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UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 06 ASHGABAT 001293 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR SCA/CEN AND DRL 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREL PGOV PHUM ECON EPET TX
SUBJECT: SCENESETTER FOR THE VISIT TO TURKMENISTAN OF DRL 
DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY ERICA BARKS-RUGGLES, DECEMBER 
7-9, 2007 
 
¶1.  Sensitive but unclassified.  Not for public Internet. 
 
¶2.  (SBU) SUMMARY:  Embassy Ashgabat warmly welcomes the 
visit of Deputy Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Rights and 
Labor Erica Barks-Ruggles to Turkmenistan.  Your visit will 
help to reinforce the U.S. government's message as it has 
sought to "turn a new page" in its overall relationship with 
Turkmenistan that the United States values democratic 
development, rule of law, and respect for human rights. 
Although the new president, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, is 
making significant changes in some sectors, it is important 
to realize the country is at the very beginning of a new era. 
 The wreck of a country left behind by the now-deceased 
President-for-Life Niyazov, combined with 70 years of 
colonial Soviet rule, compounded by nomadic/tribal customs 
that lacked a modern nation-state concept, create the need 
for a new model.  Turkmenistan was never North Korea, but it 
is not yet Denmark.  Rather, the current state offers a rare 
opportunity to develop a new model; a model molded by, and 
representative of, the proud people of Turkmenistan, with 
patient but consistent nudges by the international community 
toward international standards and practices.  We recommend 
that the tone in this first encounter should be positive and 
constructive -- to encourage more openness and new ways of 
thinking -- but not hortatory.  We feat that demands would be 
counterproductive.  END SUMMARY. 
 
TURKMENISTAN POST-NIYAZOV 
 
¶3.  (SBU) A hydrocarbon-rich state that shares borders with 
Afghanistan and Iran, Turkmenistan is in the midst of an 
historic political transition.  The unexpected death of 
President Niyazov on December 21, 2006, ended the 
authoritarian, one-man dictatorship that by the end of his 
life had made Turkmenistan's government among the most 
repressive in the world.  The peaceful transfer of power 
following Niyazov's death confounded many who had predicted 
instability because the former president had no succession 
plan.  President Berdimuhamedov quickly assumed power 
following Niyazov's death with the assistance of the "power 
ministries" -- including the Ministries of National Security 
and Defense, and the Presidential Guard.  His position was 
subsequently confirmed through a public election in which the 
population eagerly participated, even though it did not meet 
international standards. 
 
NIYAZOV'S LEGACY 
 
¶4.  (SBU) Berdimuhamedov inherited a country that former 
President Niyazov had come close to running into the ground. 
Niyazov siphoned off much of Turkmenistan's hydrocarbon 
proceeds into non-transparent slush funds used, in part, to 
finance his massive construction program in Ashgabat at the 
expense of the country's education and health-care systems. 
Politically, his increasing paranoia -- particularly after 
the 2002 armed attack on his motorcade -- led to high-speed 
revolving-door personnel changes at the provincial and 
national level, and an obsessive inclination to micro-manage 
the details of government.  Criticizing or questioning 
Niyazov's decisions was treated as disloyalty, and could be 
grounds for removal from jobs, if not worse.  Niyazov's 
"neutral" foreign policy led to Turkmenistan's political and 
economic isolation from the rest of the world.  His policies 
calling for mandatory increases in cotton and wheat 
production led to destructive agricultural and water-use 
policies that left some of Turkmenistan's arable land salty 
and played-out. 
 
EDUCATION -- "DIMMER PEOPLE EASIER TO RULE" 
 
¶5.  (SBU) Niyazov's attacks on the educational system grew 
increasingly destructive in his later years.  The Soviet-era 
educational system was broadly turned into a system designed 
 
ASHGABAT 00001293  002 OF 006 
 
 
to isolate students from the outside world and to mold them 
into loyal Turkmen-speaking presidential thralls.  President 
Niyazov famously defended this policy when, in 2004, he told 
a fellow Central Asian president, "Dimmer people are easier 
to rule."  Niyazov's destruction of his country's education 
system included cutting the Soviet standard of ten years of 
compulsory education to nine, firing large numbers of 
teachers, and introducing his own works as core curriculum at 
the expense of the traditional building blocks of a basic 
education.  He slashed higher education to two years of study 
and discouraged foreign study by refusing to recognize 
foreign academic degrees.  Taken together, these steps 
created a "lost generation" of under-educated youth 
ill-equipped to help Turkmenistan take its place on the world 
stage in the 21st century. 
 
