REFLECTIONS ON THREE YEARS IN TAJIKISTAN

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 05 DUSHANBE 001439 SIPDIS SIPDIS FROM THE AMBASSADOR STATE FOR P, R, M, SCA, EUR, INR, DRL, S/P E.O. 12958: DECL: 7/28/2016 TAGS: PREL PGOV ECON EAID AMGT KPAO KDEM RS TI SUBJECT: REFLECTIONS ON THREE YEARS IN TAJIKISTAN REF: DUSHANBE 1420, "AMBASSADOR'S FAREWELL CALL ON PRESIDENT RAHMONOV" DUSHANBE 00001439 001.2 OF 005 CLASSIFIED BY: Richard E. Hoagland, Ambassador, Embassy Dushanbe, State Department. REASON: 1.4 (b),(d) ¶1. (C) Three years ago, before I arrived in Dushanbe, I noticed wryly that nearly every reporting cable from the Post seemed to include the descriptive phrase, "Tajikistan, destroyed by civil war~." Greatly harmed and set back? Yes. Destroyed? No. Especially not the spirit of the nation and people. Until I lived here, I didn't understand the importance of the fact that Tajiks are Persian, not Turkic - and that seems to make a subtle but very important difference. I have found the people, from market ladies to high-school teachers to the highest officials, pleasantly open to new ideas, quietly confident about their historical and intellectual heritage stretching back to the medieval Islamic Renaissance in Bukhara and Samarkand, always calculating their self interests and national interests, but moving toward a better future. ¶2. (C) Tajikistan is a remarkable success story for a small new country, the poorest of the former Soviet Republics before independence, that has pulled itself up by its bootstraps and is determined to move forward. Of course it's not smooth sailing all the way. As an optimistic realist, I would never de-emphasize the negatives, of which there are many. But I am impressed by this plucky little country land-locked in a geographically and ideologically dangerous neighborhood. As President Rahmonov has frequently told me, "Tajikistan didn't choose its neighbors." He gets easily exasperated by some of the more pushy regional powers, especially Russia, and is constantly worried about unpredictable Uzbekistan. He says, "Karimov is a sick person. He's dangerous." All the more reason why Rahmonov praises the tact and objectivity of senior U.S. officials who visit him. Our values stand us in good stead with this outspoken leader who often wears his heart on his sleeve. He may physically look like Brezhnev-lite, but he's shrewd and has been a quick study. MISSION NORMALIZED ¶3. (SBU) I arrived at Embassy Dushanbe with a mandate from the Department to normalize the Mission. When I arrived, the chancery was a charming but shockingly make-shift compound of three local houses cobbled together in a traditional, narrow-laned neighborhood in the center of the city. With superlative support from the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, we made it as safe as possible, to protect our people, but let's say it didn't meet Inman standards. The previous Ambassador lived, by choice, in two rooms above the garage. Most of the 14 U.S. direct hires, still technically posted "off-shore" in Almaty, lived in group housing at this then-unaccompanied, danger-pay Post. They couldn't venture outdoors without an armed bodyguard and traveled around the city in fully armored vehicles by day. By night, they were not allowed out without specific permission. This was unnecessary by 2003, but the Mission hadn't caught up with the times. ¶4. (SBU) Thanks to sustained efforts by OBO, we now have a state-of-the-art, purpose-built chancery, which was truly the project from hell, but is now an over-engineered marvel. All 34-plus U.S. direct hires (soon to be 40-plus) have decent, standard housing. More important, they may have lost danger pay but they lead normal private lives that include their spouses, members of household, and minor dependents. Whereas the Department previously had to approve every TDY country-clearance request, we now make our own decisions, welcoming a constant flow of visitors from multiple U.S. Government Departments and Military Commands. The Ambassador has a decent Residence DUSHANBE 00001439 002.2 OF 005 appropriate to represent the interests and standards of the United States. ¶5. (U) All of this is thanks to sustained, above-and-beyond support from multiple senior State Department officials who trusted us "to do the right thing" and supported our decisions. For their trust and support, I am truly grateful. "WHY DON"T THEY LISTEN TO US?" ¶6. (C) After 9/11, the U.S. Government formulated a policy that said our relationships in Central Asia would be qualitatively different. We confirmed a fundamental policy that has not appreciably changed since then: that political reform to build democracy and strong civil society, and economic reform to achieve an open market economy, would lead to long-term stability and eventual prosperity for this strategic region. We formulated our assistance, and our diplomatic talking points, to achieve these goals. But five years down the road (just five years!),Tajikistan has still not fully embraced Thomas Jefferson and Adam Smith, although I believe it is still scrabbling sideways toward those goals. We have to ask ourselves, "Why haven't they done better? Why don't they listen to us?" ¶7. (C) I well remember at the end of 2001 and beginning of 2002, in the mad rush to formulate a coherent policy for the region, some of us warned change would not happen overnight. In fact, we predicted it would take several generations. Slowly, each succeeding generation would wring more of the past from its worldview. And we hoped the United States would be patient enough to stay the course through thick and thin. For the most part, we have indeed stayed the course - especially with partners that in general want to work with us, like Tajikistan. But for some, it's difficult and frustrating to understand why Tajikistan hasn't moved farther, faster. Some