Ding Dong Niyazov Is Dead
In the CNN report you will learn:
Niyazov had led the desert nation since 1985, when it was still a Soviet republic. After the 1991 Soviet collapse, he retained control and began creating an elaborate personality cult and turning Turkmenistan into one of the most oppressive of the ex-Soviet states.Statues of him were erected throughout the nation. He is listed as the author of the “Rukhnama” (Book of the Soul) that was required reading in schools, where children pledged allegiance to him every morning.
Earlier this year, the eccentric leader announced he would provide citizens with natural gas and power free of charge through 2030. But he has also tapped the country’s vast energy wealth for outlandish projects — a manmade lake in the desert, a cypress forest to change the desert climate, an ice palace outside the capital, a ski resort and a 40-meter (130-foot) pyramid.
Surprisingly Saparmurat Niyazov, President for Life, Turkmenbashi [Father of all Turkmen] has reportedly died of a heart attack. The smart money would have doubted the existence of a heart or brain. Niyazov was on the same level as only one other leader in the world, North Korea’s Kim Jong-Il, in terms of human rights and sanity.
He will be missed by many leaders of former Soviet states, because, no matter what they did, they could always say with a straight face that they weren’t as crazy or repressive as Niyazov – “sure I boil people, but I’m not as crazy as Niyazov” is an example of an excuse no longer available.
Why should the US care about a little country that borders on the Caspian Sea, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, and Iran, and has massive supplies of oil and natural gas? Anyone remember the State Department complaining about the lack of human rights in Turkmenistan?
Since he believed he was immortal, there were no plans for a successor, so Turkmenistan is another area ripe for a war.
Kim Jong-Il probably over imbibed the brandy and listened to Elvis’s version of Are You Lonesome Tonight a couple of hundred times when he heard the news. He is alone on the bottom now.
