In August, analytical pieces on Central Asia covered the topics of labor collectives’ issues in Kazakhstan, pressure on human rights defenders in Kyrgyzstan, situation of the Pamiri population in Tajikistan’s GBAO, Turkmenistan’s energy relations, the future geopolitical scenarios for Uzbekistan, and many other themes presented in this digest.
Anti-union laws have punished Kazakhstan’s workers. But the fight isn’t over
An Open Democracy article describes how workers in Kazakhstan have faced pressure by the government for years but continue to fight for their rights and social justice. Kazakhstani workers and worker collectives have increasingly taken a leading role in making social and political demands. Strikes and protests have regularly punctuated the country’s recent history, culminating with organised demands for social justice and workers’ rights in the protests became known as ‘Qandy Qantar’, Kazakh for ‘Bloody January’. Ten years prior, another worker strike in Zhanaozen had culminated in security forces opening fire against protesters, leaving at least 16 dead. Kazakhstan’s government, however, has suppressed the trade union movement for at least a decade through legislative measures and informal pressure.
Since the country’s independence in 1991, more stringent legislation hindered the existence of trade unions. In 1999, the Kazakhstani government changed the country’s labour code, which undermined the bargaining power of workers by making ‘collective agreements’ optional. These agreements had guaranteed general conditions and minimum wage levels for all categories of workers in enterprises. With the transition to individual contracts, employers were able to offer lower wages and worse working conditions to those who needed work, while raising salaries for specialists in demand. This created inequality and tension within the Kazakhstani workplace.
Later, in 2007, in preparation for joining the World Trade Organization (WTO), Kazakhstan adopted a new labour code, which tightened the rights of workers to organise strikes. Most strike actions became illegal, and strikers became a target of harassment and suppression. By 2015, all Kazakhstani trade unions had to be affiliated with a nationwide association and be represented in at least half the country’s regions, which made it impossible for smaller ones to register. Under new rules, organising or calling for an illegal strike was punishable with up to three years in prison.
Labour collectives, however, continue to go on strike. In 2021, labour collectives held 31 protests, and in the first four months of 2022 had already carried out around 40. Despite pledges of political reform in Kazakhstan, Kirill Buketov, member of the Board of the Monitoring Mission for Labour Rights in Central Asia and an expert at the Global Labour Institute, sees no progress on the part of Kazakhstan’s current president Tokayev in relation to trade unions. The International Labour Organization still has Kazakhstan on a list of countries that refuse to recognise the fundamental right of workers to form trade unions.
China’s Kazakhstan Gambit
An article published by Harvard International Review discusses the future path of Kazakhstan-China relations and asks to what extent Chinese development in the Kazakhstan will impact its citizens and the political establishment. The article analyzes the energy sphere, which is the focal point of bilateral trade ties between the two countries, as well as the Belt and Road Initiative – a grand project in the sphere of logistics and trade. It notes that China’s investment in both energy and transportation sectors is expected to increase in the coming years considering national security concerns and continued economic growth. The review also discusses the discontent in Kazakh society regarding large-scale Chinese investments and power imbalance between the countries. However, protest thus far have not been anti-Beijing as much as a reaction against corrupt business practices, such as foreign investors bringing their own workers and failing to pay locals or rumors about a Chinese land grab.
More will be understood about the ability of China’s capital to cause a real economic change in its Central Asian neighbors as the scale of Chinese investments begins to unfold over the next several years. As Kazakhstan’s natural resources and political history have drawn in other political powers such as Russia, the effect of Chinese investment on Kazakhstan’s politics and society might be less than worried observers may fear, the article concludes.
Kazakhstan-Azerbaijan: The Axis of the Middle Corridor
One alternative route that has gained prominence since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and corresponding sanctions is the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (TITR), commonly known as the Middle Corridor, a joint venture composed of Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, and Turkey. An article by Geopolitical Monitor assesses the relationship between Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, which is at the heart of the Trans-Caspian initiative since the Corridor connects the Caucasus with Central Asia via the Baku International Sea Port (Azerbaijan), Port Aktau and Port Kuryk (Kazakhstan).
Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan have mutual interest in the Middle Corridor, thus, maintaining cordial relations is a priority for both countries, which is materialized in a number of agreements and developing transport links.
Given the war, the Trans-Caspian Corridor has become a mandatory replacement for the standard route via Russia and Belarus. While less than 16,000 containers passed through it in the first quarter of 2021, 19,500 units were registered in the first quarter of 2022. Container traffic along the Trans-Caspian corridor in the first three months of 2022 increased by 28% compared to last year. While the capacity of cargo transshipment through the Caspian Sea is about 135 million tons per year, today, only 30 million tons of port facilities are used. Only 20% of the seaport capacity of the Caspian countries is used for international cargo traffic, argues one report.
Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan are upgrading their transportation infrastructure to enhance the movement of goods. The ports of Baku and Aktau are undergoing considerable expansion. Azerbaijan plans to increase the capacity of its port: the second phase of development has been completed to expand transshipment capacity to 25 million tons of cargo and 500,000 TEU containers. At the same time, Kazakhstan plans to build new facilities in the Caspian Sea to increase export potential. The new cargo terminal will be constructed in Aktau.
Moreover, the article notes that the Russian government’s decision to shut down the CPC pipeline in early July was pivotal in Kazakhstan’s motivation to develop the Trans-Caspian route. At the same time, there is also increased interest in the Middle Corridor from the EU. While there are plenty of challenges and issues to consider while discussing the Middle Corridor, as long as Baku and Kazakhstan maintain their close relations, the TITR has a solid chance to succeed.
Kyrgyzstan: Rights lawyer gets reprieve in high-profile case
Eurasianet reported that Kamil Ruziyev, a human rights defender in Kyrgyzstan whose work exposed widespread police torture and official indifference to domestic violence has been acquitted in a case that hung over him for more than two years.
That the judge decided to acquit Ruziyev on August 12 is notable and likely a result of the local and international attention that had built around the case, the article states. Acquittals in Kyrgyzstan’s justice system are vanishingly rare. Ruziyev’s case was regularly tracked by Kyrgyz media and was commented on multiple times by the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders, Mary Lawlor.
Ruziyev has been scrapping with law enforcement for much of his career. His laser-like attention to pretrial abuses of detainees earned him no shortage of enemies in the police and security forces. In May 2020, he was accused of forging a medical document, known in Russian as a “spravka,” to justify his absence from trials due to illness. The nurse who gave him the document and later faced charges herself was also acquitted. As to whether the case might significantly challenge the impunity enjoyed by police in his region, Ruziyev was doubtful. “[In the last two years] I initiated around 10 cases against police connected to torture. All of them were closed,” he said.
Tajikistan: the assassination that shook the Pamir Mountains to the core
An Open Democracy article describes the recent events in the Gorno-Badakhshan region, specifically the assassination of a popular oppositionist Mamadboqir Mamadboqirov, known locally as Colonel Boqir, and evaluates the implication of his death for the region. The author, Dr. Suzanne Levi-Sanchez gave an overview of the mid-May unrest, when approximately 1,000 protesters took to the streets of Khorog due to a lack of government response to the death of Gulbuddin Ziyobekov, a youth leader and a Pamiri, and persecution of hundreds of citizens of Khorog. She describes Tajik security forces’ violent crackdown of protests that lasted several days and the events that preceded Mamadboqirov’s assassination.
The article states that the murder of Colonel Boqir – a goal of the Tajik government for over a decade – signalled the end of an era of independent and autonomous leadership in GBAO. Sadly, this spells the end for one of the most active civil societies in Central Asia. Many Pamiris believe this marks the end of their autonomy and religious freedom, and fear that they will be living under a securitised surveillance state. Many are trying to leave, for fear of being arrested, tortured or killed. The government also removed a giant Ismaili flag from the side of a hill near Khorog.
Dr. Levi-Sanchez highlights that the Pamiri diaspora is key to the region’s future. Leaders within the diaspora are organised, educated and dedicated, and have been mobilised and politicised by the recent crackdown. Some members of the diaspora are very committed to stopping human rights abuses; others are increasingly questioning the way Tajikistan is governed. As one member of the Pamiri diaspora suggested, the crackdown has meant that “the focus of Pamiri civil society has switched to diaspora communities”.
Tajikistan authorities carry out large-scale crackdown on Pamiri ethnic minority
Le Monde also wrote about the current dire situation with human rights in the GBAO. The article reports that since May, the crackdown has continued to intensify, with mass trials handing out heavy sentences, including life imprisonment, to not only the leaders of the Pamiri movement, but also all activists from the ethnic community. According to the exiled Tajik journalist Anora Sarkorova, “the authorities want to imprison so many people that they have gone to build another women’s prison, in the Sughd region in the north.”
