Saparmurat Niyazov

Saparmurat Niyazov Saparmyrat Ataýewiç Nyýazow
File:Saparmurat Niyazov 9may2005.jpg
1st President of Turkmenistan
In office June 21, 1991 – December 21, 2006
Preceded by	None (Position Created)
Succeeded by	Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov (acting)
Personal details
Born	February 19, 1940 Aşgabat
Died	December 21, 2006 Aşgabat
Political party	Democratic Party of Turkmenistan
Spouse(s)	(unknown, although accounts indicate that he and his wife have two children)

Saparmurat Atayevich Niyazov (IPA: [θɑːpɑːrmuːrɑːt niːjɑːðɒv]) (Turkmen: Saparmyrat Ataýewiç Nyýazow) (19 February 1940 – December 21, 2006) was, from 1991 until his death in 2006, the first President of Turkmenistan, a country he had already controlled as First Secretary of the Turkmen Communist Party since 1985. He was styled as "His Excellency Saparmurat Niyazov Türkmenbaşy, President of Turkmenistan and Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers". His title Türkmenbaşy, or Turkmenbashi, meaning 'Leader of all Ethnic Turkmens' referred to his position as the founder and president of the Association of Turkmens of the World.

Criticized by Western media as one of the world's most authoritarian and repressive dictators, he also had a reputation of imposing his personal eccentricities upon the country.

Global Witness, a London-based human rights organization, reported that money under Niyazov’s control and held overseas may be in excess of US$3 billion, of which $2 billion is supposedly situated in the Foreign Exchange Reserve Fund at Deutsche Bank in Germany.

His death has left a power vacuum in Turkmenistan, with various parties vying for control of the government.

Background

Niyazov was orphaned at an early age; his father died fighting against Nazi Germany in World War II. His other family members were killed in the massive earthquake that leveled Aşgabat in 1948. He grew up in a Soviet orphanage before being taken into the home of a distant relative.

In 1962 Niyazov joined the Communist Party where he quickly rose through the ranks. He became head of the Communist Party of the Turkmen SSR, later known as the Democratic Party of Turkmenistan, in 1985 after Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev removed the previous leader, Muhammad Gapusov, due to a cotton-related corruption scandal. Niyazov, as leader of the Turkmen SSR, supported the coup against Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991 and retained control of the country after the fall of the Soviet Union, becoming the first (and so far only) President of Turkmenistan.

Personality cult

Niyazov was an authoritarian leader and was notorious in Western countries for the personality cult that he established around himself in Turkmenistan. Claiming Turkmenistan to be a nation devoid of a national identity, he attempted to rebuild the country to his own vision. He renamed the town of Krasnovodsk, on the Caspian Sea, Türkmenbaşy after himself, in addition to renaming several schools, airports and even a meteorite after himself and his immediate family. He even named the months, and days of the week after himself and his family. Niyazov's face appears on Manat banknotes and large portraits of the president hang all over the country, especially on major public buildings and avenues. Statues of himself and his mother are scattered all over Turkmenistan, including one in the middle of the Karakum Desert as well as a gold-plated statue atop Aşgabat's largest building, the Neutrality Arch, that rotates so it will always face into the sun and shine light onto the capital city. Niyazov commissioned a massive palace in Aşgabat commemorating his rule. He was given the hero of Turkmenistan award five times. "I'm personally against seeing my pictures and statues in the streets - but it's what the people want," Niyazov said.

The education system indoctrinated young Turkmen to love Niyazov, with his works and speeches making up most of their textbooks' content. The primary text was a national epic written by Niyazov, the Ruhnama or Book of the Soul. This book, a mixture of revisionist history and moral guidelines, was intended as the "spiritual guidance of the nation" and the basis of the nation's arts and literature. With Soviet-era textbooks banned without being replaced by new publications, libraries are left with little more than Niyazov's works. In 2004, the dictator ordered the closure of all rural libraries on the grounds that he thought that village Turkmen do not read. In Niyazov's home village of Kipchak, a complex has been built to the memory of his mother, including a mosque (est. at US$100 million) conceived as a symbol of the rebirth of the Turkmen people. The walls of this edifice display precepts from the Ruhnama along with Qur'an suras.

