Paul
Goble
Staunton, January 28 – The powers
that be in Turkmenistan have long had an informal rule than no man under 40
could wear a beard because they believed that the spread of beards on the
streets would lead the population to conclude that the Islamists were gaining
in strength. Now, the authorities’ fears having grown, police are demanding
younger men shave as well.
So far, this trend appears to be
limited to Ashgabat and further limited by corruption: police will allow young
men to continue to wear a beard if they pay the authorities bribes. But those
who don’t shave or don’t pay up often reportedly face beatings or other forms
of mistreatment (centrasia.org/news.php?st=1548709980).
But this action will do little to
prevent conditions in Turkmenistan from deteriorating further. Indeed, it may
have the effect of adding to popular anger at a regime that hasn’t been able to
block price rises, food shortages, or incursions by Islamists and drug traffickers
from Afghanistan.
A specialist on Turkmenistan
speaking on condition of anonymity tells the Regnum news agency that that
country is now ripe for the expansion of terrorist groups not only because of
social and economic conditions but also because the military and police are
incapable of defending the country against such groups (iarex.ru/articles/63853.html).
Over the past four years, the expert
says, prices have risen and food shortages have occurred. To try to keep the
population in line, the authorities have set prices in government stores, but
that has created a situation like the one at the end of Soviet times – massive
shortages in these stores and a rapidly growing gap between prices there and in
the markets.
As a result, Turkmens are angry; and
in the absence of any other political organization in that most repressive of
countries, they are turning to the only organized groups – radical Islamist
organizations who come into the country from neighboring Afghanistan where such
groups control almost all of the other side of the border.
Because Ashgabat does not maintain
or publish statistics, it is difficult to know just how bad things are for the
population, but one indication of desperation, he continues, is that many of
them are now turning to “extraordinary sources of income – from the sale of
property to growing migration abroad.”
If there are protests or disorders,
the government is poorly equipped to respond. “The army is by general agreement
in poor condition,” with bad training, a lack of cadres, and even an inability
to feed troops on a regular basis. The militia is if anything in even worse
shape to respond to problems.
When things do deteriorate, the
expert says, “the police are inclined ‘to bury their head in the sand,’
although at the end of 2018, the situation began to be corrected: the militia
began jointly with the ministry for national security to track the situation
and disperse possible protests. How all this will work if the situation becomes
critical is unclear.”
The threat from Afghanistan is real,
but it is less ideological than criminal. Most of the Afghan groups view
Turkmenistan as a path for the dispatch of drugs and engage in violence in
order to ensure that they control that path.
They have killed numerous Turkmen border guards, and Ashgabat has not
been able to respond “adequately.”
The clearest indication that
Ashgabat is finally beginning to focus on the dimensions of the problems it
faces, the anonymous expert says, is that it has begun to try to impose order
in the military and has appealed to Moscow for assistance. Joint exercises have
been held, and the two countries now have an accord for mutual action in the
event of a serious threat.
The latter step is a major one
because Turkmenistan up to now has officially declared itself a neutral state
and does not want to have any outside government involved in any way on its
territory. For it to make this concession to Russia suggests that the
authorities in Ashgabat are very worried indeed.
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