Visit our website: HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --------------------------------------------- [Via Communist Internet... http://www.egroups.com/group/Communist-Internet ] . . ----- Original Message ----- From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Sunday, August 05, 2001 1:11 AM Subject: Kyrgystan and the Shanghai Forum From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] WELCOME TO IWPR'S REPORTING CENTRAL ASIA, No. 63, August 3, 2001 KYRGYZ IMU FEARS MOUNT Two attacks in one week in the Batken region point to a new campaign by Islamic militants. Sultan Jumagulov and Kubat Otorbaev reports from Bishkek PROMINENT UZBEK JOURNALIST FACES PROSECUTION Rights campaigners in Uzbekistan say the authorities are prosecuting a fiercely independent journalist in an attempt to silence the independent media. Galima Bukharbaeva reports from Tashkent CASPIAN OIL FEUD Ashgabat ups the ante in its Caspian Sea oilfield dispute with Azerbaijan. Nazik Ataeva reports from Ashgabat TAJIK BORDER HARDSHIP Life in the once prosperous Khatlon province is now an exercise in surviving natural and man-made disasters. Saida Nazarova reports from Dushanbe ********** VISIT IWPR ON-LINE: www.iwpr.net ************** KYRGYZ IMU FEARS MOUNT Two attacks in one week in the Batken region point to a new campaign by Islamic militants By Sultan Jumagulov and Kubat Otorbaev in Bishkek The second attack in a week in Kyrgystan's Batken region has raised fears that fighters belonging to the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, IMU, are launching a new campaign of violence in the region. Militants attempted to break into radio transmitter station, near Chauvai, in the Kadamjai district, on July 30. A small group of them tried to cut through a perimeter fence, but fled after security guards opened fire. There were no reports of any casualties. The IMU's spokesman , Zubair ibn Abdurahim, confirmed that the insurgents were members of the guerrilla group. "These are our mujahidin," he said, in an exclusive telephone interview with IWPR. He added that Islamic fighters affiliated to the IMU were responsible for an earlier raid on a border post in the same region on July 24. In an interview with the BBC, the IMU's political leader, Takhir Yuldash, said the Islamic fighters had not crossed into Kyrgyztsan, but were in fact based in the country, a grave embarrassment for the Bishkek authorities, if the claim turns out to be true. Officials, however, have preferred to blame the two incidents on other parties. "It's difficult to say at the moment who these men are," Kyrgyz security minister Bolot Januzakov told IWPR. "But we think this might be a group of criminals. Maybe drug-traffickers." He suggested that they may have been after the equipment in the station. But Abdurahim backs up people's worst fears in the region "We are determined to continue our jihad (holy war) against the regimes in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan," he said, adding that while their main target is Uzbekistan, they now treat Kyrgyzstan as an enemy because of its opposition to the IMU. Asked for further information on the recent incidents, defence ministry spokesman Bolot Imanaliev restricted himself to commenting that," The situation is under control." Such mute reaction contrasts starkly with reports that the emergency evacuation of thousands of villagers from the mountains to Batken has commenced. The situation, though, is not so clear-cut in Batken itself, it seems. "No one knows what information to believe," Batken governor Mamat Aibalaev told IWPR. He feels, as do others, that a lack of coordination between the various ministries is leading to ambiguous and conflicting announcements. "It's more than a week since these attacks started, and the military say they are still finding out who is responsible," said Kyrgyz deputy Alisher Abdimomunov. "I have a feeling that law enforcement agencies are not in full control, and I am more inclined to see the latest incidents as sabotage actions." Omurbek Tekebaev, also a deputy, is equally concern with the current situation. "We spend a lot of money on defence, but these expenses don't seem to be justified," he said. "The mere fact that the latest inicident occurred 30-50 km inside Kyrgyz territory is worrying." Another deputy Tursunbai Bakir uulu said the attacks might have been a reaction to Kyrgyzstan's participation in the Shanghai Forum - an organisation which has dedicated itself to combating terrorism and armed Islamic groups in the region. "Kyrgyzstan should have abstained from joining this organisation," he said. "The mujahidin won't forgive us for this." Although officials are trying not to spread panic among the public, there are signs that the Kyrgyz and Uzbek military are taking the incidents seriously. In the last week, there have been a number of high-level meetings between the military leadership of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. They apparently discussed joint efforts to repel IMU fighters in the event of a new round of incursions. Rapid reaction CIS forces are also said to have been mobilised. Another indication that the IMU may have launched a new insurgency comes from Uzbekistan. An anonymous source told IWPR that in the Surkhandaria region - in which a dozen soldiers were killed in fighting last year - skirmishes between Uzbek troops and gunmen claimed casualties on both sides. The source said the gunmen might well have been IMU members who had crossed over from a camp in Afghanistan, fleeing areas recently attacked by the Northern Alliance The Uzbek defence ministry neither confirmed nor denied the reports, merely stating that military exercises were under way in Surkhandaria. Sultan Jumagulov is a BBC correspondent in Bishkek and Kubat Otorbaev is an independent journalist. PROMINENT UZBEK JOURNALIST FACES PROSECUTION Rights campaigners in Uzbekistan say the authorities are prosecuting a fiercely independent journalist in an attempt to silence the independent media. By Galima