Published in Analytical Articles

By R. Grant Smith (10/8/2003 issue of the CACI Analyst)

BACKGROUND: The Taliban ban on opium growing in 2000 followed several years of record production that had resulted in large unsold stocks. Farmgate prices before the ban were $35-50 per kilo. The ban effectively eliminated the 2001 crop in areas controlled by the Taliban, with country-wide production dropping to 185 tons of opium (UN estimate) from an estimated 3,300 tons in 2000 and 4,600 tons in 1999.
Published in Analytical Articles

By Stephen Blank (9/24/2003 issue of the CACI Analyst)

BACKGROUND: An ongoing trial in New York looks set to implicate Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev for corruption and bribery charges relating to the energy industry in Kazakhstan. Similarly in Uzbekistan, Western press revelations emerging out of the contest for custody of the grandchildren of President Islam Karimov by his daughter Gulnara in a New Jersey court reveal an astonishing accumulation of wealth by her through her or her father’s power over the state economy. Likewise, a New York court case is presently implicating Azerbaijan’s State Oil Company and potentially the leadership in that country in similar scandals.
Wednesday, 24 September 2003

THE IMU: ALIVE AND KICKING?

Published in Analytical Articles

By James Purcell Smith (9/24/2003 issue of the CACI Analyst)

BACKGROUND: Since December 2002, there have been increasing signs of a revival of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. In late 2001, this organization renamed itself the Islamic Movement of Turkestan (IMT), thus openly proclaiming its purposes of controlling the entire Central Asian region, disregarding the five existing nation-states and their boundaries. The Kyrgyz newspaper “Vecherniy Bishkek” reported on July 23 that bomb explosions in the “Oberon” market in the Bishkek on December 27, 2002 and in a branch of “Bakay bank” in the southern Kyrgyz city of Osh on May 8 were directly linked to the Islamic Movement of Turkestan.
Wednesday, 24 September 2003

KYRGYZSTAN: THE POLITICAL SUCCESSION GAME

Published in Analytical Articles

By Rafis Abazov (9/24/2003 issue of the CACI Analyst)

BACKGROUND: In traditional Central Asian societies, the concept of keeping all political power within the extended family has very strong roots. This notion survived 100 years of Russian and later Soviet modernization. It was, therefore, natural for the debate about political succession in Central Asia to switched from procedure to personalities.

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Oped Svante E. Cornell & Albert Barro, With referendum, Kazakh President pushes for reforms, Euractiv, June 3, 2022.

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Silk Road Paper Johan Engvall, Between Bandits and Bureaucrats: 30 Years of Parliamentary Development in Kyrgyzstan, January 2022.  

Oped Svante E. Cornell, No, The War in Ukraine is not about NATO, The Hill, March 9, 2022.

Analysis Svante E. Cornell, Kazakhstan’s Crisis Calls for a Central Asia Policy Reboot, The National Interest, January 34, 2022.

StronguniquecoverBook S. Frederick Starr and Svante E. Cornell, Strong and Unique: Three Decades of U.S.-Kazakhstan Partnership, Central Asia-Caucasus Institute, December 2021.  

Silk Road Paper Svante E. Cornell, S. Frederick Starr & Albert Barro, Political and Economic Reforms in Kazakhstan Under President Tokayev, November 2021.

The Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst is a biweekly publication of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program, a Joint Transatlantic Research and Policy Center affiliated with the American Foreign Policy Council, Washington DC., and the Institute for Security and Development Policy, Stockholm. For 15 years, the Analyst has brought cutting edge analysis of the region geared toward a practitioner audience.

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