Central Asia Facing Hunger, Refugee Flows, and Violence Because of Drought

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 1 – Lower than normal snowfalls last winter in the Pamirs and Hindukush mountains are leading to serious problems for Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan and Iran – including shortages of water for crops and consumption, refugee flows, “and even military actions,” according to Fergana news agency reporter Aleksandr Rybin.

            Two weeks ago, Tajikistan President Emomali Rakhmon said that his country this year has only 20 to 25 percent of the water flow it normally does; and local people say that “they can’t remember a time when there was such dry weather that grain crops have been destroyed” (fergananews.com/news/29904 and fergananews.com/articles/9980).

                In Uzbekistan, the drought has meant that rice yields this year are down by 40 percent. Tashkent tried to prevent a dramatic price rise by releasing reserves; but, Rybin reports, that has not been successful. Rice prices in May alone rose 16.7 percent. The situation in Afghanistan is even more dire. There two million people face hunger as a result of the drought.

            Iran too is suffering from drought and for the same reason as Central Asia proper.  Last winter was the driest on record over the last 50 years.  Tehran says that 96 percent of Iranian territory is now suffering from drought.  Water rationing has been introduced in rural areas, and extra police have been sent into the villages to maintain order.

            A year ago, Rybin continues, the Fergana agency published a discussion about whether conflicts over water resources could lead to violence and war (fergananews.com/articles/9147).  That article focused on the retreat of glaciers and the rapidly rising population: In the region, 10 of its 60 million people were born after 2000. 

            The Aral Sea has already died, and now Lake Balkhash in Kazakhstan is drying up as well. That process has been accelerated both by the drought and by China’s decision to divert water for human use from the Ili River, a major feeder of the lake.  Over the last four years, the water levels in the lake have fallen by four meters.

           

            Experts say that the chance of armed conflicts over water are now increasing, the Fergana analyst says. Despite improved relations between Uzbekistan and its neighbors, the rapidly deteriorating situation in Afghanistan regarding water and food could lead to tens or even hundreds of thousands of refugees crossing international borders.

            And that in turn could mean violence, especially as the receiving countries are in almost as bad shape in terms of water and food as Afghanistan now is. Another sign of just how bad things have become, Rybin says, is that a black market in water is emerging in many places, the kind of corruption that can feed violence as well.

Putin Wants to Be Only Russian Official with the Legitimacy Elections Can Provide, ‘Nezavisimaya gazeta’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 1 – Most analysts argue that one of Mikhail Gorbachev’s biggest mistakes was allowing Boris Yeltsin to take part in and win an election in the Russian Federation while continuing to refuse to face the voters himself.  As a result, Yeltsin gained the legitimacy only elections can provide and that Gorbachev lacked.

            Now, nearly 30 years later, Vladimir Putin is moving rapidly to create a political system in which he will be the only leader who is elected, something that will allow him to claim legitimacy however fraudulent the voting in Russia is and, what is more, denying to anyone else a similar legitimation at the hands of the electorate.

            That is one of the implications of a lead article in today’s Nezavisimaya gazeta which suggests that Russia is moving to a political system in which the president will be elected and thus legitimated by the voters but that others, even if nominally elected, will in fact become bureaucrats (ng.ru/editorial/2018-06-01/2_7237_red.html).

            No one should be surprised, the editors say, that “practically all gubernatorial elections are occurring according to a referendum scenario.  Opposition parties, even if they want to do not have the chances to attract serious local figures who would agree to compete with those appointed from Moscow.”

            All this, the paper says, given that the country has been “centralized and hierarchical from the beginning,” it would be “illogical to give the right of popular legitimacy to anyone except the very top boss.” Indeed, a large segment of the governors were transformed into bureaucrats already in the early 2000s, before the formal elimination of elections.”

            There is a delicious irony here. Putin’s actions constitute an implicit recognition of the value of elections and democracy even as he does what he can to exploit their value for himself while denying such an opportunity to everyone else.   

Demographic Collapse of Ethnic Russians Behind Putin’s Push for Language Law, Tatar Activist Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 1 – Vladimir Putin has launched Moscow’s latest attack on the non-Russians via the proposed language law because “the demographic situation in Russia is very poor, with the population falling by a million a year, the majority of this loss consisting of ethnic Russians,” Fauziya Bayramova says.

            “In order to fill this ‘black hole’” which threatens both the country’s economy and its national security, the longtime Tatar activist says, the Kremlin “needs other peoples, but they must enter the population as Russian speakers; that is, they must be transformed into ethnic Russians” (idelreal.org/a/29262250.html).

            This new program, she says, is designed to force “all the peoples of Russia, including the Tatars” to produce children who will make up for the falling birthrate among ethnic Russians and who will be “ready to die for the Russian empire. Of course, this isn’t said openly, but everything is going in exactly that direction.”

            If the study of Russian remains compulsory while the study of non-Russian languages becomes completely voluntary as Putin wants, the younger generation among non-Russians will grow up “without knowing their language or their religion. The Tatar people in the future will be without a national literature, a national culture or a national media.”

            The notion, promoted by Moscow, that non-Russian families can fill the gap is laughable, Bayramova says. “Not a single family is capable of giving such fundamental knowledge,” and no one should deceive himself about that.  “An individual thinks, writes, and creates in the language in which he gets an education.  That is axiomatic.”

            According to the Tatar activist, Putin’s goals in this regard have been on public record since at least December 2012 when he signed the strategy paper on “the government’s nationality policy of Russia.” That document says that “there will be eonly one nation in the country, the nation of [non-ethnic] Russians.”

            “And this [non-ethnic] Russian nation must be created on the basis of the [ethnic] Russian people and receive its spiritual code,” in Putin’s vision, Bayramova says. In such a case, “there won’t remain any place for Tatars or for other peoples; the Russian ‘black whole’ will swallow them all up.”

            “I warned about this danger already at the 2^nd Congress of the World Congress of Tatars in August 1997. At that time I spoke about it when Tatars themselves with their own hands were creating [cultural] autonomies across Russia. Don’t you think that this will happen with the national republics? And that Tatarstan will be transformed into a national-cultural autonomy?”

            According to Bayramova, “Moscow has decided to construct a nation where only one people – the [ethnic] Russians – will dominate. Does the leadership of Tatarsstan understand the entire danger?  If they do, why aren’t they reacting and telling their own people the truth” about Moscow’s intentions?

            “Does the people understand the nature of the tragedy that awaits it? Why are the institutes of language and literature, the Mill Shura, and the Congress of Tatars silent?  Why hasn’t an all national kurultai been convened to discuss this?  When the draft law is adopted, it will be already too late.  And it will be adopted.”

            “Why aren’t Shaymiyev and Minnikhanov meeting with Putin? If they consider that there is no sense already in negotiating with Moscow, then perhaps the time has come to appeal to international organizations and courts? Perhaps, the time has come to recall the Declaration about Sovereignty and the results of the referendum.”

            Indeed, Bayramova says, no one should be “afraid to lose their cushy positions. What is at risk is the loss of an entire people. That is much more dangerous.”

            No one should be fooled with talk about home schooling of the language. “Today, that may happen; but tomorrow, it won’t. Such measures cannot satisfy the requirements of an entire people.  If we lose national schools in the republic, the people will be lost, they will lose their roots, and they’ll be spread about the world and disappear.”

            “To bring them all back together will be impossible,” the Tatar activist says. By that time, she warns, “all the non-Russian peoples of Russia will fall into Moscow’s ‘black hole.’”