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IRINnews.org, NY
Aug 18 2005
TURKMENISTAN: Focus on ethnic minorities
[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]
ANKARA, 18 Aug 2005 (IRIN) - The plight of ethnic minorities in
Turkmenistan remains bleak, despite claims to the contrary by the
Turkmen government during this month's session of the United Nations
Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD).
"Each of Turkmenistan's ethnic and racial minorities bears a heavy
burden of discrimination and exclusion in the environment where
preferential treatment is openly afforded only to ethnic Turkmen,"
Robert Arsenault, president of the International League for Human
Rights (ILHR), asserted from New York. He went on to describe the
human rights situation in the largely desert but energy rich state,
as alarming.
"The president for life, Saparmurat Niyazov, has defined the newly
created country of Turkmenistan as the glorified home of ethnic
Turkmen," Erika Dailey, director of the Open Society Institute's
Turkmenistan Project, added from New York. "In that conceptualisation,
there is no room for non-ethnic Turkmen in Turkmenistan. So the
state has attempted to "turkmenify" its non-Turkmen population,"
added Dailey.
Their comments come during the 67th session of the CERD from
2-19 August, held in Geneva, to review anti-discrimination efforts
undertaken by the governments of Venezuela, Georgia, Zambia, Barbados,
Tanzania, Iceland, Turkmenistan and Nigeria. These countries were
among the 170 states which were party to the International Convention
on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.
The 18-member Committee, the first body created by the United
Nations to review actions by member states to fulfil obligations
under a specific human rights agreement, examines reports submitted
periodically by state parties on efforts to comply with the
Convention. Government representatives generally present the reports,
discuss the contents with Committee members and answer questions.
But reclusive Turkmenistan, a country of just five million, slightly
larger than California and wedged between Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan,
Afghanistan and Iran, has been a 'black hole' as far as information
is concerned, since it gained independence following the collapse of
the Soviet Union in 1991.
President Niyazov has established a personality cult centred on
himself. Following an alleged attempt on his life in November
2002, human rights activists have reported a further tightening of
restrictions on travel, opposition members and the media. This has
prompted Human Rights Watch (HRW) to describe the hermit state as
being one of the most repressive countries in the world today.
GOVERNMENT POSITION
That lack of transparency was evident in Geneva, when in the official
report presented by Turkmen Foreign Minister Rashid Meredov on 11
August, he concluded that there is no discrimination of national
minorities in the country. Yet according to rights activists, the
minister's report raised many questions, which, when put, were either
answered evasively or not at all.
"There was a complete denial of the problem of ethnic minorities, as
well as the obvious facts of abusing the rights of ethnic minorities,"
Farid Tuhbatullin, chairman of the Vienna-based Turkmen Initiative
for Human Rights group, said. "It was an absolutely non-constructive
position. There was an absolute lack of understanding for a need of
dialogue between the government and NGOs, between Turkmenistan and
the UN," said Tuhbatullin, citing conflicting statistical figures
provided by the government.
EXAMPLES OF DISCRIMINATION
According to activists, racial and ethnic minority populations were
excluded from employment in the public sector, denied access to
education in their native language, restricted in their practice of
religion and continuously intimidated by police.
"Employment in the public sector, which dominates the national economy,
is conditional on the fulfilment of the 'third generation' test,
requiring an applicant to prove his/her Turkmen ancestry for three
generations," Arsenault said. He added that since 1991, Kazakh, Uzbek
and Armenian language schools have been closed, while instruction in
Russian has diminished greatly.
"Such important religious confessions as the Armenian Apostolic
Church and Shia Islam, remain unregistered and thus illegal," the ILHR
official added. He noted that Uzbeks, traditionally a rural population
in the northern and eastern parts of the country, represent a special
case as they are viewed with particular suspicion by the authorities
as people not loyal to the regime.
