Qishloq Ovozi (Archive)

Uzbekistan has welcomed a U.S. law that, according to Uzbekistan's media at least, supports Tashkent's opposition to the construction of large hydropower projects (HPP) by its Central Asian neighbors.

As reported by Uzbek media, this law would severely curtail the ability of international financial organizations to provide funding for building large HPPs, for example, the kind being planned in neighboring Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

There are key details being omitted in these Uzbek claims and those will be mentioned further down. For now, it's important to understand what the people in eastern Central Asia are hearing and believe.

Speaking with journalists in Tashkent on January 30 about the U.S. law, the director of Uzbekistan's Gidroproyekt Institute, Sergei Zhigarev, said the law "directly obliges the U.S. representatives in the boards of directors of international financial institutions to oppose the approval of any loans or document that would support projects on the construction of large dams and hydroenergy facilities."

He noted the United States was the "biggest shareholder and donor" of many major international financial institutions. Zhigarev listed "the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the International Development Association, the Asian Development Bank, [and] the Asian Development Fund" as being among the organizations where U.S. officials would now be expected to object to funding for large HPP projects. Those comments were on the front page of newspapers in Uzbekistan, "Pravda vostoka" for one.

Not surprisingly, some people in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are concerned. The governments in those two countries have been telling their people for years that large HPPs are the way to energy independence and an end to heating and electricity shortages. Both countries are currently planning to build large HPPs. And considering how brutal winter has been in Central Asia recently, Zhigarev's comments come at a very bad time.

The subject came up in Dushanbe on February 11, when Tajik journalists asked visiting World Bank Vice President for Europe and Central Asia Laura Tuck about the U.S. law. Tuck was in Tajikistan to announce the World Bank's feasibility study on the Roghun HPP -- a project Uzbekistan opposes -- would be completed by the middle of this year. Tuck said she knew about the law but declined to comment.*

Tuck might have chosen to refrain discussing the issue because, according to an article in "The Washington Post" on January 24, the new U.S. law is aimed at the World Bank and seeks to tighten oversight of the bank's lending practices. According to the article, the bill came partially in response to past bank-funded HPP projects in Guatemala, where hundreds of villagers were killed, and Ethiopia, where thousands were forcibly resettled. Central Asia doesn't seem to be specifically mentioned.

Those are some of the details Uzbek media has left out.

No U.S. official has yet provided any statement on what the new law means for hydropower in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. But "The Washington Post" article notes, "The U.S. vote alone would not be enough to block hydroelectric and other projects from moving forward."

And there are some good reasons the new U.S. law will have little, if any effect on construction of the Roghun HPP in Tajikistan, or the Kambar-Ata-1 HPP in Kyrgyzstan. The best reason is that the money for building the Kyrgyz and Tajik HPPs is not coming from any of the international financial institutions where the U.S. has a presence.

Russia abandoned the Roghun project due to disagreements over the size of the HPP (planned to be the tallest in the world) and ownership shares. The Tajik government has since been going it alone and advertising Roghun as a patriotic project, encouraging, some would say forcing, citizens to donate from their own pockets.

The World Bank is only doing an assessment of the project, exactly the sort of assessment the Uzbek government has been demanding.

And Russian companies are building Kambar-Ata in Kyrgyzstan. Tashkent is also demanding an independent assessment of that project.

Kyrgyzstan's Energy Ministry pointed out in February 2012 that such an assessment was already conducted in the 1980s "by the Tashkent department of project-investigation and scientific-research institute 'Gidroproyekt.'" The 1978 feasibility study on Roghun was also conducted by Gidroproyekt.

Another reason the Kyrgyz and Tajik HPPs are unlikely to affected by the U.S. law is the Central Asia-South Asia project, or CASA-1000.

CASA-1000 aims to provide Afghanistan and Pakistan with 1,300 megawatts of electricity annually (1,000 for Pakistan and 300 for Afghanistan). The U.S. government and international organizations such as the World Bank support the project. Washington pledged $15 million toward the project in December 2013. The World Bank and Islamic Development Bank have promised up to $1 billion. The latest round of negotiations on the project started in Washington on February 11.

CASA-1000 is dependent on hydroelectricity from Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. While it is true the plan is based on HPPs that already exist, it is also true that those HPPs are currently not able to supply all the electricity needed in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

So for CASA-1000 to work, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan need to build Kambar-Ata and Roghun. Washington would have a difficult time convincing Bishkek or Dushanbe to forego construction of these large HPPs and at the same time divert power badly needed at home to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Journalist Hillary Kramer has argued for Roghun's construction in articles in "Forbes" magazine. Kramer wrote in March 2013 that the extra electricity from Roghun would provide "cheap, secure, and sustainable energy to Tajikistan, and its neighbors, including the northern regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan" and have a beneficial effect on security in the region.

