|
|
EUROPE: Forgetting Rights, Looking at Opportunities in Central Asia
By David Cronin
BRUSSELS, Feb 20 (IPS) - With the attention of the world's media rarely turned towards Central Asia, it is easy to forget about the Andijan massacre of May 2005. Several hundred demonstrators died when Uzbek government forces opened fire on a demonstration, in what is believed to be the worst mass killing since the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre in China.
Less than three years later, the massacre was rarely mentioned when members of the European Parliament (MEPs) held a debate on Central Asia this week. For while a report formally endorsed by the assembly Feb. 20 raised concerns about a number of human rights issues, it also argued that it is in the European Union's economic interests to strengthen its links with the region's generally dictatorial rulers.
Energy issues were cited as the main reason for doing so. Central Asia is increasingly being perceived as a region which could supply much of the EU's fuel needs. Its potential is vast: Turkmenistan has the tenth largest proven oil reserves in the world; Kazakhstan the world's third largest concentration of uranium.
Another reason why these former Soviet states appear so attractive to the EU is that they are now independent of Russia. One-quarter of oil and one-third of gas used in the EU today come from Russia. But with relations between the Kremlin and a number of EU governments proving prickly over the past few years, and with Russian President Vladimir Putin using his ability to switch off energy supplies as a bargaining tool with Ukraine and Georgia, there is a profound desire to reduce reliance on Russia.
"We want to have a diversification of our energy policy," said Benita Ferrero-Waldner, the EU's commissioner for external relations.
In its recently published annual report for 2008, Human Rights Watch stated that "Turkmenistan remains one of the most repressive countries in the world, despite a change of leadership brought about by the death of president-for-life Saparmurat Niazov in December 2006."
His successor Gurbanguly Berdymuhammedov has moved to improve the situation, HRW admits. Yet while he pardoned about 9,000 political prisoners during 2007, large numbers of people convicted in "unfair, closed trials" under the old regime are still behind bars, the organisation adds.
Among the other complaints directed towards the Turkmen authorities is that they have taken no credible steps to eliminate torture, that individuals have been intimidated and in some cases arrested for simply practising religions frowned upon by the state, and that websites perceived to carry criticism of the government have been blocked, with members of the secret services monitoring Internet users in cyber-cafés.
That litany of concerns notwithstanding, the EU's energy commissioner Andris Piebalgs underscored that he is interested in doing business with Turkmenistan when he led a delegation of European businesspeople to Ashgabat in November. Piebalgs said he was "very encouraged by the signs of openness confirmed by the Turkmen side with regard to further possibilities for European energy companies to increase their presence in the energy sector of Turkmenistan, especially in the gas exploration and offshore areas."
The EU's strategic goals for relations with Central Asia were outlined in a paper endorsed by the Union's 27 governments in June last year.
Following criticism that the paper did not propose mechanisms for monitoring if the EU's engagement there leads to human rights improvements, the European Parliament has advocated this week that benchmarks should be set to remedy this shortcoming.
Cem Ozdemir, a German Green MEP who authored the Parliament's new report, welcomed how the EU has "recognised the need for a coherent strategy towards the five countries (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan) after years of neglect." But he called on EU institutions to "clearly speak out" about such matters as the denial of media freedom and the detention of human rights activists in Central Asia.
Katrin Saks, an Estonian Socialist, said: "Unfortunately, the EU discovered Central Asia relatively lately, and I'm not quite sure if it yet understands its economic and security importance." Nonetheless, she warned of a danger that "interests might dominate over values" in relations with the region.
"These countries have no prior experience of democracy," she said. "They might seem to sometimes use some words about human rights, media freedom and freedom of expression but to fill them with quite different content."
British Conservative Charles Tannock said that an EU strategy for relations with Central Asia is "long overdue". Although he said that Uzbekistan was "rightfully ostracised" after the Andijan massacre, it had proven a "vital ally in the war against international terrorism, especially with regards to Afghanistan."
Unlike its neighbours, Tajikistan lacks oil and gas, and is recognised as one of the world's 20 most impoverished nations.
Josep Borrell, chairman of the Parliament's development committee, said it looks "increasingly unlikely" that the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals of drastically reducing the most extreme forms of poverty by 2015 will be attained in Central Asia.
Borrell said the fight against poverty in Central Asia is not considered a strategic goal in some of the key EU documents about the region.
The European Parliament is urging that an EU programme against child labour in Central Asia should be established. Its report describes the use of child labour as "widespread" in several of the region's countries, particularly in the cotton, tobacco and mining sectors. (END/2008)
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
What is RSS?
