When even the exiled opposition groups think it’s a positive sign, it just might well be: Uncle Berdi has closed Turkmenbashi’s gas fund, in an apparent effort to recover some of the wealth Niyazov had laundered abroad.
President Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov’s decree, issued Friday, also set up a special commission to audit the activities of the fund — International Fund of Saparmurat Niyazov — according to the state newspaper Neutral Turkmenistan, which published the decree.
No further details were released and little is known about the sources or the expenditures for the fund itself, except that it was founded in 1993 and is managed by German banks.
Stomatologbashi also refused plans for a government-funded grand celebration of his 50th birthday. Plus, he’s reworking the military a bit and trying to crack down on the drug runners. Bairam Shikhmuradov, the leader of the Republican Party of Turkmenistan (whose website is quite conveniently in English), went so far as to call it a genuine thaw.
Roger Williams sees it this way:
Berdimuhammedov appears to be doing the nastiest thing a man can do to a dictator blog, namely, instituting genuine political reforms and dismantling his predecessor’s authoritarian state. What a dick!
He thinks Uncle Berdi might be going for more of an Uncle Nazzy thing—authoritarian enough to remain rich and incredibly powerful, but not so vicious he attracts he the world’s universal condemnation. If so, it is unquestionably a positive sign for Turkmenistan. I wouldn’t wish Nazarbayev on anyone, but I’d rather have him that Niyazov. If he keeps pushing, Turkmenistan might actually one day become a sort-of functioning state.
*Note: I’m actually certain Silverstein would welcome any improvement in Turkmenistan’s state, but I had to say it.
This post was written by...
Joshua Foust – author of 1771 posts on Registan.net.
Joshua Foust is a Fellow at the American Security Project and the author of Afghanistan Journal: Selections from Registan.net. His research focuses primarily on Central and South Asia. Joshua is a correspondent for The Atlantic and a columnist for PBS Need to Know. Joshua appears regularly on the BBC World News, Aljazeera, and international public radio. Joshua is also a regular contributor to Foreign Policy’s AfPak Channel, and his writing has appeared in the New York Times, Reuters, and the Christian Science Monitor. Follow him on twitter: @joshuafoust