hurdles: TAJIK INCOMPREHENSION ¶8. (C) They - the government and citizens of Tajikistan - sometimes don't really know what we are talking about. From a pre-modern khanate, through the Russian and then the Soviet Empires, they were radically isolated from Western thought and information. And they are still, even increasingly, isolated from Western information, and are bombarded by Russian disinformation. They experienced culturally and intellectually neither the European Renaissance nor the Western Enlightenment, which fundamentally shape our political ideals; and during the Soviet years they were propagandized to feel pity and disdain for the decadent and oppressive West. And now, we preach that our model will lead them to a blessed future. They heard similar from the Bolsheviks in the 1920s. ¶9. (C) All of our laudable values and goals, in which we truly believe, come wrapped in our full cultural understanding of their meanings and complex historical and intellectual connotations. Each of our short-hand bullet points contains a wealth of assumed cultural information and historical understanding about democracy and free markets that the Tajiks simply do not have. They, it sometimes seems, are in a graduate seminar taught in a foreign language, trying to take careful notes, hoping they'll pick up enough to pass Professor USA's exam in Reform 101. RUSSIA ¶10. (C) I'm not sure the United States still fully comprehends the power, at least in this region, of resurgent Russia under the sovereign autocrat (not democrat) Putin. In November 2001, when I helped initiate the first-ever formal U.S.-Russia consultations on Central Asia and the Caucasus, all of what has DUSHANBE 00001439 003.2 OF 005 come to pass was already present in our Russian colleagues' sometimes sincere but often smolderingly resentful conversations. In 2001, a somewhat bedraggled Russia was just beginning to surface from the 1998 financial collapse and the lawless decade of the sort-of-charming but erratic and too-often tipsy Yeltsin. Now, we have an acid-tongued, sober, self-confident, and demanding Putin, with a full complement of corporately corrupt siloviki, heading an increasingly hydrocarbon-wealthy Russia returning genetically to its neo-imperialistic impulses. No, Putin-and-Company won't reconstruct the Soviet Union, but he is damn well doing his best to create a virtual image of it, at least with those who will play in his political and economic sandbox. ¶11. (C) We have pooh-poohed and smirked at all the new Russia-originated "international organizations" - like the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Commonwealth Security Treaty Organization, the Eurasian Economic Community - dismissing them as Soviet-style talk-shops of no substance. They are growing in substance, and have tapped into the last 80 years of Soviet political culture that insists on the legally binding quality of international agreements (at least those it initiates or agrees with) and legalistically demands law, if not justice. ¶12. (C) As President Rahmonov told me on July 19 (reftel), Tajikistan is now entrapped in a "spider web" of new, legally binding agreements and cannot make fully independent decisions "without consultation and consensus." Further, the Tajik economy's reliance on remittances from maybe as many as a million labor migrants working in Russia is a Sword of Damocles the Kremlin can dangle over Rahmonov's head. ¶13. (C) Resurgent Russia, demanding exclusive control of its "sphere of influence," demanding exclusive control of its "near abroad" from the "encircling West that want to limit, even harm, it" may be a passing phase, and maybe the eventual demographic implosion of Russia will deflate this noisome balloon; but it has complicated and is subverting U.S. goals for the region. To support the sovereignty and independence of those who will work with us, like Tajikistan, we need to swallow hard, accept this reality, and redouble our efforts to try to create a true partnership with Russia for the region - where we can - but also think outside of the box how we can best truly communicate with and support those states, like Tajikistan, who do truly, if not wholly clearly, understand they must protect their sovereignty. If, however, we put Central Asia far down on our agenda with Russia, then it's Russia's by default. "COLOR REVOLUTIONS" ¶14. (C) Rahmonov almost accepts our repeatedly stressed points that "color revolutions" occurred because of chronically stagnant economies where only the favored few prospered; pervasive corruption, including at the very top; and were triggered by fixed elections to keep the crooks in power. Yet his Russia-dominated Ministry of Security constantly feeding him the Kremlin line that "subversive" U.S. NGOs are to blame gives him more than second thoughts. ¶15. (C) Tajikistan looks around the neighborhood and has few good examples of democratic development. The situation in Kyrgyzstan particularly unsettles the Tajiks and serves as a cautionary tale about too much reform, too fast. Very senior Tajik officials still cite the "events in Andijon and Bishkek" as cautionary tales. VESTED INTERESTS AND CORRUPT PERSONAL RELATIONS ¶16. (C) President Rahmonov is fond of recounting his fatherly advice to Afghanistan's President Karzai: "If you want peace, DUSHANBE 00001439 004.2 OF 005 bring the warlords down out of the mountains and make them rich." That's what Rahmonov did after the Tajik Civil War, but the trade-off has been informal economic fiefdoms based on personal relations, with much of the economy in the gray zone. I believe Rahmonov somewhat understands to be an effective leader he has to "normalize" the economy. Two years ago, he offered an amnesty to get "black cash" back into the country, out of the mattresses, and into the banks. In his April 2006 annual address to the nation, he suggested it's time for a property amnesty to get the off-the-books businesses and, especially the plethora of new, increasingly huge, McMansions into the tax books. ¶17. (C) But it's not easy. If he pushes too hard, too fast, the current delicate balance among the clans is upset - which is likely why he holds his nose and maintains ditente with the politically ambitious and wildly corrupt Mayor of Dushanbe Mahmadsaid Obaidulloyev. Further, Rahmonov himself doesn't set the best example, with First Brother-in-Law Hasan Sadulloyev greatly enriching the family with large chunks of the economy through his various holding companies and Orien Bank. ¶18. (C) During the 2001-2003 U.S.