated lives by joining Islamic State could be used by gang masters to gain a foothold in the country. Sharing a border with perpetually volatile Afghanistan, Turkmenistan and its hydrocarbon riches represents a legitimate target for any rejuvenated insurgency in the region.

This then begs the question as to what the preferred model of rule within Turkmenistan is acceptable to both Russia and the U.S. It is a given that each would first and foremost prefer a stable country that doesn’t allow terrorists a way of easement towards Russia, Turkey, and eventually Europe. Is therefore the modus operandi of an autocratic ruler better than a period of uncertainty that could potentially open the door to those they fear the most? Although the answer seems to be black or white both alternatives lead to the same potential conclusion. A country without a leader, or one in situ assuming all the traits of a megalomaniac can create conditions in which an uprising might not be practical from being initiated from within its borders but can be stoked outside of its jurisdiction. The only tangible subtext in this scenario is whether returning Turkmen evince a chance to annex their homeland into a possible Caliphate or that those at the highest levels of Islamic State in Afghanistan independently take a view that Turkmenistan’s gas riches could potentially be subsumed into the Daesh’s war chest.

The U.S are conscious of Turkmenistan’s geographic importance and let’s face it, any country with such hydrocarbon riches is rarely far from being a prominent blip on Washington’s radar. Quite whether its ultimate interest in the country is merely because Russia wishes to retain it, albeit loosely, within its sphere of influence whilst the U.S. favours trade routes that cross the country east to west, instead of the more predictable and Russo-centric north-south course, is open to debate.

Germany is a long-term ally of Berdymukhamedow, or so it would seem from the lack of admonishment from Angela Merkel towards several companies based within the country, each of whom have aided the current regime at one time or another. From supplying state of the art surveillance equipment to eavesdrop on the lives of Turkmen at home and abroad to flag carrier Lufthansa using its expertise to get the grounded Turkmenistan Airlines back on the wing, German influence is tangible and frankly unsettling. What though is of greater concern is the stashing of a reported $23 billion of Turkmen money of unknown provenance in German bank accounts. More than a king’s ransom and even the Gross National Product of neighbouring Kyrgyzstan, this sizeable amount of lucre could be better used to benefit the remaining population of Turkmenistan but instead bears all the hallmarks of a rainy day fund, should hypothetically a serving or future president need to access ready cash whilst in exile. Perhaps someone from within the ruling elite squirreled away the money out of Berdymukhamedow’s clutches as an ersatz Sovereign Wealth Fund for better days ahead, should the country ever be governed by a benevolent, grounded leader. There are though too many scenarios, opinions, and answers that leave yet more questions for anything to be completely certain.

The German connection has overlapped into the current controversy as to the president’s whereabouts. One rumour to explain away the ‘death’ rumour is that Berdymukhamedow is in Germany visiting his ailing mother, who presumably is benefiting greatly from one of the finest healthcare systems on earth. If this is true, and that the pictures of the president on television after rumours of his demise first surfaced were not contemporary, there is nothing to suggest that chronicles of his Teutonic travels are anything but just another fabrication of the truth. Where though some credence can be given is the resurfacing of Germany within the imbroglio, something of which the particular spin doctor would be well aware.

More people than who would care to admit it like a good conspiracy theory. Whilst the ‘disappearance’ of President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedow is not a classic of its genre the number of counterplots and alternative scenarios fascinate just as much as viewing the presiding regime do its best to dismantle the ability of Turkmenistan to function, and enable its people to live with dignity. The time though is upon the Western media to dispense with the ‘and finally’ attitude towards a government complicit in countless human rights abuses and blatant squandering of money on useless building projects and attendant kickbacks, and instead deep dive into the squalid morass that has been allowed to develop unmolested and at a geometric rate from a diet of greed, hubris, and venality. That is where the real stories lie, and not of a Houdini-esque president whose smiley rounds of golf with Jack Nicklaus and equine-themed singalongs hide a multitude of sins.

Source material and further information:

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty: http://www.rferl.org/a/uzbek-president-s-office-statement-on-birthday-call-refutes-rumors-of-turkmen-president-s-death/30073187.html and https://www.rferl.org/a/turkmen-celebs-try-to-debunk-rumors-of-president-s-death/30082030.html

Bloomberg: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-25/turkmen-leader-seeks-to-dispel-death-rumor-with-bus-stop-review?srnd=markets-vp

France24: http://www.france24.com/en/20190724-turkmen-leader-quells-death-rumours-with-return-tv-screens

Eurasianet: https://eurasianet.org/turkmenistan-taking-things-littorally

Jamestown Foundation: https://jamestown.org/program/false-report-of-leaders-death-shows-turkmenistan-now-a-serious-problem-for-moscow/

Polygraph: http://www.polygraph.info/a/death-rumor-berdimuhamedov-turkmenistan-fact-check/30073518.html

 

 

 

Turkmenistan: A totalitarian ‘paradise’ of forced holidays and disappearing people

The timing of a demand made of many of Turkmenistan’s state workers situated in the Dashoguz region to take their vacations in the Caspian Sea resort of Awaza, the site of one of President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedow’s many high-profile, exorbitantly costly and ultimately futile pet projects, could hardly have been worse.

Faced with the bizarre ultimatum to populate the glitzy, Potemkin-esque holiday complex conceived by man-of-the-people Berdymukhamedow or face the sack, those planning their precious vacations have in effect had the job done for them – at a price. With a ten-day bed and breakfast package costing approximately three times an average monthly salary it is perhaps the equivalent of those in the West splurging £6,000 to holiday somewhere not of their choosing, or indeed in a location which they would freely choose.

