The Foreign Service Journal, April 2003

18 months that vastly exceeds in scale and scope the previous decade of limited U.S. activity in the region. But as a review of the past decade shows, U.S. leverage on the crucial issues of human rights and democracy here has been dangerously squandered. If not corrected soon, this situation could seriously compromise the entire anti-terror campaign. A Hopeful Beginning In February 1992, six weeks after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, U.S. diplomatic teams opened embassies in Bishkek, Almaty and Tashkent. Six weeks later, U.S. diplomats opened missions in Dushanbe and Ashgabat. In their early months these thinly-staffed mis- sions focused on democracy promotion, humanitarian assistance ... and battled daunting logistical problems. From the beginning the U.S. tended to measure these states’ significance in terms of their economic resources and from the perspective of other geopolitical considera- tions. Oil and gas reserves in Kazakhstan and, to a lesser extent, in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan drew attention, as did Kazakhstan’s inheritance of Soviet-era nuclear weaponry. Tajikistan, which quickly began to disintegrate in an Iranian-influenced civil war, attracted senior policy- level “crisis” attention. With the conclusion of fighting, however, it joined Kyrgyzstan on the diplomatic sidelines. As a hedge against any reassertion of Moscow’s control and to attract Western governmental assistance and busi- ness investment, these new governments initially posed as democratic and sensitive to human rights concerns. Popular support for development of ties to the West, especially to the U.S., was strong: even Islamic political movements, such as those in Tajikistan, were initially open to such contacts. U.S. diplomats in the newly-minted embassies strongly encouraged these tenden- cies, with some success. In Bishkek, President Askar Akayaev, a physician-turned-politi- cal leader and the only regional leader without Soviet bureaucratic roots, was eloquent and energetic in advancing a democratic model. In early 1992, he engaged the new U.S. embassy regarding development of a democratic culture, a market economy and, more prag- matically, in shaping a strategy to resist aggressive Iranian diplomatic activity. The Kyrgyz people’s welcome to the U.S. team was particularly warm. In Almaty, President Nursultan Nazerbayev offered a warm welcome to west- ern businesses and to market economy ideas. If Kyrgyzstan, portrayed in the western media as a “Central Asian Switzerland,” represented the zenith of early optimism about democratic prospects in Central Asia, Tajikistan represented the nadir. Islamic and democratic forces had demonstrated against the old Communist elite the previous fall. By the late spring of 1992 these demonstrations had resumed on a massive scale in a prelude to civil war. The Soviet-era holdover government led by Emomali Rahmonov, sensitive to its image in Washington, sought and initially followed U.S. advice to avoid bloodshed in dealing with peaceful protest. Underscoring the popular good will toward America in this turbulent period, even after fighting erupted, both sides permitted U.S. humanitarian relief convoys to reach besieged populations, waving convoys manned by embassy personnel across the shifting battle lines. Pro-Democracy Leverage Wanes In the mid-1990s, efforts to nurture democratic devel- opment and respect for human rights faltered due to diminishing U.S. attention to the region, just as Russian, Chinese and Iranian influence was growing. Meanwhile, growing domestic political challenges and economic dif- ficulties, along with security threats posed by the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, impelled local leaders to resort increasingly to Soviet-style authoritarian rule. Although the Afghanistan-based IMU militants mainly targeted F O C U S 26 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / A P R I L 2 0 0 3 Edmund McWilliams entered the Foreign Service in 1975, serving in Vientiane, Bangkok, Moscow, Kabul, Islamabad, Managua, Bishkek, Dushanbe, Jakarta and Washington, D.C. He opened the posts in Bishkek and Dushanbe, and was the first chief of mission in each. In 1998, he received AFSA’s Christian Herter Award for creative dissent by a senior officer. Since retiring as a Senior Foreign Service officer in 2001, he has been working with various U.S. and foreign human rights NGOs as a “freelance” volunteer. To attract Western aid and investment, the new governments posed as democratic and sensitive to human rights concerns.