RULE OF LAW -- A LOW BAR 
 
¶6.  (SBU) Niyazov seriously harmed Turkmenistan's political 
system.  His capricious authoritarianism left a legacy of 
corrupt officials lacking initiative, accountability, and -- 
in many cases -- the expertise needed to do their jobs. 
Young officials who came of age after Niyazov's destructive 
changes to the education system are particularly deficient in 
skills and broader world vision needed to facilitate 
Turkmenistan's entry into the international community.  Many 
laws lack transparency and provision for oversight and 
recourse.  The population's lack of understanding of the 
meaning of rule of law has left the bar low in terms of 
citizens' expectations of their government. 
 
BERDIMUHAMEDOV BEGINS TO REBUILD THE SYSTEM 
 
¶7.  (SBU) Berdimuhamedov still pays nominal lip service to 
maintaining his predecessor's policies, but he has started 
reversing many of the most destructive, especially in the 
areas of education, health, and social welfare.  He has 
restored and -- in many cases -- increased old-age pensions 
that Niyazov had largely eliminated.  The president is 
embarking on a course of hospital-building, with the main 
focus on improving medical facilities in Turkmenistan's five 
provinces.  To this end, he has already authorized 
construction of five provincial mother-and-children 
(maternity) hospitals.  He has also publicly committed to 
improve rural infrastructure and to ensure that every village 
has communications, electricity and running water. 
 
¶8.  (SBU) In education, Berdimuhamedov is reversing many of 
the policies Niyazov ordered him to implement while he served 
as Deputy Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers for Education 
and Health.  Since his inauguration, Berdimuhamedov has 
ordered a return to the compulsory standard of ten years' 
education, a return of universities to five years of 
classroom study, and a new emphasis on exchange programs and 
the hard sciences.  On July 13, he called for recognition of 
foreign academic degrees, a major step which would allow 
exchange students to receive credit for their overseas study. 
 The goal is to repair Turkmenistan's broken education system 
as quickly as possible and to give the country the educated 
workforce that it needs to compete commercially.  These 
efforts, however, are hampered by old-thinking bureaucrats, 
especially in the Ministry of Education and Ministry of 
National Security, who sometimes block or otherwise impede 
foreign assistance programs.  This may perhaps be a legacy of 
the culture of xenophobia Niyazov had encouraged. 
 
ELIMINATING THE CULT OF PERSONALITY 
 
¶9.  (SBU) Berdimuhamedov has incrementally started 
dismantling Niyazov's cult of personality.  Huge posters of 
the deceased president are beginning to be removed from 
public buildings.  References to Niyazov's "literary" works, 
especially the Ruhnama, are less frequent and probably will 
 
ASHGABAT 00001293  003 OF 006 
 
 
fade away over time.  The new president has banned the huge 
stadium gatherings in his honor and requirement for students 
and government workers to line the streets, often for hours, 
along presidential motorcade routes.  That said, in some 
places, Niyazov's picture has been replaced by 
Berdimuhamedov's, and the new president's quotations have 
replaced Ruhnama quotations on newspaper mastheads.  However, 
these are practices common in Central Asia.  One hopeful 
trend is that Berdimuhamedov appears to be signaling that the 
country should draw its inspiration from its history rather 
from the cult of the leader.  Posters of Turkmen historical 
figures have started to appear.  In addition, all but one of 
the new currency banknotes scheduled to introduced in 2009 
will carry pictures of historical and cultural figures (the 
largest bill has Niyazov on it). 
 
FIRST STAGES OF POLITICAL REFORM 
 
¶10.  (SBU) Berdimuhamedov has replaced some of the ministers 
he inherited from Niyazov.  His focus seems to be on finding 
better-qualified individuals.  On August 24, he established a 
"Human Rights Commission" to help bring the practices and 
policies of Turkmenistan's government agencies into line with 
international standards and human rights conventions. He has 
established a state commission to review complaints of 
citizens against law enforcement agencies, which has become a 
vehicle for pardoning at least some of those imprisoned 
(including for complicity in the 2002 attack on the 
presidential motorcade) under Niyazov.  Berdimuhamedov 
pardoned 11 prisoners, including the former Grand Mufti of 
Turkmenistan, Nasrullah ibn Ibadullah, in early August, and 
promised he would pardon more in the future.  Several other 
prisoners of concern were freed in the October amnesty. 
Berdimuhamedov has also agreed to allow UNDP to provide human 
rights training to police. 
 
