Bilateral Relations: Japan, Turkmenistan - Energy Without Human Rights?

BY BERNHARD SCHELL* By kind permission of IDN-InDepthNews Service

ASHGABAT (IDN) – Will Turkmen President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov’s (photo) talks in Japan open up new export markets for Central Asia’s biggest natural gas producer without the East Asian nation showing any interest in rights violations in Turkmenistan?

According to Human Rights Watch, unknown numbers of political prisoners languish in Turkmenistan’s prisons and draconian restrictions on the rights to freedom of expression, association, assembly, movement, and religion remain in place. Independent civil society and media cannot operate openly, if at all. The government threatens, harasses, and arrests those who question its policies, however modestly.

"The Turkmen government is one of the most repressive in the world, on par with Burma and North Korea," said Holly Cartner, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "Japan is in a strong position, with business deals and aid on the agenda and it needs to make clear that human rights reform is essential to a successful relationship."

The question being asked in the capital of Turkmenistan was: Will Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama raise concerns with his official guest and press for concrete improvements?

Berdymukhamedov’s visit was announced last August under the previous Japanese government. Since then, Japanese and Turkmen business leaders have reportedly met several times to discuss stronger business ties, including gas and oil projects.

A bilateral business conference is scheduled during the visit concluding Dec. 18, suggesting that discussions of investment and business deals are likely to dominate the agenda. It is also likely that Japan will announce a significant increase in aid to Turkmenistan.

Human Rights Watch pointed out that Japan's official development assistanced (ODA) charter makes clear that decisions on aid should take into account the recipient country's human rights record, yet Japan is only known to have invoked this principle in its decisions on aid to Burma and Zimbabwe.

New restrictions on travel imposed by the Turkmen government during the summer, preventing students enrolled in private universities abroad from leaving Turkmenistan, is among the specific concerns Human Rights Watch has urged Japan's leadership to raise.

"While the Turkmen president tours Japan, hundreds of students are effectively held prisoner in their own country, arbitrarily deprived of education of their choice," Cartner said. "Japan's leaders should press the Turkmen president to lift these outrageous restrictions and to take other immediate steps to remedy abuses."

Human Rights Watch also asked Japan to press the Turkmen government for the following concrete reform steps:

- Free all those imprisoned for political reasons, including the human rights activists Annakurban Amanklychev and Sapardurdy Khajiev and the dissident Gulgeldy Annaniazov;

- Establish a nationwide, transparent process to review all cases of political imprisonment to establish the real number of prisoners held on politically motivated charges, and ensure that victims of abuse are provided redress;

- Lift travel bans on activists and relatives of opposition members, and dismantle the system that allows for interference with citizens' ability to leave and return to Turkmenistan;

- Allow activists, civic groups, and journalists to operate freely and without fear of persecution;

- Ensure access to the country, including to places of detention, for independent human rights monitors and extend invitations to all United Nations monitors who have requested access.

The Turkmen president’s visit to Japan is taking place days after Chinese President Hu Jintao opened a major new pipeline in Turkmenistan, joining its gas reserves with China’s far west.

In Tokyo, the Turkmen leader was scheduled to meet energy executives and government officials to promote Turkmenistan's readiness to work closer with Japan which has been seeking to diversify its energy sources away from the Middle East.

"Our economies can be interconnected," said a Turkmen government official. "It is obvious that the question of Turkmen energy supplies -- particularly gas -- will be raised."

Turkmenistan, like other oil and gas producers in ex-Soviet Central Asia, has taken active steps to move away from Russia's dominance, seeking to explore new markets for its gas, the official explained.

Russia, which until this year imported most Turkmen gas for re-export to Europe, stopped buying Turkmen gas in April altogether in a row that has cost Turkmenistan $1 billion a month and forced it to form closer links with other nations.

The government official said Turkmenistan was keen to encourage Japan to offer know-how and long-term credit to help develop new projects, mainly in the gas and chemicals sector.

He sounded optimistic, arguing that Japan has also sought closer relations with Central Asia since the 2006 visit of former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, investing in uranium and chemicals. But its presence is dwarfed by Europe, China and Russia which have aggressively vied for control over Central Asian riches.

Japan, which relies on the Middle East for about 90 percent of its crude imports, is a major aid donor in Central Asia, according to its foreign ministry website.

The official who wanted to remain anonymous said, in Turkmenistan, a long-isolated nation on the Caspian Sea, Berdymukhamedov has sought to showcase his willingness to bring reform and foreign investment since the death of autocratic leader Saparmurat Niyazov in 2006.

But industrialised nations have been cautious in their investment approach towards Turkmenistan, still haunted by Niyazov's harsh 21-year rule and listed as one of the world's most corrupt nations by Transparency International, the global non-governmental organization fighting corruption world wide.

Turkmenistan’s remote location -- wedged between Iran, Afghanistan and the rest of Central Asia -- is also a hurdle, the official said.

Turkmenistan's GDP growth rate of 11.5 percent, as estimated by the International Monetary Fund in 2007, ranks eleventh in the world. But official government statistics on which this estimate is based are widely regarded as unreliable. Although it is wealthy in natural resources in certain areas, most of the country is covered by the Karakum (Black Sand) Desert. (IDN-InDepthNews/16.12.09)

*Bernhard Schell is IDN Special Correspondent for Central Asia.

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