Turkmenistan
The Academic Committee of European Council on International Relations decided to award one of this year’s highest European cultural and political distinctions — Leader of XXI Century award — to Tajik President Emamoli Rahmon, reports the European Council on International Relations website.
Barely known for its activities, the European Council on International Relations informs that the Leader of XXI Century Award (also known as Leader of XXI Century International Award) has been one of the prizes awarded by the European Council on International Relation since 1998. The website claims that the prize was considered by international experts as being more influential than the Nobel Prize for Peace.
“This title is seldom awarded and only after a very carefully examination, as the receivers are leaders of the century, there work all thou concentrated in a year is reflecting decades of actions and achievements with positive influence over peoples and countries.”
– Dr. Anton Caragea, President of European Council on International Relations
On July 7th, a “fireworks” explosion erupted in Abadan Turkmenistan at an ammunition dump, near the capital of Ashgabat. The wild fires caused by the explosion led to evacuation of the people from their town. Though the Turkmen government said only 15 people died, other reports said there were up to 200 casualties – a clear indication of the county’s skewed methods of communication.
In the article “Experts discuss the cause of the mysterious Abadan explosion”, neweurasia’s Annasoltan spoke to a Turkmen expert:
“…incidents within key ministries of documents being destroyed by officials hoping to eliminate any evidence of wrongdoing that could later be used against them.”
In continuing with the aftermath of the Turkmen explosion, there is a lot more of this idea – documentation limitations – going on via the Turkmen media sector to expand upon. Read the full story »
United Kingdom-based think tank, Maplecroft, issued the Terrorism Risk Index compiled by respected analysts.
According to the authors of the research, it has rated the new nation of South Sudan in the top five countries most at risk from terrorist attacks after Somalia, Pakistan, Iraq and Afghanistan.
The latest Terrorism Risk Index (TRI), released by risk analysis and mapping firm Maplecroft, rates 20 countries and territories as ‘extreme risk,’ with Somalia (1), Pakistan (2), Iraq (3), Afghanistan (4) once again topping the ranking. The ‘extreme risk’ category also includes: South Sudan (5), Yemen (6), Palestinian Occupied Territories (7), DR Congo (8) Central African Republic (9), Colombia (10), Algeria (11), Thailand (12), Philippines (13), Russia (14), Sudan (15), Iran (16), Burundi (17), India (18), Nigeria (19) and Israel (20).
While Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan are ranked “low risk”, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan were judged to be at “medium risk” of an attack (see the map).
To remind, earlier this year Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan were included onto DHS’s list of “specially designated countries (SDCs) that have shown a tendency to promote, produce, or protect terrorist organizations or their members”. Read the full story »
Abadan, before (left) and after (right) the explosion. Photos from Ferghana.ru (click on the picture to see more).
Editor’s note: Looking for the truth about Abadan, neweurasia’s Annasoltan interviews three individuals who claim to have insider knowledge of the armory and who assert that either professional laziness or arson intended to cover up illegal arms smuggling caused the explosion. Frighteningly, the claims also include the existence of a secret “huge bomb” in the village of Bekrewe.
The cause behind last month’s armory explosion in Abadan remains murky. The official version is that the fire which caused the blast occurred as a result of very hot weather.
Of course, that begs reason a bit. Was it any more hot this year than in previous years? If not, had the weapons somehow degraded so badly by now? If so, why would that have been allowed to happen?
I talked with a few experts about what they think could have happened. Here are their views:
Farid Tukhbatullin, head of the Turkmen Initiative for Human Rights (TIHR), of which the Chronicles of Turkmenistan (chrono-tm.org is the press service, has sent the following statement to journalists:
On 18 July in the morning the website of the Turkmen Initiative for Human Rights “Chronicles of Turkmenistan” was hacked.
The website has been operating for about six years. Throughout these years it has posted thousands of articles, news casts and photos from Turkmenistan — the country where it is extremely difficult to obtain unbiased information.
During the days when the arms depot explosions occurred near Ashgabat, our website remained the only source of information providing coverage of the developments. Despite the risks of repressions by the Turkmen special services, our correspondents gained information from Abadan and forwarded it along with photo and video materials, which were subsequently posted on the website “Chronicles of Turkmenistan”.
Under the circumstances where the Turkmen authorities did not give any coverage of the explosions, Russian, European, US and other foreign media published our materials referring to the information from our website.
The Turkmen Foreign Ministry made statements about “disseminating deliberately misleading information”, implying our materials. Special service agents paid daily visits to the house of the website editors’ mother, who lives in Turkmenistan, exerting serious psychological pressure on the elderly woman. Now the website has been hacked:
[Quote of letter received by neweurasia from hacker "00 fx"]
If the Turkmen authorities had arguments, refuting our publications, they would need neither public statements, nor covert repressions and other actions designed to suppress freedom of speech. They do not have any arguments, nor can they realize that one can fight against freedom of speech but cannot defeat it.
The TIHR is making all efforts to restore the website as soon as possible.
Meanwhile, the chrono-tm.org site appears to be trying to re-establish itself (see: screenshot).
This morning I received the following e-mail from “00 fx”:
Dear press,
I have 2 news for you, one good, one bad.
First bad:
You will no longer be able to access the chrono-tm.org website! OMG NOoo!! :-((Good news is, we are releasing their database, including list of subscribers, email addresses of comment authors, unpublished comments, etc etc…
Here is the first part, enjoy!
http://————————–Stay tuned, we’ll have more good and bad news for you!!
I checked both the URL the individual provided and it does indeed appear to be subscription lists. I also checked the Chronicles of Turkmenistan website (http://www.chromo-tm.org), which is currently down (see: screenshot above/quote below). Clearly, a cyber-attack is underway.