¶11. (SBU) In addition, he has slowly begun to walk back some 
of the most restrictive controls on movement within the 
country, first removing police checkpoints on the roads 
between cities, then -- on July 13 -- eliminating the 
requirement for Turkmenistan's citizens to obtain permits to 
travel to border zones (however, the permit system remains in 
force for foreigners).  Although the president has been 
slower to strengthen rule of law, correct Turkmenistan's 
previous human rights and religious freedom record, and 
promote economic reform, he has told U.S. officials he wants 
to "turn the page" on the bilateral relationship and is 
willing to work on areas that hindered improved relations 
under Niyazov.  He has approved an unprecedented number of 
visits by U.S. delegations since he took office, including 
those directed toward promoting change. 
 
ECONOMY AND FINANCE 
 
¶12.  (SBU) Turkmenistan's economy is closely controlled by 
the state and is heavily dependent on hydrocarbon revenue. 
Although the government for many years regularly proclaimed 
its wish to attract foreign investment, it made little effort 
up to now to change the state-control mechanisms, restrictive 
currency-exchange system and dual currency exchange rates 
that created a difficult foreign investment climate. 
However, in recent months, we have seen greater willingness 
among upper-level personnel at Turkmenistan's main economic 
and financial institutions -- including both the Ministry of 
Economy and Finance and the Central Bank -- to acknowledge 
that reforms are necessary.  Part of this new attitude is 
linked to the president's growing frustration, expressed 
publicly during several cabinet-level meetings in August, 
with Turkmenistan's complex, opaque web of on- and off-budget 
funds, which have made a thorough accounting of state income 
and disbursements/expenses virtually impossible.  And, in 
fact, President Berdimuhamedov's frustration with the lack of 
accountability in the budget was one of the key factors that 
 
ASHGABAT 00001293  004 OF 006 
 
 
led, in late July, to the creation of a Supreme Auditing 
Chamber.  That said, growing interest in investing in 
Turkmenistan among western businessmen in hopes that the new 
government eventually will make the changes necessary to 
improve the investment climate is also providing an incentive 
for change. 
 
FOREIGN POLICY:  A NEW FOCUS ON ENGAGEMENT 
 
¶13.  (SBU) Notwithstanding his statements that he plans to 
continue the "neutrality" policies of his predecessor, 
Berdimuhamedov -- probably on the advice of Deputy Chairman 
of the Cabinet of Ministers and Foreign Minister Rashit 
Meredov -- has put a virtually unprecedented emphasis on 
foreign affairs.  Indeed, Berdimuhamedov has met or spoken by 
telephone with all the leaders in the region -- including 
with President Aliyev of Azerbaijan, with whom Niyazov had 
maintained a running feud.  He has exchanged visits with 
Russia's President Putin, and held a high-profile gas summit 
with Putin and Kazakhstan's President Nazarbayev in 
Turkmenistan's Caspian seaside city of Turkmenbashy 
(Krasnovodsk).  China has a strong and growing commercial 
presence in Turkmenistan, and continues to court 
Berdimuhamedov through a series of high-level commercial and 
political visits.  In mid-July, Berdimuhamedov made a state 
visit to China, focused mainly on natural gas and pipeline 
deals.  While Turkey has given Berdimuhamedov top-level 
treatment, including an invitation to Ankara, its 
relationship with Turkmenistan continues to be colored more 
by the image of its lucrative trade and construction 
contracts that are siphoning hundreds of millions of dollars 
away from state budgets here than by generous development 
assistance or fraternal support.  He has also held positive 
meetings with high-level U.S. State Department officials and 
leaders of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in 
Europe (OSCE) and United Nations to discuss areas of 
potential assistance.  He met with UN High Commissioner on 
Human Rights Louise Arbour in May, the Head of the OSCE's 
Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), 
Christian Strohal, and agreed to a visit by the UN's Special 
Rapporteur on Religious Freedom at an as-yet undetermined 
date.  He most recently made his first trip to the United 
States as president to participate in the UNGA session in 
September.  November 5-7 was his first visit to EU and NATO 
headquarters in Brussels. 
 
ENERGY RESOURCES 
 
¶14.  (SBU) Turkmenistan has world-class natural gas reserves, 
but Russia's near monopoly of its energy exports has left 
Turkmenistan receiving much less than the world price and 
overly beholden to Russia.  Pipeline diversification, 
including both a pipeline to China proposed for 2009 and the 
possibility of resurrecting plans for Trans-Caspian and 
Trans-Afghanistan pipelines that would avoid the Russian 
routes, and construction of high-power electricity lines to 
transport excess energy to Turkmenistan's neighbors, 
including Afghanistan, would not only enhance Turkmenistan's 
economic and political sovereignty, but also help fuel new 
levels of prosperity throughout the region.  Berdimuhamedov 
has told U.S. interlocutors he recognizes the need for more 
options and has taken the first steps to this end, but he 
also took the first steps needed to increase the volume of 
gas exports to Russia -- agreeing in principle to refurbish 
and enlarge a Soviet-era Caspian littoral pipeline -- during 
the May tripartite summit in Turkmenbashy.  He will require 
encouragement and assistance from the international community 
if he is to maintain a course of diversification in the face 
of almost certain Russian efforts to keep Turkmenistan from 
weaning itself away from Russia. 
 
