Central Asian republics mark 10 years of independence

By Rudolph Chimelli

OSH, Kyrgyzstan: The co-pilot is last to board the plane after all the passengers are seated. In his hands he holds two drawn pistols. Then the cockpit door is closed and the plane takes off from the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek, for the snow-capped 5,000-metre peaks that line the Fergana Valley and its destination, Osh.

The painter who last gave the interior of the antique Yak-40 plane a lick of blue-green paint did not have a steady hand. Not one of the narrow seats is empty and the upholstery is worn and shabby. But there can be no complaints about the flight's punctuality or about the plane's technical reliability. Pilots and planes, all of them veterans of the air, almost find their way by homing instinct.

Even though it was a domestic flight, the passengers have a long wait in the burning sun until a tall gate is opened, giving them access to the city. Security has priority here, both on board and on the ground. The interior ministers of Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan met in Osh recently to ensure that the celebrations to mark the tenth anniversary of the Central Asian republics go ahead undisturbed.

Ten years ago the Soviet Union collapsed and with it Moscow's hegemony in the region. New flags with crescents and stars replaced the Red Flag, but in Bishkek and Tashkent, in Astana, Kazakhstan, and Dushanbe, Tajikistan, celebrations are under way in a manner strongly reminiscent of days of old. The anniversary is being observed with military parades, folk dance groups and children waving flowers, with flags and bunting on buildings, with fine words and fireworks and, above all, with draconian security precautions. That is hardly surprising, given that former local Communist Party leaders are still in power, ruling their countries as authoritarian heads of state.

Kyrgyz President Askar Akayev is the sole exception to this rule. Yet a gigantic statue of Lenin still stands in, of all places, the centre of his capital, Bishkek. "The only difference is that his hand has turned a little. Now he holds out an open hand to the world to collect donations," says a sarcastic passer- by.

Kyrgyzstan's Lenin statue is an exception. In Tashkent his place has long been taken by an equestrian statue of the Uzbek national hero Teimur-Lenk, known in the West as Tamerlane and who was seen by the Russians as a scourge who raped and pillaged. Strength and Justice, the wording on the plinth tersely proclaims in three languages.

In the nearby Univermag department store, a long line of people has formed on the ladies' fashion floor. Many men are in the line too. The grapevine has spread the message that subsidised sugar is on sale there for 370 som (roughly 60 cents) a kilogram. At the central crossroads on Rashidov Novoi Street, sullen military cadets planted seedlings months ago that have since grown to spell out the slogan 10 Years in flowers. In the background the steel skeleton of an unfinished high-rise block has pointed skyward for 16 years.

"Assalomu aleikum," says Uzbek President Islam Karimov, who has mutated formally to pluralism, addressing his fellow- countrymen with the religious greeting on the festive day. When I first visited Karimov's home town of Samarkand about 25 years ago, friends in Moscow asked me to take garlic with me for their relatives there. In those days the Uzbeks could not even get hold of the ingredients for their national dish plov (mutton and rice).

The central market that used to be run by Tashkent's municipal Soviet is now a city business complex. Traders with cheap gold jewellery fill the first hall. On the fruit stalls there are even apples from Italy's South Tyrol. The satire that once might have been entitled Garlic for Samarkand needs a new title. Yet independence has brought prosperity nowhere.

Punctually for the celebrations, King Juan Carlos of Spain has arrived in neighbouring Kazakhstan in response to an invitation from "his friend" Nursultan Nazarbayev, the Kazakh president. The Pope is expected at the end of the month. Central Asia is, for the most part, Islamic but nearly half the population of Kazakhstan consists of Christian settlers, including Catholics from the west of the former Soviet Union who were deported to the steppes by Stalin.

To pre-empt separatist moves by the Slav third of the population, President Nazarbayev moved his capital almost in the manner of a coup d'etat 1,000 kilometres north-west from Almaty to Astana. Some government buildings that purport to be post- modern in design rise up in the treeless plain. So do a new university and a museum. But the new capital was not built in anywhere near as pompous a manner as Nazarbayev's critics claim.