Bukharbaeva in Tashkent One of the best-known independent journalists in Uzbekistan is to be interrogated by the state prosecutor's office early next week in connection with claims that he forged his application for membership of an elite organisation in the early Nineties. The public prosecutor claims Shukhrat Babadjanov forged a letter by the famous Uzbek painter, Ruzi Chariev, recommending the journalist for membership of the prestigious Union of Artists of Uzbekistan in 1991. The criminal investigation into the affair, which began at the end of July, has been condemned by the non-government press and human rights activists, who say it represents an attempt by the authorities to silence the independent media. Babadjanov, head of a local television station and a respected painter, admits that he wrote the application to the artists' union, but claims Chariev signed it. "Ruzi Chariev couldn't write properly in Uzbek. That's why he told me - 'write it yourself and I will sign it,'" said Babadjanov. "I have ample proof that I did not falsify Chariev's signature - the accusations are groundless. It looks like investigators forced him to say that his signature was forged. They tried to do the same thing to another person who endorsed my recommendation, but he refused." Babadjanov was expelled from the artists' union at the end of May, for alleged non-payment of membership fees, failure to turn up for exhibitions and indecent behaviour. The journalist suspects he will be arrested following his interrogation by the state prosecutor next Monday, August 6. He fears he may face the same fate as the Uigur writer Emil Usman who died in questionable circumstances shortly after being detained earlier this year. He had been expelled from the artists' union a month before his detention. Analysts believe Babadjanov is being punished for his journalistic work. He is the director of the private Urgench-based private television company ALC TV, which was closed down two years ago and has been pressuring the government to be allowed back on air ever since. It's thought the government shut down the station in autumn 1999 - shortly before the start of parliamentary and presidential elections - because of its fiercely independent editorial policy. The station collaborated with international media, such as Internews, rebroadcasting programmes which aired issues the authorities felt uneasy about. Babadjanov repeatedly took legal action to reopen ALC, without success. At the end of June, the authorities finally refused to renew the station's licence. Throughout his single-handed campaign to get the station back on air, Babadjanov highlighted the plight of ALC to draw public attention to the government's bid to pressure the independent media. His actions provoked criticism from the authorities and pro-regime journalists, who felt he was undermining the country's reputation abroad. Among independent-minded people, he became the symbol of the struggle for freedom of speech in Uzbekistan. Independent journalists have been shocked by the authorities' decision to bring criminal charges against someone as well known as Babadjanov. The chairman of the Independent Organisation for Human Rights in Uzbekistan, Mikhail Ardzinov, believes Babadjanov is now being persecuted for battling to save his station and attempting to draw the international community's attention to Tashkent's repression of the independent media. "Over the years the authorities here have managed to paralyse their political opponents," he said. "Opposition parties, like Erk and Birlik, and religious organisations are strictly controlled and repressed. Now it seems the government is taking on journalists who are not afraid to speak their minds." The first secretary of Erk, Atanazar Arifov, agreed with the Ardzinov. "The authorities clipped our wings a long time ago, now they feel it's time for the journalists." Galima Bukharbaeva is IWPR project director in Uzbekistan CASPIAN OIL FEUD Ashgabat ups the ante in its Caspian Sea oilfield dispute with Azerbaijan By Nazik Ataeva in Ashgabat Turkmenistan is stepping up its claim on Caspian oil fields operated by Azerbaijan, in a dispute that has been festering ever since the break-up of the Soviet Union a decade ago. Ashgabat is flexing its military muscle to pressure Baku into handing over two disputed fields. It has issued dark warnings of 'unexpected consequnces' if the Azeri leadership refuses to agree to its demands. During the communist era, the Caspian was governed by Moscow and Tehran. But since the demise of the USSR, five littoral states - Russia, Azerbaijan, Iran, Turkmenistan and Kazakstan - have periodically clashed over the division of the mineral rich waters. Latest talks on the dispute between Baku and Ashgabat broke up on July 31 when the Azeri deputy prime minister, Abbas Abbasov, came away from meetings in the Turkmen capital, saying negotiations had been fruitless. Turkmenistan has pursued a highly individualist path since it gained independence from Moscow in 1991. It declared itself a neutral state building 'new and different relations' with other nations of the old Soviet Union. The oil dispute has blown up over two fields - called the Khazar and Osman in Turkmen, and the Azeri and Chirag in Azeri. Baku operates both with the general approval of the international community. The quarrel took a new and curious twist in June when Turkmenistan withdrew its embassy from Baku, relocating the mission in Ashgabat. The move caused bewilderment around the region. The transfer was attributed by Turkmen officials to "temporary financial difficulties", an excuse hard to accept from a nation which by Central Asian standards enjoys relative prosperity. More worryingly, Turkmenstan later sent a diplomatic note to Azerbaijan, complaining about 'illegal' activities in the Caspian Sea. The foreign relations committee of the Azeri parliament suggested that all disagreements between the two Turkish-speaking countries could be resolved with "dialogue, exchange of opinions and constructive