[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 137 (Thursday, October 17, 2002)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1885-E1886]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




     ON PURSUING DEMOCRATIC PRINCIPLES IN U.S.-KAZAKHSTAN RELATIONS

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. MARTIN T. MEEHAN

                            of massachusetts

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, October 16, 2002

  Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Speaker, as our nation continues to build 
international partnerships in the war against terrorism, it is 
important to remind ourselves and the world of the values of democracy 
and free expression represented by the United States of America.
  In the war against terrorism, we have significantly increased levels 
of communication and cooperation with nations across the globe. No 
truer is this the case than in the newly independent states of Central 
Asia. These oil rich nations can be vital allies in eliminating the 
international terrorist threat. Nevertheless, we must not sacrifice our 
values in their courtship.
  One example clarifies my point. Kazakhstan's President Nursultan 
Nazarbayev rules with increasing dictatorial force on his populace. His 
family owns the only legally authorized media outlet in the country. 
The underground press are sought out and, in noted instances, 
brutalized. Opposition leaders such as Akezhan Kazhegeldin and others 
are banned from the country thereby preventing any true opposition 
party. President Nazarbayev has not honored his commitment to the 
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to allow 
constitutional rights of assembly, speech and representation for the 
people of Kazakhstan. A federal grand jury in New York is investigating 
serious allegations of bribery by oil interests resulting in the Swiss 
government freezing President Nazarbayev's and his family's secret 
Swiss bank accounts at the request of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
These are but a few examples.
  Mr. Speaker, the United States continues to put millions of dollars 
into our ally, Kazakhstan. However, one must ask what the average 
Kazakh citizen thinks of U.S. support during this time of tyranny. A 
recent editorial in The Economist suggested a frightening answer: 
``Where people conclude--as some already have--that America and its 
allies care about nothing except oil revenues and military bases, the 
West can come to seem the source of their travails, and they become 
easy converts to extremism.'' (I ask unanimous consent that the 
complete editorial be placed in the Record at the end of my remarks.)
  I am concerned for our long term relationship with the people of 
Kazakhstan and ask the Administration to pressure the Nazarbayev regime 
towards a return to democracy. Our

[[Page E1886]]

global war against terrorism demands that we work with many governments 
willing to help. In building these partnerships, it is our moral duty 
and in our national interest to advance democratic principles.

                   [From the Economist, May 4, 2002]

       Stopping the Rot--Using Western Influence in Central Asia


          Central Asia: Democracy and the sport of geopolitics

       On HIS tour this week of Central Asia, Donald Rumsfeld, 
     America's defense secretary, thanked the region's leaders 
     warmly for their contribution to the war in Afghanistan, They 
     had opened up their roads, railways, air corridors and 
     military bases. And they had been only too happy to help. The 
     Taliban and the armed Islamists they spawned had menaced each 
     one of these fragile new states. Yet fostering new military 
     relationships, important as these are, should not be the only 
     aim of western policy. Development and better government are 
     needed too.
       Kazakhstan, for example, looks set to become one of the 
     world's top oil producers. Yet evidence from other places 
     suggests that oil money can badly distort an economy as it 
     travels the short distance between western buyers and the 
     offshore bank accounts of cynical rulers. Outsiders can help 
     guard against that danger by keeping up pressure in these 
     former outposts of Soviet rule for more open societies, where 
     the strains of wrenching change can be absorbed by a healthy 
     degree of press freedom and political debate.
       Instead, in Kazakhstan and in Kirgizstan, the two most 
     committed until recently to market economics and multi-party 
     democracy, there have been arbitrary arrests and a crackdown 
     on the independent media, Meanwhile Uzbekistan, which aspires 
     to be the regional cop, has always had an authoritarian 
     tinge. No bad thing, some outsiders would say, when there are 
     unruly borders to guard and a real threat from Islamist 
     extremists. But leaders in all three places have clearly 
     taken their new-found strategic importance as an opportunity 
     to turn the screws on dissenters.
       Meanwhile Tajikistan and Turkmenistan offer cautionary 
     tales of the trouble that could infect the whole area if the 
     outside world turns a blind eye. For most of its first decade 
     of independence, Tajikistan was mired in a drug-fuelled civil 
     war that still has disastrous effects: Tajiks play a key role 
     in transporting Afghan heroin to Europe. In Turkmenistan, a 
     sterile personality cult has fostered poverty and human-
     rights abuses; the country at one point flirted with the 
     Taliban, and has failed to exploit or market its huge gas 
     reserves effectively,
       Tempting as it might sometimes seem for western governments 
     to shrug off Central Asia's creeping, authoritarianism as a 
     price worth paying in the bigger geopolitical and financial 
     game, that would be short-sighted--for pragmatic reasons as 
     well as for moral ones. Tyrannies with unhappy subjects are 
     unlikely to be reliable economic or strategic partners, Where 
     people conclude--as some already have--that America and its 
     allies care about nothing except oil revenues and military 
     bases, the West can come to seem the source of their 
     travails, and they become easy converts to extremism. Once 
     anti-western sentiment has taken hold, it can then be 
     cynically exploited by local despots (even those with cosy 
     relationships with the West) to distract attention from their 
     own misdeeds.
       What can western governments do? They cannot turn the 
     Region's leaders into paragons of democracy. Heavy-handed 
     pressure, applied to tough rulers still jealous of their 
     newly-won independence, can be counter-productive.
       Western governments would do better to give a helping hand 
     to those courageous individuals who are working to keep the 
     flame of independent thought flickering. Often the best 
     deliverers of such help are not embassies or visiting 
     politicians, but non-governmental agencies. Tiny amounts of 
     money--a printing press here, an internet-linked computer 
     there--can make the difference between survival or extinction 
     for a local party or lobby group.


                     encouragement where it counts

       To advocates of cold realism in foreign policy, such 
     concerns may smack of sentimentalism. As long as Central 
     Asia's rulers open their airfields to western military planes 
     and their oilfields to western corporations, does it matter 
     very much if they lock up their rivals or use electrodes on 
     their dissidents?
       Such arguments were once used to justify America's 
     unconditional support for the monarchy in Iran. When 
     opposition there finally burst into the open, it was not 
     inspired by western models but was driven by anti-western 
     rage. These days technology makes it even harder to maintain 
     repressive regimes and stamp down dissent. Ideas cross 
     frontiers more easily, no matter how hard tyrants try to 
     prevent this. Another good reason for western governments not 
     to collude with creeping authoritarianism in Central Asia, 
     but to use their influence to stop the rot.

     

                          ____________________