But no one wants to make the move. When the president is driven from his official residence to his seat of government, excited, whistle-blowing militiamen close the roads a quarter of an hour ahead of him. President Nazarbayev has no problems with monuments in what used to be a small provincial town. There wasn't much to demolish in Astana, and for Almaty a solution worthy of King Solomon was found.

All the Soviet worthies commemorated in ore and marble have been moved to a park on the outskirts of the city, but no one seems to know where this cemetery of monuments is. The Russian Orthodox cathedral in the former capital has been restored magnificently. Beneath the trees alongside it a private entrepreneur has set up screens and speakers on old kitchen furniture. He charges 50 tenge (roughly 15 cents) for a karaoke solo and 100 for a duet.

Dozens of Antonov biplanes are parked out the outskirts of the airfield at Osh. They used to fertilise the rich fields of the Fergana Valley from the air, but they now take off only sporadically. Funds are not available. Osh is known as the Mecca of Central Asia. Pilgrims climb paths with no shade to a mountain peak that houses antennas and King Solomon's throne, a Muslim shrine. Strips of cloth tied to the leafless shrubs testify to vows taken. In a pleasantly cool cave below the mountaintop a guard swears that everyone who creeps on will reach the real Mecca in just three days.

The old Abdullah Khan Mosque at the foot of the mountain is surrounded by a green oasis of mulberry, plane and elm trees. The inhabitants of Osh are convinced they live at a place that is mysteriously crossed by power lines of the world. They certainly live at a fracture point. Back in the 19th century Russia and Britain competed in the Great Game for supremacy over Central Asia.

Along divide-and-rule principles Stalin divided the Fergana Valley, the most densely populated area in the region and both a geographical and an economic unit between Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Predominantly Uzbek Osh was awarded to Kyrgyzstan even though the border with Uzbekistan is only three kilometres away. When the Soviet Union collapsed, blood was shed in riots between ethnic groups in the small town. Hundreds, if not thousands of people, were killed before the Red Army intervened one last time.

In the old part of the town the Uzbeks are largely on their own with their traditional houses, mosques and schools. The new part is inhabited by Kyrgyz, Tartars, Russians, Koreans or other minorities. Namangan, a stronghold of Uzbek Islamists, is only 100 kilometres away. When they still had the upper hand, a fully veiled woman was occasionally seen scuttling through the streets. Today, the police are everywhere.

In Uzbekistan they arrest young men by the dozen who attend unauthorised public meetings. They have been known to arrest the young men's relatives too. There are mullahs who have a bottle of vodka at the ready on a shelf. When the police knock at their door they take a quick slug of vodka to prove they aren't strict and fundamentalist Muslims. Dzhuma Hodzhiyev, the leader of the underground extremists, calls himself Namangani after his native city.

He lives either in Tajikistan, where he enjoys protection by marriage, or in Afghanistan. Several times in recent years his armed supporters have crossed the mountains and infiltrated Kyrgyzstan. As a terrorist sentenced to death, Namangani has made common cause with a man worse than the devil, the Saudi terrorist Osama bin Laden, in the latter's Afghan exile. There is a psychological reason why Namangani is officially styled the No. 1 enemy of the state in Kyrgyzstan. He and President Karimov once met.

When Karimov first went on the hustings in December 1991, he had been Communist Party leader in the Uzbek Soviet Republic until only a few months earlier. Backed by the Party machine and the cotton Mafia, he could afford to see his election as a mere formality. But in Namangan something unexpected happened. Several hundred young people surrounded the town hall. Namangani, then 23, and his friend Taher Yoldachev, also 23, grabbed the microphone from Karimov. "You will only speak with our permission," Yoldachev yelled with outstretched index finger.

A leader of the long-prohibited Erk Party who now lives in exile recalls the scene: "Taher made only one demand. The candidate had to swear on the Koran that if he were elected he would set up a religious state. The subdued Karimov promised everything. It was the greatest humiliation of his life." At the polls, held a few days later, Karimov polled 86, the Erk candidate 13 percent. Karimov has never forgotten.