Central Asia Archive

The world has dithered in putting together the necessary political response to the humanitarian catastrophe that has ensued in Darfur since 2003. The latest “breakthrough,” with the Sudanese government consenting to a hybrid U.N.-African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur, comes after years of stalling by Khartoum, and half-hearted efforts by the international community. In any case, the 20,000 troops will not get on the ground before 2008, and the peace agreement that they are meant to be enforcing remains a dead letter. So not much is likely to change for the traumatized people of Darfur anytime soon, despite French President […]

TASHKENT, Uzbekistan — Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov has won a power struggle with officials of Turkmenistan’s government who played key roles in building and maintaining the oppressive regime of his predecessor, and who helped bring the new president to power. It remains unclear, however, whether Berdymukhammedov intends to use his consolidated power to continue down the dictatorial path of former leader Saparmurat Niyazov, or to institute promised reforms. The influential head of the presidential security service, Akmurad Rejepov, who served the late Niyazov loyally for nearly 20 years, was removed from office in mid-May. While Turkmenistan’s state television said Rejepov […]

Editor’s Note: To watch a video on the work of Zakia Zaki, click here. We were sitting in her office overlooking the rust-colored foothills of the Hindu Kush, Zakia Zaki speaking Persian slow enough for me to follow. A man brought in mugs of black tea and joined us. Zaki was the manager of the radio station I was visiting in Jabul Saraj, at the mouth to the mythic Panjshir valley, then half a day’s drive north of Kabul. The gentleman was her deputy. It was a first: I had never seen a man serve a woman tea in Afghanistan. […]

HERAT, Afghanistan — Thirteen-year-old Morvary’s face had melted away as a candle does, with only the faintest of breaths as proof she was still alive after setting herself ablaze. Mummified in white gauze and full of morphine to ease the pain of third-degree burns covering her entire body, she died two days later at Herat regional hospital, yet another victim in this conservative Western province where nearly 100 self-immolation cases were recorded last year. Human rights officials and doctors say the real number is much higher since only those who seek help are registered and even then causes are not […]

KABUL, Afghanistan — Traffic in the bustling capital city converges at a major intersection adjacent to a sprawling market ringed by wedding halls. Here, a dozen Afghan traffic police in white uniforms stop seemingly random cars. Heated conversations ensue, documents are passed back and forth, then money changes hands and the cops wave the drivers through. The drivers’ violation? “They are always making up excuses,” Mohammad Zaman, a commercial minibus driver, says of the traffic police. He says that every day he and his fellow drivers pass through the intersection in order to pick up passengers on a nearby side […]

Editor’s Note: Corridors of Power appears this week on Wednesday, but will return to its normal Monday slot next week. SOME EUROPEANS MORE WELCOME THAN OTHERS — High on the talks agenda of George Bush’s hosts everywhere he went in the New Europe was the visa waiver issue. Visitors to the United States from 15 European Union countries haven’t needed entry visas for years, but nationals of the 12 recently admitted members do, and the latter want equal treatment. Among them are the Eastern European countries on Bush’s recent travel itinerary. They complain that they supported Bush on Iraq, and […]

KABUL, Afghanistan — The bus bombing that killed at least 35 people Sunday in the deadliest attack in the capital since the fall of the Taliban may have been carefully planned with a timed device, says one of Afghanistan’s leading conflict analysts, another possible sign insurgent tactics are evolving. The Taliban claimed one of its suicide bombers was responsible for the thunderous early morning explosion that tore off the roof and sides of a bus carrying police recruits and blasted through two other transportation vehicles near Kabul police headquarters, scattering metal and body parts as far as 30 yards away. […]

TASHKENT, Uzbekistan — Authorities in Kazakhstan recently passed a constitutional amendment that could allow President Nursultan Nazarbayev to remain in office for the rest of his life, but a Shakespearean drama playing out among members of the country’s ruling family has largely dominated the local media spotlight. At issue is whether Nazarbayev, who has led Kazakhstan since the late 1980s, is running a politically motivated investigation into his son-in-law, who claims to have fallen out of the president’s favor since privately revealing his own interest in running for president in 2012. Actions taken over the past month by Kazakh authorities […]

KABUL, Afghanistan — Based on total signage space, Arnold Schwarzenegger may be the second most popular man in Afghanistan. First place indisputably goes to Ahmed Shah Massoud, the mythic guerilla leader assassinated by al-Qaeda agents in 2001 after decades of fighting the Soviets and the Taliban. His image is venerated with a fervor that borders on the religious in government ministries, street side cafes and on bumper stickers. But take a drive around the capital known for its modesty, and massive homemade billboards of the shirtless former Mr. Olympia turned action star turned California governor are hard to miss. The […]

KABUL, Afghanistan — The arrival of close to 100,000 deported Afghan migrants from Iran over the past month has raised fears of a humanitarian crisis in a country already strained by poverty, corruption and a robust insurgency in its southern and eastern provinces. Iran says the mass expulsion is targeting only those Afghans working illegally and plans to forcibly remove one million people by next March. But there are reports some migrants have been deported in spite of having proper documentation; others have allegedly been beaten, split up from their families and whisked away without any personal belongings. “We lost […]

KABUL, Afghanistan — Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Monday reaffirmed the United States’ long-term commitment to rebuilding Afghanistan and hailed “real progress” made by NATO forces this year against the Taliban insurgency, despite rising violence in the southern and eastern provinces and the arrival of deadly Iranian-made weapons. Gates, on his second visit to the country since taking the helm of the Pentagon, said that after a round of talks with President Hamid Karzai, NATO commanders and other Afghan officials involved in training the national army, he believes the security situation has improved in recent months. “The Afghan alliance offensive […]