VZCZCXRO9788
RR RUEHDBU RUEHLN RUEHVK RUEHYG
DE RUEHAH #0057/01 0170944
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 170944Z JAN 07
FM AMEMBASSY ASHGABAT
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 8235
RUCNCIS/CIS COLLECTIVE

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 ASHGABAT 000057 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR SCA/CEN (PERRY) 
INFO SCA/PPD (VAN DE VATE), IIP/G/NEA-SA 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: KPAO PREL TX
SUBJECT: TURKMENISTAN IN DECEMBER -- DEATH OF NIYAZOV AND THE 
UNPRECEDENTED BATTLE FOR FLEX 
 
REF: 06 ASHGABAT 1285 
 
SUMMARY 
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¶1.  (U) Post's December outreach was a mix of highs and lows 
associated with the annual battle to conduct testing for the Future 
Leaders Exchange Program, with low-key but effective outreach events 
at home in the Public Affairs Section.  December's drama was matched 
and surpassed by the sudden death of President Saparmyrat Niyazov, a 
day after he celebrated his 21st anniversary in power in 
Turkmenistan.  End Summary. 
 
FLEX TESTING HIGHS AND LOWS, AND REQUEST FOR RETESTING 
------- 
 
¶2.  (U) FLEX Round I testing in December included both higher than 
usual turnouts in Mary and Dashoguz and dramatic cuts in 
participation in Ahal Welayat and Turkmenabat (reftel).  As 
expected, there was no interference from school or ministry 
officials at the Ashgabat testing site, although students trickled 
in throughout the day as they snuck out of Olympiads or finished 
their Olympiads early.  ACCELS opted to score all tests immediately, 
leaving no opportunity for Ministry of Education interference on 
Monday, and began three days of Round II testing on December 19. 
The Ashgabat testing site usually draws four to five times the 
numbers at other sites, and is open to students from all regions. 
This year post was hoping for higher numbers of regional 
participants -- only about 6 percent came from outside Ashgabat and 
those numbers did not include students ACCELS knew had been 
intimidated from testing at their home testing sites.  However, 571 
students took the Round I test, an increase of 36 percent over last 
year's Ashgabat tally.  Even in Turkmenistan's capital city, the 
FLEX program represents the brightest educational opportunity for 
local high school students -- a fact often reiterated by the 
parents, younger and older students and their friends, who had come 
out to support the crowd of hopeful test-takers. 
 
¶3.  (U) Harassment of students, teachers and students' parents at 
the earlier testing sites, in Ahal Welayat and Turkmenabat, resulted 
in post's request for retesting at these sites.  Post conveyed 
Assistant Secretary Richard Boucher's letter to President Niyazov 
soon after this request, and received confirmation from the Ministry 
of Foreign Affairs that retesting could go forth.  Round III 
interviews were proceeding on January 21, in Turkmenbashy, when post 
received the news that the president had died.  In the midst of a 
small battle with local teachers -- who were under orders to 
obstruct the interviews and harass the non-ethnic students taking 
part in FLEX in Turkmenbashy -- ACCELS was forced to cancel the 
interviews and await news of next steps as Turkmenistan entered a 
one-week period of mourning. 
 
USAID RELIGION SPECIALIST HOSTS THOUGHT-PROVOKING DISCUSSION IN 
ASHGABAT 
------- 
 
¶4.  (U) USAID's Religion and the State in Society Specialist David 
Hunsicker, a repeat visitor to Turkmenistan, hosted a lively and 
often personal discussion on religion in the United States for over 
30 youth and older locals at the Public Affairs conference room in 
Ashgabat on December 15.  After his talk on the constitutional and 
historical basis of religious belief in the United States, 
participants engaged in over an hour of question and answer with 
Hunsicker.  Their questions ranged from the very personal to the 
theoretical, and included a question on U.S. judicial decisions that 
might conflict with religious belief --such as whether it was legal 
to have multiple wives under U.S. law.  One participant asked about 
Hunsicker's assessment of religious freedom in Turkmenistan; this 
and a subsequent question brought up the U.S. Government's 
designation of Uzbekistan as a Country of Particular Concern. 
Following the discussion, most participants picked up copies of the 
IIP publication Muslim Life in America, in Russian; some took 
several to give to their friends, colleagues and students. 
 
