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SPEECH BY U.S. AMBASSADOR RICHARD E. HOAGLAND
CENTRAL ASIA AND CAUCASUS INSTITUTE
SCHOOL FOR ADVANCED INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY

WASHINGTON, DC, AUGUST 11, 2005

Thank you, Ambassador Smith, for that kind introduction. I am very grateful that the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies has given me this forum to present my unofficial and personal views of developments in Central Asia, and specifically in Tajikistan.

First, I want to define what I mean by the Corridor of Reform . Reform has two aspects - political and economic. When we consider the states of Central Asia, three of them can be considered generally on the path of reform - Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. Despite authoritarian tendencies, each of these three has an active civil society and varying degrees of relatively free political activity. Each has professed adherence to developing market economies, and has undertaken the banking, financial, and legislative reforms that can facilitate economic development and attract international investment.

But to geographically define this corridor, I look further - north to the central and Urals region of Russia, and south to Afghanistan, which is successfully engaged in nation-building for a pluralistic polity and a free, market economy. This is the corridor where Tajikistan plays a key linking role - from Russia, through the steppes, and over the mountains into Afghanistan - and, most important, at least for trade routes, into the warm-water ports of South Asia. Tajikistan's President Rahmonov and his ministers are fond of pointing out that their current exit to ports covers over 7,000 kilometers by land to the Baltic, whereas the ports of Gwadar and Karachi in Pakistan are only a little over 1,500 kilometers distant.

The U.S.-financed and -built bridge over the Pyanzh River from Tajikistan to Afghanistan, linking to the Ring Road in Afghanistan, will open up this trade route when the project is completed in 2007. Further, Tajikistan's development of its hydro-electric potential will allow Dushanbe to sell major amounts of electricity both north, possibly as far as the Urals, and, especially, south through Afghanistan to Pakistan and Iran. It is essential to recognize that the leaders of two countries in the region - Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan-have chosen for various reasons to isolate their nations and peoples from these historic developments. But the eastern side of Central Asia has not. And it is the eastern side of Central Asia that is the Corridor of Reform.

Let's now focus on Tajikistan, which, of course, I know best.

Tajikistan has made a remarkable recovery from its 1992-97 civil war. It has emerged as a geo-strategic player. As recently as four years ago, when I was the State Department's Director for Central Asia and the Caucasus, Tajikistan was still rather the "black hole" of U.S. foreign policy in the region. It was the country that we "worked around" for the most part, even though it shares a strategic 750-mile border with Afghanistan. Even now, once in a while when Washington visitors arrive in Dushanbe for the first time and drive along the verdant avenues past the increasingly well-restored historic buildings, they comment, "But I thought it was destroyed by the civil war!" Not true! With a residential building boom, and an increasing amount of commercial building, Dushanbe is a bustling international capital.

Pre-9/11 - and I emphasize, pre-9/11, early in 2001 - Tajikistan made a risky and historic decision to expel the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) from its territory, across the border into Afghanistan. What the U.S. KC-130s did to the IMU in northern Afghanistan in November 2001 is now part of history, and so, for the most part, is the IMU, except for a hard-core remnant on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, and its even harder-core offshoot, the Islamic Jihad Union. But Tajikistan refusing to be a terrorist training site and R&R haven was stage-one of its emergence as a credible regional and even international player.

Stage two began at the end of 2002 when President Rahmonov made his first important international trips to Paris and Washington. Those visits, as ceremonial as they appeared, were the first credible steps of Tajikistan building a fully international foreign policy. This was followed by then-Prime Minister of India Vajpay's November 2003 state visit to Dushanbe. And in the following year, President Rahmonov began an intensive calendar of visits to Southeast Asia, Europe, and elsewhere to build a multilateral foreign policy. In 2004 and 2005, Iran, China, and Russia have emerged as the winners of the most frequent flier miles into Dushanbe. But Rahmonov's foreign policy has always emphasized balance among the key international players. He practices realpolitik, and does it quite well, building the relationships that are in Tajikistan's national interest.