*The World Bank representative in Tajikistan, Abdullo Ashurov, sent RFE/RL's Tajik Service a message saying the World Bank was "aware of the new provision in the United States' law regarding large hydroelectric dams" but "given that these are sovereign decisions, the World Bank does not comment or form an opinion on these instructions."

RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service contacted Energy and Industry Minister Osmonbek Artykbaev, who said he did not know about the U.S. law and that the World Bank had not said anything to Kyrgyz officials about the U.S. law or its possible impact on the country's HPP projects. Artykbaev said plans for Kambar-Ata and the Upper Naryn cascade HPPs are going ahead.

Sojida Djakhfarova and Salimjon Aioubov of RFE/RL's Tajik Service and Gulaiym Ashakeeva of RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service contributed to this article

Turkmenistan has been called an isolationist state and a "hermit kingdom" for many reasons, but one reason is surely the difficulty of getting objective information from the country.

One of the correspondents from RFE/RL's Turkmen Service, Radio Azatlyk --- Ogulsapar Muradova -- died in prison in September 2006, apparently as a result of being severely beaten. In November 2003, Azatlyk correspondent Saparmurat Ovezberdiev was forced into a vehicle, taken to a cemetery outside Ashgabat, beaten, and dumped beside the road. And then there are all those Azatlyk correspondents detained and arrested over the last 20 years.

But Azatlyk is still working and still has correspondents in Turkmenistan trying to report on what is happening inside the country, Authorities there haven't done anything to make that easy.

All the incidents cited below happened between mid-December 2013 and late January 2014.

First, Azatlyk's correspondents are well aware of the situation and the rules in Turkmenistan: You don't look for information that would make the government look bad, and if you happen to obtain such information you run a big risk in making it known to the outside world.

But some topics are fair game and social problems are possible to report about, even though, as we will see, the boundaries are not well defined.

An attempt to report on long ticket lines at the train station in the southern city of Mary resulted in an Azatlyk correspondent spending two-and-a-half hours at a local police station.

The correspondent was filming the line to purchase tickets, not any other part of the train station. When police approached him, he identified himself as a correspondent for Azatlyk and explained his purpose. At the station, agents from the organized crime and counterterrorism department joined police in questioning the correspondent. In the end the film was deleted and the correspondent was advised not to film in areas that are considered to be strategic facilities.

Another story involved another long line -- this time automobiles waiting to undergo mandatory vehicle inspections in the eastern part of the country. Official certification of a vehicle is important for car owners because, with it, they can claim their free allotment of gasoline, so people must endure queuing.

An Azatlyk correspondent wanted to do a report on the long wait for certification and started filming the scene on their cell phone. Police spotted this journalistic activity and moved in, taking the Azatlyk correspondent to the local police where two agents from the organized crime and counterterrorism department also took part in questioning that lasted some six hours. In the end, the phone, with all the pictures deleted, was returned along with the reporter's personal documents.

An Azatlyk correspondent in Ashgabat went to cover police evicting people from their basement apartments. As the correspondent was filming someone started pulling on the camera from behind, not to take it, but simply to disrupt filming. The camera was damaged. The culprit turned out to be a policeman. The correspondent later went to the police station to confront the person responsible for damaging the camera. The policeman apologized, but did not offer to replace the device.

The anniversary of Goekdepe was January 12. It commemorates the 1881 massacre of Turkmen by Russian forces at Goekdepe and has been marked in Turkmenistan since it became independent after the disintegration of the Soviet Union.

It is a big event and state media covers it every year, but not Azatlyk this year. An Azatlyk correspondent attending ceremony at Goekdepe tried to film prayers being said but a man moved alongside and continually jostled the correspondent so it was impossible to film. An argument broke out and the Azatlyk correspondent was hustled out of the hall where the ceremony was being held.

Turkmenistan held parliamentary elections in December. Western organizations, such as the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), sent teams to watch (not monitor officially) Turkmenistan's elections.

The OSCE people gave press conferences and made some critical comments about the conduct of campaigning and elections. The Azatlyk correspondent going to cover one such event was stopped by security and detained for nearly three hours before being released to catch the very end of the press conference.

There's more, but that probably gives a good enough picture of what it's like to try to report from Turkmenistan.

It's hardly boasting to note that RFE/RL has correspondents reporting from very dangerous places and often these people are risking their lives to get valuable information out to the public.

Turkmenistan does not receive as much attention as many of these other places, but the commitment and hardship of Azatlyk correspondents is not less than that of their colleagues in Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

-- Muhammad Tahir, Bruce Pannier