TURKMENISTAN'S "OPPOSITION" 
 
 
ASHGABAT 00001293  005 OF 006 
 
 
¶15.  (SBU) Fifteen years of Niyazov's authoritarianism along 
with Russian black propaganda touting the dangers of civil 
society have left Turkmenistan without an internal opposition 
and convinced that efforts to develop civil society actually 
represent a plan to promote a colored revolution.  Threatened 
with imprisonment, most individuals who disagree with the 
system here either have learned to turn inwards, or have left 
the country.  While there are expatriate opposition groups, 
those groups have a history of disunity and a reputation for 
promoting self-interested agendas as much as human rights. 
Although there is no quantifiable method to assess the 
popularity of these groups, numerous conversations with local 
people have yielded not one voice of support.  Instead, most 
here simply refer to the leaders of the overseas opposition 
-- most of whom have been tainted by the perception that they 
committed financial crimes in their earlier incarnations as 
office-holders in Turkmenistan -- as "the ones who made it 
out before they were imprisoned."  This leaves Turkmenistan 
without a nascent Vaclav Havel or Nelson Mandela who could 
serve as a rallying point for a democratic opposition, 
meaning that promoting engagement with the current president 
may be the best and only strategy for promoting a more 
democratic system. 
 
U.S. POLICY 
 
¶16.  (SBU) U.S. policy in Turkmenistan is three-fold: 
 
-- Encourage democratic reform and increased respect for 
human rights and fundamental freedoms, including support for 
improvements in the education and health systems; 
 
-- Encourage economic reform and growth of a market economy 
and private-sector agriculture, as well as diversification of 
Turkmenistan's energy export options; and 
 
-- Promote security cooperation. 
 
¶17.  (SBU) Turkmenistan remains a tempting target for 
increased cooperation on energy and security, but its human 
rights record in the past has made this cooperation 
problematic for some.  In raising its human rights concerns, 
the United States: 
 
-- Encourages further relaxation of Niyazov-era abuses and 
restrictions on freedom of movement.  Post has discovered in 
following up on lists of individuals previously not allowed 
to travel outside Turkmenistan that the majority of "stop 
travel" cases have been or are being positively resolved, and 
the government has pledged to work with us to review cases we 
bring to its attention.  That being said, the U.S. government 
needs to keep pressure on the government and to raise 
unresolved cases in which we have been able to confirm that 
there was no criminal activity involved. 
 
-- Promotes greater religious freedom, including registration 
of unrecognized groups like the Roman Catholic Church, and 
making legal provision for conscientious objectors.  The 
government has registered one church and one branch church 
since the visit in August of the U.S. Commission on 
International Religious Freedom, but problems remain.  The 
government has acknowledged problems exist and requested U.S. 
assistance in overhauling its 2003/2004 Law on Religion, but 
the United States has yet to respond formally. 
 
-- Advocates the growth of civil society by urging the 
government to register non-governmental organizations.  Since 
the 2003 law that required all registered NGOs to 
re-register, very few independent NGOs have been registered 
by the Ministry of Justice.  The embassy has determined that 
fewer than 10 independent civil society groups have received 
NGO registration under the new law.  Even those NGOs 
registered, however, continue to have problems, including 
 
ASHGABAT 00001293  006 OF 006 
 
 
monitoring of their activities.  The embassy has facilitated 
legal consultations on registration issues to civil society 
groups wanting to register, but ultimately the law on 
registration of organizations will probably need to be 
reformed.  An achievable first step, however, might be 
holding a roundtable with representatives of civic groups and 
NGOs to identify problems and come up with a work plan for 
addressing those issues. 
 
-- Urges the government to grant the ICRC access to prisons. 
The government has agreed to allow ICRC to visit prisons, but 
only if ICRC officials are accompanied by government 
personnel.  There are also concerns that ICRC might not be 
allowed into the facilities where the most sensitive 
prisoners are housed. 
 
-- Encourages release of additional prisoners of concern. 
The government has released approximately 28 to date, 
including some imprisoned in connection with the 2002 
motorcade attack.  Passing a list of specific names whose 
cases the United States would like to see reviewed may be 
most productive. 
CURRAN