Qishloq Ovozi (Archive)

RFE/RL's Turkmen Service, Azatlyk, has been following events along the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan border for several months now, describing the situation of the Afghan Turkmen and their relationship with Turkmenistan.

For the last few years neither was very good.

Azatlyk produced a series of reports from one of the villages on the Afghan side of the border, where residents have repeatedly complained that the river that divides Afghanistan from Turkmenistan in their area, the Amu Darya, is pushing southward, eating away their arable land and forcing them to move into the harsh desert.

They also protested that islands that have risen emerged in the middle of the Amu Darya, once part of Afghan land, were off-limits to them and their animals as Turkmen border guards regularly arrested and jailed Afghan Turkmen found on these islands.

After Azatlyk's reports, at the end of March, amid Norouz festivities in Kabul, Afghan Turkmen tribal elders met with Turkmenistan's Foreign Minister Rashid Meredov to plead for the Turkmen government's help in stopping the southerly push the Amu Darya and resolve the problem of use of the islands.

Meredov promised help would come but it was not clear at that time when that and might arrive.

Abdukadyr Maliya of the Jowzjan provincial council told Azatlyk a delegation from Turkmenistan arrived on the Afghan side of the border, in the Khamyab district, on April 16.

Maliya said officials from Turkmenistan's Lebap Province, including the provincial prosecutor's office, and from Turkmenistan's border guards met with officials from Afghanistan's Qarqeen and Khamyab districts. A memorandum was signed laying out the basic terms of future aid.

Turkmenistan will help build a retaining wall along 30 kilometers of the Amu Darya bank in the Qarqeen district and 16 kilometers in the Khamyab district to prevent the river from devouring any more of the land on the Afghan side of the border.

Additionally, the Afghan Turkmen are now able to bring their cattle to a large island to graze.

It was unclear if there was any progress in freeing Afghan Turkmen imprisoned in Turkmenistan after being caught on these islands, but the presence of representatives of the Lebap prosecutor's office perhaps indicates the topic was discussed at the meeting.

And, according to Abdukadyr Maliya, the Turkmen government delegation promised to resume sending electricity to villages on the Afghan side of the border. Maliya could not say exactly when that would happen but he did say it would be "soon."

-- Bruce Pannier, with contributions from Muhammad Tahir of RFE/RL's Turkmen Service

Looking for some in-depth knowledge about Central Asia from an authority in the field?

Need it in a hurry?

Or are you already an authority in Central Asian studies but are having trouble gaining some notoriety?

Or maybe you are looking for someone to compare notes with on some Central Asian topic, someone from Central Asia, or someone who has spent some serious time in the region.

The Central Eurasian Scholars and Media Initiative, or CESMI, can help solve all these problems.

CESMI is a bridge, two bridges actually: one connecting the Central Asia to the West, and another connecting Central Asian scholars to those in the media who are reporting about Central Asia.

The recently started project is run by a group of bright, ambitious, and highly motivated people, all volunteers, in areas stretching from the western borders of China to the western coast of North America. They are out to show Kipling might not have been entirely correct about the “twain.”

Jeanne Feaux de la Croix is the German-based junior research leader of CESMI and since 2006 has been traveling every year to Kyrgyzstan for fieldwork, with side trips to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. She is currently working on a comparative study of water issues in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

“Both journalists and scholars do research and offer their results and opinions to the public, but they do this in very different ways,” she said. “Like a race horse, journalists have to chase deadlines and supply the public with the most up-to-date information possible. More like the Central Asian camels of old, scholars take their time in delivering their ’goods’, but have rich parcels to offer at the end."

Getting those “rich parcels” into media reports is the difference between a cursory and a comprehensive look at events.

Maral Madieva-Martin is originally from Bishkek but currently lives in Paris. Madieva-Martin has worked for the World Bank and Save the Children UK in Central Asia as well as conducting field research in 2005 for the UNODC on the narcotics situation in southern Kyrgyzstan. She is currently a consultant on Central Asian affairs for the French Foreign Ministry, the Indian Embassy and the Kyrgyz Embassy in Belgium.

She mentioned the need for “quality knowledge” about Central Asia is most required in the Central Asian countries themselves. State media is dominant in four of the five Central Asian states and Madieva-Martin noted that in the fifth country, her homeland of Kyrgyzstan, while there is “an abundance of news outlets, most [are] owned by politicians and a balanced view is becoming a rarity.”

Madieva-Martin also said, “media cooperation between Central Asia and the West can have numerous benefits, including: giving a voice to unbiased opinions or takes on crucial events; direct access to local informed sources in Central Asia, promotion of opinions of Central Asia specialists including journalists to offer an alternative to Russian media outlets.”

