RETURN TO GLOBAL: NORMAL || LOW-GRAPHICS Turkmenistan: Titan builds feudal folly in East Copyright © 1996 Nando.net Copyright © 1996 Times of London (Oct 26, 1996 11:37 p.m. EDT) -- From the moment passengers board his airline bound for his arid republic, there is no avoiding Saparmurad Niyazov, the president of Turkmenistan. His portrait is conspicuous on the inside of the aircraft and, just before landing, a stewardess lectures visitors over the public address system about his wondrous achievements. Turkmenistan is wedged precariously between Iran, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan and the Caspian Sea. And it is a fact, enthuses the stewardess, that it owes all of its many successes to Turkmenbashi, "leader of all Turkmens." The title was supposedly bestowed upon him by his grateful people, 99.9 percent of whom elected him to a 10-year term in office in 1994. "The people love and respect him," concludes the stewardess. Once past the gleaming new British-built Saparmurad Niyazov international airport in Ashkhabad, the capital, television news is dominated by shots of the leader opening new buildings. These are intercut with scenes of happy Turkmen peasants collecting cotton, accompanied by shiny combine harvesters. Billboards, village squares, parks -- no public space is left without a reminder of "Him," as he is referred to by his subjects in guarded tones. The portraits -- 'more than we ever had in Stalin's time," muttered a stonemason nervously last week -- are unlikely to disappear soon. Today is the fifth anniversary of Turkmen independence, and the nation of 4.5 million will be treated to the televised spectacle of thousands of cheering, flag-waving patriots parading past the marble tribune of the "great leader." The British are sending bagpipers to mark the occasion. A visit by the Prince of Wales next week to open the new British embassy will further cement Anglo-Turkmen relations. In theory, the Turkmens, whose mineral wealth was drained by Moscow during the Soviet era, should have a lot to celebrate on their independence day. Formerly a nomadic people whose warring tribes controlled some of the most important oases on the ancient Silk Road, they are enormously wealthy. Beneath the desert sands that cover 80 percent of Turkmenistan lie some of the largest reserves of natural gas in the world. Turkmenbashi has promised to make the country a second Kuwait. His son Murad is setting the tone. In March he was reported to have lost 8 million pounds in one night in a Spanish casino. Much of Ashkhabad resembles an enormous building site, as foreign firms rush to land the multi-million-dollar contracts being offered to transform the dusty desert city into the world-class metropolis Niyazov dreams of. The result is eerily reminiscent of Disneyland. A giant marble presidential palace with flowing fountains and a golden roof is being erected in the city centre by the French Bouygues construction company and an army of Pakistani labourers. Last year Bouygues finished a magnificent mosque to celebrate the pilgrimage of Niyazov, a former Lenin-worshipping communist apparatchik, to the sacred Muslim city of Mecca, much to the bemusement of the deeply secular Turkmen population. Bouygues's contract for both projects is estimated to be worth 85 million pounds. On the outskirts of Ashkhabad, a bizarre row of 17 unoccupied government hotels lines the green strip of carefully cultivated lawn on the edge of the desert that is Turkmenbashi's route into the city from his mountain residence. Turkish and Lebanese construction companies are furiously drilling and hammering away at yet more hotels along the route, and precious water has been cut off to the neighbouring residential area to ensure a reliable supply for the builders. A 200 million pounds park is also being built. To the workers weeding the hotels' lawns, however, the wealth is merely a mirage. Communism has been replaced by a unique Turkmen brand of state feudalism. "I don't know what these hotel things are for," said a father of five as he bitterly yanked at the grass. "We don't have any tourists that I can see. At the same time, I can't put shoes or clothes on my children, and feeding them is getting harder and harder." Food shortages in Ashkhabad are worse than they were in Soviet times, and the city's residents are issued with government ration cards for all basic foodstuffs -- not that much is available. Sugar has long disappeared from Ashkhabad. There is no meat in the shops, and there are long queues for bread. Those who can afford it visit the bazaar, where peasants sell meat for about 1 pound a kilo; the monthly wage hovers at about 10 pounds. On the outskirts, the more fortunate keep a camel in the back garden for milk and meat. In the countryside the situation is even worse. In the village of Yaradzhi, an hour's drive north of Ashkhabad, barefoot, ragged children scrabble in the dust. Workers on the local Saparmurad Niyazov collective farm have not been paid for months. National production of cotton, the main agricultural crop in Turkmenistan, has fallen to between 30 and 40 percent of the Soviet-era yield. The state, which controls every aspect of agriculture, offers about 4p for a kilo of cotton, but sometimes it pays nothing at all. "Last month my girls collected two tons of cotton and all they got is one sheep," said a tractor driver last week, as he watched his daughters, aged 13 and 15, beating a carpet in the courtyard in front of their house. "I'm not sending them to the fields any more. What's the point? Like our neighbours, we live off the livestock and what we can grow ourselves." Despite the hardship, there is no opposition in Turkmenistan. Officially, there are no dissidents: Turkmenbashi himself has openly advocated the planting of drugs on "undesirables" in order to arrest them on narcotics charges. There are a lot of drug-related arrests in Turkmenistan. Any ideas about challenging the government's economic policies were stamped out last June, when a march to protest against severe bread shortages was broken up within an hour by secret police. Twenty-seven demonstrators were arrested, charged with illegal drug use and jailed in Turkmenistan's cholera-ridden prisons. There are widespread rumours that at least three of them were shot. The old Soviet practice of condemning other irritants to psychiatric institutions is still widely used in Turkmenistan. According to Panorama, a Moscow research group, at least 14 political prisoners are incarcerated in psychiatric wards under Niyazov's orders, and 350 men were executed by the state in 1995 alone. It is not a side of Turkmenistan that will be on display when Prince Charles opens the British embassy. In fact, nobody will dare utter anything but praise for the rule of Turkmenbashi. "He is wonderful," said an Ashkhabad taxi driver last week, adding with a shrug: "How could I possibly say anything else?' [ Global | Stateside | Sports | Politics | Voices | Business | Infotech | Health & Science | Entertainment | Weather | Third Rave | Baseball | Basketball | Football | Hockey | Sport Server | MAIN ] Copyright © 1996 Nando.net Do you have some feedback for the Nando Times staff?