Is serious discontent simmering on the Turkmen internet? Image by Flickr user miscpix (CC-usage).

Editor’s note: Recently Turkmenistan has been shaken by social unrest, surprising many who see the  country as an “island of calm”.  neweurasia’s Annasoltan reports on the reaction of the growing Turkmen online community, a.k.a., the “Turkmenet”, which has been having a very public and intense discussion about the loyalties of their government.

A clash erupted between Chinese and Turkmen workers of a Chinese natural gas company in the Samandepe region of eastern Turkmenistan on 12 September.  Approximately 200 Turkmen workers were reportedly detained and 15 hospitalized.

The Turkmen workers had complained of wage discrimination and poor working conditions, the report said.   Meanwhile, in what appeared to be downplaying the importance of the event, the Chinese Embassy and the Turkmen Foreign Ministry have released no official comment.

Although, as usual with such situations, the incident was completely unmentioned by the tightly-controlled Turkmen media, news of it still reached the “Turkmenet” — the online Turkmen-language community  — and quickly sparked a vibrant and very public discussion.

The riot has been particularly disappointing to those already embittered by the government’s constant refrain that it is defending the interests of the Turkmen population. Many are interpretting the incident as proof that the Turkmen government has sided with foreigners — in this case the Chinese — over its own citizens.   One user even compares the Turkmen to the Uighurs of China.

The following quotes are from some of the forums.  The URLs and identities of the authors have been concealed to protect them:

…her wagt hem sheyle eger oz hokumedin, dowletin oz rayatyna eyye çykmasa bolayjagy sheyle… dine hytaylar dal,  bashglar hem usune hokmurowan bolarlar…

…it is always like that, if your government or your state does not protect you,  [this is what] what happens.  Not only the Chinese but also others, too take a dominant position…

-Forum User (A)

Hytaydaky uygur turklerine gorkezilyan jebiri indi TM -da bzie gorkezjek bolyarlar. Hem gazymyzy aljaklar hem horlajaklar…

The same kind of repression toward the Uighur Turks in China is being applied to us. They want to take our gas and at the same time discriminate us…

-Forum User (B)

Eger bu dogry bolsd onda tm yagny biz yere giraymeli bolupdyr. Turkmenlering oz ata watanynda beyle hadysa ucramagy diysen betbagytcylyk…

If this is true then it is shameful. It is unfortunate that the Turkmens in their own country face such a situation…

-Forum User (C)

Historical Background

In an effort to diversify the country’s energy exporting routes Turkmenistan’s new president Gurbanguly Berdimuhammedow has began to build economic and trade ties with its potential “great game” energy partners.  Among the first wave were most notably Turkish construction firms, building hotels, casinos, tourism sites and mosques, the investment of which has transformed the capital Ashgabat into a mixture of Las Vegas and Disneyland’s “Agraba” from Aladdin.

China has been the other big investor, particularly in the ongoing gas pipeline project; it has even committed its own workers to the task, not to mention that it has the largest foreign embassy in Ashgabat.   The facility under construction is part of the Central Asia-China pipeline which starts at the border between Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan and runs through the southern part of Uzbekistan and a central part of Kazakhstan before reaching the northeast region of Xinjiang.   Gas is scheduled to begin flowing by the end of this year.

Meanwhile, the Turkmens have lived for decades under isolation. The mass media is heavily censored by the government, meaning that as the country was expanding its relations with foreign business interests and contractors the public has mostly been left to guess about the increasing foreign presence in their midst in a setting where property rights are blurred and market economy principles absent.  And let’s not forget that a totally foreign-unfriendly atmosphere had been cultivated during Niyazov’s years in power.

Something is brewing online

Before the latest incident happened, Turkmen residents had already heard about tensions erupting here and there were some minor incidents with Chinese and Turkish companies on late payments and labor conditions.

At the same time the government, by not allowing openness, transparency and accountability in its policies, has  grossly neglected the interests of its labor force  in working out labor contracts and conditions for them with foreign companies. An average income hardly exceeds $200.

Thus, the forum comments quoted above not only indicate an oppressed population’s frustration at its repression, but also that a potentially dangerous cocktail of discontent and confusion is brewing.