USG GRANTEE ENHANCES EMBASSY OUTREACH WITH PUBLIC EXHBITION 
------- 
 
¶5.  (U) Representatives of the Belarusian, Kazakh, Russian, and 
other diplomatic missions, as well as a local employee of the 
Iranian Cultural Center and representatives of local civic groups, 
appeared at the Public Affairs Section's conference room and 
Internet Resource Center on December 12 to view an exhibition of 
works created through Democracy Commission support.  Cultural 
Affairs Officer Sarah Hutchison gave opening remarks for the event, 
organized by project grantee Ludmila Kiseleva.  The event gave 
Public Affairs staff the chance to introduce the Information 
Resources Center to diplomats who did not attend the PAS public 
opening in Spring 2006.  Representatives of the Russian Embassy were 
particularly interested in the center, and said that they hoped to 
 
ASHGABAT 00000057  002 OF 003 
 
 
open something similar in Ashgabat.  The representative of the 
Iranian Cultural Center approached the CAO for her contact 
information, initially without introducing herself, but this gave 
both CAO and PAO a chance to ask whether the Iranian Center has a 
calendar of public events that they would like to share with the 
embassy, in return for a copy of the Public Affairs Section's own 
calendar of events.  The state-run Miras TV channel also covered the 
event and took interviews of some of the attendees, coverage slated 
to air in January 2007.  The project, funded from summer 2005, has 
successfully provided training in carpet weaving, dying, silk 
weaving, embroidery and similar skills to unemployed women and 
housewives throughout Ahal region.  Kiseleva is now planning to open 
a shop in Ashgabat where the women can sell these goods, and has 
discussed with Public Affairs ways to more effectively market these 
goods to a larger audience. 
 
TURKMENISTAN WIKISPACE SPARKS YOUTH INTERNET OUTREACH 
------- 
 
¶6.  (U) For the past three months, more than 20 secondary school 
students from Ashgabat, Dashoguz, Mary, and Turkmenabat have been 
preparing to participate in the GCE online Wikispaces encyclopedia 
project at http://Turkmenistan.wikispaces.com.  In addition to 
learning how to use a wiki platform, students have been gathering 
information about Turkmenistan to post in what will become 
Turkmenistan's most comprehensive website about the country by its 
citizens.  Teachers and students are tasked with adding resources in 
a collaborative effort about Turkmenistan and its government, 
geography, economy, education, culture and history.  The teams will 
add to and correct each other's entries, using Turkmen, English, and 
Russian.  Wikispaces is an easy-to-use, open-source service, which 
allows any user to create a Wikipedia-type collaborative resource. 
On December 18, Azat Haitov (FLEX 06) and two other USG alumni 
posted information about Turkmenistan's climate, terrain, flora, 
fauna and natural resources on tm-wiksipace, using information 
gathered from the National Library and other sources: 
(http://Turkmenistan-rus.wikispaces.com/geogr aphy).  The project is 
only in its early stages and will gather steam as more students and 
teachers learn to use the Internet and gain interest in contributing 
to the Web with the knowledge they have about their country. 
 
TEACHERS ENRICH LESSON PLANS WITH INTERNET TECHNOLOGY 
------- 
 
¶7.  (U) In December, teachers in Ashgabat, Turkmenabat, Dashoguz and 
Mary submitted 12 more lesson plans in English and Russian to the 
Global Connections and Exchange Turkmenistan Educational Portal 
(http:// gcetm.net /index.php?newlang+eng&module= htmlpages&func= 
display&pid=29), having completed the Global Connections and 
Exchange course on integrating Internet technology into education. 
Teachers participating in the program's Modern Lesson Plan Contest 
have already generated 22 lesson plans since November.  Themes for 
these plans include English, mathematics, geography, Russian, and 
literature.  GCE conducted courses in November and December on basic 
computer skills for secondary school teachers and ICT usage in the 
classrooms, focusing on the use of multimedia resources integration 
into the curriculum. Teachers learned to assess students' needs and 
design lessons to meet a variety of learning styles, using tools 
from the GCE site.  Many teachers who posted lessons in December 
learned more about the initiative by perusing the GCE teachers' 
forum at http:// gcetm.net/forum/index.php?s 
=d1da7df363930ea04e3f42b8523cc303 &showforum=4.  Among the lesson 
plans submitted in December was an integrated lesson of mathematics 
and literature by Oksana Garipova, an experienced teacher from 
Ashgabat's Turkmen-Russian School.  The lesson combines subjects, 
attempting to force students to solve mathematical problems while 
reading a famous fairy tale of Pushkin.  (Comment:  The Government 
of Turkmenistan officially has rejected the GCE program.  Locals 
continue to participate, however, on a voluntary basis.  Post 
continues to request that the government approve the program.  End 
Comment.) 
 
