Turkmenistan deja vu AND it has ENORMOUS GAS FIELDS!

there i was, innocently skimming through my nyt emailed headlines, when suddenly, a familiar name¹ ... hark² , i said to myself, what is THIS...? turkmenistan...?

Seeking the Persona of New Turkmen Leader

the article's headline triggered the association... i hurriedly went to my blogpost archives, and, sure enough, there it was...

How do journalists get to the REAL truth?

why, yes, indeed, i HAD posted on turkmenistan, and only a week and a half ago too... (no smart remarks about short-term memory loss, please...) it was all about ken silverstein's undercover exposé of washington lobbyists in harper's magazine where he posed as the representative for a group of turkmenistan investors.. (while a journalistic coup, it nonetheless ignited a small brushfire of ethical criticism, see here)... under his assumed persona, silverstein met with two p.r. agencies, seeking to contract their services for improving the image of turkmenistan, a country silverstein and many others characterize as "slightly less Stalinist" than north korea... part of what each agency proposed in response was to conduct an intensive p.r. campaign to improve turkmenistan's image with both congress and the public, in part by strategically placing favorable news items in major media outlets... well, stick me in a dress and call me shirley if the nyt article doesn't come across as just that kind of placement...

Since a rigged election in February, the new president [Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov] (whose name is pronounced gur-BAHN-goo-lee bair-dee-mukh-ha-MAY-doff) has assumed a job extraordinary in both its oddness and its possibilities. He has succeeded the megalomaniac who called himself Turkmenbashi, the Leader of All Turkmens.

With this post, Mr. Berdymukhammedov sits atop a personality cult so pervasive that even in death the identity of the president is inseparable from that of the country.

But he has inherited more than golden statues and unchecked dominion over a frightened population. He holds the keys to enormous gas fields and state coffers, and has lines of eager suitors from China, Russia, Turkey, Iran, Israel, the European Union and the United States.

He has promised reform, and there are signs of change, including a slight easing of the government’s iron grip over the populace.

question... is this news or is it a p.r. placement...? i lean toward news mainly because the article does go on to state the following...

• Turkmenistan is governed in part by fear, a place where uttering the president’s name in public can cause people to flinch, whisper and hush.

• Diplomats describe [Saparmurat Niyazov, the dictator who had ruled since the Soviet Union’s collapse, and Berdymukhammedov's predecessor] with words diplomats do not typically use: madman, sadist, freak, thief.

• [Niyazov] assembled a government that was opaque and impenetrable. Six months after his death, no one pretends to be able to peer in.

• [O]ne European diplomat, describing interactions with Turkmen officials ... “They are afraid to talk in all meetings, because everything is bugged as far as they know.”

it's up to us to decide - truth or spin, real or memorex... but, don't forget, TURKMENISTAN HAS ENORMOUS GAS FIELDS...!

1. hark
Pronunciation: 'härk
Function: intransitive verb
Etymology: Middle English herkien; akin to Old High German hOrechen to listen, Old English hIeran to hear
: to pay close attention

2. dé·jà vu
Pronunciation: "dA-"zhä-'vü, -'v[ue]
Function: noun
Etymology: French, adjective, literally, already seen
1 a : the illusion of remembering scenes and events when experienced for the first time b : a feeling that one has seen or heard something before
2 : something overly or unpleasantly familiar

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