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-- May 12, 2002 --
Hello everyone,
Lightning illuminated the sky but the rain held off as U.S. Ambassador
John Herbst, his wife, the wife of the Embassy's public affairs
officer and I talked about the Middle East the other night in
the grassy courtyard of the ambassador's residence. By then, most
of the other guests had left, the pleasantries and formalities
of official entertaining were pretty much dispensed with, the
bar was closed and the hors d'oeuvres put away.
Herbst, a career diplomat who speaks Arabic and Russian, had
been the U.S. consul in Israel before securing this ambassadorship,
and his critiques of the situation in the Middle East were well-informed
and, frankly, pessimistic. There was more than enough blame to
go around, he said, and not much prospect of imminent improvement.
Those who had already left the small reception were primarily
panelists from a two-day conference, "Ethnic Identity and Statebuilding"
(I guess it's a word although Spell-Check doesn't recognize it)
and Embassy staffers. I was still there waiting for a ride home.
The conference was sponsored in part by the Embassy, the University
of World Economics & Diplomacy and the nonprofit Open Society
Institute. It drew scholars and parliamentarians from the five
Central Asian republics and the United States, including the Uzbek
foreign minister (who moonlights as rector of the host university.)
I brought six third-year students and one of my colleagues to
watch with me.
Interestingly, the questions at the heart of the conference aren't
much on the minds of Americans. After more than two centuries
of independence of our own, we don't ponder what goes into nationhood.
Not so here, where the five nations have been independent only
since the USSR broke up in 1991. Similarly, ethnic divisions and
tensions are much more tangible here than at home. The lines that
now demarcate international borders were artificially drawn by
the Soviets in the 1920s without much regard for traditional ethnic
areas.
I don't know about the situation in nearby countries, but in
Uzbekistan people are aware of ethnic status - their own and that
of neighbors, coworkers, fellow students and even passers-by.
Tradionally, people marry within their own ethnic group. There
have not been any serious inter-ethnic clashes to my knowledge
here but there have been elsewhere in Central Asia.
That's not to say America doesn't have racial, ethnic and religious
divisions but they aren't as troublesome as people in parts of
Central Asia experience (although the widespread anti-Muslim feelings
after Sept. 11 raises the question of just how tolerant Americans
really are.) Since 1991, many ethnic Russians have moved to Russia,
even if their families had been in Central Asia for generations,
and there is other ethnic-based migration, such as that of ethnic
Kazaks moving from Uzbekistan to Kazakhstan.
The governments, all authoritarianism and all with a largely
Muslim population, regard fervent Islamic practices as a precursor
- even evidence - of "radicalism and terrorism," as more than
one speaker put the linkage. In some of these countries, proselytizing
Christians, particularly Jehovah Witnesses, are also regarded
as extremists.
One Soviet-era trait these governments still share is a fear
of ideas, discussion and independent thought, whether it's freedom
of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion or freedom
of political action. They don't yet acknowledge that, in the long
run in multi-ethnic societies, it is precisely those types of
freedom that provide stability, not discord.
#
Water. Here in the heart of Central Asia - in lands of desert
and desertification, of sand and salinity - its absence fuels
international tensions and instability. Water. Here in the heart
of Central Asia - in lands of chemicals and contamination, of
diversion and division - its poor quality threatens health and
survival.
Perhaps nowhere else on Earth is the interrelationship of environmental,
international politics, economic prosperity and health so vivid
as in Uzbekistan and its neighbors. Landlocked and far from the
oceans, some bordering the drying Aral Sea and some others the
troubled Caspian, this is a region of serious imbalances.
As a result, Western nations and Westerns NGOs devote considerable
money and expertise to the challenges of water here.
One recent morning, I traveled with more than 20 representatives
of community-based NGOs from Uzbekistan and two other countries
to visit the small U.S.-financed Syrdarya project designed to
help address the water management problem at low cost.
It sounds simple enough. At the point where the Karadarya River
is born - more precisely, where it splits off from the mountain-fed
Churchik River - are two dams that have controlled the flow of
water into each river since 1958. Upstream about 45 kilometers
is a massive hydroelectric dam and reservoir near Chimgan. Downstream
are farmers and other users in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.
At one time, manual labor opened and closed the gateways, engineer
Sergey Shin told us as we stood alongside the dams, listening
to the gurgle as water flowed through the gates. Now, with money
from the US Agency for International Development's Natural Resource
Management Project, (NMRP) an automated, computerized system does
the work. We watched as chief dispatcher Galina Kadushkina opened
one control gate partway, making the farmers downriver along the
Churchik a bit happier and those downriver along the Karadarya
a bit unhappier.
The system also measures the amount of water released into each
river - thus providing data to answer complaints that the allocation
is unfair - and tests it for contaminants.
"The water here is very clean actually," Shin insisted. I have
my doubts since there is heavy industry upstream, as well as contamination
such as arsenic and bismuth from mining operations. Obviously
some people believe him because a solitary man stood fishing on
a pebbly islet below the dam fishing.
The control center is a sunny second-story office whose front
windows wrap partly around like a scuba diver's facemask and whose
shelves of flourishing houseplants shows what enough light and
water can produce. Looking out, we could see the dams, as well
as factory smokestacks, the mountains and cows grazing along the
banks of the Churchik.
While the project appears modest, it's a model for a larger experimental
water management project on the Pakhtabad Canal. That larger effort
includes installation of low-cost water control and monitoring
structures, as well as development of software to track water
supply and demand. "That affects a huge agricultural area of Ferghana
and Osh," where eastern Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan come together,"
the NMRP's Jessica Bardell explained.
On the way back to Tashkent, we stopped to buy strawberries from
women by the side of the road. Other women picked more in the
adjoining fields. Behind us loomed the mountains that provided
the water to make these strawberries grow. Ahead of us lay farms
thirsty for more.
The sweet smell of berries filled the bus the rest of the way
home.
Eric
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