Saparmurat Niyazov

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Saparmurat Niyazov
Saparmyrat Ataýewiç Nyýazow
1st President of Turkmenistan

Incumbent
In office since June 21, 1991
Preceded by	Muhammad Gapusov (as 1st Secretary of the Turkmen Communist Party; not as President of Turkmenistan)
Succeeded by	Incumbent

Born	February 19, 1940 Ashgabat
Political party	Democratic Party of Turkmenistan
Spouse	(unknown, although accounts indicate that he and his wife have two children)

Turkmenistan
This article is part of the series: Politics and government of Turkmenistan

President Saparmurat Niyazov Assembly People's Council Political parties Democratic Party of Turkmenistan Elections Provinces Human rights Foreign relations Ruhnama
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Saparmurat Atayevich Niyazov [θɑːpɑːrmuːrɑːt niːjɑːðɒv] (Turkmen Saparmyrat Ataýewiç Nyýazow) (born February 19, 1940) has been the most powerful figure in Turkmenistan since 1985. He is styled as "His Excellency Saparmurat Niyazov "Turkmenbashi", President of Turkmenistan and Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers". His title Turkmenbashi, "Leader of all Ethnic Turkmens"[1] refers to his position of 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 has 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.^[1]

1 Background
2 Personality cult
3 Domestic policies
4 Foreign policy
5 Presidential decrees
6 Monuments to Niyazov
7 Miscellanea
8 References and notes
9 External links

[edit] Background

Niyazov was orphaned at an early age; his father died fighting the Germans in World War II and the rest of his family was killed in the massive earthquake that leveled Ashgabat in 1948. He was then raised 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, becoming head of the Communist Party of the Turkmen SSR (later known as the Democratic Party of Turkmenistan) in 1985 after the previous leader, Muhammad Gapusov, was removed by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev 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. He became Turkmenistan's first and only "president".

[edit] Personality cult

Niyazov is an authoritarian leader and is notorious in Western countries for the personality cult that he has established around himself in Turkmenistan. Claiming Turkmenistan to be a nation devoid of a national identity, he has attempted to rebuild the country to his own vision. He renamed the town of Krasnovodsk, on the Caspian Sea, Turkmenbashi after himself, in addition to renaming several schools, airports and even a meteorite after himself and his immediate 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 Kara Kum desert as well as a gold-plated statue atop Ashgabat's largest building, the Neutrality Arch, that rotates so it will always face into the sun and shine light onto the capital city. Niyazov has commissioned a massive palace in Ashgabat commemorating his rule. He has been 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 has said. [2]

The education system indoctrinates young Turkmen to love Niyazov, with his works and speeches making up most of their textbooks' content. The primary text is a national epic written by Niyazov, the Ruhnama or Book of the Soul. This book, a mixture of revisionist history and moral guidelines, is 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^{[citation needed]}. 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.

His official title is "His Excellency Saparmurat Niyazov "Turkmenbashi" President of Turkmenistan and Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers".

Older pictures of Niyazov had white hair; currently it is black.

[edit] Domestic policies

[edit] Domestic economy

High revenue from gas exports has 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.^[2]

Niyazov's government decreed in 1991 on "the free use of water, gas and electricity by the people of Turkmenistan."^[3] In reality, the population receives the lowest possible minimum wage and then the state distributes free water, gas and electricity.^[4]

[edit] Culture

In addition to placing himself at the center of Turkmen culture, Niyazov has sought to promote the culture to the world and cleanse it of Russian and Western influences. He has shut down opera and ballet companies, claiming them to be "not part of Turkmen culture". Western-style universities and conservatories have been closed. He introduced a new Turkmen alphabet based on the Latin alphabet to replace Cyrillic and renamed the days and months after himself, his family members, national heroes and symbols described in the Ruhnama. According to this new calendar, January is called "Turkmenbashi". Niyazov has proposed to build new wonders of the world in Turkmenistan; these include an ice palace in August 2004 [3] and a large zoo in September 2005. The "ice palace" (ultimately an indoor ice skating rink rather than an ice structure) was completed in May 2006.[4]

[edit] Security

After an alleged assassination attempt against him on November 25, 2002, the Turkmen authorities proceeded to arrest massive numbers of suspected conspirators and members of their families. Some 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, Ashgabat, 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 being incompetent and declared: "I cannot say that you had any great merits or did much to combat crime."

Freedom of speech is virtually non-existent under Niyazov - any criticism of the leader is considered treason and is 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.^[5]

[edit] Foreign policy

Niyazov is 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.

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

In 2005, Niyazov announced that his country would downgrade its links with the Commonwealth of Independent States, a loose alliance of post-Soviet 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. [5]

[edit] Presidential decrees

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

In March 2004, dismissing 15,000 public health workers in wide-ranging cuts that particularly targeted nurses, midwives, school health visitors and orderlies [6]
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[7]
In February 2005, ordering the closure of all hospitals outside Ashgabat, 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[8]
In November 2005, ordering that physicians swear an oath to him instead of the Hippocratic Oath^[6]
In December 2005, banning video games, stating that they were too violent for young Turkmen to play
In January 2006, Russian media reported 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 [9] these allegations, accusing the media outlets of spreading "deliberately perverted" information on the issue.
In September 2006, the Telegraph reported that Turkmenbashi 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 Turkmenbashi and have it published in one of the two newspapers of the country.
In October 2006 Turkmenistan will set free 10056 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"^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Monuments to Niyazov

[edit] 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.^[7]
In October 2005, 100,000 copies of a new book by Niyazov were printed. The book includes his lyrical poetry and short stories.
Niyazov has ordered the building of a new university to be named after Ruhnama. The university is scheduled to be built in 2010.

[edit] References and notes

^ http://www.globalwitness.org/reports/index.php?section=oil
^ Turkmenistan Workshop
^ His Excellency Saparmurat Niyazov "Turkmenbashi" The official Website
^ Turkmenistan Workshop
^ The World Factbook entry for Turkmenistan information retrieved on 30 August 2006
^ Radio Free Europe: Turkmen Doctors Pledge Allegiance to Niyazov
^ Niyazov's address on the occasion of the Turkmen Melon Day

[edit] External links

Preceded by: Muhammad Gapusov	General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Turkmen SSR 1985 – June 21, 1991	Succeeded by: None (Position Dissolved)
Preceded by: None (Position Created)	President of Turkmenistan June 21, 1991 – Present	Succeeded by: Incumbent

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