STUDENTS TAKE HUMAN RIGHTS DISCUSSION ONLINE FOR UN DECLARATION 
ANNIVERSARY 
------- 
 
¶8.  (U) IREX Internet access sites and Global Connections trainers 
led efforts across Turkmenistan to mark the anniversary of the 
adoption of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights on 
December 10, 1948.  Over 20 students from Ashgabat, Dashoguz, Mary 
and Turkmenabat took part in online and offline discussions and 
expressed their opinions and concerns over human rights and the 
impact of the Declaration on Turkmenistan, at the GCE site: http:// 
gcetm.net/forum/index.php?showforum=12.  One teacher from Ashgabat 
Turkmen-Russian School conducted a mini conference at school for her 
eighth-grade students, during which they expressed their own 
understanding of the document and students the results of that 
conference on the forum.  Students in Turkmenabat conducted a 
similar discussion, moderated by GCE trainers, during a training 
 
ASHGABAT 00000057  003 OF 003 
 
 
session at the Turkmenabat IATP access site.  The GCE master trainer 
in Dashoguz held a classroom discussion with her students.  The 
students' engagement in off- and online discussions in the UN 
Declaration prompted many to consider questions related to human 
rights, including their own. 
 
STUDENTS FLEX NEW GRAPHIC ARTS SKILLS IN ONLINE CONTEST 
------- 
 
¶9.  (U) Secondary school students throughout Turkmenistan posted 
more than 50 greeting cards for an online competition for New Year's 
on a forum at Turkmenistan's Educational Portal  -- 
http://gcetm.net/forum/index.php?showforum=13 .  For two weeks in 
December, the GCE program taught students computer graphics editing, 
and 38 students applied their new skills by designing and exchanging 
electronic cards online. 
 
FLEX ALUMNA ENCOURAGES TEAMWORK AMONG GOROGLY YOUTH 
------- 
 
¶10.  (U) On three nights in late December, a young FLEX alumna led a 
basic basketball class and practice for 15 young people at Gorogly 
Etrap's (Dashoguz Welayat) School No.7.  By engaging local youth in 
a simple game of basketball, the alumna set an example of girls in 
sports and a healthy lifestyle, while also encouraging connections 
between local youth and the local American Corner's outreach events. 
 Encouraging local youth to excel in competitive sports also 
promotes organizational skills, teamwork and communication among 
local youth.  In contrast to Soviet tradition, which valued youth 
sports activities, Turkmenistan's schools have eradicated all formal 
sports education, not to mention arts education or related 
extracurricular activities.  U.S. exchange program alumni have 
stepped into the breach to provide these resources to their peers, 
when they have the resources to do so. 
 
MARY'S NIGHT OF ONE-ACT PLAYS 
------- 
 
¶11.  (U) On December 23, the Mary American Corner Peace Corps 
Volunteer led students in a Night of One-Act Plays for an audience 
of 70 locals.  Performers enacted works created by the students and 
the volunteer, in English and depicted American values and 
lifestyles.  Other plays portrayed important eras in U.S. history. 
The program developed participants' writing and acting as well as 
organizational skills. 
 
TURKMENBASHY OUTREACH IN UNLIKELY LOCATION 
------- 
 
¶12.  (U) On December 20, Turkmenbashy Regional Representative -- 
formerly director of the Turkmenbashy American Corner -- held the 
latest installment of her TOEFL preparation class at the city 
polyclinic for eight local high school students.  ACCELS volunteers 
and staff have continued to organize such outreach events and 
classes at public locations throughout the city in lieu of a 
permanent space in the American Corner, for which post and ACCELS 
continue to negotiate with local authorities. 
 
BRUSH