collaboration". The oil dispute first flared in May, 1997, when President Saparmurat Niazov met Azeri president Heidar Aliev in Ashgabat declared that the two disputed fields clearly belonged to Turkmenistan. At that time, Baku had already signed contracts with foreign companies to begin exploiting them. On July 4 that same year Moscow and Baku signed another such deal. The next day, the Turkmen foreign ministry issued a strong protest and Moscow - among the foreign nations which recognises Azeri rights to the oil - backed out of the agreement. Bad feelings continued to fester between Baku and Ashgabat. Recently, Turkmenistan suggested international mediation to resolve the problem but Baku brushed the idea aside. Turkmenistan remained determined to get its own way. A source in the Turkmen leadership told Interfax news agency that harsh measures would be taken by Ashgabat if agreement failed to materialise. By that time, Turkmenistan was already buying naval craft saying it wanted to deter infiltrators across its sea borders. A declaration by the Turkmen foreign ministry said that while dialogue on the status of the Caspian oil fields continues, any continued exploitation of them would lead to a bad political climate and even 'unexpected consequences'. Few commentators think Turkmenistan would seize the fields by military force even though recent reports suggest it has purchased 20 naval vessels of the 'Grif' and 'Kalkan' class. In addition, the Turkmen security forces have received a patrol vessel of the well-known 'Point Jackson' type following cooperation with the United States defence ministry. Its crew underwent training in Florida. President Niazov recently conducted a conspicuous military review of his newly bolstered forces Despite all this, Ashgabat is still trying to show a friendly face towards Baku. The shift of the Turkmen embassy was described in mild, non-belligerent terms. But it seems Turkmenistan is clearly hoping that exhibition of military muscle will impel Azerbaijan to back down. A new round of talks is expected to take place in October but international energy experts hold out little hope for a resolution if the Caspian states maintain current bargaining postures. Nazik Ataeva is a pseudonym of a journalist from Turkmenistan TAJIK BORDER HARDSHIP Life in the once prosperous Khatlon province is now an exercise in surviving natural and man-made disasters By Saida Nazarova in Dushanbe Izzatullo Khalikov's home is a few miles from the centre of Tajikistan's Khatlon region - a border area littered with ruins, dilapidated farms and abandoned shops. Before the civil war, this was a prosperous place. Back then, Izzatullo worked for a local collective farm, while his wife was a nurse in the district hospital. But, since the end of the conflict, life in this southern part of the country has gone from bad to worse. Industry has folded, harvests have failed, workers have fled and drug barons have tightened their grip over a ruined economy. Izzatullo didn't take sides during the war, yet his house in Kurgan-Tyube was burned down and his father and elder brother were killed. Today, his wife and three children live in a small house, which they share with his elder brother's widow, their four children, and Izzatullo's mother. Because unemployment is rife in Khatlon, Izzatullo has been forced to relocate to Russia where he has been working for the past six years. He is one of around quarter of a million full time and seasonal workers in Russia. Visits home are rare and the money Izzatullo sends back is barely enough to feed his wife and three children. The family's plight encapsulates the tragedy that has befallen the Khatlon region over the past decade. Izzatullo's older children can barely read or write, as there is no money to buy books. Women and children now spend their time collecting firewood, tending cattle and helping out on the farms of their neighbours, richer for having successfully hidden their possessions during the war. Natural disasters are driving even more families from the region. Drought struck again this year, as did fires, which destroyed 126,000 hectares of wheat and cotton worth an estimated 3.3 million US dollars. The industrial base has also been scuppered. Just around a third of the region's once prosperous state enterprises are operational. Those still running do so at just a quarter of capacity, employing half the staff they used to. Although the region has rich mineral wealth with 53 gold, strontium and coal mines, only 16 of these are working. Lack of equipment, qualified labour and roads have made the deposits of little interest to investors. Such is the level of poverty here that the 635,000 civil war refugees are cold-shouldered because of the humanitarian aid they receive. The average family of five or six individuals has to get by on five and a half dollars a month. Unsurprisingly, many suffer from malnourishment and the proliferation of poverty-related diseases, such as TB and abdominal typhoid. One in ten people Tajiks on the Afghan borders has malaria. With few employment prospects, drug-trafficking from neighbouring Afghanistan - clearly aided by elements in the military on both sides of the border - has spread its tentacles. In the first six months of this year alone, Russian border guards seized more than 3.6 tons of drugs, including one ton of heroin. As if all this weren't enough, those unlucky enough to live in the border villages find themselves caught in the crossfire between Taleban and Northern Alliance forces. Shells intended for two airstrips frequently fall short of their mark. The sad irony is that while the Taleban claim the strips are used to deliver military supplies to their enemies, they are in fact used to bring in humanitarian aid to Afghanistan. Saida Nazarova is a pseudonym of a journalist in Tajikistan Copyright (c) IWPR 2001 IWPR'S REPORTING CENTRAL ASIA, No. 63 _________________________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. 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