OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS IN TURKMENISTAN: IS ANYONE LISTENING?
* Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Madam Speaker, the Administration's crusade to spread democracy to the Middle East has been a major disappointment, but opportunity is knocking nearby in Central Asia and we should be taking advantage of it. But there isn't much time.
* The opportunity for positive change was created by the death late last month of Turkmenistan's despotic dictator, President Saparmurat Niyazov, whose role model was Josef Stalin. The urgency for the United States to act is created by those who want to follow in his footsteps.
* The Turkmen people deserve the right to elect their leaders in free and fair elections. That seems highly unlikely because of the junta that has tried to consolidate power in the aftermath of Niyazov's sudden demise. Consisting of the remaining holdouts from Niyazov's government and controlled by his former bodyguards, the junta leaders have pledged to continue the ``dear leader's' style of ``democracy,' ordering yet another statue of him to be built.
* The constitution has been re-written to allow the junta's candidate to run in the presidential elections--scheduled for February 11--virtually unchallenged. The regime's most competent opponents--the exiled community of business leaders and intellectuals--have effectively been prevented from contesting the elections.
* For too long the United States has ignored Niyazov's abuses and we continue to fail to articulate our official position regarding relations with the ``interim government.' I call on the Secretary of State to condemn the junta's unconstitutional actions and demand that it allow its opponents to participate in the February 11 election. Until that happens, the United States must refuse to recognize the government in Ashgabat as legitimate, and order federal agencies, including Treasury, State and Justice, to block all of its banking activities.
* Nurmuhammet Hanamov, the founding chairman of the Republican Party of Turkmenistan who was his country's former ambassador to Turkey and Israel, has written an incisive article in the Washington Post calling on the West to take advantage of Niyazov's passing to help lead his country toward Democracy. A leader of the prodemocracy movement, Mr. Hanamov was forced into exile and his two sons were assassinated in 2005 in retaliation for his outspoken opposition to the regime. I ask that his article be included in the CONGRESSIONAL RECORD so that all may read the heartfelt plea of this courageous individual. [From the Washington Post, Jan. 3, 2007]
A NEW BEGINNING FOR TURKMENISTAN
(By Nurmuhammet Hanamov)
Last week Turkmenistan buried its brutal dictator, Saparmurad Niyazov. His ruthless reign spanned two decades, during which time his policies became increasingly irrational and unpredictable. The long list of Niyazov's crimes against our people includes: banning all political parties except his own and jailing his opponents; preventing thousands of ``disloyal' citizens from traveling abroad; persecuting religious and ethnic minorities; outlawing opera; and shutting down regional hospitals, firing thousands of doctors and nurses. Under Niyazov, Turkmenistan became a corridor for heroin trafficking from Afghanistan to the West and gained for itself one of the highest heroin addiction rates in the world.
Above all, Niyazov was a selfish and kleptocratic despot, stashing billions in proceeds from the sale of the country's enormous natural gas resources in personal accounts in Western banks. He used this money to fuel his outlandish personality cult, building opulent palaces and golden statues of himself even as his people were deprived of basic necessities and suffer one of the world's lowest life expectancy rates. The West's indifference was striking compared with the relentless criticism by the United States and the European Union against the more benign regime of Alexander Lukashenko, president of gas-poor Belarus.
With Niyazov gone, the West has a historic second chance to help our country make a peaceful transition to democracy. Turkmenistan's interim rulers have unfortunately pledged to continue Niyazov's policies (even ordering new statues of him), and their efforts to grab power amount to a coup d'état. The former health minister--under the de facto control of Niyazov's Presidential Guard--has arrested the speaker of Parliament, who constitutionally is next in the line of succession. He has sealed the country's borders and, using other unconstitutional measures, has set the stage for his own unchallenged victory in presidential elections scheduled for Feb. 11.
The United States must send a clear message to Niyazov's holdouts in the ``interim government' in Ashgabat: that they will not have its support unless they agree to hold free and fair elections--ones that allow all citizens of Turkmenistan, including exiled opposition leaders and political prisoners, to take part.
We know that the United States has tried to help the people of Turkmenistan in recent years, and thanks to American educational exchange programs, there is a thriving community of bright Turkmen students and intellectuals who are living in Western countries and are ready to return and help rebuild their country. This community is largely held together by the efforts of Khudaiberdy Orazov, a former chairman of the National Bank and an accomplished and energetic leader who was forced into exile several years ago. He was unanimously nominated to be a candidate in the February presidential elections by a broad coalition of opposition groups inside and outside of Turkmenistan. According to a recent poll, Orazov's candidacy would have the support of a majority of Turkmen voters. Until Orazov and other opposition candidates are allowed to contest the February elections, the United States and the European Union must refrain from recognizing the junta in Ashgabat and freeze all personal accounts of Niyazov and his cronies abroad. We hope that members of Congress and other government officials will visit Turkmenistan soon to personally deliver that message.
We must rebuild our country, and with the help of our friends and neighbors we can do it in an open and transparent way. Priorities for a democratically elected government during the initial post-Niyazov reconstruction must be to release all political prisoners, conduct open tenders and allow Western companies to bid for a stake in developing Turkmenistan's oil and gas fields; to consider new ways of getting our gas and oil to Western markets; to restore private property that Niyazov confiscated from Turkmen citizens; and to create a reconstruction fund using Niyazov's personal bank accounts and proceeds from the sale of oil and gas to revive the health-care and education systems.
The United States is spending billions of dollars trying to turn Afghanistan and Iraq--both deep in the throes of civil war--into democratic nations while all but abandoning their peaceful post-Soviet neighbors to the north. Turkmenistan is ready for a new beginning, and the West must finally step up to the plate. To do otherwise would waste a historic opportunity and allow yet another case of popular discontent with an illegitimate government to become an anti-Western lost cause.
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