In July, Tajik courts handed down 5,508 sentences, reported Radio Free Europe, without any acquittals. About 100 people are in detention and still awaiting trial, including seven journalists. Most of the hearings are held behind closed doors, with no possibility for the defendants to have access to a court-appointed lawyer. The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) said in a statement on August 1 that there are only four lawyers in the region and that the government has not taken any steps to increase this number. The authorities have even abducted several activists from the diaspora in Russia, sometimes despite their having Russian citizenship.
Turkmenistan’s energy relations with China: A significant energy nexus
The Modern Diplomacy article discusses Turkmenistan’s energy relations with China and offers a view on how Turkmenistan can reduce the risk of overreliance on a single player when it comes to gas trade.
Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the energy policy of Turkmenistan has seen a shift towards diversification of its energy resources while coming out of the Russian monopoly over the hydrocarbon resources of Turkmenistan with its pipeline system. China has become Turkmenistan’s primary trade and economic partner as a result of the expansion of energy connections and the timely delivery of Turkmen gas in huge quantities to China.
The article argues that while Turkmenistan has been witnessing a deepening of its energy relations with China with a major boost in its export market, there also emerges a concern about its dependence on China as a gas export market. China’s insistence on paying substantially below European prices for Turkmen goods, with the possibility of even lower prices in the future, has Turkmen officials anxious about the country’s rising reliance on China.
Nonetheless, the article also argues that having a huge external debt to China, Turkmenistan is not in a position to cut its ties with China but can surely work on reducing its dependence by working on an export diversification strategy. The article concludes that the untapped export market of South Asia in the east through the TAPI (Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India) project and the highly profitable market of Europeans as well as Iran and Turkey up the opportunity for Turkmenistan to diversify its export routes.
Has Turkmenistan’s Transition to a Market Economy Been a Success?
The Diplomat article evaluates Turkmenistan’s transition to a market economy and comes to a conclusion that Ashgabat still has a long way to go to achieve a functioning and competitive market economy. The article gives an overview of Turkmenistan’s market reforms since the fall of the Soviet Union covering the agricultural sector, the judicial system, the telecommunication sector, and other industrial sectors.
According to the article, Turkmenistan was the last and slowest among the post-Soviet republics to undergo a transition to a market economy. The government still has complete monopolies in the following sectors: telecommunication, agriculture (land, wheat, and cotton), textile factories, alcohol factories, hotels, airlines, airports, railways, chemical raw materials (polypropylene, carbamide, fertilizers, etc.), natural resources (natural gas and oil), gas stations, and other industries. The article states that the government severely restricts the free exchange of foreign currencies, which is another marker of a functioning market economy.
Nonetheless, the article argues that the private sector is visible in the service industries (restaurants, the beauty sector, and more), construction companies, and in retail, in which small and medium-sized businesses import products from abroad and resell them in the domestic market. These enterprises still occasionally suffer from government intervention.
Uzbekistan’s bumpy ride out of Russia’s orbit
As Uzbekistan is increasingly determined to move away from Russian influence and from being involved in Russian business networks, Stefan Hedlund wonders what will emerge to take its place. “At stake is the future of the global economic order and the ingrained Western belief in the superiority of liberal democracy and a rules-based market economy”, he highlights.
Examining Uzbekistan’s recent economic development and considerable steps toward liberalization, the author provides possible scenarios for Uzbekistan’s future as Russia’s influence is collapsing. In the optimistic scenario, Tashkent is well placed to profit from the combined transformation of geopolitics and geoeconomics. The government may expect continued positive results from economic reforms encouraging investment and giving freer rein to private entrepreneurship.
More specifically, Uzbekistan has embarked on ambitious energy infrastructure ventures that range from renewables to gas-powered projects. As the regional “great game” for energy transforms, these investments may begin to pay off. In a longer-term perspective, it may join with Kazakhstan in further undercutting Russian influence by developing energy infrastructure to pump oil and gas into existing networks that lead from Azerbaijan to Turkey and onward to Europe.
In anticipation of the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan, Uzbekistan invested heavily in building transport infrastructure – including high-speed trains – that would offer a link to the south from the east-west transport corridor of China’s BRI. The link would proceed through Afghanistan to ports on the Indian Ocean. As China has now shut down the northern route of the BRI that went via Russia, southern options will gain attraction.
However, there are also some risks that might hinder the favorable outcome. One is the evaporating likelihood that the Taliban can provide security for infrastructure investments, meaning that Tashkent may find it has made significant investments – economic and political – in a bridge to nowhere. Another is that while the war in Ukraine opens new possibilities for development, it also harms the ability of double landlocked Uzbekistan to secure vital imports for its energy investments, such as large turbines for gas-fired power stations.
