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UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 ASHGABAT 000798 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR SCA/CEN; DRL 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PREL PHUM TX
SUBJECT:  TURKMENISTAN:  DIPLOMATIC CORPS WITNESSES 
DESTRUCTION OF TURKMENBASHY PRISON 
 
¶1.  (U)  Sensitive but unclassified.  Not for public Internet. 
 
¶2.  (SBU) SUMMARY:  In a public relations move, not 
coincidentally taking place during the visit to Turkmenistan 
of a European Union human rights delegation, the Government 
of Turkmenistan on June 25 invited members of the diplomatic 
corps and participants of a UNODC-sponsored Caspian Sea 
Initiative counternarcotics conference to Turkmenbashy to 
observe the demolition of a World War II-era prison.  An 
official claimed the prison's well-publicized destuction was 
part of President Berdimuhamedov's effort to make 
Turkmenistan more humanitarian.  However, participants, 
noting the facility's close proximity to a major oil refinery 
and speculating that the facility was being torn down to 
promote the refinery's expansion, suggested that the move 
might have been sparked by more than one motivation.  END 
SUMMARY. 
 
¶3.  (SBU)  On June 25, Turkmenistan's government invited the 
diplomatic corps and participants of UNODC's Caspian Sea 
Initiative counternarcotics conference on a public relations 
jaunt to the Caspian Sea port of Turkmenbashy to witness the 
destruction of a prison.  Foreign guests were flown at the 
government's expense to the port city, where they were bussed 
to a World War II-era prison that one mid-level official said 
had been built by Japanese prisoners of war in the early 
1940s.  The old brick-construction prison, which looked like 
an old movie set, was nestled among pipes streaming from the 
adjacent Turkmenbashy oil refinery.  Senior Turkmen 
representatives from the Ministry of Defense, Ministry of 
Internal Affairs, Ministry of National Security, local and 
provincial police, and the newly-established counternarcotics 
agency were present.  All four Turkmen television stations 
and at least one Turkish television station were represented, 
as well as Turkmen and Turkish print media. 
 
¶4.  (SBU)  The Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs read a 
short statement in which he indicated that the prison had 
originally been the town jail, and had more recently been 
used as a pre-trial detention center.  At maximum capacity, 
the facility had held 690 prisoners.  Now, the prison was no 
longer needed because, he claimed, Turkmenistan's crime rate 
declined in 2007 by 12 percent.  (NOTE:  Crime statistics are 
not publicly available.  END NOTE.)  He said the prison was 
being destroyed in connection with President Berdimuhamedov's 
program of "humanitarization" of Turkmenistan. 
 
¶5.  (SBU)  Foreign visitors were then invited to tour the 
first floor of two connected buildings that were used to hold 
prisoners.  The larger part of the building was comprised of 
large rooms equipped with windows, sinks and basic toilets. 
The smaller half of the building was one story, and partially 
subterranean.  It was comprised of four larger, open-air 
"holding cages" -- perhaps for short-term detention.  There 
were also eight small, windowless isolation cells.  Dust was 
everywhere, and it appeared that the facility had not been 
used for some time. 
 
¶6.  (SBU)  After all the guests had returned to their seats 
under an elegant tent structure, James Callahan, a senior 
representative of UNODC in town for the counternarcotics 
conference, was asked to do the honors of tapping a 
ceremonial hammer on a pad that set a wrecking block in 
motion.  The block knocked in the first section of wall on 
the prison.  A team of construction workers then set to work 
in their Komatsu and Caterpillar bulldozers, and, using steel 
cables that had been installed along the length of the larger 
building, began to pull down additional sections of the wall. 
 
¶7.  (SBU)  COMMENT:  The event appears to have been designed 
to demonstrate Turkmenistan's progress on human rights reform 
 
ASHGABAT 00000798  002 OF 002 
 
 
while an EU human rights delegation was in town.  While the 
prison's destruction may demonstrate, to some extent, human 
rights reforms, the facility's decrepit appearance and 
location in the midst of aging but operational oil refining 
equipment makes it seem equally likely that the old prison 
had to be removed to make room for new refinery construction. 
 END COMMENT. 
HOAGLAND