Sounds a little bit like Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty; and at this point I’ll mention that the BBC Central Asian Service, thanks to Hamid Ismailov, has made space available for CESMI members to post their blogs (“My Take On”) in English, Kyrgyz, or Uzbek.

CESMI, by its nature and considering the nationalities of its members, is a multilingual organization and tries to promote the publication and broad dissemination of work in a number of languages. The CESMI website, for example, is in English and Russian but work is under way to have more languages represented.

CESMI was formed after the June 2010 interethnic violence in southern Kyrgyzstan when scholars well acquainted with that area watched with frustration as big media outlets struggled to understand and report the roots of the problems.

Jeanne was one of the founders as was Gulnara Aitpaeva from Kyrgyzstan, but the idea for CESMI predates 2010 and is the brainchild of John Schoeberlein, formerly of Harvard University, currently teaching at Nazarbaev University in Astana.

And if you don’t know who John Schoeberlein is, and you claim to know something about Central Asia, all I can say is shame on you.

Seriously.

If I had to count off the top five people in the field of Central Asian studies today on one hand, Dr. John would certainly be one of those fingers. I won’t say which finger (joking, we've known each other a long time).

John, who has been studying Central Asia since the early 1980s, has dreamed of bridges between Central Asia and the West for more than a decade and he has found qualified people to help realize this dream.

CESMI is not simply advertizing the expertise of its members. CESMI also organizes a variety of events.

Till Mostowlansky, currently living in Switzerland was CESMI’s first president and is still on CESMI’s board. Till previously did research in Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, and Tajikistan, in the latter country he focused on life in the Pamir Mountains (his dissertation topic), but he has also traveled around the other Central Asian countries.

Till pointed out, “CESMI members have organized events such as roundtables at conferences from the US to Central Asia since 2011. There is a very active group in Almaty organizing a workshop for scholars at the moment.”

Jesko Schmoller is a Berlin-based Central Asia scholar who has been conducted his field work mainly in Uzbekistan, since 2006, but like all the CESMI people mentioned here, has done a fair amount of traveling around other parts of the region.

Jesko has arranged roundtable panel discussions at Central Asian conferences. One of the most recent was at the last annual conference of the Central Eurasian Studies Society in Madison, Wisconsin last October. That panel included Monica Whitlock of the BBC, author of several books, including “Beyond The Oxus: The Central Asians” and Navbahor Imamova from Voice of America’s Uzbek Service and provided the mainly academic audience at the conference with an opportunity to ask questions and exchange views on what constitutes good, accurate coverage of Central Asian events.

One of CESMI’s goals is to help scholars communicate better with the public, through the media.

Jesko summed up the potential symbiotic relationship between the two fields this way: “Academic knowledge is very specific and can help a journalist writing on a particular topic to frame the article. Journalists, on the other hand, usually know better how to bring out the essence of an event or a phenomenon.”

Daniyar Karabaev is an ethnic Kyrgyz from the Murghab district in Tajikistan’s Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast. Daniyar studied at Khorog State University before moving on to the OSCE Academy on Central Asian Politics in Bishkek, then receiving a second MA in international studies at Tsukuba University in Japan.

Working with other CESMI members, Daniyar is attempting to change what he called “inactive cooperation of local scholars and media representatives” in Kyrgyzstan.

Daniyar is currently organizing a workshop for local journalists and scholars “aimed at building a good bridge for collaborative cooperation.”

To be sure, others have a hand in working with or helping CESMI. The pedigree of its founders and the organizations helping the group testify to the fact that those knowledgeable in Central Asian studies see something special in CESMI.

CESMI’s advisory board also includes, Dr. Beate Eschment (Zentralasien Analysen, Germany) Professor Eric Freedman (Michigan State University), Dr. Madeleine Reeves (University of Manchester), Bettina Ruigies (Deutsche Welle Academy, Germany), and Chris Schwartz (Neweurasia/University Leuven, Belgium).

It cost nothing to become a member. CESMI is assembling an “experts directory” on its website and though it is still a short list the qualifications of those on it speaks for itself.

CESMI member Emily Canning has already done a book review for Qishloq Ovozi and it is my hope we will hear from more CESMI members in the coming weeks and months.

Central Asia has long been, is still and will continue to be a major crossroad of civilizations. Therefore, understanding what is happening and why it is happening will be important and people like those involved with CESMI hold this knowledge.

And it is only one click away on your computer.

-- Bruce Pannier