Meanwhile, Dailey accused the government in the capital, Ashgabat,
of fabricating population data that significantly underestimated
the actual numbers of ethnic minorities in the country. In the
report to the UN CERD, for example, the Turkmen government claimed
that minorities make up only 5.4 percent of the population. However,
according to a 1995 population survey, Uzbeks made up 9.2 percent of
the population, though in a recent report to the UN, that figure was
placed at no more than 2 percent.
"Where could so many people have gone so quickly?" Dailey asked.
"Emigration of that magnitude would surely have been obvious to the
international community," she explained, suggesting the more likely
explanation was some form of forced assimilation.
In a further discriminatory move, the government reportedly coerced
other Turkic people such as Uzbeks and Kazakhs, to assimilate and
"pass" as Turkmen under threat of a loss of job, which in Turkmenistan
is tantamount to being sentenced to a lifetime of poverty.
"Since the overwhelming majority of jobs in Turkmenistan are government
jobs, this form of discrimination is a powerful tool for promoting
the part of the population that the government wishes to see prosper
(ethnic Turkmen) and to impoverish those the government wishes to
see fail (ethnic minorities)," Dailey claimed.
To counter such possibilities, it is not unusual for non-ethnic Turkmen
to add a typical Turkmen ending to their last name, she said, while
others enter into fictitious marriages with ethnic Turkmen as a means
to secure Turkmen-sounding names. As for those who could not easily
"pass" as Turkmen - mainly Russians and Ukrainians - the government
purportedly undertakes measures to bring about their emigration.
In April 2003, the same day it signed a 25-year gas contract with the
Russian energy giant, Gazprom, Ashgabat withdrew recognition of dual
Turkmen-Russian citizenship.
"It forced such citizens - not all of whom were ethnic Russian,
but all of whom had Russia as a place of national origin - to either
renounce their Russian citizenship, or keep their Russian citizenship
but lose their property in Turkmenistan. It was a horrific and clearly
discriminatory Hobson's Choice," Dailey asserted.
Forced into a corner, according to an IRIN report in July 2003 [See:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=34862&SelectRegion=Central _Asia&
SelectCountry=TURKMENISTAN], thousands of ethnic Russians left the
country under an imposed deadline to choose.
CLAIMS OF FORCED RESETTLEMENT
Dailey also cited 'ethnic internal exile' as another example of
racial discrimination virtually unseen anywhere else in the world.
Domestic laws allow for the "resettlement" of five categories of
individuals, including those deemed "unworthy", she claimed. She
noted that to date, some 25 families have already been "resettled"
with plans reportedly calling for the resettlement of up to 6,000
people to uninhabitable and barren regions of the country.
With limited access to the Central Asian state, such reports have yet
to be confirmed and consequently receive the international attention
they deserve, leaving outside observers in a quandary as to what they
can do.
A WAY FORWARD
According to Arsenault, Turkmenistan has made some responses to
criticism from the international community and individual states
in the past, with the relaxation of registration requirements for
religious groups and organisations in 2004 being a notable example.
"International institutions, such as the United Nations and the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), need to
keep up the momentum by engaging the government of Turkmenistan in
meeting its obligations under international law," he said. He added
that observers should not underestimate the role that countries
enjoying extensive bilateral relations with Turkmenistan - mainly
Turkey, Ukraine and Russia - could play.
Dailey, however, was more blunt. She said the best deterrent to ethnic
discrimination is international recognition and condemnation of the
country's appalling human rights record. There should also be close
monitoring of the government's compliance with measurable benchmarks
for stopping such practices - even in courts outside the country.
"The UN, in particular, can play an enormously constructive role
in calling for the government to account for its discriminatory
practices," she emphasised.
In advance of the official presentation made by Turkmenistan to
the committee, ILHR and the Turkmen Initiative for Human Rights
presented a joint alternative report to the CERD members and NGO
representatives. They offered factual evidence of violations of the
rights of national minorities on behalf of the Turkmen state, as well
as an analysis of the state's legislation showing certain laws that
contain discriminatory norms.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
Aug 18 2005
TURKMENISTAN: Focus on ethnic minorities
[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]
ANKARA, 18 Aug 2005 (IRIN) - The plight of ethnic minorities in
Turkmenistan remains bleak, despite claims to the contrary by the
Turkmen government during this month's session of the United Nations
Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD).
