15 марта 2002
Institute for War and Peace Reporting No. 108, March 15, 2002
15 марта 2002
TO IWPR'S REPORTING CENTRAL ASIA, No. 108, March 15, 2002
US PROMPTS UZBEK RIGHTS RETHINK After earning an appalling human rights record over the past few years, Uzbekistan shows signs of changing tack, under pressure from its powerful new American ally. By Galima Bukharbaeva in Tashkent
RUSSIA PUSHES FOR CENTRAL ASIAN OPEC Russia steps up efforts to establish a Central Asian energy alliance as a counterweight to growing US influence in the region. By Dosym Satpaev in Almaty
KYRGYZSTAN: UIGUR FURY OVER MARKET BLAZE Uigur traders have accused police and firefighters of robbing them during a fire at their market in central Bishkek. By Cholpon Orozobekova in Bishkek
HOSPITALS FAILING AFGHAN MOTHERS International efforts are underway in Afghanistan to improve the country's appalling maternity care. By Farkhundah Khan in Kabul
TREACHEROUS AFGHAN ROADS The authorities' botched attempt to get the Salang open for traffic does not bode well for the rest of the country's shattered road network. By Daoud Shibil in Kabul
AFGHANISTAN: MUSIC EMERGES FROM THE RUBBLE Afghan music, used and abused by successive regimes, appears to be undergoing something of a revival. By Hafiz Gardish in Kabul
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US PROMPTS UZBEK RIGHTS RETHINK
After earning an appalling human rights record over the past few years, Uzbekistan shows signs of changing tack, under pressure from its powerful new American ally.
By Galima Bukharbaeva in Tashkent
After gaining international notoriety for the ruthless suppression of human rights and lack of basic freedoms, Uzbekistan has recently signalled a change of direction.
One sign of this was the sudden decision to allow the campaign group Independent Organization for Human Rights in Uzbekistan to register with the authorities. Although the IOHRU was set up on August 2, 1997, the government repeatedly refused to accredit the body under various pretexts.
While the office for non-governmental organisations at the justice ministry declined to comment on the change of heart, few doubt the key role played by the nation's growing ties to the United States, forged in the wake of the September 11 attacks.
IOHRU chairman Mikhail Ardzinov said signs of change appeared after Uzbekistan joined the international anti-terrorist bloc, and have improved since Tashkent forged closer military and economic links with Washington, culminating in President Islam Karimov's first official visit to the US on March 12.
"Karimov had to do his homework before going to America. He had to showcase his commitment to democracy and liberalisation in Uzbekistan," Ardzinov said. Tashkent has realised the benefits of acting as a partner to the civilised world and is following its recommendations in human rights matters, he added.
Washington has consciously assisted the liberalisation process. All American missions visiting Uzbekistan in 2002 have met independent local human rights organisations. On January 7, the head of a US delegation, Democrat Senator Joseph Lieberman, said his country was grateful to Tashkent for helping the anti-terrorist drive but added that Washington would limit assistance for Uzbekistan unless it improved its human rights record.
According to IOHRU, the number of trials involving members of banned religious or political organisations has dropped significantly in 2002 compared to 2001. In another breakthrough, four police officers were sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment at the end of January for torturing two suspected members of the Hizb-ut-Tahrir Islamic movement, killing one and maiming the other.
In February, the interior ministry returned IOHRU's archives, office equipment and Ardzinov's passport. They were seized in June 1999, when police beat him in his apartment and then took him to a Tashkent police department where the beating continued.
"None of this would have been possible before September 11," said Kamiljon Ashurov of the Samarkand office of IOHRU. "We had been under constant pressure until last autumn. I was under surveillance. Maybe I still am, but it isn't as obvious anymore. There are no more threats and we feel safer."
Another incentive for Uzbekistan to improve its rights record is a desperate need for investment. Its economy has recently sunk to an all-time low in the wake of a drop in international prices for cotton and gold, the country's key export commodities. President Karimov recently warned that Uzbekistan stands to lose some 1.2 billion US dollars in 2002 as a result of the price slump.
