U.S. ASSISTANCE TEAMS VISIT TO MARY WELAYAT

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 ASHGABAT 000168

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

STATE FOR SCA/CEN (PERRY)
INFO SCA/PPD (VAN DE VATE),IIP/G/NEA-SA

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: KPAO PINR PREL PGOV TX
SUBJECT: U.S. ASSISTANCE TEAMS VISIT TO MARY WELAYAT

REF: (A) ASHGABAT 137, (B) ASHGABAT 123

ASHGABAT 00000168 001.2 OF 004


SUMMARY
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1. (U) Throughout official and unofficial site meetings, Mary
Province (Welayat) displayed a first-class welcome and openness to a
visiting eight-member USG group including five members of EUR/ACE
Coordinator Adams's assistance delegation on February 2. The day
began with a cordial meeting at the Mary Province Governor's Office
(Hakimlik),and then took the embassy team to the premises of three
U.S. Government grantees as well as lunch at the American Corner.
Local officials and a representative from the MFA in Ashgabat
accompanied the delegation closely at every meeting, which may have
mildly inhibited independent interlocutors. END SUMMARY.

GOVERNOR CAUTIOUSLY BUT CLEARLY WELCOMES ENGAGEMENT
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2. (U) Deputy Director of Freedom Act Programs (EUR/ACE, Department
of State) Deborah Klepp, EUR/ACE Humanitarian Programs Director
Gerald Oberndorfer, USAID Central Asia Team Leader Bob Wallin, USAID
Senior Democracy and Governance Adviser Eric Rudenshiold, and DRL
Deputy Office Director Catherine Kuchta-Helbling visited Mary
Welayat February 2 as part of ref A assistance delegation visit to
Turkmenistan. The group's initial meeting, with the Mary Welayat
Governor (Hakim) and his main deputy, featured a friendly atmosphere
and expressions of openness to greater bilateral engagement which
verged on the unprecedented in embassy's recent experience of
Turkmenistan's regions.


3. (U) New Mary Welayat Hakim Muhammet Gurbannazarov thanked the
delegation for coming to Mary Welayat and listed areas of priority
and past development of Mary region: education, agriculture and
medicine. After describing new construction projects in the region,
the Hakim stated that he hoped that in time Mary would grow along
the lines of "developed countries such as the United States."
Gurbannazarov, who began his appointed tenure only in November 2006
following Niyazov's purge of all five welayat hakims over the
nationwide grain harvest crisis, does not speak Russian, plainly had
little to say on most non-agriculture questions, and was visibly
self-conscious for much of the meeting. For much of the time, he
gracefully ceded the floor to Deputy Hakim for Culture and Education
Shirin Ahmedova and the Deputy Hakim for economic issues, who both
spoke in Russian.

ELECTIONS UPDATE
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4. (U) POL/ECON OFF asked what further elections activity had
occurred since the embassy's last official visit to the Welayat in
January (ref B). All six candidates had now completed their
appearances in all six welayats: did this mean they would now be
inactive through the 10 days remaining to Election Day, or would
there be public debate of the candidates? Ahmedova, also head of
the provincial Election Commission, replied that the candidates'
authorized campaign agents continue to hold meetings with local
groups affiliated with the "Galkynysh Movement" (Revival - a
Soviet-style people's front organization acting as an umbrella for
trade unions, the women's organization and the youth movement) and
that Mary's residents have been actively making use of hotlines
recently established to communicate with the candidates. The local
Election Commission collects the questions and forwards them to the
candidates. In response to delegation's offers of additional
assistance to foster communication between local groups and the
government, Gurbannazarov declined, saying the government needed no
assistance in this area.

REQUESTS FOR INCREASED ASSISTANCE
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5. (SBU) Rudenshiold then asked an open-ended question about where
post assistance might be welcome. This elicited a comment from the
Deputy Hakim for economic issues that Mary has bought Case and John
Deere equipment but lacked the follow-on training to ensure that the
equipment was maintained. Ahmedova followed this with a string of
suggestions, beginning with praise of the work of Peace Corps
Volunteers and a request for more English language teaching and
health volunteers; assisting efforts to expand Mary's agricultural,
medical and industrial vocational training with U.S. specialists or

ASHGABAT 00000168 002.2 OF 004


training, particularly at the Mary Energy Institute; and a request
for more exchange programs, targeting students of secondary and
higher educational institutions and particularly vocational schools.
She said that the region had received medical equipment for its new
clinic from European donors: could the United States government
consider supporting a new child and maternal health center, she
asked. Wallin responded that USAID has extensive regional
experience and interest in supporting mother and child health
programs, particularly programs to hinder mother-child transmission
of HIV/AIDS.

