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Human Rights Not High on Agenda As Clinton Meets With Leader of Repressive Regime
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met this week with the leader of one of the world's most repressive regimes but human rights abuses were not high on the agenda. Assessed on political freedoms and civil liberties, Turkmenistan scores below Iran, Cuba, China, Saudi Arabia and Zimbabwe.
(CNSNews.com) – Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met this week with the leader of one of the world’s most repressive regimes but human rights abuses were not high on the agenda.
“We’ve only got a certain amount of time [in bilateral meetings], and so we touch on the most important things,” assistant secretary of state Robert Blake Jr. told reporters after Clinton’s talks in New York with Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov.
“And human rights is not as big an issue in Turkmenistan as it is in some of the other Central Asian countries,” he added.
Turkmenistan, a gas-rich, landlocked country of five million wedged between Afghanistan, Iran and the Caspian Sea, is one of the eight most repressive nations on earth, according to annual ratings calculated by the democracy watchdog, Freedom House.
Assessed on political freedoms and civil liberties, Turkmenistan scores below Iran, Cuba, China, Saudi Arabia and Zimbabwe and on a par with Libya, North Korea and Sudan. The only other Central Asian nation in the same bottom Freedom House category is Uzbekistan. The remaining three – Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and especially Kyrgyzstan – receive better scores.
Other non-governmental organizations concur.
More than two years after Berdimuhamedov took over following the death of president-for-life Saparmurat Niyazov – after an election described by international monitors as neither free nor fair – Turkmenistan remains, in the assessment of Human Rights Watch, “one of the most repressive countries in the world.”
Reporters Without Frontiers ranks it 171 out of 173 countries in its current annual press freedom index. Only North Korea and Eritrea get lower scores.
And the independent U.S. Commission for International Freedom has long been recommending that the U.S. government designate Turkmenistan as a “country of particular concern,” citing systematic, ongoing and egregious religious freedom violations.
The State Department’s most recent annual report on human rights around the world, covering the year 2008 and released a month into the Obama administration, says that “although there were modest improvements [after Berdimuhamedov took power], the government continued to commit serious abuses, and its human rights record remained poor. Authorities continued to restrict severely political and civil liberties.”
The report listed problems including torture, arbitrary arrest, denial of due process and fair trial, restrictions on freedom of speech, press, association and religion.
The “important things” that were discussed during Clinton’s meeting with Berdimuhamedov, according to Blake, were Afghanistan, energy, U.S. business interests, and educational exchanges.
Turkmenistan provides overflight clearance for some U.S. flights going into Afghanistan; it has also expressed willingness to supply natural gas to the Nabucco pipeline project, which aims to take Caspian gas across Turkey to Western markets.
During the Bush administration, concerns about human rights abuses in Central Asia had an impact on U.S. security interests in the region. When Washington criticized and called for an inquiry into a bloody 2005 crackdown on protestors in Uzbekistan, that country’s leader expelled the U.S. from a key airbase being used in support of coalition operations in Afghanistan.
Relations with Uzbekistan only began improving slowly in late 2007, when the two governments sought to re-engage under the terms of a declaration covering reform and human rights as well as security and economic relations. Tashkent has not permitted the U.S. to return to the Karshi-Khanabad airbase.
Priorities
Human rights advocacy groups say the jury is still out on the Obama administration’s approach towards global human rights, but many were startled when Clinton, during a visit to China early this year, said that differences over human rights could not be allowed to interfere with priorities like “the global economic crisis, the global climate change crisis and the security crises.”
In line with the policy of seeking to “re-engage” the international community, the administration this year joined the U.N.’s Human Rights Council, a body that has drawn criticism for the presence and conduct of countries that are themselves widely accused of rights violations.
The U.S. took its seat in the Geneva-based council for the first time this month, and the head of the U.S. delegation, Esther Brimmer, pledged that the U.S. would stand for the truth and “not look the other way in the face of serious human rights abuses.”
In a recent speech, U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice cited as an important administration achievement a very close vote in the council last June which blocked an attempt by some members to end the mandate of a special investigator on Sudan. Diplomats at the time attributed the outcome to behind-the-scenes lobbying by the U.S., which did not than have a seat.