-Russia consultations on Central Asia, our Russian colleagues never failed to tell us condescendingly that we don't understand the clans. In fact, that's true. In Tajikistan, it's only recently that we have begun to gather this kind of information. Much more needs to be done. ¶19. (C) Better understanding Tajikistan's clans would help us better comprehend the internal politics beneath the surface and why full-fledged Western democracy will be a long time coming. Political parties are mostly irrelevant, except the Party of Power, whichever that may be. The ruling clan has predominant power and, thus, the wealth from the spoils of power. ¶20. (C) To some in the West, Rahmonov appears to be an oriental despot who picks off his political opponents as soon as they stick their heads above the foxhole. To others, he's one more example of a product of his time and place, his Soviet education and his youthful collective farm experience. I believe what he's really doing is trying to balance interests - his own, his Dangaran clan's, and his nations. Decidedly not our taste, but that's the reality. WE DON"T ALWAYS KNOW HOW TO WORK HERE ¶21. (C) Sometimes, Washington complains the United States has sunk so much assistance into the region for political and economic reform and has so little to show for it. I would argue that if we toted up all the small successes, we'd be a little surprised how far we've come. On a macro level, we have seen fairly serious banking reform and a real growth in civil society - and much more is possible on both the political and economic fronts. ¶22. (C) I believe it is essential to work for reforms both from the bottom up (with the grassroots) and from the top down (with the honchos). We cannot dismiss the top as unreformable dinosaurs, because we have seen success here. Much of the success in banking reform is due to the day-to-day grind that Bearing Point's Barbara Kaminski has done with Chairman of the National Bank Murodali Alimardonov. When democracy advocates turned up their noses at working directly with the government, IFES Director Katherine Muller rolled up her sleeves and burnt the midnight oil with the President's Strategic Research Center and the Central Commission for Elections and Referenda, coming up with a Rahmonov-approved plan that, if implemented, will significantly improve how elections are conducted here. When Internews Director Troy Etulain couldn't get his community radio stations registered, he took time to learn how things really DUSHANBE 00001439 005.2 OF 005 work and then began a nearly year-long campaign to convince all the relevant ministries. The stations are not yet licensed, but they are finally beginning to gain registration. ¶23. (SBU) My point is that achieving reform is hard work. It doesn't occur via talking points. It requires gaining trust and one-to-one work with people who matter. INDISPENSIBLE PUBLIC DIPLOMACY ¶24. (SBU) The United States was good at public diplomacy during the Cold War, but then we rather lost our way. Ironically, the Kremlin is now intent on projecting "soft power," which bears a familiar if skewed resemblance to old-fashioned U.S. public diplomacy. ¶25. (SBU) We no longer have the financial and human resources to do the job right. ¶26. (C) If we say we're going to sustain our long-term commitment to reform in Tajikistan, we need multiple times more exchanges than we have now, especially educational exchanges. I well remember a former U.S. Ambassador to Turkmenistan's famous comment: "Every returned FLEX student is a little democracy time bomb waiting to go off." My team and I continually run into returned Tajik exchange students who are beginning to make a difference. If we can't in the near term radically increase our exchange programs - and I suspect that won't happen - then allocate funds each year for 100 scholarships for graduating Tajik high-school seniors to the American University of Central Asia in Bishkek. ¶27. (C) Russia has a near stranglehold on the information space here, as I have reported many times before. It's well we recognize it; now it's time to do something about it. The ideal would be a commercial - not U.S. government - Russian-language television channel for the entire former Soviet Union. But there's much, much more we could do in the shorter term, if we had the people and money. We can't depend solely on web sites, because, from my personal observation, too many young Tajiks in the ubiquitous Internet cafes are playing video games or even visiting free porn sites, but not reading our Electronic Journals. ¶28. (U) We need vastly to increase that "last three feet of diplomacy" - people-to-people diplomacy - as we used to do so terribly well in the latter half of the 20th century. ¶29. (SBU) Last but not at all least, Peace Corps. I have tried for three years, but Tajikistan is not yet even on the list to survey for a future program. President Rahmonov has asked for the Peace Corps. This is an open, welcoming culture. There is so much that could be accomplished here. But there needs to be a high-level political decision in the Department to let the Peace Corps headquarters know that Tajikistan is high priority for a new program. HOAGLAND