Despite his optimism, Ardzinov said it was too early to speak of the serious liberalisation of Uzbek politics. "We have no freedom of press and our media is rigorously censored," he said. "Meetings and conventions are banned. About 7,000 political prisoners are still in jail."
Moreover, IOHRU recently reported that 14 people accused of professing the Islamic Wahabi teaching had gone on trial March 5 in the eastern town of Fergana, charged with unconstitutional activity and dissemination of religious material.
The human rights association Ezgulik (Compassion) reported another incident that came as a reminder of how far Uzbekistan must go before it proves its commitment to democracy and the humane treatment of prisoners. It said the body of Nasrattula Kamilov, 28, was brought back from jail to his parental home in Tashkent on March 4. Kamilov was sentenced to 11 years in prison in 1998 for membership in Hizb-ut-Tahrir but died in prison of tuberculosis.
Galima Bukharbaeva is IWPR Central Asian Project Director for Uzbekistan
RUSSIA PUSHES FOR CENTRAL ASIAN OPEC
Russia steps up efforts to establish a Central Asian energy alliance as a counterweight to growing US influence in the region
By Dosym Satpaev in Almaty
Kazakstan and Uzbekistan have expressed an interest in a Russian plan to set up a Central Asian oil and gas producers' export association.
Russian president Vladimir Putin used a recent informal Commonwealth of Independent States, CIS, summit to push ahead with proposal. He appealed to Kazakstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan to join the proposed union.
Following the March 1 meeting, Putin stressed it was "very important" for Russia and Turkmenistan - key natural gas producers - and Kazakstan and Uzbekistan - transit pipeline providers - to unite to protect their respective stakes in the world energy market.
Although the summit failed to come up with a formal alliance, the four states agreed to develop common energy strategy and to coordinate investment policies.
But the proposed coalition is perceived in the region as a thinly veiled attempt by Moscow to shore up its close political ties by economic means.
Laura Erekesheva, analyst with the Almaty-based Centre for Foreign Policy and Analysis, says Russia's motives in promoting the union are first and foremost political. "It is Moscow's reaction to the recent strengthening of US influence in Central Asia and Caucasus," she said.
Post-September 11, Washington has vigorously sought and found allies in Central Asia. Thousands of US troops are now stationed in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. Tajikistan and Kazakstan have expressed their willingness to provide similar support.
In return, the US is promising increased investment and financial aid. In 2002, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan are to receive 160 million and 125 million US dollars, respectively.
Moscow hopes its energy alliance might appeal to Central Asian republics, which currently need to compete with Russia for Western customers. The former Soviet countries presently find it difficult to get into the European energy market - one of the world's largest - on their own terms.
For land-locked countries in the region, Russia is the only functioning transit route for oil and gas exports to the world markets. Most Kazak oil and Turkmen gas reaches foreign consumers via Russian pipelines. Cooperation with Moscow could therefore provide better access to those markets and with it higher profits.
According to Vasily Lukianchikov, an oil expert with the magazine Petroleum, the increased presence of Russian petroleum and gas companies in the region is another reason for Moscow to feel optimistic about its mini-OPEC scheme.
"In Uzbekistan, Russian oil giants such as Gasprom and Lukoil have actively invested in oil fields in the north of the country," he pointed out.
Gasprom is in talks to become the sole transporter of Uzbek gas, while Lukoil is a key player in the development of Kazak oil in the northern Caspian Sea.
Lukianchikov believes Russia has strong economic reasons to push for the alliance. "Russia will be able to boost the energy exports it offers to its Western customers with the help of Central Asian countries," he said. "Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Kazakstan, meanwhile, might have access to the world market at better prices."
But reaching a formal agreement could be tough. Erekesheva believes some Russian companies would object. "Not all Russian firms will support the idea of a gas and oil alliance as it would hit their profits and put their rivals from Central Asia in a better position," she said.