PROTECTION OF THE ENVIRONMENT
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6. (U) Next, the delegation made an officially sanctioned visit to
the government-sponsored Nature Protection Association, recipient of
a joint Democracy Commission and OSCE grant in 2005 for
establishment of resource centers in each of Turkmenistan's regions.
The newly-established center was to host a seminar on that day, and
Ashgabat-based Association Deputy Director Akmuhammed Ibragimov (who
has been the primary actor in the association and is the grant
manager) spoke expansively about the potential of the association to
promote awareness of environmental concerns. The primary audience
for the new centers was youth and retirees; Ibragimov claimed that
young people had used the center in Ashgabat to complete research
for their university degree projects. On the other hand, Ibragimov
admitted to accompanying CAO that the centers have been unable to
establish Internet accounts because the state telephone company had
stopped granting them. It took Ibragimov a year to register the
U.S.-OSCE grant for the centers, despite his close connections to
its parent organization, the Ministry of Nature Protection. Despite
these problems, Ibragimov was confident he can promote his aims more
effectively in the long term as a semi-governmental organization.

AMERICAN CORNER THRIVING
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7. (U) The delegation proceeded to the building housing the
American Corner for the rest of the day's events. Embassy staff and
American Corner Director Albina Burashnikova reviewed the Corner's
monthly schedule with the officials. (Embassy representatives
stressed to Corner staff the need to print such schedules in Russian
and English, or Turkmen if possible). Neither the accompanying
hakim officials nor the MFA escort had ever been to an American
Corner; they looked around the center thoroughly and read the
posters on the walls (with translation by Burashnikova and embassy
staff). Two of the local officials asked whether the Corner offered
basic English classes and expressed surprise when Burashnikova told
them such courses, plus exchange programs, library and English
language resources, were free and open to all members of the public.



8. (SBU) NOTE: The officials' presence made the usually calm and
teacherly Burashnikova somewhat nervous, but she later told CAA she
thought it would prove useful by demystifying the Corner. One
hakimlik official offered that he had a son currently serving in the
army; CAO encouraged him to tell his son about the Corner when he
completed his military service in several months. END NOTE.

Seamstresses Project
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9. (U) Democracy Commission grantees Guncha and Gozel Muradalieva
of the Mary Seamstresses Association were confident that a visit by
government officials would not endanger them or the project. They
agreed to host the delegation as planned, along with the host
government guests. A couple of delegation members stayed behind in
the American Corner to speak to the FLEX alumni there while others
visited the seamstresses; the official government retinue had split
up to observe both U.S. groups. Gozel Muradalieva, a
Counterpart-trained grants trainer, helped her daughter-in-law
Guncha organize the seamstresses project, which provides vocational
and small business administration training to several dozen
hearing-impaired women. The delegation viewed two rooms equipped
with sewing equipment, and visited the gathered students in their
tiny "classroom." The students were ecstatic at the visit, speaking
through a sign-language interpreter and asking about exchange
opportunities with like-minded hearing impaired Americans. One of
the hakim officials and the MFA representative observed this
interaction and chatted with CAO about sign language; the hakim

ASHGABAT 00000168 003.2 OF 004


official expressed surprise that Russian could be communicated
through hand signals (Note: As far as embassy is aware, Turkmen has
not yet been translated into sign language. End Note.)

