As the Gundogar website recently reported, the official start was announced to this year’s cotton-gathering season earlier this week. The event was observed by President Saparmurat Niyazov, who took part in an symbolic ceremony at a cotton plantation in the Dashhoguz velyat.
Citing the importance of the cotton industry for Turkmenistan, Niyazov stressed that all the gathered cotton should be sold through government trading organizations and at strictly market prices. During his speech, Niyazov also reminded his Minister for Textile to ensure that industrial textile complexes are built in all those districts exceeding cotton output of 25,000-30,000 tonnes.
The minister in question will be eager to carry out his leader’s exhortations to the letter, especially as he is currently performing his duties in a six-month-long probationary role. His predecessor, Dortguly Aydogdiyev, was ritually dismissed in a televised broadcast in May, during which the Minister for National Security also claimed that two previous textile minister had misappropriated up to $80 million. In the course of the meeting, which was also attended by the heads of the four most important Turkish textile companies operating in Turkmenistan, Niyazov also promised to provide necessary funds for the creation of textile units in Ashgabat and Abadan. His stated aim for supplying this $85 million credit to Turkish textile firm Norsel was to create a new generation of competent management in this key sector. The length of time for which the current Minister of Textile, Kadyrberdy Orazov according to the most recently available information, manages to hold onto his position will give some basic indication of how satisfied with progress over the next few months.
Niyazov management over the cotton industry has not been limited to reshuffling management, however. As Deutsche Welle has reported, Niyazov takes direct executive interest in how and when cotton-gathering takes place. Below is a translation of a paragraph from Deutsche Welle’s report:

“While flying above the northern regions of Turkmenistan, Niyazov noted bitterly that he saw completely green cotton fields and still unopened boxes. Speaking to workers in the region he noted that autumn was not far off and that hoping for dry and sunny weather was simply naïve. As the president observed, there are as yet only scraps in the gathering baskets, but he then reminded his listeners according to the state plan, two million tonnes of cotton need to be picked this year. The causes of the low productivity at harvest time, according to Niyazov, were the late sowing dates and the poor quality of early ripening buds. Niyazov urged labourers to work on every day there was good weather during the ripening period and to ensure every last bit of cotton was picked and that not one basket was left empty. He also warned of the consequences of a failed harvest, stating that it would impose severe demands on everyone all around.”

As has become standard, the current harvest is already making oppressive demands from the general population. According to a Deutsche Welle report, over half of this year’s batch of conscripts is being sent to work instead of performing military training duties. The vast majority of these will be charged with gathering cotton, often being put up in appalling conditions. From the Deutsche Welle report:

“As an officer in one the etraps of the Mary velyat told a Deutsche Welle correspondent, many conscripts are being sent to remote to remote districts and being housed in fields in basic huts made from clay and reeds. The soldiers are also not being provided with drinking water and are expected to look for their own food, as the army is effectively running on a loss-saving basis < …> Conscripts are thus being made to survive off what is provided by local residents or by stealing, when there is anything to steal.
The living conditions are also unsanitary. As a result of the lack of hygiene, soldiers are contracting infections on wounds over their hands and bodies.

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A Turkish driver who frequently crosses the Turkmen border has spoken of seeing border guards begging for food. Yet, according to an officer at a military division in the Mary velyat, border guards still live in better conditions than soldiers within the country as they are able to conduct transactions with smugglers and are thus able to sustain themselves.”

This situation has now begun to affect more people according to a recent article appearing on the IWPR website, which reported how the Turkmen army has expanded its scope for recruitment. The article also cites anecdotal incidents of physically disabled individuals being conscripted to carry out duties in the public service, including work in the health service, policing of the traffic, and gathering of cotton. The figures cited by IWPR give some idea of the scale in the increase in conscription in independent Turkmenistan:

“In a report earlier this year, the Turkmenistan Initiative for Human Rights, a group based abroad, said an estimated 75 per cent of men of conscription age were now being called up. This represents a huge increase on the 35 to 45 percent call-up rate in the Soviet Union.

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It is not clear exactly how big the armed forces of Turkmenistan are - the number was thought to stand at around 30,000 in the Nineties but is believed to have increased since then, by some estimates up to 100,000.
In 2002, the armed forces chief of staff promised to deploy up to 25,000 men in the public sector, a figure which may have increased considerably since the recent dismissals of hospital staff.”

Forced recruitment of cotton-gatherers is not only limited to the military however. Although children are no longer expected to pick cotton as much as was previously the case, students will nonetheless be affected by the requirement for teaching staff to take an active role in the harvesting season, according to a Eurasianet article (Word document) published in June:

“In previous years, teachers were sent to the cotton fields instead of teaching in schools. Many of them preferred to hire people to harvest the cotton instead of going themselves and to pay them from his/her own pocket. This situation was suitable for administrators from the education department since hired workers were picking cotton instead of teachers while the latter were working in schools, i.e. neither the academic process nor the cotton harvesting campaign was disrupted.”

The article also reported how a meeting of Dashoguz school principals was gathered to announce the interruption of the practice described above. Agricultural workers had apparently complained that they were being underpaid by teachers. There was also poor scrutiny over the labourers actually doing the work, with some incidents of fighting, drinking, theft and even prostitution among female workers.
All these reports invariably offer a partial portrait of the social and political disarray that every cotton-harvesting season appears to create. The general impression, however, is that systemic corruption engendered by unaccountable mismanagement overseen by the Niyazov’s erratic leadership is annually laying the ground for a catastrophic state of affairs. Observing official pronouncements of government targets and plans for the development of the textile industry on the one hand and, on the other, the dismal realities of the people on the ground thus remains a disturbing pastime.