First indications from the summit suggest Kazakstan and Uzbekistan are quite keen on the union, but Turkmenistan's position is less clear. Ashgabat has always proven a difficult business partner for Moscow. "At the beginning of this year, despite long negotiations, Russia failed to agree with Turkmenistan on the price for deliveries of Turkmen gas," Lukianchikov pointed out.
Although the Central Asia countries may be attracted by the potential benefits of Putin's "OPEC", they realise the main beneficiary would be Russia. The union would shore up Russian control over oil and gas exports and with it the Kremlin's political leverage in the region.
Dosym Satpaev is IWPR's project editor in Almaty
KYRGYZSTAN: UIGUR FURY OVER MARKET BLAZE
Uigur traders have accused police and firefighters of robbing them during a fire at their market in central Bishkek.
By Cholpon Orozobekova in Bishkek
It wasn't so much the fire that traders complained about as they surveyed the smoking ruins of Turbaza market. It was more about the way that police and firemen allegedly seemed keener to extort money and steal goods instead of dousing the flames.
The market in Bishkek is home to Uigurs, Muslims of Turkic stock, living in north-west China, who are frequently targeted by the Kyrgyz government as potential fundamentalist extremists. Some 500 Uigur traders work there selling fabrics and small everyday items.
On the day of the fire last month, stalls closed at 5 pm as usual and the Uigurs went to evening prayers at their mosque in the market compound. When the alarm sounded everyone rushed back only to see merchandise and buildings worth millions of dollars go up in smoke before their eyes.
Just a week before the fire, the market's director Rysbek Kadraliev had told IWPR that Uigurs felt very safe and content in the compound. He said they never had to leave the area because it had its own hotel, public bathhouse, mosque and food and beverage outlets.
The fire raged all night and when it was over the complaints started coming. Traders said firemen demanded money to tackle the flames; that police stopped residents and confiscated their savings; and that residents of nearby Ak-Tilek and Lower Ala-Archa poured in on a looting spree. Police and fire authorities vigorously denied the charges.
Witnesses said the fire was already out of control when the firefighters arrived. Police and military patrols sealed off the area. Residents, officers and traders rushed aimlessly to and fro amid burning buildings, some of them trying to snatch rolls of fabric out of the flames. Four injured residents, one of whom had fallen in a pool of melted synthetic fabrics, were rushed to hospital.
One trader managed to salvage the moneybox from his stall and was later surrounded by seven police officers demanding his ID. "They searched me and found cash worth about 2,000 dollars," he said. "I tried to protest, but one of them held a knife to my side and told me to shut up. They took my money and were gone."
Another trader said officers stopped the cab in which he was driving back to the market. "I begged them to let me in to try and salvage my merchandise, but they wouldn't," he said. "After some haggling they finally let me through. At the market entrance I saw police loading about 12 rolls of fabric into a cab."
Firemen too came in for heavy criticism. "Are there only three fire trucks in the city of Bishkek?" wondered a trader. He said the three appliances arrived without any water.
Another said some firefighters had demanded cash for dealing with the blaze. He said they would approach a burning merchandise container, find the owner and demand 300 dollars before they would turn on their hoses.
The chief of the fire brigade, Soyuzbek Akmatov, rejected the Uigurs' accusations. "Our fire-fighters acted in good faith. They did not extort money or engage in looting," he told the Kabar news agency.
Fire department spokesperson Lubov Orlova said officers arrived 10 minutes after the blaze started and did their best to put it out. She said eight engines arrived to find a huge area on fire. "Synthetic fabrics burn like paper. To make matters worse, all the containers and even the hotel were timber," she said.
Firefighters also denied they arrived without any water. Orlova pointed out that the tank of a fire truck holds 2.5 tons of water, which lasts about 15 minutes. When they ran out, they tried to find a local source but the market's water outlets were either out of order or the pressure was too low.
Next day, Sverdlovsky district police raided apartment blocks in the Ak-Tilek neighbourhood to retrieve stolen fabrics. However, locals were skeptical about the prospect of officers returning the goods to their owners. "The cops are never going to give that stuff back to the Uigurs," said one local resident. "When we were hauling away the fabrics last night police stopped us and demanded cash. Those who tried to take a cab were stopped by police who told the looters to get out and let officers drive it away."
