What Next After Turkmenbashi?

The death of Turkmenistan's cruel dictator could lead to democracy for the strategically located, natural gas-rich country or throw Central Asia into chaos

by Marina Kozlova

When Turkmenistan's president, Saparmurat Niyazov, died of cardiac arrest at the age of 66 on 21 December, many wondered if the demise of this ruthless dictator would bring his impoverished people a step closer to democracy. But the real question is if his death will lead to instability and chaos instead.

With a population of just 5 million people, Turkmenistan sits atop massive natural gas reserves and is strategically located, bordering the Caspian Sea, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Iran, and Uzbekistan.

Niyazov, known as Turkmenbashi, or father of all Turkmen, came to power in 1985 as first secretary of the Turkmen Communist Party when Turkmenistan was still a part of the Soviet Union. In 1991, he became the first president of independent Turkmenistan. He was proclaimed president for life several years ago by the People's Council. Presiding over a closed and repressive regime, and brutally suppressing any sign of dissent, he was a model tyrant. During his years in office, scores were arrested, tortured, sentenced to long prison terms, and sometimes killed.

Niyazov flung Turkmenistan back into the Dark Ages: theaters, libraries, and newspapers were closed and access to education, travel, and medical services curtailed. He ordered that all hospitals outside the capital Ashgabat be closed; thousands of health workers were dismissed and replaced with military conscripts. He deprived one-third of the country's elderly of their pensions and dramatically cut pensions for the rest. The unemployment rate shot to 60 percent and over half of the population now lives below the poverty line.

At the same time, Global Witness, a London-based human rights watchdog, maintains that overseas funds under Niyazov's control amount to billions of dollars, of which over 2 billion are allegedly with Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt, Germany.

Much of Turkmenistan's revenue was squandered on Niyazov's glorification: hundreds of statues of the president and his family were built, including a gold-leafed giant likeness in the capital that revolves with the sun.

A DEATH FORETOLD?
The inner workings of Niyazov's secretive regime are difficult to decipher, but one prominent opposition politician does not believe that the president's death came as a surprise. Sapar Yklymov, co-chairman of the Republican Party of Turkmenistan and a former deputy agriculture minister who now lives in Sweden, said that the governors of all five provinces and the commander of the border troops had been replaced shortly before Niyazov's death, some of them with powerful security officials.

Niyazov's death was followed by a brief power struggle within the top echelons of the regime. Under the constitution, the speaker of parliament, Ovezgeldy Atayev, should have taken over as acting president pending elections. But shortly after Niyazov's death he was charged with abuse of power and human rights violations and became the subject of a criminal investigation. His place as interim leader was taken by Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov, the deputy prime minister.

But if Berdymukhamedov and other officials saw the great leader's death as an opportunity to advance their own interests, many Turkmen are simply glad to see an end to Niyazov's brutal and erratic rule.

"Because of a campaign of terror Niyazov unleashed in Turkmenistan in recent years, a great many people considered him their enemy, and many of them, in a fit of temper, might want him to be punished in revenge," the human rights officer of the Republican Party of Turkmenistan, Bairam Shikhmuradov, said. Shikhmuradov is the son of former Foreign Minister Boris Shikhmuradov, who was sentenced to life imprisonment in connection with assassination attempts against Niyazov in 2002.

Bairam Shikhmuradov now lives in Moscow and knows nothing about how his father is doing – or even if he's still alive. He is confident about Turkmenistan's future, however. "It cannot be worse in Turkmenistan than it was under Niyazov, and the new authorities will not be as cruel as Niyazov was."