With ‘Father’ of Nation Looking Down From Every Angle, Critics Are at Risk

MOSCOW —  “I am not against the president or his government, but . . .”

Thus began a critique that, in the Central Asian nation of Turkmenistan, is liable to get the speaker in serious trouble.

“We have an authoritarian regime,” continued Marat Durdiyev, a prominent educator, historian and member of Turkmenistan’s Academy of Sciences, over tea this fall in his cramped living room in the capital, Ashgabat. “Only one person does all the thinking.”

“The economic and political elites have been excluded from the possibility of helping resolve the country’s crisis,” he added. “It’s as if this is no longer our country.”

As large as California plus a third of Oregon, Turkmenistan is a poor, landlocked desert nation that is rich in natural gas but has yet to find a secure pipeline route to Western markets. Its president is Saparmurad A. Niyazov, the only remaining head of a former Soviet republic who came to power before perestroika.

Niyazov has created a cult of personality like that of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. His jet-black eyes stare out from hand-painted murals or photographs mounted in every shop, school and office in the country.

Niyazov calls himself Turkmenbashi, or “father of all Turkmen,” and demands absolute loyalty from his 4 million “children.” They are taught to believe that their tongues will fall out if they criticize the 56-year-old ruler.

Just as grating for many is his spending. With risky borrowing against expected gas income, he has built a $120-million presidential palace with a golden dome, plus 30 five-star hotels with fountains and swimming pools, while his people get running water two days a week.

“How can he build all those mansions when there is not enough to eat?” asked Batyr Khodahev, 26, a factory worker in Charjew, a depressed industrial city.

Such discontent seems widespread in Turkmenistan. But because dissent there rarely jells into organized protest--and is crushed by police when it does--Niyazov does not appear to be losing his grip. Still, a recent crackdown indicates he may be worried.

In the past year, Turkmen authorities have barred distribution of foreign newspapers and broadcasts of Russian television.

As for Durdiyev, a few weeks after his extemporaneous criticism, he repeated his points in an article for the Russian newspaper Pravda--and was promptly arrested. He was the third Turkmen writer in the last few months to be detained for critical articles published abroad.

According to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, Durdiyev was incarcerated for a month in a psychiatric hospital--a Soviet-era punishment that survives in Turkmenistan--and stripped of his academy membership and teaching posts.

His phone has been cut off. His wife, who was fired as minister of education after his arrest, discourages visitors. The few who have seen Durdiyev lately describe him as disoriented, raising concern that he may have been force-fed medication.

Despite such incidents, photocopies of articles critical of Niyazov circulate, as do jokes that reflect the public mood.

Some diplomats in Turkmenistan believe that Niyazov may eventually make his nation rich without changing his Soviet ways. But that is far from certain.

“Niyazov understands that people will give him adulation and the benefit of the doubt as long as wealth trickles down,” said a Western scholar who visits the country frequently. “Once it is clear he cannot deliver, the people will turn against him. That may be what’s happening now.”