INTEGRATION IN CENTRAL ASIAN COUNTRIES: PROS AND CONS
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Alisher TAKSANOV
Alisher Taksanov, Ph.D. (Econ.), independent expert (Tashkent, Uzbekistan)
For centuries, the peoples of Central Asia lived effectively in one area: Maverannahr. That left its imprint on their everyday life, culture, traditions, beliefs, and language. The advocates of integration are convinced that this is quite enough for a successful rapprochement between related ethnic groups. They believe that this process could be based on the idea of Pan-Turkism that emerged in the late 19th century, in Turkey, and was then taken up by Young Turks. The underlying principle is unity of all Turkic peoples, based on common origins and affinity of languages.
Neo-Pan-Turkism began to gain ground in Central Asia in the wake of disintegration of the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan even tried to use the Turkish model of socioeconomic development. Turkey itself also actively promoted the idea of Pan-Turkism, seeing itself as the leader, and center, of Turkic peoples. On the global level, Pan-Turkism added up to the idea of creating a unified state—in the form of federation or confederation—to include all countries of Central Asia. That concept, however, failed to gain much following in the region.
Meanwhile, the general idea of integration retained its relevance and importance for its nations and peoples. Thus, Uzbekistan put forward the slogan “Turkestan Is Our Common Home,” which rather reflected the aspiration for sociocultural consolidation of ethnic groups in the region than for political unification. Opponents of that approach contend that this is a revised version of Pan-Turkism except that the center is being shifted to Uzbekistan. Sure enough, the slogan failed to evoke a positive response in all areas while it especially antagonized Tajik politicians.
The religious factor is also increasingly making itself felt in the region. It is most pronounced in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan (probably to the utmost degree), and Kazakhstan, where believers represent a very broad cross-cultural and ethnic component. The idea of consolidation of peoples on the religious basis—in particular, on the basis of Islam—is advocated by Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. But on the other hand, fundamentalist concepts could only divide the Central Asian countries. It should not be forgotten that a part of Muslims in the region follow Sunnism while some profess Shi‘ism.
Integration processes could also intensify on the territorial basis. In the not so distant past, Central Asia’s ethnic groups were administratively and territorially part of different types of states—complex in their structure and unstable in their character: the empires and kingdoms of the Achaemenids, Alexander the Great, the Seleucids, Greco-Bactria, Kangha, the Kushans, the Ephthalites, Turkic Kaganate, the Samanids, the Karakhanites, and Timur; later on, during the feudal era, the Bukhara Emirate and the Khiva and the Kokand khanates. In the late 19th century, the region’s population lived in the Turkestan Territory as part of the Russian empire. After the 1917 Revolution, new states began to emerge in Central Asia (the Turkestan A.S.S.R., the Bukhara People’s Soviet Republic, the Khorezm People’s Soviet Republic, and the Kirgiz/Kazakh A.S.S.R.) which eventually joined the U.S.S.R. The process of the delimitation of administrative and territorial borders continued until the 1950s.
It is noteworthy that national/state division in the 1920s brought about a great number of problems that Soviet power was simply sweeping under the carpet. Experts point out that social contradictions that have built up during this time are ready to burst out into the open with great destructive force, hindering the process of integration.
What are these problems? Several autonomous formations were created on the basis of Turkestan, and the Bukhara and Khorezm republics that at different periods were part of the R.S.F.S.R., Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan. Then they were reorganized as Soviet constituent republics. In this respect, the Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Uzbek, Turkmen, and Tajik peoples were given a unique opportunity to develop as national/state formations. That trend only facilitated their national revival.
On the other hand, the administrative/territorial division of the new republics was purely formal, without due consideration being given to the possible consequences that could arise over time (and that have indeed arisen today). Thus, according to official statistics, in 1990, Kazakhstan had a territory of 2.717 million square kilometers with a population of 16.7 million people; Uzbekistan, 447,400 square kilometers and 20.7 million people, respectively; Tajikistan, 143,100 square kilometers and 5.358 million; Turkmenistan, 488,100 square kilometers and 3.7 million, and Kyrgyzstan, 198,500 square kilometers and 4.4 million people. Thus, the density of population in these republics was as follows: Kazakhstan, 6.2 per square kilometer; Uzbekistan, 46.3; Tajikistan, 37.4; Turkmenistan, 7.6, and Kyrgyzstan, 22.3.