With international advice and assistance, Tajikistan has taken quite credible steps towards economic reform - and is aligning itself with the economic systems of Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. It is reforming and modernizing its banking and financial sectors, and it has conscientiously rewritten its legislation to conform to international standards. However, as always, consistent and fair implementation with transparency and respect for the sanctity of contracts will be the true test.

I'd like to suggest that there are still two more steps - which vested interests in Tajikistan have so far prevented - that are essential to begin to attract truly serious attention from Western investors. The country badly, badly needs regular international (Western European) air service - and not just a few weekly Tajik Air flights to Istanbul and Munich. It needs at least one Western air carrier that can provide reliable, convenient, Internet-accessible, and comfortable service for international business people. Second, Dushanbe simply must have, as soon as possible, an international-standard hotel. In the global economy, renovated In-Tourist hotels, with In-Tourist standards of amenities and services, simply will not cut it with international investors. They will simply say, "No thanks. I am more comfortable in Bishkek, Almaty, or Astana."

Politically, by international standards, Tajikistan has not done badly. Please understand that I that I am not a "good-news-only" ambassador. I clearly understand the serious impediments to real democratic development. Probably more than anyone else in Dushanbe, I have dealt with the political fall-out of the so-called color revolutions of the last 20 months (which I will come to in a moment). But I want to be objectively fair and tell you what is going right in Tajikistan.

As a result of the civil war peace settlement, Tajikistan is arguably the most politically pluralistic country in Central Asia. It has real political parties - not just government-created "pocket parties" - including the only legal Islamic party in the region. Furthermore, and of great importance, several years ago Tajikistan reformed its legislation to permit the simple and inexpensive registration of Tajik non-governmental organizations (NGOs). There are now about 2,000 Tajik NGOs on the books. Not all are active, of course. But I am deeply impressed that across the country - not just in a few big cities - the people of Tajikistan have instinctively understood the value and importance of public-private collaboration, and are taking the initiative to make a difference in their communities.

Let's move to a more contentious issue - free mass media. Here we've got a bit of a problem. Those publications and broadcasters that can be termed "opposition," except for a few party-identified newspapers, exist at their own peril, and more often than not get shut down, mainly through the post-Soviet penchant for legalistic nit-picking and invasive "tax inspections." But we have to recognize that there are indeed middle-of-the-road independent newspapers, and Internet news web-sites that do continue to exist, largely without harassment - although they clearly know their limits. The problem is that nearly 90% of the population receives its news and information from Tajik Government and Russian television, and secondarily from radio. So, we have to chalk up free media mainly in the negative column.

Elections, too have been a problem, from the June 2003 referendum that extended President Rahmonov theoretically two more terms in office to 2020, to the more recent February 2005 parliamentary election. That recent election was most interesting. The international community worked intensively with the Central Election Commission, and had reasonably good faith in its good will to do the right thing. Separate from the international observer groups, my embassy monitored these elections all over the country, even in more remote areas. We were deeply impressed by the Tajik people's readiness and willingness to take their civic responsibilities seriously. Unfortunately, some of the District Election Commissions, at the last moment, perhaps under the influence of certain intelligence bodies answering to the top levels of the government, manipulated the results to form a parliament minimally pluralistic and pleasing to the central government. This is honestly a tragedy, because - and I want to emphasize this - the government does not need to employ "administrative means" to achieve the results it thinks it needs. It honestly does enjoy a sizeable majority of support in the country. If the government would trust its own people more, it would emerge even stronger.

Now, I hope I haven't lost you while you have been scribbling your "Yes, but." comments and questions for our question and answer session. I want to tell you the threats that I see to the hope that I continue to maintain that Tajikistan will emerge as a truly important, international-standard regional player. While some threats are indeed internal, as I've just described, others are external.

