Dictator of the Month:
January 2005Dictator of the Month:
January 2005
| Saparmurat
Atayevich Niyazov
(Turkmenbashi)
Take me to the picture gallery Fact Sheet Name: Saparmurat
Atayevich Niyazov
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Biography Saparmurat
Atayevich Niyazov (Turkmenbashi) Saparmurat
Niyazov was born on February 19, 1940, into a worker's family in Ashgabat.
His father died in battle in World War II and the remaining members of his
family perished in Ashgabat’s massive earthquake of 1948. He was raised
first in an orphanage and later in the home of his distant relatives. Mr.
Niyazov graduated from the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute in 1966 with a
degree in power engineering and began work at the Bezmeinskaya Power
Station near Ashgabat. Unconventional
Policies Niyazov
is an authoritarian leader and is known for his massive cult of
personality; he has named himself President forLife. 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. Large portraits of the President hang
all over the country, especially on major public buildings and avenues,
and statues of himself and his mother are scattered all over Turkmenistan.
The statues include one in the middle of the Kara Kum desert, and a
gold-plated statue atop Ashgabat's largest building, the Neutrality Arch,
that rotates to face the sun. Niyazov has commissioned a massive palace in
Ashgabat commemorating his rule. Niyazov's
other efforts to transform Turkmen culture include renaming the days and
months after national heroes, symbols, himself and even his own mother. He
has also introduced a new Turkmen alphabet based on the Latin alphabet to
replace Cyrillic. Niyazov
has been known for some very ambitious building projects, including plans
to build a massive ice palace in the Copa Deg Mountains just outside
Ashgabat, the capitol of the desert country. "Let us build a palace
of ice," he is quoted, "big and grand enough for 1,000
people." He is also building one of the world largest mosques, and
has plans for a huge aquarium to be built with the ice palace. After
major heart surgery in 1997, he quit smoking, ordered all his ministers to
do likewise and banned smoking in public places. Author Niyazov
has written several books, which are obligatory reading for the Turkmen
population. His first book, Rukhnama, or Book of the Soul, is his treatise
on love, morality and neighborliness, as well as his personal
interpretation of Turkmen history, is obligatory reading in all Turkmen
schools and required reading for all adults on Saturdays. Excerpts
are displayed on billboards, and the book dominates state institutions,
media and the arts. It is required reading in both school and university
curricula. It
is now mandatory for all candidates for drivers licenses to pass
examinations testing their knowledge of Niyazov’s spiritual books in
addition to their knowledge of the highway code. The government’s
official justification for this policy is "The exam in the Rukhnama
is needed to educate future drivers in the high moral principles of
Turkmen society." He
has also written “May the Turkmen People be Blessed” and “The Five
Centuries of Turkmen Spirituality”. Fashion Police- for real Strangely,
Niyazov’s cult of personality seems to extend literally into the area of
policing fashion, with him opinions quickly turning into social morays and
de facto laws. In
2003, he voiced a fondness for traditional braided hair and Turkmen fur
hats amongst girls - this was swiftly made a rule for all schoolgirls. In
February 2004 he passed a decree forbidding young men to wear long hair or
beards. He
also announced two decrees, the first of which stated that television
presenters were banned from wearing make-up as the President had
difficulty telling male and female newsreaders apart. The second declared
that the chewing of tobacco on Turkmen territory was to be outlawed. Gold
teeth are also now outlawed in Turkmenistan, after Niyazov’s cryptic
speech led to an ultimate ban of this form of dental vanity: "I
watched young dogs when I was young. They were given bones to gnaw…Those
of you whose teeth have fallen out did not gnaw on bones. This is my
advice…” An Eccentric, but no joker Although
the accounts of Niyazov’s eccentricity seem to paint a humorous picture
to the outsider, one should make no mistake- Turkmenbashi is for real and
does not joke around. 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 rector 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.' He
recently announced plans to have surveillance cameras installed on major
streets and sites of Turkmenistan - a move apparently prompted by the
failed coup attempt in 2002. He has banished all opposition parties and
brought all media under his control, an international human rights groups
such as Amnesty International have long expressed concern over
Turkmenistan's record for imprisoning dissidents. There
is no major opposition to Mr Niyazov inside Turkmenistan, though there is
a movement operating from abroad. Original article by www.dictatorofthemonth.com - (c) 2004 all rights reserved Sources: http://www.turkmenbashi.org/
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