This figures show graphically that some national/state formations with smaller populations had larger territories, and vice versa. Today, it is difficult to say what the Bolsheviks were guided by in dividing the nationalities in such a way. After all, at the time one part of the population of Turkmenistan led a settled way of life, engaging in agriculture on a limited area (e.g., Uzbeks) while another part was nomadic, covering vast tracts of land (Kazakhs and Kyrgyz). So, following the administrative/territorial division of Central Asia, a considerable part of ethnic groups ended up outside their nation-states. For example, Uzbeks in Tajikistan account for 24.4 percent of the republic’s total population; in Kyrgyzstan, 13.8 percent; in Turkmenistan, 9 percent, and in Kazakhstan, 2.5 percent. There are large Kazakh settlements in the Tashkent and Dzhizak regions of Uzbekistan and Turkmen settlements in the Khorezm Region, and so forth.
It is noteworthy that the rather motley pattern of national/administrative division is not as yet cause for confrontation or disintegration, especially considering assurances by heads of these states about the inviolability of borders and territories after the breakup of the Soviet Union. Yet, even now some politicians—although not officially—are raising the question of revising the borders. Suffice it to mention claims made by a number of Tajik political figures to Samarkand and Bukhara, in Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan’s claims to Uzbekistan’s Khorezm Region. The Osh tragedy, in the late 1980s, arose from friction between Uzbeks and Kyrgyz, caused by a shortage of land and water resources and territorial disputes.
Incidentally, these problems arouse concern also among opponents of Central Asian integration. Thus, some Kazakh experts tend to believe that the shortage of water and land resources as well as high birth rates in Uzbekistan will eventually force the population of this republic to turn their eyes to their neighbors, who have a surplus of water and land. That could lead to intense migration of Uzbeks to Turkmenistan or Kazakhstan, which could provoke a social upheaval in the region. So, it is proposed to give up the idea of integration into a unified economic and social area with “demographically dangerous” countries.
At the same time there is a strong separatist mood in Kazakhstan itself, which could effectively split the republic in two parts: southern (Kazakh) and northern (Russian-speaking). Northern areas, the bulk of whose population is constituted by Russian speakers, are described as industrially developed with close technological, production, and economic links with Russia that evolved back under Soviet rule. In fact, there is a pronounced secessionist mood in Northern Kazakhstan. Should conflict arise, the republic’s leadership will hardly be in a position to stop it, even by using military force.
It is important to consider yet another aspect of the national/geopolitical situation. According to some experts, in present-day conditions, the ethnic factor could emerge as a serious “weapon,” as a result of which expansion in the sphere of influence of one Central Asian state or another would cease to be a purely theoretical matter. As mentioned earlier, although many ethnic groups ended up outside their “motherland,” they did not lose touch with it: They are in a position to address some important matters through legislative and executive bodies. For its part, the state provides financial, material, and other support to the diaspora, as a result of which it begins to play a far from insignificant role in the region. Meanwhile, “ethnic fighters” push legislative bodies for laws and regulations favorable for their “motherland.” Thus, an ethnic diaspora turns into a mechanism of lobbying for the interests of any state laying claim to leadership in Central Asia. This method is already being used by China, which has already compelled Kazakhstan to introduce visa-free entry into the country, managing to bring between 100,000 and 500,000 of its “ethnic fighters” into the Kazakh steppe. Migrants immediately assimilated in the new area and began developing the territory. Financial assistance permits them to penetrate all economic and political structures. The results of such penetration will not be obvious until several decades from now.
This puts a new light on Kazakhstan’s decision to move its capital from Almaty, in the south, to Astana, in the north. At the same time, Kazakhstan is building up contacts with Russia within the framework of the Customs Union and the Treaty of Four. It is noteworthy that while economic benefits from participation in these structures are not clear enough yet, political benefits are already obvious.
On the other hand, the country’s leadership cannot ignore the peoples’ aspiration for unification with Central Asian republics. The political aspect of this integration could also be instrumental as a factor of strengthening Kazakhstan’s statehood and developing the economy of its southern regions. In the course of their meetings, regional leaders invariably reaffirm the principle of the inviolability of borders, denounce separatism, and stress the importance of fighting it in any of its forms and manifestations.
