Turkmenistan President Needs No One to Guide Him

If there is a need to quarrel with the whole world, Turkmenistan president will do so

The organizers and  executors of the act of terrorism against Turkmenistan President Saparmurat Niyazov were convicted very quickly. This reminds the Soviet time of unforgettable trials presided over by Andrey Vyshinsky. This person took the position of the  USSR prosecutor during 1935-1939; he was the state prosecutor for political trials during 1936-1938. It deems that the justice system of the republic of Turkmenistan is perfectly aware of the theoretic heritage of Stalin’s  prosecutor. It was Vyshinsky, who substantiated the thesis, which said that “the confession of a suspect is the queen of evidence.” It did not take the suspects long to confess their crimes.

The “organizers” of the attempt on Turkmenistan president’s life were sentenced to lifetime imprisonment. Those people are: former Foreign Minister Boris Shikhmuradov, chairman of the Central Bank of Turkmenistan, Hudaiberdy Orazov, ambassador to Turkey, Nurmuhammed Khanamov. The last two people were sentenced to life in prison on probation, for they are currently in other countries.

More than 60 people in total were arrested on Turkmenistan president's case. There are five Russian citizens among the arrested people. Saparmurat Niyazov determined the punishment for each of them in advance: 20 people will be jailed, twelve people will be settled in remote areas of the country. Foreigners are allegedly supposed to be conveyed to the law-enforcement bodies of the countries, from where they came from. Yet, it is not clear, if Turkmenistan is going to deliver them there.

As a matter of fact, no one expected that the attempted assassination trial was going to be open to the public eye. This was not the point of the whole story. Furthermore, there will be no special consequences for Saparmurat Niyazov’s regime in the international scale. Neither the West, nor Russia are interested in the situation with human rights in Turkmenistan. Everyone, who is interested in this republic, know, what kind of regime Turkmenistan has. Well, what about it? Absolutely nothing. At the end of the day, the international community has been standing the Taliban regime for several years running in Afghanistan.

The US Department of State has certainly set out its concern about the current trial. One shall assume that Turkmenistan will soon be on America’s list as a country, where violations of human rights occur on a regular basis. However, Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov does not care about it, really. He helped the Taliban (it is rumored that he supplied the movement with oil), he was charged with drug smugglers patronage, but managed to get away with all of it. Nevertheless, having put an end of the so-called Turkmen opposition, Niyazov might miss a conspiracy in his own milieu. History has a lot of examples like that. To all appearances, the president is aware of that himself. That is why, he tries to forestall such a situation in the future. If there is a need to quarrel with the whole world, it will be ok for him. Turkmenistan gas will reconcile everyone, if something like that happens.

Vasily Bubnov
PRAVDA.Ru

Translated by Dmitry Sudakov