The deputy chief of Sverdlovsky police, Meder Temirbekov flatly denied all the accusations leveled against his men. He assured us that all merchandise confiscated from looters would be returned to the Turbaza market. "There are many rumours about this fire," he said, "All these muddy, soaked fabrics are stockpiled in one of our offices. We are taking them back. Let the Turbaza management handle it from here. We could prosecute the looters, of course, but maybe we should thank them for salvaging the merchandise."
This Chinese market has suffered three fires in 12 months. They have been blamed on a variety of causes, ranging from electrical short circuits to arson by competitors and internal strife among the Uigurs themselves.
Cholpon Orozobekova is an IWPR contributor in Kyrgyzstan
HOSPITALS FAILING AFGHAN MOTHERS
International efforts are underway in Afghanistan to improve the country's appalling maternity care.
By Farkhundah Khan in Kabul
A few months ago, the director of the Malalai maternity hospital in Kabul was operating blind. Because the Taleban's strict regulations forbade him to look at a woman's flesh, he would stand in the hallway and gave instructions to a junior doctor through the operating theatre door.
Although the Taleban have gone and clinical procedures relaxed, pregnant women continue to be denied basic care. Afghanistan has world's second highest rate of stillbirths and alarming levels of maternal mortality.
According to the World Health Organisation, WHO, 1700 out of every 100,000 babies delivered in the country are stillborn, while around 45 women die in childbirth every day.
WHO is now helping to rebuild the health system in Afghanistan but say that huge financial input is needed and has called for an initial package of 150 million US dollars.
Institutions such as Malalai have suffered from decades of under-spending and although the Taleban can be blamed for letting the health care network run to rack and ruin, the system they inherited was already rundown.
Patients at Malalai, who come from the capital and neighbouring provinces, all complain of the low level of care, the poor hygiene and the lack of qualified staff. They say that they often have to get hold of their own medicines and sometimes even have to secure basic medical equipment necessary for operations. The lack of a blood bank in Kabul also causes terrible problems for patients.
As if this wasn't bad enough, there are frequent power shortages. "Sometimes, when there is no electricity, we have to conduct deliveries by lantern light. It can be done - but when there are complications we'd prefer to have electricity," said one doctor.
On visiting the hospital, it is clear that one of the overriding concerns is the lack of qualified personnel. The wards echo with cries for help. On any given day, eighty to a hundred pregnant women are admitted and doctors say they are just not able to cope.
"The doctors come to visit at 10 am and then they disappear along with the nurses until 2 pm," said one patient who also told IWPR how she had seen two women give birth unattended in a waiting room. Another patient described how she had stumbled across a woman delivering her child in one of the hospital's filthy toilets.
In Afghanistan as a whole, it is estimated that 90 per cent of deliveries are unattended by medical professionals.
Staff at Malalai agree that the hospital is overwhelmed and that they just do not have the capacity to look after the large number of patients who come here. The numbers of doctors and nurses plummeted under the Taleban regime when many, frustrated with the strictures imposed on them, upped and left. Many women were simply banned from working by the authorities.
Since the fall of the student militia, doctors, especially female ones, have been steadily returning to work. "Otherwise our hands are tied. We have limited resources and just do the best we can," said Malalai's president Fahima Sekandary. "We are facing many difficulties. The Red Cross has been providing us with some medicines, serum and fire wood for heating but its insufficient for our needs."
The ill-equipped laboratories in the hospital are only able to carry out very basis tests. "We have three semi-functioning X-ray machines," said one doctor. "One of these machines has been around for sixty years and the other two are completely run down."
But the patients keep coming as they cannot afford to go elsewhere.
While Malalai's vice-president, Hafiza Omarkhail, acknowledges that much needs to be done to get hospitals here up to a decent standard, she is adamant that many of the problems faced by local women and mothers-to-be have nothing to do with medical care. She said that maternal and infant deaths usually resulted from primitive and superstitious practices.