It seems perverse, even by Turkmenistan standards in a country where the president treats his subjects in the manner a lepidopterist would pin down a still alive butterfly, that a shortage of hard currency at ATM’s just happens to coincide with many being told where to vacation. Already angered by a third of the country’s population having left the building during his reign, Berdymukhamedow now seems determined to ensure that those who remain are left in no doubt what he has, in his mind, done for them and the country. If that requires an official decree on where some should holiday, so be it.

The mind of an autocratic ruler appears to be wired to assume the position of a deity – initially through a process of self-deification, that will eventually, he assumes, translate into the nation’s people worshiping at his marbled altar. It is quite inconceivable to those of a dictatorial bent that the population will take exception to being kept under the boot and the need to queue for basic foodstuffs, whilst state-of-the-art German surveillance equipment monitor their every move.

There is absolutely no equivocation in the mind of an absolutist ruler that the nation’s hydrocarbon wealth should instead be used to make Turkmenistan’s society a more just and prosperous place for all – where would be the fun in that? Instead of facilitating the infrastructure and logistical necessities to evenly distribute the country’s everyday needs the president instead prefers to commission projects that are predicated on bringing glory on his wisdom and vision, and to showcase the country to those abroad as something it completely isn’t.

The building of a Jack Nicklaus-designed golf course and a $2 billion falcon-inspired airport terminal are not acts of altruism or evidence of a Sovereign Wealth Fund having been formed from the proceeds of historic hydrocarbon sales, but extensions to Berdymukhamedow’s insatiable ego that he does exactly what he pleases because he can, with all flickers of political opposition within the country having been extinguished and Turkmenistan’s neutral stance cleverly serving to head off criticism or action from other nations.

The recent deal with energy giant Gazprom to supply Russia with Turkmen gas represents a mere fraction of previous accords between the two countries. What it does though facilitate is a further revenue stream for the president to once more think big towards his next projects. The reality that a hydrocarbon-rich nation suffers economic hardship whether or not it finds additional customers for its Caspian Sea-riches paints a damning picture of the whole rotten regime and its cronies, with perhaps only Venezuela of the other nations rich in fossil fuels going through the same, or similar, dictator-led madness.

The terms of the Gazprom deal have not been spelled out, although this is hardly a departure from what has long since been the norm. It is for instance doubtful that China pays the going rate, if anything, for Turkmen gas it receives. As with many examples around the globe of a growing Sino influence a quid pro quo arrangement of the building of infrastructure, or simply financially bailing out a floundering nation usually comes with gaining access to its raw materials or in this case, hydrocarbons. Although there is nothing to suggest a similar arrangement between Turkmenistan and Gazprom it is unlikely the regime would allow the deal’s small print into the public domain and prompt uncomfortable questions as to where the money will be spent/has gone, if that of course isn’t already obvious.

Completely without coincidence after announcing fresh re-engagement with Gazprom the president seemed emboldened to announce a new round of spending, not on housing, food security, or medical provision for the nation but to underpin the construction of a capacious congress centre, accompanying hotel(presumably of the luxurious type) and upgraded banking headquarters.  It is moot as to whether the vacant lot needed to bring the scheme into reality, reportedly the size of Moscow’s Red Square and perhaps for the time being still a dusty piece of desert, will be as much use now to the country’s long-term economic prosperity as what could be one of Asia’s biggest, almost certainly permanently-empty buildings. For the good of the nation? Tell that to those desperate to leave it, for somewhere with regular employment and relatively better access to even the most basic of foodstuffs.

Subsumed by the bubble in which distances the president from everyday reality and the reasons for mass emigration the drastic reduction in Turkmenistan’s population so irked Berdymukhamedow that a fresh census was ordered, painting a graver picture yet. I have often wondered though if a rapidly shrinking population was something with which the president would be comfortable, giving him more scope to shrink the state and less hoi polloi to concern himself with as he embarks upon remodelling the country from a blank canvas to the physical depiction of his wildest materialistic fantasies. Despite there being some credence to a ‘president for life’ having such an outlook it instead appears that he is enraged and taken aback by his citizens deserting the Elysian paradise he is tirelessly creating for them. It is nevertheless surprising that an autocracy actually allowed such damning data to seep out.

In a country extremely hard to access and one getting much harder to leave, the building of showy hotels and an obscenely expensive ornithological-inspired airport terminal seems contradictory but elicit few raised eyebrows from the international community. Now, as President Berdymukhamedow seeks to raise the bar of his ambitions yet higher a compelling argument for further gargantuan edifices to resound to the sound of nothingness has not been made, nor will be. That though isn’t what ultimately matters in the world of a dictator with the country’s cheque book in his back pocket.

It is purely about him, and  will always centre upon what was delivered into reality during a time in Turkmenistan’s history that is arguably darker than at any point under Soviet rule. From darkness comes light, but no amount of shimmering marble in Ashgabat can hide the grim reality of life in this Central Asian dystopia.

Source material and further information:

Radio Free Europe/Liberty: www.rferl.org/a/avaza-awaza-turkmen-officials-forced-to-spend-vacations-overpriced-state-resort/30041754.html

Eurasianet: https://eurasianet.org/turkmenistan-make-deals-against-a-sea-of-troubles

The Times(UK) – Subscription required for full access: http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/turkmenistan-dictator-in-a-rage-as-his-people-flee-9sbm0sblc