I will be extremely blunt and say that the threat comes primarily from a very small minority in the Kremlin, sometimes referred to as the siloviki, who seem to be living in the past. And this threat comes in reaction - in the reactionary sense of the word - to the so-called color revolutions in Tbilisi, Kiev, and, to a lesser degree, in Bishkek. (What Karimov is trying to assert about a color revolution in Andijon is simply pretext for internal problems.) For the last 12 months, my most intense diplomatic engagement has been against the wrong interpretation of color revolutions . I have repeatedly told the Tajik Government, and I have said repeatedly in press interviews, that color revolutions developed from economic conditions that disadvantaged the general population; from massive corruption, especially at the top, that caused despair in the general populations; and, most important, from manipulated national elections. Eventually the people said, "Enough!"

Sometimes you hear from the Russian mass media that U.S. democracy NGOs are covert tools tasked with overthrowing existing governments. This is exasperating because it is such a distortion of reality! These U.S. NGOs, which work all over the world, seek to help governments reform, to make them more responsive to their populations, and, therefore, more successful. They do not seek radically to overthrow existing systems. I am pleased to tell you that there are most certainly those at the top levels of the Government of Tajikistan who concur with this analysis.

However, the Government and people of Tajikistan must contend with the regular propaganda that comes from the FSB siloviki and from some parts of the Russian military establishment. I have nothing but the highest respect for my Russian ambassadorial colleagues - former Ambassador Maksim Peshkov, now Director of the 4 th CIS Directorate in the Russian Foreign Ministry, and current Ambassador Ramazan Abulatipov. They are both high-quality professionals and true international gentlemen - subject, of course, to the policy dictates of their government. But it appears that the siloviki policy seeks, in neo-Cold War terms, to gain advantage in Central Asia, the supposed ex-Soviet sphere of influence," by feeding the Central Asian leaders' fear of color revolutions . This is so unfortunate because it harms the governments it seeks to influence.

It is one thing to advocate for status quo in Central Asia, as Russia has long done, and totally another to oppress 25 million people in the name of "anti-Americanism." Nearly four years ago, in November 2001, I instituted the first-ever U.S.-Russian consultations on Central Asia and the Caucasus. To the surprise of both sides, at the upper working level, we found much common ground - except on one absolute fundamental. Whereas I advocated for my government the necessity for political and economic reform in Central Asia, the Russian side advocated status quo - telling me that the United States was too naïve to understand the clan complexities of Central Asia.

The United States believes in people, that given the opportunity, they will make the right decisions. The current Russian leadership appears to believe in existing systems, especially those that benefit only the very few at the top. This is what I find so enormously ironic. The United States supports government from the grass roots up - we believe in "the people." That's the essential definition of democracy, which - with great irony - is rather a Marxist position. It would seem that current policy in Moscow supports the status quo in Central Asia even though it may not be in Russia's long-term national interest. I regret that some almost seem intent on igniting a New Great Game, a neo-Cold War. This, emphatically, is not U.S. Government policy.

Thank God that the Government of Tajikistan, rapidly emerging from its 1990s shell, doesn't totally buy this world view. One of my most constant messages to the leadership of Tajikistan is that we, the U.S. Government, fully support their independence and sovereignty and will not make irrational demands on them against their own perceived national interests. They are not anyone's "little brother" - neither Moscow's, Washington's, Brussels', or Beijing's. We expect that the Government of Tajikistan will make its own decisions based on Tajikistan's own best national interests. And I am pleased to say that, in general, and with occasional wobbles, that is exactly what they are doing.

Tajikistan has emerged, and continues to emerge, as an independent state, strategically crucial to a number of highly demanding countries, in a very tough neighborhood. It is increasingly a government on its own two feet, taking what it can get from the key players while balancing the multiple interests and pressures of the those key players.

ive years ago, who would ever have imagined such a strong, responsible, and geo-strategically clever Tajikistan? Who ever would have imagined Tajikistan as an essential state in the Corridor of Reform ?