Omarkhail claimed the patients let local midwives interfere unnecessarily with the delivery while others took local medicines without seeking professional advice. And, in other cases, patients only come to the hospital when their condition has turned critical.
In an effort to improve medical care for pregnant women, the Afghan Red Crescent Society has been training Traditional Birth Attendants, who serve remote regions of the country, educating expectant mothers and providing them safe delivery equipment. Just over two hundred TBAs are working around the country - the goal is to eventually have about a thousand.
"For women's health to rapidly improve, it is essential that international efforts focus on training female health practitioners - many of whom have been unemployed for the past several years, " said a World Health Organisation spokesperson.
The United Nations childrens' agency, UNICEF, has already begun a training programme at Malalai, aimed at instructing female doctors from various parts of the country in emergency obstetrics "They will then go back to their regions where they will in turn train more doctors, " said a UNICEF official.
Farkhundah Khan is the pseudonym for a Kabul-based Afghan journalist
TREACHEROUS AFGHAN ROADS
The authorities' botched attempt to get the Salang open for traffic does not bode well for the rest of the country's shattered road network.
By Daoud Shibil in Kabul
The troubled re-opening of the famous Salang tunnel has highlighted the dire state of Afghanistan's transport system.
One hundred kilometres north of the capital Kabul, the world's highest tunnel was opened to traffic in January for the first time in nearly a decade, providing a vital connection between the north and south of the country.
It had been hoped that the clearing of the tunnel, partially destroyed by the Northern Alliance forces in the early Nineties, would accelerate the international aid effort to regions otherwise inaccessible during the winter months. But the sight of lorries piled high with grain and stranded in the snow has become an all too common sight.
One of the main problems is that there are no adequate safeguards against the effects of heavy snowfall, which seems odd for a tunnel standing over 4000 m above sea level.
This oversight became apparent late last month when hundreds of people were trapped in the Salang and four died from the effects of cold. There was no equipment on the scene to dig the victims out. "There is only one snow-clearing tractor at the northern entrance of the tunnel and that never has enough fuel," said bus driver Momen Shah.
The local authorities said the problem was out of their hands. "If central government doesn't give us the money we require to make the tunnel safe, then what can we do," an official said.
A greater tragedy was averted by the intervention of international peacekeepers and NGOs who came to the rescue.
The authorities must ensure that the Salang is secure, as it is a major route for food convoys supplying remote villages hardest hit by three years of drought.
In better times, the Soviet-built tunnel provided the shortest and safest all-weather route between the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif and Kabul. Slicing through the Hindu Kush mountains, it cuts 200 km off an otherwise torturous journey.
It has also been a strategically important conduit since it opened in 1964. Back in 1979, Soviet army used it to invade the country, and then in the early Nineties the late Northern Alliance commander, Ahmed Shah Masood, made it impassable to prevent Taleban troops advancing on his stronghold in the north of the country.
The Salang is just one piece of a dilapidated transportation infrastructure. The poor state of Afghan roads is evident everywhere, with many of the inter-city routes virtually unusable. If you drive up the cratered and potholed north-south highway, you pass the stumps and ruins of bridges destroyed during the war.
Some of these are the remains of the one-time famous bridges of Matak, Jabal us Saraj, Tajikan, Qalatak and Olang. And for the north-south highway to be of any real practical use, these need to be rebuilt. So far, funding has not been made available for this purpose. Their temporary replacements provide a perilous alternative for heavy goods and passenger vehicles.
There's also the constant threat posed by robbers. With the end of the war, many former combatants have turned to crime to make a living. A good part of their money is made holding up travelers who are easy prey. The problem is such that there have been calls for the multi-national peace force to secure the road network, but no progress on this issue has been made.
In previous times, when the roads were considered too dangerous because of security fears, people could at least fly. However, the country's only airline, Ariana, is currently restricted to one flight a week to Herat, for which hundreds of people queue daily to get tickets. "We've been waiting weeks for a flight, but wouldn't risk traveling by road because we've already been robbed once," said Ghulam Mahboob Hamidi, at Kabul airport.