Furthermore, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan have already delimited their borders, thus showing that territorial division as it evolved at the end of 1991, is immutable and inviolable. On one hand, it is reaffirmed that border problems cannot be permitted to take center stage in regional geopolitics. On the other, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, until 1999, renounced such steps, which gave opponents of integration cause to talk about an eventual revision of state borders in the region. Indicatively, advocates of this approach cite the fact that Tashkent chose as a symbol of its statehood Timur, who went down in history as a ruthless conqueror. Sure enough, this leads to backstage speculation on the foreign political situation in the region. Meanwhile, in the course of Uzbekistan President Islam Karimov’s visit to Ashghabad, in September 2000, documents were signed bearing on delimitation of borders between the two countries.
Moreover, in late 1998, Turkmenistan pulled out of a visa-free regime within the CIS (except for border areas in the Bukhara and Khorezm regions). In the winter of 2000, similar problems emerged also in relations between Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan as well as Kyrgyzstan. That was announced at a press conference by Umurzak Uzbekov, Kazakhstan’s ambassador in Uzbekistan. It was not until several months later that the Kazakhstan president denied those assertions, but even so, the fact remains: There was political friction between the states at the time.
Experts attribute that to the ongoing delimitation of borders between Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, in the course of which some serious mistakes were made, leading to an aggravation of territorial disputes. The border between these republics runs for 900 kilometers, only 50 kilometers of which have been delimited by a working commission (delimitation of the remaining part of the border is expected to take no less than three years). In the summer of 1999, a similar problem arose between Bishkek and Tashkent. Kyrgyz experts believe that contradictions stemmed from the fact that Uzbekistan wanted to revert to the 1924 administrative/territorial division while Kazakhstan insisted on the 1955 setup. Without waiting for the end of negotiations, the Uzbek side started mining its section of the border. According to Kyzgyz mass media, in April 2000, an Uzbek armored personnel carrier hit a mine in the village of Bos Adyn, killing two army servicemen.
Temirbek Akmataliev, governor of the Osh Region, said that as of early 2000, there were 54 disputed sections of border between Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, with an aggregate area of 960 hectares (this is 1/22000th part of the region’s territory). According to other sources, the republics have 77 disputed border sections. By that time, an inter-governmental Kyrgyz-Uzbek commission had held two rounds of negotiations, which even raised the problem of land lease as a possible way of alleviating tensions. Meanwhile, some political analysts expressed incomprehension over Uzbekistan’s decision to mine border areas and to begin forced registration of residents in disputed areas. As a result, on 18 September, 2000, a visa regime was introduced between Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.
Friction also arose between Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. On 28 September, 2000, a Tajikistan deputy foreign minister told journalists that Uzbekistan was conducting unilateral delimitation of the border; moreover, the border was being mined with 11 Tajik citizens already killed by mines. “The visa regime was also initiated by the Uzbek side,” the representative of the Tajikistan Foreign Ministry said.
The disintegration of the Soviet national economic system highlighted insufficient economic, financial, production, and manpower resources, which in its turn predetermined the uneven economic development of Central Asian countries. Their advance toward a market economy brought into focus two opposite trends: integration and disintegration.
Disintegration manifested itself in competition on raw materials and finished goods markets both in the region itself and in the CIS as well as beyond. Another aspect was the struggle for leadership in the region, in particular between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. These two states began to strengthen their status as official “curators” of reforms. The leader would be in a position to dictate and set prices for raw materials, finished goods, and services, shaping relationships with third countries.
Seeing a danger for itself in such integration, Turkmenistan pulled out of the process of creating a unified economic area in the region. Experts came to the conclusion that the republic’s leadership was afraid of the consequences of such unification: Its economy being by far the weaker, the republic could end up under the domination of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, eventually turning into their raw materials appendage, as was the case in the Soviet Union. Furthermore, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan are competitors in the gas export sector while regulation of prices in their favor also does not respond to Turkmenistan’s interests. In addition, none of the Central Asian countries are in a position to make large-scale investment in Turkmenistan. And so it was quite natural that the Turkmenistan leadership started looking to the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO), preferring to cooperate with countries in the region on a bilateral basis.
