REFLECTIONS ON THREE YEARS IN TAJIKISTAN

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 05 DUSHANBE 001439

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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"

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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

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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

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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,

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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

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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