Ensuring that the road network functions properly must be a government priority, as economic progress and social stability is dependent on people being able to move around the country freely.
Daoud Shibil is the pseudonym of a Kabul-based Afghan journalist
AFGHANISTAN: MUSIC EMERGES FROM THE RUBBLE
Afghan music, used and abused by successive regimes, appears to be undergoing something of a revival.
By Hafiz Gardish in Kabul
Kharabad street in down-town Kabul was once the bustling heart of Afghan music. Renowned musicians trained and worked there. Shops and cafes rang out with song. Now the street is a shattered, deserted ruin.
Only a year ago, it was not uncommon to see instruments strung up from lampposts like reviled criminals. The Taleban had banned music and for five years persecuted anyone suspected of making or listening to it.
But 23 years of war had already taken a heavy toll on Afghanistan's artistic heritage before the Taleban appeared. It was used and abused by all sides in the various conflicts. Its darkest hours began with the fall of the Soviet-backed Najibullah government and the arrival of the mujahedin.
Romantic songs were banned from TV and radio and women barred from performing. Instead, audiences were restricted to a diet of patriotic and jihad music. Tribal, linguistic and cultural prejudices led to some musicians' work being destroyed.
The Taleban repression drove most artists abroad. Those who could afford to went to the West, others sought shelter in neighbouring countries. With so much of its glorious past trampled underfoot, Afghan music is now gasping for air.
But there are some optimistic signs. A new music market is beginning to emerge. Musicians in the capital and the provinces have begun setting up offices and studios, and video and cassette shops are popping up all over.
Yama, a shopkeeper in Kabul, said he began selling cassettes after his jewellery store was looted following the arrival of the Northern Alliance forces in the capital.
"I lost everything I had," he said. "Meanwhile the ban on music was lifted and people really love it. The market started booming. So I borrowed some money and opened a tape shop.
"Everyone has different tastes, but most go for traditional folk music. People don't care that much about the quality of the poetry in a song. They just want something that has got a good beat."
Musician Ahmad Shah, however, is worried by this trend. "When our artists left the country, they took with them a lot of artistic richness," he said. "We see the results of it in Iranian, Tajikistani and Pakistani music - but sadly our artists have lost their initiative.
"They don't learn or create anything new. They work with the same old stuff. The market for singing meaningless songs is booming. The more meaningless the song the more attention it gets from the market dealers."
Shah acknowledges that music needs to be liked by people, but he believes an artist has a duty to use his skills as a musician to raise public tastes and educate the listener. "Some of the new music coming out of Peshawar is an insult to Afghan art and artists," he said, bitterly.
He is also dispirited by the lack of respect afforded to artists in Afghanistan.
"Those who take people's lives and belongings are respected figures in our society. They have houses and titles and cars. They receive honours and bonuses. The only sound that ever comes out of their mouths is the sound of gunfire and explosions," he said.
"We, on the other hand, who play soothing music, and who try to bring peace to man's soul, to bring a message of hope and humanity, are rewarded with nothing and do not even get paid for what we do. Instead we get insulted."
Lack of stability, the threat of renewed conflict and poverty make it hard to eke out a living as a musician in Afghanistan. Some musicians who returned from Pakistan when the Taleban fell have been forced to go back.
Noor Agha Sarmady, a veteran from Radio Afghanistan, where he also taught music, agrees few are likely to return to the country soon.
"I think no one is going to come back before they can be sure that their lives, property and dignity will be respected," he said. "The atmosphere isn't right for artists and there aren't enough opportunities for them."
The Afghan minister of information, Makhdoom Raheen, has said that the government is trying to pave the way for artists to return. As a first step, it is planning to stage cultural festivities around the Afghan New Year celebrations, Nawroz, which begin on March 21. A special programme is to be broadcast on TV.
Afghan music can only truly begin to recover, however, when peace is secure and musicians, singers and composers can return in safety and begin to earn a living.
Hafiz Gardish, a former singer, is now working as a freelance journalist in Kabul
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REPORTING CENTRAL ASIA No. 108