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DE RUEHAH #0801/01 1790401
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 270401Z JUN 08
FM AMEMBASSY ASHGABAT
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RHEHAAA/WHITE HOUSE WASHDC PRIORITY

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 06 ASHGABAT 000801 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
FROM CHARGE D'AFFAIRES RICHARD HOAGLAND 
STATE FOR P, S/P, E, G, R, SCA/FO, SCA/CEN, DRL 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PREL PHUM KDEM RS CH TX
SUBJECT:  TURKMENISTAN:  ENGAGE, ENGAGE, ENGAGE 
 
REF: A. ASHGABAT 0363 
     ¶B. ASHGABAT 0223 
     ¶C. 07 ASHGABAT 0873 
     ¶D. 07 ASHGABAT 0779 
     ¶E. 07 ASHGABAT 0778 
 
¶1.  (U) Sensitive but unclassified.  Not for public Internet. 
 
¶2.  (SBU) Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the 
fundamentals of U.S. policy in Central Asia have remained 
consistent and on-target:  to advocate political and economic 
reform as the keystone of America's strategic interests. 
After 17 years, the countries have differentiated themselves, 
even if they share many common values, and the world has 
changed.  Russia is no longer the passive basket case it was 
in the 1990s, and China is now extending it's economic power 
into the region.  As we look at what we can achieve in the 
homestretch of this Administration, it is time seriously to 
refocus our approach to Central Asia.  In some ways, over the 
years, we have begun to let ideology trump reality.  I 
suggest it's time to reverse that formula. 
 
THE RUSSIA PROBLEM 
 
¶3.  (SBU) In the decade after Central Asian independence, we 
didn't need to take Russia much into account.  We in practice 
assigned Central Asia, the back-water of the Soviet Union, to 
back-burner status.  However, 9/11, a newly assertive and 
increasingly wealthy Russia, the danger of Iran, the 
fragility of Afghanistan, and increased energy diplomacy 
require us to reassess our attention to Central Asia. 
 
¶4.  (SBU) During Vladimir Putin's first term as president of 
Russia, he asserted what the Kremlin called the "near abroad" 
(the former Soviet Socialist Republics) as Russia's special 
sphere of influence, which if taken to its zero-sum extreme 
would make them minimally sovereign satellite dependencies of 
Russia.  The "color revolutions" in Georgia, Ukraine, and 
Kyrgyzstan dramatically heightened Russian paranoia that the 
ultimate U.S. goal was to overthrow existing governments, 
install pro-Western regimes, and encircle, weaken, and, 
ultimately, break up Russia.  By 2004, a flood of Russian 
black propaganda, both overt and covert, began to brand U.S. 
democracy organizations as fronts for covert operations to 
implement "color revolutions."  Some Central Asian 
governments, buying into this propaganda, began to crack down 
on organizations like the National Democratic Institute, 
Freedom House, and Human Rights Watch.  This, in turn, 
contributed to U.S. attitudes hardening against Central 
Asia's regimes. 
 
¶5.  (SBU) With Russian economic recovery, and then with the 
skyrocketing price of oil, Russia accelerated its effort to 
buy up Central Asian strategic infrastructure, and especially 
for Gazprom to seal its long-term monopoly on Central Asian 
natural gas and export pipelines.  However, the Central Asian 
states have come to value and protect their independence. 
Like all post-colonial states, they will naturally maintain 
close, if wary, relations with the former metropolitan power, 
but they don't much like Russia's inveterate heavy-handedness 
and even less its intransigent racism. 
 
 
ASHGABAT 00000801  002 OF 006 
 
 
THE CHINA FACTOR 
 
¶6.  (U) Since Central Asian independence, we have preached 
that economic and political reform go hand-in-hand, that 
ultimately one is not possible without the other.  In 
general, that has been true in Western history, including in 
the more recent examples in Central Europe and the Baltics 
that had a European heritage.  But it's not necessarily true 
in Central Asia that never experienced the European 
Renaissance, Reformation, and Enlightenment that are the 
essential philosophical foundations for Western democracy. 
 
¶7.  (SBU) The Chinese example of the past decade has given 
the Central Asian states a powerful new model:  economic 
strength and wealth-building without political reform.  For 
Central Asian presidents and the elite who support them, 
whose sometimes self-serving mantra seems to be "stability, 
stability, stability," the Chinese model is more attractive 
than the "messiness of democracy."  In the longer term, a 
true Central Asian middle class might well begin to demand 
greater political plurality, more freedom of expression, and 
a greater say in governance.  But that process is 
generational, as we have seen in Kyrgyzstan, which in the 
1990s was considered the most progressive of the Central 
Asian states, which experienced a "color revolution" in 2005, 
but which, in the end, is not much better than any of the 
rest. 
 
TURKMENISTAN 
 
¶8.  (SBU) In Central Asia, Turkmenistan is a special case. 
From the mid-1990s until the end of 2006, it was very much 
the odd-man-out because of its repressive and xenophobic 
dictatorship.  The first president of Turkmenistan, 
Saparmurad Niyazov (1991-2006), who styled himself 
Turkmenbashy ("Father of the Turkmen"), was a Soviet-style, 
totalitarian despot who established an eccentric personality 
cult, increasingly sank into paranoia and xenophobia, and 
turned his government -- and, thus, his nation -- into an 
international laughing stock and pariah.  When I led the 
U.S.-Russia Consultations on the Caucasus and Central Asia 
(2001-2003), we would come to Turkmenistan, and both sides -- 
Moscow and Washington alike -- would simply roll their eyes 
and move on to the next topic.  Under President Gurbanguly 
Berdimuhamedov (inaugurated February 14, 2007), Turkmenistan 
is authoritarian, but at peace with its neighbors and with 
reformist potential, and seeks to reclaim a respected place 
in the family of nations.  But deeply scarred by its past, 
and hugely lacking experience and ability, Turkmenistan can 
and will move only at its own pace. 
 
TURKMENISTAN'S CONSTRAINTS:  IMAGE 
 
¶9.  (SBU) Turkmenistan's biggest constraint, after its 
stultifying isolation and the debilitating lack of ability 
among its officials (not all, but many) is simply but 
enormously its reputation.  It will take many years to 
overcome its many negative stereotypes.  One Senior Foreign 
Service Officer who has never set foot in contemporary 
Turkmenistan but who should know better, archly called 
Turkmenistan "the ickiest of all the Ickystans!"  It's a 
quick laugh line but a poor guide to policy. 
 
ASHGABAT 00000801  003 OF 006 
 
 
 
¶10.  (SBU) Turkmenistan does itself no favors by making it 
hard for international journalists to enter and report from 
the country.  It's not impossible, but it takes gumption and 
persistence.  One who has done so and who has reported 
honestly and objectively in the last six months is the BBC's 
Natalia Antelava.  But too many still parachute in and report 
the brainless "lots of white marble and spooky empty streets" 
articles.  Yes, there's lots of white marble.  No the streets 
are not empty, at least not if you go one block off the 
ceremonial boulevards. 
 
¶11.  (SBU) The Turkmen opposition websites in Moscow and 
Europe, which some NGOs and some U.S. government offices rely 
on, are another problem.  Run by exiles who have never been 
in post-Niyazov Turkmenistan (and we speculate some of these 
websites might possibly be infiltrated by the Russian special 
services), they exaggerate bits of gossip -- most infamously, 
the idiotic cockroach-on-the-newsreader's-desk-leads-to-p urge 
fantasy that even National Public Radio broadcast as "too 
good to check."  A similar canard is the recent assertion 
that Berdimuhamedov has banned Western clothes and forced 
Turkmen women into head-to-toe traditional dress.  We still 
see regular and sniggering references to President 
Berdimuhamedov as "Niyazov's former dentist who might be his 
illegitimate son." 
 
¶12.  (SBU) In Turkmenistan, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty 
(RFE/RL) has a special problem.  At its best -- and it does 
indeed often do good work as I saw in Tajikistan -- RFE/RL is 
a "surrogate" source of news and information in countries 
that bend and distort the truth and deny open discussion.  In 
recent years, in too many cases in Central Asia -- and this 
is especially true in Turkmenistan -- RFE/RL has hired 
dissidents, sometimes even cranks (one threatened in 
frustration to blow up a police station in Ashgabat), rather 
than reasonably professional journalists.  This simply feeds 
the maw of the Russian propaganda machine, and, as a result, 
RFE/RL has picked up the negative sobriquet of Radio Oppo. 
Governments like Turkmenistan's, with whom we conscientiously 
and persistently engage on human rights, including freedom of 
information, sometimes ask why they should tolerate, let 
alone legally register, a radio service not just lacking 
objectivity but also, as they perceive it, dedicated to 
undermining stability and overthrowing their government. 
When we advocate strongly for RFE/RL, we, sad to say, lose a 
degree of credibility on the larger democracy and human 
rights issues. 
 
TURKMENISTAN'S CONSTRAINTS:  HISTORY AND PSYCHOLOGY 
 
¶13.  (SBU) Turkmenistan is in the earliest stages of 
transition from its 20th-century Soviet experience and its 
debilitating dictatorship.  When pressed on Western values, 
Turkmen officials are wont to remind us that they are subject 
to the "oriental mindset."  To many of us, this smacks of 
facile rationalization.  In fact, there's something to it. 
At a fundamental level, it is a recognition that Central Asia 
does not have the long-established institutions of the West 
that facilitate and support democratic civil society.  It 
also accounts for other things we find annoying -- especially 
their profound aversion to saying "no" to suggestions and 
 
ASHGABAT 00000801  004 OF 006 
 
 
proposals and their consequent strong preference simply not 
to answer.  And sometimes silence means their equivalent of 
an interagency process is grinding away.  The imperative for 
U.S. policymakers is to recognize when silence really does 
mean "no," and then hold back on our efforts until a more 
propitious time.  Brow-beating in a culture that puts great 
emphasis on "face" and "respect" gets us nowhere.  We need to 
discern better when to make tactical retreats until we have 
built stronger relationships of trust.  Those relationships 
will, however, develop over time and with repeated high-level 
contact. 
 
TURKMENISTAN'S REALITIES 
 
¶14.  (SBU) Within four hours of Niyazov's death, one of his 
deputy prime ministers, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, was 
anointed before dawn on December 27, 2006, as the consensus 
choice of the Turkmen ruling elite.  They knew what had gone 
badly wrong under Niyazov and wanted a new direction, while 
maintaining peace and stability.  President Berdimuhamedov 
has started to 
 
-- rebuild (but not yet reform) the education system Niyazov 
had devastated (he once said, "A dim people are easier 
ruled"); 
 
-- renovate the health-care system Niyazov had gutted; 
 
-- reinstitute pensions Niyazov had cancelled and kick-start 
rural development; 
 
-- reopen Turkmenistan to the world and repair relations with 
neighboring countries; 
 
-- undertake economic reforms to create a market economy and 
encourage entrepreneurs to create small and medium businesses; 
 
-- bring Turkmenistan up to international human-rights 
standards; 
 
-- open Turkmenistan's world-class hydrocarbon deposits 
(mostly natural gas) to international investment and 
development; and, concurrently, 
 
-- begin to break the Russian Gazprom monopoly on 
Turkmenistan's hydrocarbon exports. 
 
¶15.  (U) Within 48 hours of Niyazov's death, the U.S. 
government crafted a forward-leaning policy that offered to 
engage with Turkmenistan to the fullest degree Turkmenistan 
was willing (and able) to engage with the United States.  In 
practice, our daily effort has been to exercise the patience 
necessary to move at Turkmenistan's own pace, so long as it 
moves generally in the right direction.  This policy has 
proved to be wise.  In the last 17 months, Berdimuhamedov has 
 
-- reaffirmed Turkmenistan's UN-approved "permanent 
neutrality," and has conscientiously balanced Turkmenistan's 
relations among the major global and regional powers -- 
Russia, China, the United States, the European Union, and 
Iran -- without favoring one too much over the others; 
 
 
ASHGABAT 00000801  005 OF 006 
 
 
-- received over 500 diplomatic and business delegations -- 
the United States alone has sent more delegations since 
Berdimuhamedov's inauguration than it did in the previous six 
years; 
 
-- traveled broadly internationally to build diplomatic 
relationships, and repaired frozen relations with neighbors 
Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan; 
 
-- sought increasingly to play a positive role to stabilize 
and reconstruct Afghanistan; 
 
-- created and empowered a number of government think tanks 
to review legislation and propose new policies, especially 
for fiscal responsibility, economic reform, empowerment of 
entrepreneurs, and human rights -- of these, the star in the 
crown so far is the Institute for Democracy and Human Rights; 
and 
 
-- reformulated his economic team to achieve reform results 
and has begun working productively with the international 
financial institutions, and has begun infrastructure renewal 
projects to benefit the provincial centers and the more 
isolated rural populations. 
 
¶16.  (SBU) Despite this enormous change in such a relatively 
short time, Turkmenistan does not meet our standards: 
 
-- it listens to us, but certainly not exclusively; 
 
-- it is secretive and sometimes makes bone-headed decisions 
we have to try to walk back; 
 
-- it is a one-party state without separation of powers and 
does not have even a glimmer of independent media; 
 
-- it is leery of empowering civil society for fear of 
engendering instability and losing control of its fragile 
progress; and 
 
-- it is inevitably a creature of its Soviet legacy and, 
thus, is wildly corrupt by Western standards. 
 
¶17.  (SBU) Because of the Niyazov era, Turkmenistan is 
starting from even less than zero, below where the other 
Central Asian states were at independence in 1991. 
Turkmenistan matters strategically because it is one of the 
five littoral states of the Caspian Sea and possesses 
enormous natural gas deposits.  Two of the other 
hydrocarbon-rich Caspian states, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, 
have long been making a credible effort on financial and 
economic reform, and are reasonably pro-Western.  We should 
nurture the U.S.-Turkmenistan relationship so that Ashgabat, 
Astana, and Baku form at the least an informal, 
self-confident bloc with which we can work. 
 
WHAT TO DO:  ENGAGE, ENGAGE, ENGAGE 
 
¶18.  (SBU) The U.S.-Turkmenistan relationship will never grow 
any faster than President Berdimuhamedov and his circle want 
it to grow.  But we can accelerate that pace through 
significantly greater engagement with him.  By this I do not 
 
ASHGABAT 00000801  006 OF 006 
 
 
mean greater resources for assistance and exchange projects 
-- although we most certainly do very badly need that; the 
consistently falling budgets are shamefully 
counter-productive. 
 
¶19.  (SBU) What is needed is more frequent and sustained 
face-to-face engagement at very high levels.  This is crucial 
because in an Asian (and post-Soviet) society like 
Turkmenistan's, all boils down to relationships-of-trust and 
building "face."  This is not acquiescing to despotism; it's 
engaging with reality to achieve a longer-term greater 
objective.  It is reality versus dogma. 
 
¶20.  (SBU) Our democratic ideals can be implemented but they 
cannot be imposed -- especially where the institutions to 
support them do not exist.  And they do not now nor have they 
ever really existed in Central Asia.  The Soviets and Niyazov 
so devastated Turkmen society that we can expect no quick 
embraces of democratic structures.  Niyazov drove out the 
educated elites who would be the nucleus of democratic 
reform.  We cannot, moreover, automatically expect Central 
Asian governments to welcome or even to tolerate those 
organizations that Russian black propaganda has branded as 
"color revolutionaries," especially when we never much fought 
back against that propaganda in the first place. 
 
¶21.  (SBU) The implication for us is that we need to shy away 
from list-making and public embarrassments and give every 
effort instead to precise application of effective measures. 
In Turkmenistan, as USAID is already doing successfully, that 
means working at the grass roots -- with village councils, 
parent-teacher associations, water-user collectives, farmers' 
cooperatives, and anything else at the most fundamental level 
where people need to be convinced they can shake off 80 years 
of the Soviet legacy that turned them into passive cynics. 
If we can be patient enough to work "slow and low," democracy 
will prevail. 
 
¶22.  (SBU) I believe Turkmenistan is on an upward trajectory 
toward international standards, but it will not ever move at 
our desired pace.  We need to be firm without lecturing: 
what is tough-minded in our eyes can appear by Turkmen 
standards of reality to be ill-informed, supercilious, and 
ideologically arrogant.  Equally important, it gives Russia 
ammunition to label our altruistic efforts as "democracy 
bolshevism."  Most to the point, when we limit attention to 
and contact with a country like Turkmenistan because of 
ideological touchpoints, we cut off our noses to spite our 
faces.  We simply cannot afford anymore to limit our 
engagement because they have not achieved quickly what we 
have advocated.  To achieve our long-term goals of human 
dignity and freedom for all, we need to let reality trump 
dogma.  We need to pursue our national interests with a 
maximum of creativity, intelligence, and flexibility.  We 
need to engage frequently -- candidly and consistently -- at 
the highest levels. 
HOAGLAND