EXCHANGE PROGRAMS
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10. (U) After the seamstresses, the delegation had lunch with 15
alumni of the Future Leaders Exchange (FLEX) Program (for
high-schoolers),Teaching Excellence and Achievement (TEA) Program
(for humanities teachers),International Visitor Leadership (IVLP)
Program (a professional exchange),and Ben Franklin Transatlantic
Fellows Program (for young adults). The FLEX students described the
clubs and courses they ran at the Corner and the community projects
they have initiated, inevitably returning to their goal -- to
continue their education, typically back in the United States. Some
expressed frustration at the limited opportunities for educational
advancement in-country. Many FLEX-ers had been required to repeat
their U.S. high school year in Turkmenistan upon their return,
because Turkmenistan currently did not recognize U.S. coursework.


11. (SBU) The adult alumni included the director of a local
independent school, accredited by Turkmenistan's Ministry of
Education, which was administering post's ACCESS English Language
Microscholarship Program. The school provides some of the clubs and
extracurricular activities found at a typical U.S. school, but which
are unheard of at local state schools. Many of the school's
teachers and students frequent the Corner. (Note: Embassy
Ashgabat's ACCESS program targets students 12-14 years old in order
to serve as a "feeder" program to FLEX and other U.S.-sponsored
exchange programs. End Note.) A TEA teacher at the lunch said that
she had shepherded over 30 of her students into the FLEX program
recruitment process and that 12 of her students had studied or were
studying in the United States through the program. The local
officials stayed through the lunch but left early; the regional
hakimlik's administrative officer waited until the delegation had
largely departed the Corner before approaching the FLEX alumni to
ask them what they had told the visiting delegation (all interaction
between the delegation and alumni was in English).


12. (U) The delegation's last stop was the Merv Resource Center, a
USAID-funded resource center for women, managed by Irina Mirzoyeva.
The resource center, which provides free computer access, offers
civic and business training and consultations on association
development and local project management, and English language
training. In contrast to the gritty ebullience of the seamstresses'
workshop, the Merv Center meeting began with an orderly DVD slide
show about the many grants facilitated by the Center -- including
programs to infuse basic health and drug prevention education into
martial arts events for youth, a grant to provide rehabilitative
exercise equipment in a center for the disabled, and a music
festival bringing together government and community figures on the
importance of arts education for youth.


13. (SBU) Present at the meeting were Counterpart trainees also
active in the Mary civic scene, including outspoken USDA Cochran
agricultural program alumna Sheker Mollayeva, consultant for the
Ilkinjiler farmer's association (the association is a highly
successful U.S. Government grantee.) Responding to a question from
the delegation about her experience on the Cochran program,
Mollayeva quickly stole the show by speaking bluntly about the need
for better communication between civic actors -- farmers in
particular -- and the local and regional government. She urged the
embassy to expand the Cochran program and to require the program to
bring mixed groups of independent farmers and local government
figures in order to ensure that the lessons learned in the United
States could be more easily implemented upon participants' return to
Turkmenistan. Mollayeva also stated that although Turkmenistan's
legal code was good, the laws were not always implemented properly
(at which point our host government notetakers wrote faster),and
that better host government understanding of the aims of exchange
programs like Cochran would help to break down barriers to
cooperation with local government officials. (Note: Post recently
received a request for an agricultural exchange program from the
host government, and plans an International Visitor Leadership
Program on Agriculture that would involve a range of host government
officials involved in developing Turkmenistan's agriculture policy.
End Note. )

COMMENT

ASHGABAT 00000168 004.2 OF 004


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14. (SBU) Post's independent interlocutors and exchange program
alumni proved capable, creative and even outspoken during arguably
one of the highest profile ever official USG visit to Mary. In more
than one case during the visit, locals took the risk of exposing
their activities to host government officials in order to foster
dialogue -- and, they hoped, eventual cooperation -- between the
private and public sectors. Mary's new regional leadership,
meanwhile, appeared open to -- and sincerely interested in -- the
delegation's suggestions of increased partnership, and emphasized
its desire for a strong, sustained long term relationship with the
embassy. End Comment.


15. (SBU) Prospects for improvement in this context feel real. In
particular, this visit reinforced our view that Deputy Hakim
Ahmedova has potential to be a real positive force in partnership
for future collaboration, assuming acquiescence from Ashgabat once
the new president is formally inaugurated. That said, the old-style
gumshoe shadowing of the Embassy group throughout its long Mary day
is a stark reminder of how low the Turkmenistan bar is currently
set.

BRUSH