Integration is necessitated by the considerable gap that exists in technological, economic, and trade relations between the republics. Thus, in the not so distant past, Uzbekistan imported products from 58 branches of Tajikistan’s industry while exporting its own products to 78 sectors; the figures for Uzbekistan’s cooperation with Turkmenistan were 43 and 62, respectively, and with Kyrgyzstan, 56 and 54, respectively. There was basically the same pattern in relations between Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.
Sure, the breakup of the Soviet Union was the main cause for the disruption of relations and the cooperation and specialization system that had taken decades to evolve. In those conditions, some of the republics’ economies became increasingly isolated. In the 1992-1995 period, that accounted for more than two-thirds of the reduction in the volume of their industrial output. Experts estimate that in the event of complete economic isolation, say, Kazakhstan could produce approximately one-fourth of its final product with its own resources while Russia, approximately two-thirds.
So integration has become an important element in consolidating the economies, overcoming their self-isolation, and strengthening their interregional specialization. Some states have already begun to assert their economic specialization on the regional market. Thus, Uzbekistan is emerging as a car-producing republic whose motor vehicles (Daewoo, Mercedes) are well adapted to local conditions and can be effectively operated in all states of the region. Kazakhstan has a well developed ferrous metallurgy. These two countries are also major suppliers of chemical products.
Uzbekistan’s contribution to the regional economy could be judged of on the basis of some socioeconomic indicators. Thus, the republic’s population as of the beginning of 1995 was 41 percent of the aggregate population of Central Asian countries (including 36 percent of urban and 45 percent of rural population); labor resources, 39 percent; national income, 32 percent; and fixed assets, 31 percent (production assets, 30 percent, and non-production assets, 32 percent). The republic accounted for 33 percent of aggregate industrial output; consumer goods, 33 percent; agricultural output, 34 percent (crops, 42 percent; cattle breeding, 26 percent); capital investment, 30 percent; the retail trade sector, 36 percent; paid services to the population, 33 percent; monetary incomes, 35 percent; the proportion of secondary school students, 43 percent; the proportion of secondary specialized school students, 42 percent; the proportion of university students, 43 percent; the proportion of children in child-care institutions, 46 percent; the proportion of doctors, 40 percent; the proportion of libraries, 35 percent; and theater ticket sales, 39 percent. This is a far from exhaustive list of indicators characterizing the republic’s economy, science, and culture.
These figures show that the country is among the region’s leaders. Therefore, Uzbekistan is well in a position to become the driving force behind integration processes in Central Asia. Meanwhile, this aspiration for leadership antagonizes Uzbekistan’s neighbors, in particular aggravating bilateral relations. Thus, Bishkek’s debt to Tashkent for natural gas shipments ($270 million) is the reason Uzbek gas supplies to southern parts of Kyrgyzstan are regularly cut off. For its part, Kyrgyzstan increases taxes on the transit of Uzbek cargoes through its territory. Dushanbe’s debt, in excess of $200 million, seriously complicates Uzbek-Tajik relations. At the same time, Tajikistan has often stated that it will no longer hold back the water that accumulates on its territory, flooding large agricultural areas, but will begin to dump surplus water into the Amudarya. This is bound to cause serious economic and environmental problems for Uzbekistan.
The states of Central Asia inherited from the Soviet-era division of labor and narrow specialization, also a great number of environmental problems. As a result of ill-considered use, the Aral Sea has shrunk dramatically with vast tracts of agricultural land falling into disuse, leading to desertification, sharp decline in crop yields, water and food shortages, and growing mortality and morbidity rates. These problems directly affect Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, both of which border the Aral.
It was in fact the Aral problem that forced the leaders of these states to look for mutually acceptable principles and methods of addressing the problem. Although today it is too soon to talk about any success stories (this problem will probably take centuries to resolve), clearly the problem has brought the peoples closer together. An international foundation for salvation of the Aral Sea was created; the ECOSAN foundation was put on the map; advanced water processing and soil rehabilitation technologies were tapped, and the attention of other international organizations was drawn to the socioeconomic situation in the region.