íå ìîãó ñîåäèíèòñÿ ñ áàçîé!
Benutzer ‘chrono_tmorg’ hat mehr als ‘max_user_connections’ aktive Verbindungen
Needless to say, given the situation for free thought and free press in Turkmenistan, the subscription lists for the Chronicles are definitely very sensitive materials. Many activists and Turkmenistan observers could be in danger.
Perhaps this is crossing the line from detached journalism into activism, but neweurasia is advising all Turkmenistan observers to check their security procedures immediately. As a basic precaution, be sure to change your passwords.
Editor’s note: neweurasia continues to explore the aftermath of the Abadan explosion and the ways Turkmen are resisting the official line. The “Alternative Turkmenistan News” is an e-mail newsletter claiming 1300 recipients among a wide cross-section of professional Turkmen society. It’s a perhaps surprising example of the continuing utility of the e-mail in our new era of rapid social media. neweurasia’s Schwartz reports. “The impression one gets is actually of a very active and fertile secret world of electronic samizdat-like communications,” he writes. “Call it ‘e-zidat” or ‘Turkmenizdat’.”
Shortly after neweurasia appeared on al-Jazeera last week, we received the following communiqé from “Alternative Turkmenistan News” (Альтернативные новости Туркменистана) in Russian and English:
Who speaks for normal Turkmen? Photograph by Flickr user oletommyp (CC-usage).
Two days ago, after my most recent appearance on al-Jazeera, I received the following very forthright e-mail from “Tony from San Francisco, California”. I’ve edited out some of the more sensitive data:
My name is —– and I am a Turkmen immigrant in —-. I am a [residency card] holder and reside in the —– but go to Turkmenistan every year. I am a medical student in —–
The reason I am writing you today is to correct your (negligent and shameful) remarks about Internet use in Turkmenistan which appeared on AJStream. Firs of all, YOU DO NOT NEED A PASSPORT to use internet in the internet cafes. A driver license or a college ID is enough. WHen i was there, I always used my —– college ID at the internet cafes and they never made a problem about it. Same applies to TURKMEN and FOreign citizens. Last time i was there (—– 2010), I met 2 Students from —– who were tying to use internet at the cafes and needed help to communicate with the person in charge ( usually a high school graduate) not a POLICE or anything. So i helped those 2 young ladies from —- and all they used was their ID from —–, NOT PASSPORT.
As an educated person, I urge you to research something before you TALK and make any strong statements. I understand all those exaggerations on the internet about TM, and I admit all the mistakes and wrongdoings of our government ( which I am not proud of) as well. However, if you are going to be continuing your NEWEURASIA project, I suggest YOU KNOW EXACTLY WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT and ABLE TO PROVIDE PRECISE SOURCES.
At the age of information, I think MISINFORMATION is as much shameful, dangerous and harmful as any other crime. Once again, shame on you
Then, yesterday, a Turkmen colleague whom I deeply respect also criticized the way in which I framed the Abadan event: “sometimes it feels like you are overdoing it with turkmenistan, commodifying the issue.” My colleague had been in Ashgabat when the explosion happened and pointed out to me that they had full Internet access as well as satellite television, following the story via Russian news: “do you know that electricity and water were out for half a day not as long as it was reported? do you know that worse things happened there? and we all knew before you,” adding, “chris, really don’t fetishize the turkmen, don’t overdo it please, i know it’s very common and modernist thing to do.”
Oh boy, there’s a lot going on here, from different cultural and socioeconomic styles of communicating to the whole problem of Orientalism. However, I want to focus on this key point: who am I to speak for Turkmenistan? This is the question/criticism that’s really at stake here, encompassing both the credibility of social media-based citizen journalism and my own credibility as the managing editor of this website and as a journalist, as well as the conceptual issues brought up by these two Turkmen.
Photograph by Flickr user hoyasmeg (CC-usage).
Editor’s note: Few observers are aware of Israel’s strange diplomatic dance with Turkmenistan, which has involved the Tel Aviv’s attempts to court Ashgabat as a potential lever against Iran and the failed appointments of not one but two possible ex-Mossad spies as ambassador. neweurasia’s Emerson reports.
One of the least known aspects of Israel’s foreign policy under the controversial Avigdor Lieberman has been the country’s attempts to court Turkmenistan as a way to manoeuvre around Iran, which they perceive as their latest existential threat. They appear to be quite serious: according to Haaretz, soon after Lieberman became Foreign Minister, he decided to open an embassy in Ashgabat as a “personal project”. However, from a strategic point of view, the Israelis are going about it wrongheadedly, as not one but now two of their proposed ambassadors have been rejected.
It seems the Israelis keep falling afoul of geopolitics. The first ambassador, Reuven Dinel, was a close associate of Lieberman and a former employee of the Mossad. He was expelled from Moscow in 1996 after Russian security forces caught him accepting classified satellite photographs from senior army officers; Moscow may have applied pressure to Ashgabat to reject the appointment.
Then today word got out that Turkmenistan has rejected Israel’s second appointee, Haim Koren, due to the latter’s three year stint as an instructor at the National Security College, which is widely believed to be a spy outfit. This time the Turkmens called the Israelis out. Haaretz quotes:
“We want you to send us an ambassador who will deal with bilateral relations, not a spy to collect intelligence on Iran,” a senior Turkmen official reportedly told Israeli officials.
Ferghana.ru has uploaded an amazing video of the Abadan blast. At 0:31 there is an explosion, the shockwave of which appears to topple the cameraman.
Meanwhile, a report from RFE/RL’s Turkmen Service makes Ashgabat sound like a small war zone:
Heavy smoke was seen in Ashgabat and small fires were reported on a mountain behind the military base, which also has an air strip.
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