Khalmurad Soinov
Ex-member of parliament of Turkmenistan
Ex-mayor of Kizyl-Arvat (Turkmenistan)
The first reason. Turkmenians did not have their own centralized state for eight hundred years and a cluster of local noblemen up till 1924 ruled the country. This situation influenced negatively Turkmenistan after the Soviet Union had fallen apart. Without the rich historical experience of governing the state, without experience of multiparty ruling and oppositional activity Turkmenistan was doomed to follow the way which the politicians had led our longsuffering people for fifteen years.
The second reason. Personality cult of S. Niyazov and cruel dictatorship was possible due to cowardice and corruptibility of educated layers of our society, so called turkmenian intelligentsia. At the moment the USSR collapsed 185 academicians and doctors of science and about 3000 candidates of science lived in Turkmenistan. 330 members of Union of writers of Turkmenistan " created " for the people at that time. This huge army of " intelligentsia " approved and accepted the autocratic Niyazov's politic. If the educated part of the 3,8 million nation gave up without struggle, what could 70% of common country folk do? It is also fair to mention in this connection the guilt of the Parliament with the help of which Niyazov succeeded with the ant constitutional take-over in May 1992.
The third reason. This is the double attitude of leading states to the violent lawlessness reigning in Turkmenistan. Time has shown that natural resources of Turkmenistan prove to be more valuable than civil rights of the population of the republic. Due to such approach to Turkmenistan from western countries that neglect the fact that the whole nation is degrading by reason of total unemployment, drug-addiction and bad healthcare, the real threat for the destruction of the nation has risen.
Dictator Niyazov is not alive but the same double approach of the West can be seen in the attitude to his successor Berdimuhammedov, the self-constituted illegal " president " of Turkmenistan.
Lejla Ilvesviita
I left Turkmenistan in 1992 and have lived in Sweden since 1995. I am married and have three children. My greatest worry is my friends and classmates in Turkmenistan who are forced to struggle for survival every day. It is important to mention that children's allowance was abolished since Turkmenistan became independent. Nowadays the parents pay preventive health care and treatment of children. Adults do not get proper healthcare either, expensive medicine and treatment have to be paid by the patients. And it is not surprising. The state's budget is not sufficient to provide quality healthcare because the half of the employable population do not have a job. It is the reason of high death rate among young mothers and children in Turkmenistan. In this connection I would like to ask the authorities of Turkmenistan what they do with the multibillion sales revenue of gas, oil, cotton and valuable minerals that are mined at large scale in Turkmenistan?