Edition: U.S. / Global

Spotlight on Central Asia Is Finding Repression, Too

Published: April 11, 2002

The United States' newest strategic partners, the impoverished former Soviet republics of Central Asia, are undergoing a surge of repression and corruption just as they are attracting new world attention.

Nursultan A. Nazarbayev, president of Kazakhstan, imprisoned two of his leading political rivals two weeks ago and has ignored objections about it from the United States and the European Union. Last week, Kazakhstan's prime minister admitted that more than $1 billion had been transferred to off-shore bank accounts in Mr. Nazarbayev's name.

In neighboring Kyrgyzstan, which is now hosting a new American air base for attacks on Afghanistan, the government has shut down two opposition newspapers. Last month, the police killed seven demonstrators protesting the imprisonment of a member of Parliament.

Uzbekistan, Central Asia's most populous country and the host of another military base used by the United States has one of the worst records in the region for human rights. As it has attempted to clamp down on people suspected of sympathizing with radical Islamic groups, experts say, Uzbekistan has raised major barriers with neighboring countries, disrupting the movement of both goods and people across state borders.

Tajikistan, the region's poorest country, remains a central corridor for heroin smuggling.

The authoritarian turn in these Eurasian allies is problematic for Washington, which is relying on their support for the military operation in Afghanistan. The Bush administration has criticized the human rights record of several of the governments but has been careful not to undermine them.

All this provided a backdrop to gala meetings in Kazakhstan on Monday and Tuesday of the World Economic Forum's Eurasian Summit, which attracted hundreds of Western business executives and government officials.

At a packed cocktail party hosted by Mr. Nazarbayev on Monday night, top government officials quietly insisted that the recent political arrests were a mere legal problem and that the diverted money was a rainy-day fund in case of abrupt shortfalls in government revenue.

Prime Minister Imangali Tasmagambetov insisted that $400 million from the secret $1 billion fund had been drawn to cover government obligations in 1997, when the country was badly shaken by Russia's financial downturn.

At least in public, many executives at the conference seemed unconcerned. ''I don't get involved in those issues,'' said one. ''It has no impact on what we do at all.''

Kazakhstan, a vast country that has emerged as one of the world's biggest new sources of oil, is drawing billions of dollars of investment from drilling and pipeline companies that include ChevronTexaco and Exxon Mobil. For it and neighboring countries in the region, the twin allures of tapping oil and helping in the American-led war against terrorism have brought elevated geopolitical significance.

''Since Sept. 11, a lot of our shareholders discerned the importance of this region, and we ourselves are going to take advantage of that to wield a cohesive policy,'' said James D. Wolfensohn, president of the World Bank, who is touring five Central Asian countries this week.

The World Bank, which loaned $3.5 billion to central Asian countries over the past 10 years, plans to loan at least $1.5 billion over the next 10 years. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development plans to invest $300 million over the next several years. The United States, on its own, is providing hundreds of millions of dollars in new assistance as well.

Even as the Eurasian conference was under way, several countries were cracking down harder than usual on political opponents.

Here in Kazakhstan, two founders of a new opposition party called Democratic Choice for Kazakhstan remained incarcerated throughout the conference.

One of the men, Mukhtar Ablyazov, is a former governor who is also a founder of two opposition newspapers and an opposition television network called TAN. The other, Galymzhan Zhakiyanov, is a former energy minister. He took refuge for nearly a week in the French Embassy here and is now under house arrest.

Meanwhile, the government has shut down Mr. Ablyazov's newspapers, and an unidentified person blacked out TAN's broadcast in Almaty by shooting a cable that fed signals to its transmission tower.

Government leaders say both men have been charged with crimes: Mr. Ablyazov for soliciting prostitutes and Mr. Zhakiyanov for misusing his office as energy minister.

''It is nothing more than a criminal proceeding,'' said Karim Massimov, Kazakhstan's deputy prime minister. ''It will be decided in court.''

In Kyrgyzstan, police officers killed 7 people and wounded at least 17 others in mid-March at a protest rally in the village of Kerben. The country's leaders said the police had fired only after the protesters became violent. But last week, human rights groups revealed a police videotape of the incident that they said showed the police blocked a peaceful march and then fired on unarmed people.

''It was absolutely clear from the video that the protesters were unarmed,'' said Natalia Ablova, director of the Bureau on Human Rights and Rule of Law, a group based here.

Some longtime observers believe, however, that Kyrgyzstan's president, Askar Akeyev, has been one of the region's more courageous reformers. He has ushered in a host of market-opening measures that reduced the power of old monopolies and encouraged competition.

But one senior Western diplomat said that political repression in Kyrgyzstan has deep roots. ''They have been doing it for a long time,'' he said. ''It's not better. It's not worse. It is manifesting itself in a different way.''

Business executives and diplomats say that every country in Central Asia has a serious problem with corruption. In Tajikistan, for example, drug trafficking has become such an ingrained part of the economy that Western companies and lending institutions like the World Bank have largely stopped their activities there entirely.

The fear of infiltration by Muslim militants has added to the difficulties, causing countries like Tajikistan and Uzbekistan to impose ever tougher restrictions and higher barriers along their borders with neighboring countries. The Uzbeks have put mines along some of their border areas with Kyrgyzstan, which have killed many traders and shepherds.

''The new map of Central Asia is being defined by a process that is often antagonistic and tainted by strong-arm politics, economic pressures, shadowy back-room deals, nationalist sentiments and an environment of mutual mistrust,'' said the International Crisis Group, a nonprofit organization that monitors tensions in the region.

It does not help that Uzbek leaders feel they are in constant rivalry with Kazakhstan to be recognized as the leaders of Central Asia. Thus, while almost everybody at the Eurasia meeting insisted on the need for ''regional cooperation,'' top Uzbek leaders did not attend.