Other human rights-related actions highlighted by Rice include the signing of the first new human rights convention of the 21st century, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
The U.S. is not alone in shifting its stance towards Turkmenistan. Over the summer, European Union ministers approved an interim trade agreement with the gas-rich country that did not mention human rights concerns.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton meets with Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov in New York on Monday, Sept. 21, 2009. (Photo: State Department)
“We’ve only got a certain amount of time [in bilateral meetings], and so we touch on the most important things,” assistant secretary of state Robert Blake Jr. told reporters after Clinton’s talks in New York with Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov.
“And human rights is not as big an issue in Turkmenistan as it is in some of the other Central Asian countries,” he added.
Turkmenistan, a gas-rich, landlocked country of five million wedged between Afghanistan, Iran and the Caspian Sea, is one of the eight most repressive nations on earth, according to annual ratings calculated by the democracy watchdog, Freedom House.
Assessed on political freedoms and civil liberties, Turkmenistan scores below Iran, Cuba, China, Saudi Arabia and Zimbabwe and on a par with Libya, North Korea and Sudan. The only other Central Asian nation in the same bottom Freedom House category is Uzbekistan. The remaining three – Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and especially Kyrgyzstan – receive better scores.
Other non-governmental organizations concur.
More than two years after Berdimuhamedov took over following the death of president-for-life Saparmurat Niyazov – after an election described by international monitors as neither free nor fair – Turkmenistan remains, in the assessment of Human Rights Watch, “one of the most repressive countries in the world.”
Reporters Without Frontiers ranks it 171 out of 173 countries in its current annual press freedom index. Only North Korea and Eritrea get lower scores.
And the independent U.S. Commission for International Freedom has long been recommending that the U.S. government designate Turkmenistan as a “country of particular concern,” citing systematic, ongoing and egregious religious freedom violations.
The State Department’s most recent annual report on human rights around the world, covering the year 2008 and released a month into the Obama administration, says that “although there were modest improvements [after Berdimuhamedov took power], the government continued to commit serious abuses, and its human rights record remained poor. Authorities continued to restrict severely political and civil liberties.”
The report listed problems including torture, arbitrary arrest, denial of due process and fair trial, restrictions on freedom of speech, press, association and religion.
The “important things” that were discussed during Clinton’s meeting with Berdimuhamedov, according to Blake, were Afghanistan, energy, U.S. business interests, and educational exchanges.
Turkmenistan provides overflight clearance for some U.S. flights going into Afghanistan; it has also expressed willingness to supply natural gas to the Nabucco pipeline project, which aims to take Caspian gas across Turkey to Western markets.
Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov addresses the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2009. (AP Photo)
Relations with Uzbekistan only began improving slowly in late 2007, when the two governments sought to re-engage under the terms of a declaration covering reform and human rights as well as security and economic relations. Tashkent has not permitted the U.S. to return to the Karshi-Khanabad airbase.
Priorities
Human rights advocacy groups say the jury is still out on the Obama administration’s approach towards global human rights, but many were startled when Clinton, during a visit to China early this year, said that differences over human rights could not be allowed to interfere with priorities like “the global economic crisis, the global climate change crisis and the security crises.”
In line with the policy of seeking to “re-engage” the international community, the administration this year joined the U.N.’s Human Rights Council, a body that has drawn criticism for the presence and conduct of countries that are themselves widely accused of rights violations.
The U.S. took its seat in the Geneva-based council for the first time this month, and the head of the U.S. delegation, Esther Brimmer, pledged that the U.S. would stand for the truth and “not look the other way in the face of serious human rights abuses.”
In a recent speech, U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice cited as an important administration achievement a very close vote in the council last June which blocked an attempt by some members to end the mandate of a special investigator on Sudan. Diplomats at the time attributed the outcome to behind-the-scenes lobbying by the U.S., which did not than have a seat.
Other human rights-related actions highlighted by Rice include the signing of the first new human rights convention of the 21st century, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
The U.S. is not alone in shifting its stance towards Turkmenistan. Over the summer, European Union ministers approved an interim trade agreement with the gas-rich country that did not mention human rights concerns.
