Image by Flickr user Marcin Wichary (CC-usage).

Editor’s note: Turkmenistan is a society so veiled in shadows that one wonders whether its own leaders believe in the government’s propaganda. For this reason, the country desperately needs a service like WikiLeaks to help expose the truth, argues neweurasia’s Annasoltan. She presents her “Eid wish list” of secrets and cover-ups in Turkmenistan. “The West is already awash in information; Turkmenistan is dying of data thirst,” she writes. “I just hope [WikiLeaks doesn't] get distracted from their real mission, because we need their help.”

The recent publication of thousands of secret U.S. military documents from the war in Afghanistan by WikiLeaks, the famous advocacy and whistleblower safe haven, opened a window on Afghanistan (and if the promise WikiLeaks made on its Twitter today comes true, then soon maybe the CIA, too). In a post a few weeks ago, my colleague Chris discussed the potential for the website in Central Asia, where it could be used to unmask our many oppressive regimes.

So far, because of all the difficulties posed by our regimes — which may be lousy on economics and human rights, but seem really skilled at keeping secrets — the amount of sensitive and secret information leaked onto WikiLeaks about Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, has been marginal compared with that to the United States, China, or Russia. The same is true for other websites like it in the region.

Regarding my own nation, Turkmenistan, it defies reason that our regime warps useful and real data, like the infant mortality and infection diseases rates, presenting the public with an idyllic and totally impossible wonderland. Our country’s also notorious for refusing to cooperate with international bodies on statistical data because that would make Turkmenistan naked. It’s better to cook the books than to know the truth.

But I wonder: our leaders can’t possibly believe these fantasies themselves, can they? If not, then somewhere in some ministry must be the real information, or at least memos and meetings minutes with ministers and bureaucrats being honest with each other about what’s actually going on. If that’s not happening, then we have blind men as captains of the ship of state,  leaning back in their chairs and sipping tea while their countries slowly fall to pieces and the world around them continues to progress — a far scarier idea than to just think of them as a mafia.

And that’s just about data that concerns you and me, the everyday stuff. Here’s my Eid wish list of things that the political journalist in me wants to know about:

• The alleged assassination attempt on Niyazov back in November 2002. The government’s version of events served as a pretext for a widespread purge and to eliminate the last of civil liberties.

• The alleged coup attempt against Niyazov by Boris Shikhmuradov, our former foreign minister and now Turkmenistan’s most prominent political prison, who is serving a life sentence in some hidden corner of Turkemnistan. A lot of observers wonder whether the whole story was fabricated to  get rid of him and other opponents of the regime after Shikhmuradov switched to the Turkmen opposition in-exile and began leaking information about Niyazov’s true personality.

• The true conditions of Turkmenistan’s prisoners, especially for victims of Niyazov’s purges. I’ve written about how psychiatric methods have been used against them. My colleague Humane has also written a little bit about life inside Turkmen prisons for normal convicts. Nevertheless, so much more remains obscure. Imagine if WikiLeaks could stumble upon a manual for the Turkmen prison system the same way it did one for Guantanamo Bay?

• The truth behind the mysterious gunfight that erupted in Ashgabat in September 2008? Speculations range from fights between Turkmen security forces and religious extremists to battles with drug gangs or opposition militias.

• Did Niyazov really die of a heart attack in December 2006? Or was he a victim of palace intrigue?

I would love to simply know how many people have HIV/AIDS in my country, or who’s on the government’s generations-long black lists, or how much energy reserves Turkmenistan actually possesses! Heck, I would just like to see the bills for Avaza.

But the people of Turkmenistan are hungry even for simple information that’s not the lest bit sensitive to the government. How about our nation’s real history, rather than the epics and extravagant cults of personality that have been taught to us for over a generation? Even if all the newspapers and school textbooks would put together, you would still not find enough facts to write even a page.

A lot of Turkmens would like to know the true story behind why Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) was kicked out of the country, or what’s actually going on in our secrecy-strangled health care system. Incidentally, I have it on reliable authority that Turkmen officials have explicitly told health care workers not to speak to foreigners in order to prevent leaks. The good news, such as it might be called that, is that the debacle with MSF compelled Turkmenistan to release at least some information to defend themselves. This was a rare unmasking of the real face of the regime.

WikiLeaks has previously said that their real goal is to open up the former Soviet Union alongside other regions:

“Our primary interests are oppressive regimes in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, but we also expect to be of assistance to those in the West who wish to reveal unethical behaviour in their own governments and corporations.”

The West is already awash in information; Turkmenistan is dying of data thirst. Right now it seems WikiLeaks is engaged in some kind of tit-for-tat with the United States. I just hope they don’t get distracted from their real mission, because we need their help.

Author’s note: The organization “Najot” in Uzbekistan released a report in June that has leaked some of the Turkmen government’s secret plans to create a special forces unit and to employ foreign mercenaries to fight religious extremism. The information purportedly comes from a national security meeting in Turkmenistan; Najot isn’t saying how they got it.