Date: Sat, 22 Feb 1997 22:15:24 -0500
Subject: M-G: "The Beastly Face of Asian Fascism"


"The Beastly Face of Asian Fascism"

	<<On July 12, 1996, about one thousand protesters,
mainly Turkmens, marched down the central avenue of Ashgabad.
The demonstrators demanded new elections of the President and the 
goverment. The leaflets disseminated during the demonstration said:

"We appeal to you, the Russian-speaking population of 
Turkmenistan!  We call on you to endure no longer the lies
and promises of President Nayazov and to join us, the Turkmens,
for a peaceful march of protest and the demand for new elections...
Do not believe the rumors that this meeting is against the Russians
living in Turkmenistan.  Join us!"

	Nothing like this has ever happened in the entire history
of Turkmenistan: neither meetings of protest nor the defense of 
human rights.  Said one of the protesters: "We understand that 
the sharp price increase is the result of the very difficult 
financial situation in Turkmenistan. But it is wrong to patch 
holes in our finances only at the expense of the impoverished
people, worn out by shortages and lines.  It is time to stop
expensive projects and building lavish palaces for Nayazov and 
his coterie..."  The march lasted for only an hour.  Hundreds of police, 
special troops, and agents of the Committee of National Security
watched the protesters.  By 8 am, the police only picked up the 
leaflets left on the streets>>.

	This report was published in "Izvestiya."  However, the
journalist did not report everything that had happened. Or, perhaps,
the newspaper, well-known for its hatred of everything Soviet, cut
out the information that the demonstration went in front of the U.S.
embassy and carried placards demanding the restoration of the 
Soviet Union; that the protesters were mainly young, 18-20 year-old 
men; and that the demonstration did not end as peacefully as the 
report in "Izvestiya" suggested. Perhaps, one reason for this was
the fact that immediately after the publication of the report its
author was arrested by Turkmen authorities, and the newspaper had
to wrest him out from the clutches of the secret police.  The journalist
immediately left the republic and since then never mentioned these
events in print. 

	Yet, the demonstration had a tragic end.  Many protesters
were arrested, with its organizers packed in a separate cell.

	In the morning of July 16, a group of policemen in masks
entered the cell and started killing the prisoners. During the 
following days, 146 protesters were executed without a trial.  The
rest of the detained were subjected to tortures, including castration.
Some of them committed suicide afterwards.  

	Such is the beastly face of Asian fascism nurtured by the
partocracy of Nayazov's "communist" party of Turkmenistan (renamed
but still ruling in the republic) and by foreign monopolies that
plunder the Central Asia.  One day we shall tell the names of their
victims and bring the executioners to account.

(From the Bulletin of Workers' Movement, n. 1; reprinted in 
the Agency of Social-Political Information, 7 (25) December 1996)

PS.  The day I received this material, Western media reported:

TURKMEN UPDATE. Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov and Barnea Eli,
president of the Dutch subsidiary of the Israeli concern Bateman, signed
a $180 million deal to modernize Turkmenistan's aging pipeline system,
RFE/RL reported on 19 February. The U.S. and South Africa are to provide
capital for the undertaking. -- Lowell Bezanis

Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov
signed a $580 million agreement with three Japanese concerns -- Itochi,
JGC, and Nissho Iwai -- to build Turkmenistan's first polypropylene
plant in Turkmenbashy (formerly Krasnovodsk) on 18 February, RFE/RL


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