The Tajik aluminum plant, which poses a serious environmental hazard for some areas in Uzbekistan, also strains Uzbek-Tajik relations. Tashkent has repeatedly called for this enterprise to be closed, demanding reimbursement of damages from soil pollution and decline in crop yields in the Denaus District. For its part, Tajikistan’s ecology is threatened by water from melting snow accumulating in the mountains that Dushanbe is reluctant to dump into the Amudarya (this could flood a part of Uzbekistan’s territory). It has to be said that river runoff, originating in Tajik and Kyrgyz mountains, is mostly used for irrigation purposes in the entire Central Asian region. The volume of annual runoff originating in Uzbekistan accounts for about 9 percent of all water consumption, in which connection the problem of rational water use is becoming especially acute.
On the other hand, experts say that Uzbekistan’s geographic position makes it susceptible to external environmental threats. The republic is located in the middle part of Central Asia with more than 80 percent of its territory taken up by plains while the trans-border rivers, the Amudarya and the Syrdarya, which create oasis zones, are exposed to man-made impacts from neighboring countries. A particular source of danger are possible earthquakes, spring floods, and landslides which could break dams in water engineering systems, water reservoirs, and high-mountain lakes both on the territory of Uzbekistan and in Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan.
Leadership in Central Asia is being claimed by many states, including Pakistan, Iran, India, Turkey, and China. Four out of five Central Asian republics (except Turkmenistan) take care to prevent the emergence of a new Big Brother, pooling their efforts to stand up to external pressure. “Brotherly” assistance that was initially rendered to them, gradually evolved into a struggle for spheres of influence. Initially, it had the form of recommendations to follow a “progressive” economic development model—Turkish, Chinese, or Iranian—but when post-Soviet republics saw there was not point in slavishly copying somebody else’s development model, methods of influence also changed with special emphasis placed on the ideas of restoring the Great Turan, the Great Islamic Circle, including regional states among others.
Sure enough, countries laying claim to the role of Big Brother did not approve of Central Asian states’ aspiration to create a unified economic area. They saw it as a potential for a powerful, vibrant economy that would ensure the republics’ independence, also considerably increasing their political weight. For their part, Iran, Pakistan, and Turkey intensified their efforts to get Central Asian countries involved in the ECO. Nonetheless, that over-politicized and economically dispersed structure with a vague economic cooperation program, quite the contrary, discouraged a number of republics (in particular, Uzbekistan) from active participation in the ECO.
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan, which were subsequently joined by Tajikistan, focused their efforts on creating and developing a unified economic area. Experts believe that Central Asian integration came as a kind of response to the amorphous nature of CIS structures. At the same time, this formation also came as a form of collective resistance to attempts by certain states to turn Central Asia into their gradually expanding bridgehead. Other analysts see a unified economic area as a bipolar center of force within the framework of the CIS, or regard it as a prototype union of Turkic states. Still others assess this association as a counterbalance to the Treaty of Four, comprised of Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan.
Some experts are concerned by Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan’s participation in this integrated community. On one hand, a new customs area is being created in Central Asia and then these two republics (Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan), along with the two Slavic states, form another customs union. This, according to some analysts, creates an economic contradiction. On the other hand, this irks partners in the unified economic area since you cannot eat a cake and have it. Thus, Tashkent which has signed a treaty of eternal friendship with these countries, nonetheless pursues a “cold peace” policy: Censorship bans any reference to Kazakhstan as though Uzbekistan does not have such a neighbor.
Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan’s position is perfectly clear. There is no way they can keep their economies afloat without stable, close contacts with Russia. Neither can they afford to quarrel with their brothers in the region. So Kazakh experts propose different methods of forming an economic union, acceptable both to Uzbekistan and to Russia. Others attribute this approach to multi-level, multi-stage, and multi-track integration within the framework of the CIS, which Tashkent is sharply critical of.
The political factor also played a role in Tajikistan’s admission to the Central Asian Union. On one hand, political instability and civil war in this republic made Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan reluctant, ever since the early 1990s, to admit it into their economic community; on the other, without active assistance and support in revitalizing Tajikistan’s economic potential, there was no way political stabilization could be achieved in the whole region. So, after several years of hesitation, Dushanbe received a positive signal. Tashkent also had to reckon with the need to support ethnic Uzbeks living in the Leninabad Region: They could become a protective buffer in interrelations with the neighboring republic’s authorities.
