Window on Eurasia

Water Conflicts in Central Asia Now ‘Out of Control,’ Analyst Says

 

Paul Goble

Vienna, August 23, 2006 – Conflicts over water among the five countries of Central Asia are “already out of control,” according to a leading commentator in that region. And as a result, there is an increasing
likelihood that efforts to exploit possession of or gain access to
water will trigger military conflicts among them in the future.

In a detailed article posted online this week, Artem Mukhamedzyanov
argues that the situation in Central Asia provides support for the
contention of UN experts that in the 21st century, “water will become
a more important strategic resource than oil and gas”

[http://evraziya.org/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3220].

Mukhamedzyanov points to five reasons for his conclusion: First and
perhaps most important, the populations of all five of these countries
are growing rapidly, ever more outpacing supplies which, in the absence
of outside help or technological innovations in the area of
desalinization, remain more or less constant.

Second, within Central Asia, water is very unequally divided, with
three water short countries -- Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan –
dependent for their survival on flows from the other two – Tajikistan
and Kyrgyzstan. Moreover, the way in which Moscow drew the borders of
these republics only exacerbated this situation.

Third, the system for distributing water that Moscow imposed on this
region when it was part of the Soviet Union has largely collapsed, and
the post-Soviet governments have not yet agreed on any long-term
arrangements or rules of the game to govern water use.

Fourth, the relationship between water and energy resources is
extraordinarily complex. On the one hand, oil and gas have
well-established and often high prices, while water is still treated as
a free good. That has the effect of giving the energy-rich but
water-short countries leverage over the water-rich but energy-short
ones.

On the other, those countries which do have significant water resources
often seek to use them to generate electricity, but because of the
seasonal nature of flows, that often puts them in conflict with
downstream users who need the water for agriculture precisely when
those upstream can best use it for hydropower.

And fifth, there are a variety of outside actors – Pakistan and India
nearby, the Russian Federation, and even the United States – each of
which has its own very different set of interests and resources but
none of which can easily ignore the role that water both in Central Asia and
more generally is coming to play in geopolitics.

In the remainder of his article, Mukhamedzyanov traces the ways in
which these factors have come together to produce serious
“contradictions” among the Central Asian countries in recent years and then suggests some of the ways in which these economic and political disputes could become violent in the future.

The first major dispute was between Uzbekistan, the largest consumer of
water in the region, and Kyrgyzstan, second only to Tajikistan as a
supplier. After Kyrgyzstan ran up a significant debt for Uzbek gas,
Tashkent cut off energy supplies to Bishkek for the winter.

In response, the Kyrgyz authorities reduced the flow of water to
Uzbekistan “under the pretext” that as a result of the Uzbek
action, Bishkek needed to accumulate water in its reservoirs in order to
generate more electric power to take care of its own population.

To show its displeasure, the Uzbek authorities then staged military
maneuvers near the Kyrgyz border to show they they could seize even
“a well protected object.” But Bishkek responded, Mukhamedzyanov says,
by leaking the threat that any damage to its dams would cause massive
flooding in the Uzbek portion of the Fergana valley.

Relations between Tajikistan, which has the third largest natural
reserves of water in the world, and the water-short Central Asian
states have also become increasingly tense, especially given increasing
attention to that country from its south Asian neighbors, Pakistan and
India.

But even among countries with relatively small water supplies, the
situation has often deteriorated to the point of crisis. When
Kazakhstan refused to provide water to Uzbekistan, the Uzbek government cut off gas and electricity to portions of its northern neighbor. Astana responded
by disrupting Uzbek telephonic ties with the outside world

Such tensions could easily lead to military conflict – indeed,
interest in gaining access to water helps to explain what Uzbek
officials were doing in southern Kyrgyzstan in advance of the
revolution there that ousted Askar Akayev last year – but they seldom receive
the attention another water issue does: the imminent disapperance of the
Aral Sea.

Experts predict that this sea will disappear within this decade,
exacerbating the ecological and medical disaster of adjoining regions.
Even now, more than a million tons of various kinds of toxic salts are
being blown from its former bed into the atmosphere, and the health
situation in Uzbekistan’s Karakalpakia region is notoriously bad.

All the countries of the region except Turkmenistan have come together
to crate an International Foundation to Save the Aral Sea, but despite
repeated declarations, none of them have taken the kind of steps that
will be necessary to resolve the situation, Mukhamedzyanov argues.

They lack both the resources and the political will to do so, he
concludes, arguing that only some outside actor – and he suggests
that the Russian Federation is the most likely – will be able to supply
both. But whether even Moscow can save the Aral Sea remains to be seen.

Consequently, regardless of when the Aral Sea in fact disappears -- an
event certain to attract international attention -- competition for
water among the Central Asian countries is certainly going to intensify
and may soon provide clear evidence that the wars of the future are
more likely to be about water than about oil and gas.

 

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