For sometime, evidence has been emerging that the US is 'supporting' the Taliban. Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are widely believed to have bankrolled and armed them at the behest of US. Leading American oil companies, like UNOCAL, have been discussing oil/gas pipeline deals with the Taliban. ... Despite an incessant barrage of abuse ... in almost all the media of the US and Europe. ...

In the euphoria following the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union the plight of the mainly Muslim Central Asia has received scant attention. The six Central Asian republic bordering on Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan have population of over 45 million; and for the first time, since the communist pogroms of the 1920s they are 'free' to choose their destiny. Stalin's pogroms, tolerated by the NATO alliance under the Yalta accords, resulted in the deaths of ... over 10 million in the Central Asian republics.

A crude system of exploitation was imposed on these countries which made them subservient to Russian interests. Transport of precious resources like oil and gas and receipt of imports was all directed through Russia. All manufacture was subject to receipt of key components from the Russian republics. Every penny of value added was monopolised by the Russians under an insidious system of transfer pricing

The present rulers of the Central Asian countries were the very same people who sat on the Soviet politburo and facilitated the massive pillage. They have changed colours and are now quite willing to do Washington's bidding! The Russians, who want to perpetuate the same system of exploitation, are desperately trying to link up in an alliance of convenience with countries like Iran, to preserve the status quo.

... US support to the new republics is conditional upon toeing the American line on relations with Israel, limiting links with Iran and trying to inch Russia out of central position in the resource flows to and from these countries.

There has also been a deliberate policy to contain the resurgence of Islamic forces in the Central Asian republics and their forging of ties with the Muslim world. Trade, cultural, transport and other links are monitored and their development frustrated if they do not meet these objectives.

Writing in the International Herald Tribune (10 May 1997), former US secretary of defence Casper Weinberger notes: "As the West celebrates the apparent expansion of NATO into Central Europe, Russia is making a concerted bid to achieve a strategic victory of its own: dominance of the energy resources in the Caspian Sea region ..

The stakes in the Caspian are enormous. There are reportedly up to 200 billion barrels of oil and natural gas in the region. Azerbaijan alone could produce as much as 2 million barrels a day by 2010 ... Moscow has struck a strategic bargain with Iran, the other player in this drama'.

Oil and gas in the Caspian region is now channelled mainly through pipelines to the Russian Black Sea ports. The most viable routes would be through Iran and the Gulf. There are also possible routes through Turkey for the western Central Asian States and Afghanistan/ Pakistan for the eastern Central Asian states.

Russia would obviously like to keep the existing arrangements to enable it to maintain its stranglehold on the economies of the Central Asian republics. American oil companies are clamouring to make a killing from the vast resources, and exclude everybody else. They are trying to put up consortia for pipelines through Georgia and Turkey and through Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Meanwhile, the US has exempted swap arrangements with Iran by US oil companies from its much vaunted embargo on Iran ... This allows US companies like Chevron to muscle in and keep other players at bay. At the same time, the US has frustrated Iran's attempts to join consortia and offer the most viable route to the international markets for Central Asia's energy resources.

With the Afghan strategy ... apparently in disarray, the US is concentrating on the western front. Some of the woes of Necmettin Erbakan can be linked to this strategic US objective ....

For Turkey to play a role in the Central Asian equation, Washington's attitude to Armenia will have to change. An armed and funded Armenia can easily scupper the best laid plans for pipelines through Georgia and Turkey ...

As the scramble for energy resources of the Central Asian republics gets under way, all aspirations of these long suppressed peoples are subject to greed of the 'free' world. The Central Asian republics, together with Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan would witness a lot of changes to accommodate 'the long-term security interests of the USA' in Casper Weinberger's ... words

Rarely has one seen such stark linkage between politics and the economics of greed. The quest for representative government has struck a rock in Algeria, reached an impasse in Turkey, has been forcibly thwarted in Central Asia and will be stifled in all other countries of the region.

(Source: The Impact International, July, 1997)