"Each of Turkmenistan's ethnic and racial minorities bears a heavy
burden of discrimination and exclusion in the environment where
preferential treatment is openly afforded only to ethnic Turkmen,"
Robert Arsenault, president of the International League for Human
Rights (ILHR), asserted from New York. He went on to describe the
human rights situation in the largely desert but energy rich state,
as alarming.
"The president for life, Saparmurat Niyazov, has defined the newly
created country of Turkmenistan as the glorified home of ethnic
Turkmen," Erika Dailey, director of the Open Society Institute's
Turkmenistan Project, added from New York. "In that conceptualisation,
there is no room for non-ethnic Turkmen in Turkmenistan. So the
state has attempted to "turkmenify" its non-Turkmen population,"
added Dailey.
Their comments come during the 67th session of the CERD from
2-19 August, held in Geneva, to review anti-discrimination efforts
undertaken by the governments of Venezuela, Georgia, Zambia, Barbados,
Tanzania, Iceland, Turkmenistan and Nigeria. These countries were
among the 170 states which were party to the International Convention
on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.
The 18-member Committee, the first body created by the United
Nations to review actions by member states to fulfil obligations
under a specific human rights agreement, examines reports submitted
periodically by state parties on efforts to comply with the
Convention. Government representatives generally present the reports,
discuss the contents with Committee members and answer questions.
But reclusive Turkmenistan, a country of just five million, slightly
larger than California and wedged between Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan,
Afghanistan and Iran, has been a 'black hole' as far as information
is concerned, since it gained independence following the collapse of
the Soviet Union in 1991.
President Niyazov has established a personality cult centred on
himself. Following an alleged attempt on his life in November
2002, human rights activists have reported a further tightening of
restrictions on travel, opposition members and the media. This has
prompted Human Rights Watch (HRW) to describe the hermit state as
being one of the most repressive countries in the world today.
GOVERNMENT POSITION
That lack of transparency was evident in Geneva, when in the official
report presented by Turkmen Foreign Minister Rashid Meredov on 11
August, he concluded that there is no discrimination of national
minorities in the country. Yet according to rights activists, the
minister's report raised many questions, which, when put, were either
answered evasively or not at all.
"There was a complete denial of the problem of ethnic minorities, as
well as the obvious facts of abusing the rights of ethnic minorities,"
Farid Tuhbatullin, chairman of the Vienna-based Turkmen Initiative
for Human Rights group, said. "It was an absolutely non-constructive
position. There was an absolute lack of understanding for a need of
dialogue between the government and NGOs, between Turkmenistan and
the UN," said Tuhbatullin, citing conflicting statistical figures
provided by the government.
EXAMPLES OF DISCRIMINATION
According to activists, racial and ethnic minority populations were
excluded from employment in the public sector, denied access to
education in their native language, restricted in their practice of
religion and continuously intimidated by police.
"Employment in the public sector, which dominates the national economy,
is conditional on the fulfilment of the 'third generation' test,
requiring an applicant to prove his/her Turkmen ancestry for three
generations," Arsenault said. He added that since 1991, Kazakh, Uzbek
and Armenian language schools have been closed, while instruction in
Russian has diminished greatly.
"Such important religious confessions as the Armenian Apostolic
Church and Shia Islam, remain unregistered and thus illegal," the ILHR
official added. He noted that Uzbeks, traditionally a rural population
in the northern and eastern parts of the country, represent a special
case as they are viewed with particular suspicion by the authorities
as people not loyal to the regime.