In older pictures, Niyazov had white hair; at the time of his death, it was black.

Domestic policy

Economy

High revenue from gas exports — Turkmenistan has the second largest reserves in the gas-rich former Soviet Union — had allowed Niyazov to largely ignore international calls for economic reform. The government still relies on Soviet era mechanisms of central planning such as state control of production and procurement, direct bank credits with low interest rates, exchange rate restrictions, and price controls.

Niyazov's government decreed in 1991 on "the free use of water, gas and electricity by the people of Turkmenistan." In reality, the population receives the lowest possible minimum wage and then the state distributes free water, gas and electricity.

Culture

President Niyazov put the revival of Turkmen culture as one of the top priorities in Turkmenistan's development. He introduced a new Turkmen alphabet based on the Latin alphabet to replace Cyrillic. Turkmen language is used throughout the country as the only state language. All names of months in Turkmenistan have been changed from Roman to Turkmen representing famous Turkmens heroes, poets and state leaders.

Security

After an alleged assassination attempt against him on 25 November 2002 [2] the Turkmen authorities proceeded to arrest suspected conspirators and members of their families. Critics claim that the attempt was staged in order to crack down on mounting political opposition from inside the country and abroad.

The summer of 2004 saw a leaflet campaign in the capital, Aşgabat, calling for the overthrow and trial of Niyazov. The authorities were unable to stop the campaign and the President responded by firing his interior minister and director of the police academy on national television. He accused the minister of incompetence and declared: "I cannot say that you had any great merits or did much to combat crime."

Freedom of speech was virtually non-existent under Niyazov - any criticism of the leader was considered treason and punishable by lengthy prison terms, imprisonment in mental institutions, or exile to camps near the Caspian Sea. Private conversations are monitored by government informers.

In 2005, there were 36,000 Internet users, representing only 0.7% of the population. In May 2000, the government revoked all internet licenses except for the state-owned Turkmen Telecom and in June 2001 shut down all Internet cafes.

Foreign policy

Niyazov was the main proponent of Turkmenistan's constitutional neutrality. Under this policy, Turkmenistan does not participate in any military alliance and does not contribute to United Nations monitoring forces.

Niyazov met with former Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien to discuss an oil contract in Turkmenistan for a Canadian corporation in late 2004. In March 2005 news of this meeting caused an uproar amongst opposition circles in Canada, who claimed the affair could damage Chrétien's legacy.

Niyazov announced in 2005 that Turkmenistan would downgrade its links with the Commonwealth of Independent States. He furthermore promised free and fair elections by 2010 in a move that surprised many Western observers.

In 2006, the European Commission and the international trade committee of the European Parliament voted to grant Turkmenistan "most favored nation" trading status with the European Union, widely seen as motivated by interest in natural gas, after Niyazov announced he would enter a "human rights dialogue" with the EU.

Presidential decrees

As President-for-Life of Turkmenistan, he had issued many unconventional decrees, such as:

• In April, 2001, banning ballet and opera, describing them as "Not a part of Turkmen culture"
• In 2004, forbidding young men to wear long hair or beards
• In March 2004, dismissing 15,000 public health workers in wide-ranging cuts that particularly targeted nurses, midwives, school health visitors and orderlies
• In April 2004, urging young people not to get gold tooth caps or gold teeth, suggesting instead that they chew on bones to preserve their teeth
• In April 2004, ordering the construction of an ice palace near the capital in spite of Turkmenistan's climate and more pressing social needs.
• In 2004, insisting that all licensed drivers pass a morality test.
• In 2004, banning news readers from wearing make-up as Niyazov had difficulty telling male and female readers apart
• In February 2005, ordering the closure of all hospitals outside Aşgabat, saying that if people were ill, they could come to the capital; also ordering the closure of all rural libraries of Turkmenistan, saying that ordinary Turkmen do not read books anyway
• In November 2005, ordering that physicians swear an oath to him instead of the Hippocratic Oath
• In December 2005, banning video games, stating that they were too violent for young Turkmen to play
• In January 2006, Russian media reported that he had ordered to stop paying pensions to 1/3 (more than 100,000) of the country's elderly people, cutting pensions to another 200,000, and ordering to pay the pensions received in the past two years back to the State. This has supposedly resulted in a huge number of deaths of old people, who may have had their pension (ranging from US$10 to US$90) as the only source of money. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan strongly denied these allegations, accusing the media outlets of spreading "deliberately perverted" information on the issue.
• In September 2006, the Daily Telegraph reported that Türkmenbaşy had issued a new pay scale for Turkmen teachers, which was to come into effect in October of that year. Until then, teachers who wished to avoid being put on the lowest grade of pay or even sacked, would have to write a newspaper article praising Türkmenbaşy and have it published in one of the two newspapers of the country.
• In October 2006 Turkmenistan claimed to have set free 10,056 prisoners, including 253 foreign nationals from 11 countries on Night of Omnipotence. Niyazov said: "Let this humane act on the part of the state serve strengthening truly moral values of the Turkmen society. Let the entire world know that there has never been a place for evil and violence on the blessed Turkmen soil"
• The Taipei Times reports that the Turkmen leader changed the Turkmen word for bread, and name of the month of April, to that of his late mother.

Death

On 21 December 2006, Turkmen state television reported that President Niyazov had died of sudden heart failure. It was known that Niyazov has been taking medication for an unidentified cardiac condition. The Turkmen Embassy in Moscow later confirmed this report. There was no designated successor: according to the Turkmen constitution, Ovezgeldy Atayev, the chairman of the Turkmen parliament would assume the presidency. However, Deputy Prime Minister Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov was named to head the commission to organize the state funeral. According to Reuters, Berdymukhamedov has been declared temporary president.

Some Turkmenistan opposition sources claim that Saparmurat Niyazov died several days before 21 December.

Monuments to Niyazov

• A gold statue of Niyazov
• A gold bust of Niyazov
• Niyazov revolves to face the sun
• Another gold statue of Niyazov

Miscellanea

• 2005 was declared the year of Ruhnama by the parliament.
• The second Sunday of every August is known as Turkmen Melon Day following a decree given by Niyazov in 1994. Melon Day is a national holiday in celebration of the country's muskmelon, a close relative of the watermelon.
• In October 2005, 100,000 copies of a new book by Niyazov were printed. The book included his lyrical poetry and short stories.
• Niyazov ordered the building of a new university to be named after Ruhnama. The university was scheduled to be built in 2010.
• All Turkmen people knew jokes about Türkmenbaşy, even though they were forbidden. One of the most sarcastic pictures of Türkmenbaşy is designed by Aleksandr Abramovic Bejderman (see German-language Wikipedia article) in his Ostriv pana Moreno.

External links

• Official webpage (in English)
• Un-official webpage (in English)
• Saparmurat Niyazov's Article for UN Chronicle
• Saparmurat Niyazov's Article towards Opening of UN Millenium Summit
• Saparmurat Niyazov on Elections, Turkmen Democracy and Consolidation of Authority in Turkmenistan
• Turkmenistan's Republican Opposition Party in Exile
• Global Witness Report
• Ruhnama - Book by Turkmenbashy (online in English, Russian, Turkish, Turkmen)
• Opposition webpage (partly in English)
• Transcript of 2004 profile on news program 60 Minutes
• BBC News Country Profile of Turkmenistan with information and articles about Saparmurat Niyazov
• PARADE Magazine's 2006 Annual List Of The World’s 10 Worst Dictators
• Double Standards for Dictators, The Washington Post, April 14 2006
• Show Trials Like Stalin's in Turkmenistan, The New York Times January 27 2003
• President Nyazov's "House of Free Creativity" called a crude provocation - IFEX
• Turkmen Leader To Have Second Eye Operation