Thus, complex political and economic processes are under way in Central Asia, some of which are conducive to integration while others, quite the contrary, hinder it. Moreover, members of the Central Asian community are suspicious of each other and afraid that one of the countries could strengthen inordinately. Tashkent even saw (covertly and unofficially) the marriage of children of the presidents of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, in the summer of 1998, as an opportunity for bloc affiliated confrontation and strengthening Kazakhstan/Kyrgyzstan positions with respect to Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.
Tashkent repeatedly expressed discontent with consolidation of Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan within the CIS Customs Union and their active rapprochement with Russia. True, in early 2000, the threat of Islamic extremism also compelled Tashkent to seek Russian assistance. At the same time Uzbekistan contemptuously referred to Kyrgyzstan as an islet of democracy and a country that was negotiating with terrorists, not fighting them, seeing that as a sign of a weak state.
Joseph A. Presel, U.S. ambassador in Uzbekistan, addressing students and faculty at the University of World Economy and Diplomacy on 7 December, 1999, made a noteworthy point: As a country with the largest population, the most powerful military, and the most pronounced national identity, Uzbekistan regards itself as a natural leader in the region. It sees Kazakhstan as a rival in the struggle for leadership in Central Asia, regarding Kyrgyzstan’s admission to the WTO as a kind of “defeat” for itself. The ambassador also stressed the need to move away from such an approach in international relations. Uzbekistan, he went on, limits its possibilities by seeing itself that way. By narrowing its policy to rivalry with its neighbors, especially its northern neighbor, which has a vast territory, the country could be missing the fact that in many respects it has greater potential than Kazakhstan.
In the admission of many political analysts, Central Asia is a zone of potential military-political conflicts. The war in Afghanistan that has been going on for more than two decades now, and the unstable situation in Tajikistan force the region’s republics to strengthen their military capability. Moreover, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan border the eastern superpower: China; Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan border Afghanistan, and Turkmenistan borders Iran. It is hardly surprising that neighborhood with states, two of which are ready to export Islamic fundamentalism both ideologically and militarily, with China already trying to develop the territory of Semirechie, is causing concern.
In this context, the military factor could become an important element in the integration of the five republics. Reality, however, is quite different. Thus, having acquired the status as a neutral country, Turkmenistan stays out of conflicts and does not provide military assistance to any side. Its security is guaranteed by the UN. Uzbekistan is reluctant to join any military-political alliances, hoping to deal with any contradictions by political methods. Against this backdrop, the military factor cannot serve as a basis for integration.
On the other hand, three states—Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan—provided military (peacekeeping) assistance to Tajikistan in the course of a civil war in that republic. Their presence, on one hand, facilitated a peace settlement and on the other, demonstrated the aspiration to have forces that would consolidate states in the region and strengthen their ability to resolve conflicts. In 1994, the presidents of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan decided to create a joint Central Asian battalion, Tsentrazbat, which was granted the status as a UN reserve force.
Nonetheless, experts point out that this force may not be used in areas where member states have their own strategic interests. So, Tsentrazbat is not designed to localize conflicts in the region; it can be deployed, say, in Africa or Latin America. On the other hand, the idea of creating such a military structure arose from considerations of security in Central Asia itself. Tsentrazbat was never tapped in the course of the two crises that occurred in August 1999 and 2000 on the border of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan, when Islamic fighters penetrated Kyrgyzstan from Tajikistan and tried to break through to Uzbekistan. In 1999, after unsuccessful air strikes by Uzbek aviation against a rebel unit, leading to Kyrgyz civilian casualties, Kyrgyzstan used Defense Ministry ground forces. But (this needs to be stressed once again) Tsentrazbat was not used in the operation. According to some media reports, the Kyrgyzstan government reached a back-room deal with the rebels, allowing them to return to contiguous territory.
Thus, Tsentrazbat failed to emerge as an integrating force capable of resolving the acute military-political crisis in the region. Meanwhile, this formation, together with U.S. army units, took part in military exercises in 1998 and 1999, but most experts do not believe the battalion could be used for global or strategic purposes. Ill-considered tactical moves made the idea of joint armed forces of regional states increasingly unrealistic.