Meanwhile, Dailey accused the government in the capital, Ashgabat,
of fabricating population data that significantly underestimated
the actual numbers of ethnic minorities in the country. In the
report to the UN CERD, for example, the Turkmen government claimed
that minorities make up only 5.4 percent of the population. However,
according to a 1995 population survey, Uzbeks made up 9.2 percent of
the population, though in a recent report to the UN, that figure was
placed at no more than 2 percent.
"Where could so many people have gone so quickly?" Dailey asked.
"Emigration of that magnitude would surely have been obvious to the
international community," she explained, suggesting the more likely
explanation was some form of forced assimilation.
In a further discriminatory move, the government reportedly coerced
other Turkic people such as Uzbeks and Kazakhs, to assimilate and
"pass" as Turkmen under threat of a loss of job, which in Turkmenistan
is tantamount to being sentenced to a lifetime of poverty.
"Since the overwhelming majority of jobs in Turkmenistan are government
jobs, this form of discrimination is a powerful tool for promoting
the part of the population that the government wishes to see prosper
(ethnic Turkmen) and to impoverish those the government wishes to
see fail (ethnic minorities)," Dailey claimed.
To counter such possibilities, it is not unusual for non-ethnic Turkmen
to add a typical Turkmen ending to their last name, she said, while
others enter into fictitious marriages with ethnic Turkmen as a means
to secure Turkmen-sounding names. As for those who could not easily
"pass" as Turkmen - mainly Russians and Ukrainians - the government
purportedly undertakes measures to bring about their emigration.
In April 2003, the same day it signed a 25-year gas contract with the
Russian energy giant, Gazprom, Ashgabat withdrew recognition of dual
Turkmen-Russian citizenship.
"It forced such citizens - not all of whom were ethnic Russian,
but all of whom had Russia as a place of national origin - to either
renounce their Russian citizenship, or keep their Russian citizenship
but lose their property in Turkmenistan. It was a horrific and clearly
discriminatory Hobson's Choice," Dailey asserted.
Forced into a corner, according to an IRIN report in July 2003 [See:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=34862&SelectRegion=Central _Asia&
SelectCountry=TURKMENISTAN], thousands of ethnic Russians left the
country under an imposed deadline to choose.
CLAIMS OF FORCED RESETTLEMENT
Dailey also cited 'ethnic internal exile' as another example of
racial discrimination virtually unseen anywhere else in the world.
Domestic laws allow for the "resettlement" of five categories of
individuals, including those deemed "unworthy", she claimed. She
noted that to date, some 25 families have already been "resettled"
with plans reportedly calling for the resettlement of up to 6,000
people to uninhabitable and barren regions of the country.
With limited access to the Central Asian state, such reports have yet
to be confirmed and consequently receive the international attention
they deserve, leaving outside observers in a quandary as to what they
can do.
A WAY FORWARD
According to Arsenault, Turkmenistan has made some responses to
criticism from the international community and individual states
in the past, with the relaxation of registration requirements for
religious groups and organisations in 2004 being a notable example.
"International institutions, such as the United Nations and the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), need to
keep up the momentum by engaging the government of Turkmenistan in
meeting its obligations under international law," he said. He added
that observers should not underestimate the role that countries
enjoying extensive bilateral relations with Turkmenistan - mainly
Turkey, Ukraine and Russia - could play.
Dailey, however, was more blunt. She said the best deterrent to ethnic
discrimination is international recognition and condemnation of the
country's appalling human rights record. There should also be close
monitoring of the government's compliance with measurable benchmarks
for stopping such practices - even in courts outside the country.
"The UN, in particular, can play an enormously constructive role
in calling for the government to account for its discriminatory
practices," she emphasised.
In advance of the official presentation made by Turkmenistan to
the committee, ILHR and the Turkmen Initiative for Human Rights
presented a joint alternative report to the CERD members and NGO
representatives. They offered factual evidence of violations of the
rights of national minorities on behalf of the Turkmen state, as well
as an analysis of the state's legislation showing certain laws that
contain discriminatory norms.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress