Presented by Firuz Kazemzadeh, Commissioner,
U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom and Professor Emeritus of
Yale University
Before the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe
March 21, 2000
Mr. Chairman, members of the Commission,
My name is Firuz Kazemzadeh. I am professor emeritus of history at
Yale University and a member of the United States Commission for
International Religious Freedom which has endorsed the statement I am
about to make.
Turkmenistan is one of the most repressive of the successor states
of the Soviet Union and one of the poorest. Yet Turkmenistan is rich in
natural resources. Its known reserves of natural gas place it fourth in
the world, behind Russia, the United States, and Iran. Turkmenistan has
an estimated six to eight billion-ton oil reserve, but geography and
politics have made it difficult for foreign business to invest there.
Bordering on the Caspian Sea, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan,
and Iran, Turkmenistan occupies an important strategic position. That
very position, however, makes it vulnerable.
With a population of fewer than five million and a limited pool of
educated persons, Turkmenistan has been unable to make much economic or
social progress since it achieved independence in 1991. Its government
practices and attitudes have remained largely Soviet in substance and
style.
Turkmenistan has never been a nation. The nomadic tribes that
inhabit the area east of the Caspian never had a central government.
Conquered by Russia in the last decades of the nineteenth century, they
were ruled from St. Petersburg and Moscow until 1991. Thus there is no
tradition of government, no legal tradition, except what has been
inherited from an alien colonial power. It is, therefore, not
surprising that Turkmenistan today is ruled by a president whose
authority in practice is not limited by laws. As under the Soviets, in
Turkmenistan today elections and referenda are nothing but public
endorsements of the decrees of the ruler.
My concern is with human rights, and primarily with religious
freedom that does not exist in Turkmenistan. The government lives in
fear. It is frightened of events that have overtaken Afghanistan, where
the Taliban have engaged in a bloody conflict and imposed their version
of Islamic theocracy on the country. It is frightened of what has
transpired in Tajikistan and by the possibility that Turkmenistan might
be infiltrated by Islamicist political or military groups, particularly
the Wahhabis, presumed to be financed by Saudi Arabia, groups that
would receive aid from abroad. Fear of intervention and subversion
prompts the government endlessly to emphasize Turkmenistan's
neutrality, which is proclaimed to be one of the foundational
principles of Turkmenistan's statehood.
The government sees any religious organization as a potential threat
to the stability of the state. It should be noted that the Turkmen
Muslim population in its vast majority is tolerant and shows no signs
of wishing to establish a theocratic state on the Afghan or Iranian
model. The repressive policies of the government in regard to religion
are motivated not so much by religious intolerance as by fear of
diversity, fear of losing control.
The collapse of Communism has left an ideological and psychological
vacuum in Turkmenistan that the governing establishment, itself a child
of the Soviet regime, is trying to fill through the cultivation of an
artificial nationalism and the cult of the leader. The president is
being turned into a superhuman being, perhaps even a prophet. Rumors
circulate in Ashgabat that a book entitled Ruhnameh, a Perso-Arabic
word literally meaning "soul book," is already in draft. This book
would take its place next to the Koran as a repository of truth about
morality and a prescription for the conduct of life of the Turkmen
people.
There is no room for independent thought and free religion. While
the Constitution speaks of freedom of religion in terms that echo the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, supplementary legislation and
government practice make a mockery of principles so proclaimed. All
religions and denominations, except for Sunni Islam and Russian
Orthodoxy, have been virtually banned. The 1997 law that requires a
religious community to have at least 500 members to be registered makes
all activity by smaller communities illegal. Thus Baptists, Seventh Day
Adventists, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Baha'is have been in effect
outlawed. Some of their adherents have been subjected to arrest,
intimidation, and deportation. Their houses of worship have been closed
or demolished.
The Baptists, who have met the numerical requirement for
registration, have nevertheless been refused recognition. Pastor
Vladimir Chernov was deported in December 1999. Baptist leaders
Anatolii Belyaev and Mikhail Kozlov were arrested by officers of the
KNB (National Security Committee) in February 2000. Belyaev, his wife,
and his daughter were eventually deported to Russia. During a raid on
the Ashgabat Baptist church, a KNB officer is reported to have said,
"First we will deport all foreign missionaries, then we'll strangle the
remaining Christians in this country."
The Turkmen Baptist Shageldy Atakov was arrested in his home at
Turkmenbashi (former Krasnovodsk) in December 1998 and sentenced to
four years imprisonment for his involvement in the activities of local
Baptists. His wife and five children have been subjected to "internal
deportation" on KNB orders as she refused to sign a statement
renouncing her Baptist faith. Other members of the Atakov family have
been subjected to arrest and harassment.
The demolition of the Seventh-day-Adventist church in Ashgabat,
erected with government permission; the destruction of the unfinished
Hare Krishna temple in Mary; the refusal to register the Bible Society
of Turkmenistan; raids on the homes of members of unregistered
religious communities; confiscation of religious literature, and the
ever present threat of arrest and imprisonment, have created an
atmosphere in which all practice of religion is dangerous.
While high government officials have been promising for months that
the situation would improve and the numerical requirement for
registration of religious groups lowered, no improvement has taken
place, and harassment by the police and the KNB (Committee for National
Security) has continued or even increased.
America's commitment to support international religious freedom
requires action on the part of the United States government. It should
continuously remind the government of Turkmenistan that maltreatment of
religious minorities would have serious consequences for relations
between the two countries. However, given the facts of political life
in Turkmenistan, only representations made on the highest level would
be heard in Ashgabat.
The United States should raise the issue at the United Nations
Commission on Human Rights and advocate the appointment of a special
rapporteur who would investigate the situation in Turkmenistan. A
resolution condemning human rights violations there is bound to
influence in some degree the thinking of the regime.
Perhaps the most effective measures would be economic ones.
Turkmenistan's economy has been deteriorating. It can be repaired and
developed only with large infusions of capital and technology from
outside the country. Turkmenistan is currently engaged in intricate
negotiations with several countries about the construction of pipelines
to convey its natural gas to world markets. This provides leverage that
the United States and other like-minded countries could very well use
in urging the government of Turkmenistan to improve its behavior in
regard to human rights, and specifically in regard to religious
freedom.
Rapid and radical improvement of Turkmenistan's treatment of
religious minorities cannot be expected. Still, consistent use of all
legitimate means to push the government of Turkmenistan in the right
direction must sooner or later achieve the desired results.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
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