To strengthen their economic independence, Central Asian countries need to develop transport communications, ensuring easy access to sea ports. The republics’ geographic position is such that in order to reach a sea port, they have to cross the territory of at least one country, and Uzbekistan, two countries. It has to be said in this context that economic problems (rupture of economic links following the breakup of the Soviet Union) and political problems involved in cargo transit via Russian territory, forced the republics in the region, back in late 1991, to start searching for alternative routes to sea ports.
Initially, they considered the possibility of accessing southern and eastern ports of Iran, Pakistan, and China. The Tejen-Serakhs-Mashhad railway line was built, linking the region’s republics with Iran. The Transcaucasus transport corridor was put into operation, linking them to European and Asian communication systems.
Meanwhile, integration processes in this sphere were complicated by a new policy line taken by Turkmenistan which, contrary to earlier agreements, raised transit tariffs, half a year later refusing to sign a new document wherein the sides reaffirmed their readiness to honor earlier agreements.
Many experts believe that the transport communication issue emerged from a purely economic into a serious political problem, affecting not only countries in the region but also major world powers. Effective implementation of transport communication projects requires coordination of action by all countries in Central Asia. Even so, despite the states’ aspiration for integration in this sphere, contradictions on the bilateral level are deepening disintegration. Thus, in the summer of 1999, payments problems between Uzbekistan (transit debt) and Kazakhstan (gas debt) led to difficulties in railway communication between Uzbekistan and Russia through Kazakhstan’s territory. On the other hand, Tashkent held back the transfer to Dushanbe of more than 200 railway cars that were to become Tajikistan’s property following the division of the Soviet railway car fleet. Moreover, for a long time Tashkent refused to allow Tajikistan to reopen railway links with other CIS states across its territory.
Back on 11 March, 1994, an inter-governmental Uzbek-Tajik agreement on air communication was inked and a memorandum of mutual understanding signed. Under those documents, the governments of both republics granted the national airline Uzbekiston khavo yullari and the state company Tochikiston the right to operate the route on a parity basis, without any limitation on the number of flights or type of aircraft, including cargo carriage. In January 1995, representatives of these airlines held negotiations in Tashkent, in the course of which the sides discussed the possibility of opening an air link between the capitals, even agreeing on a joint flight safety inspection procedure at Dushanbe airport. In October of the same year, a new round of negotiations was held, but such flights did not become reality until five years later. On 1 August, 2000, a Yak-40 airplane, on a technical flight, landed at Tashkent airport, and two weeks later, regular service began, which by September again became irregular. Experts attribute that to an aggravation of contradictions between the republics, caused by armed border clashes (incursions by Islamic fighters).
The mass media is another big problem area. The media situation in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan differs greatly from that in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. Whereas there is no censorship in the former two countries and the media are free to express a diversity of opinion, the latter two countries do have censorship, their governments strictly controlling the media, exerting political (and even physical) pressure on journalists, and taking a suspicious view of their foreign colleagues. Tajikistan, rather, stands aside here: There is no outright censorship in the country, but after the civil war the mass media are in a financial plight while the actual diarchy situation (the government and the opposition) does not permit journalists to express their views freely.
Uzbek censorship suppresses reports on the situation in neighboring republics (except for rare reports on official visits by heads of state to Tashkent or by the head of Uzbekistan to the capitals of other countries). Meanwhile, Bishkek, Astana, and Dushanbe permit reporters to cover events as they see fit. The information blockade imposed by Tashkent and Ashghabad also harms Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan but to an even greater degree it encourages disintegration processes.
Furthermore, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan have placed the Internet under control, fearing that ideas incompatible with government policy could get through to these republics. That problem was also taken up by Joseph A. Presel saying that for such countries as Uzbekistan the Internet is a vital engine of economic development; for that reason Uzbekistan’s intention to control access to the Internet is a bad idea since it not only limits the free flow of information but also stifles competition among Internet providers. The ambassador also pointed out that whether we like it or not, we live in a global telecommunication village, as predicted by U.S. scientist Marshal McLuhan. Although societies of course can, and should, warn their citizens about the dangers of misuse of information, nonetheless governments trying to limit access to information are doing an ill service for themselves and their citizens.
So, although the leaders of all countries in the region realize the importance and need of integration, not all of them are prepared for lengthy and tortuous negotiations and compromises that are required for its advance.