Main directions of the state policy for women in the next 5 years in Uzbekistan
The Korea Herald published an overview of legislative actions adopted in Uzbekistan to increase the role of women in government and society. Jamshid Sharipov, head of the Department of Development Strategy Center in Uzbekistan, reports that over the past five years, 25 legislative acts have been adopted in this area. In the Senate of the Oliy Majlis, the Committee on Women and Gender Equality and Commission on Ensuring Gender Equality, headed by the chairperson of the Senate of the Oliy Majlis, have been established.
For the first time in the history of Uzbekistan, the number of women in the national parliament has been brought to a level corresponding to UN recommendations. Women make up 44 percent of the total membership of political parties, occupy 27 percent of leadership positions, in the field of higher education women make up 40 percent of the total number of employees and in the field of entrepreneurship account for 35 percent.
Also, the decree of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan “On measures to further accelerate work on systemic support for families and women”, issued earlier this year, approved the national program to increase the activity of women in all spheres of economic, political and social life of the country for 2022-2026. The innovations in this document are the introduction of the practice of paying women employed in the private sector, pregnancy and childbirth benefits at the expense of the state budget, the provision of interest-free educational loans for a period of seven years, the allocation of an additional 500 places in universities to admit women with priority, 300 doctoral positions in state research institutes and universities for women, payment of educational contracts from the budget for 2,100 female students from families in need of social protection as well as the provision of subsidies and tax incentives for entrepreneurial activities.
According to the author, all this will improve the rating of Uzbekistan in the Women, Business and the Law index annually determined by the World Bank and will ensure that Uzbekistan fulfills the obligations adopted on the goals and targets in the field of sustainable development for the period up to 2030, where “Ensuring gender equality and empowering all women” is one of the priority goals.
New Regulations in Uzbekistan Effectively Impose Government Control on NGOs
The Diplomat piece by Umida Niyazova, executive director of the Uzbek Forum for Human Rights, and Lynn Schweisfurth, a communications consultant for the Uzbek Forum for Human Rights, discusses the new decree regulating the procedures for implementing NGO projects that receive foreign funding. From now on, Uzbek NGOs that receive any foreign funding are obliged to involve employees of state agencies, referred to in the decree as “national partners,” recommended to them by the Ministry of Justice.
The national partner, i.e. an employee of a specialized governmental agency, will be tasked with developing a “roadmap” for the implementation of the project for which the NGO has received funding and will coordinate the work of partner organizations. The national partner also has a number of other explicit duties. These include ensuring the “effective implementation” of the project by solving problems, making suggestions and additions to the project, as well as developing recommendations. The national partner will also be responsible for signing memoranda of “mutual cooperation” with government agencies as well as evaluating project activities and analyzing project results.
The authors warn that if NGOs choose to comply with these draconian new regulations, there can be little doubt that human rights NGOs, particularly those working on sensitive issues such as corruption, will be unable to access foreign funding. The most pressing human rights issues in Uzbekistan will remain under-reported and out of bounds for civil society groups that are already bereft of resources.
Compliance of foreign donors with these regulations, which would subject their grant recipients to invasive levels of control, would be a tacit legitimization of the Uzbek government’s increasing intolerance toward independent civic activity and would proactively contribute to the lack of human rights monitoring in the country. Uzbek Forum therefore calls upon the diplomatic community in Tashkent to urge the Uzbek government to abandon its regressive decree and return to its commitments to democratic reforms.
Unintended Consequences: A Heyday For The Geopolitics Of Eurasian Transport
The Eurasia Review article analyzes the effect of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on transport corridors of Eurasia and how it created new routes allowing goods to travel across the Eurasian landmass without traversing Russia as well as leading Russia to a greater connectivity with the Middle East and South and Southeast Asia.
The article focuses on next month’s summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in Uzbekistan and argues that it could provide a lynchpin for alternative routes. Specifically, it talks about a crucial 523-kilometre China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway that has been on the drawing board for 25 years and that now seems to have become more attractive and less problematic because of the fallout of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The new railway would feed into the rail line connecting Uzbekistan to Turkmenistan’s Turkmenbashi International Seaport on the Caspian Sea.
From there, the article argues it can feed into the Caucasus, Turkey, and the Black Sea via the Azerbaijani port of Baku or Iran, India, the Gulf, and East Africa through the International North-South Transportation Corridor (INSTC) that makes use of the Iranian port of Anzali and potentially Chabahar. Finally, the article talks about the potential security challenges as moves to bolster Central Asia as a critical node in East-West and North-South transportation corridors come amid increased public discontent in the region and stepped-up jihadist activity.