The fallowing article was written by longtime Central Asia Journalist and CPC Board Member Bruce Pannier and initially published by The Times of Central Asia. 

 

The decision to terminate the federal grant agreement funding for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) is a crushing blow for hundreds of millions of people.

These people know their governments are not telling them the full truth about what is happening in their countries or in the world outside. The objective information provided by RFE/RL has been important to people such as these.

Perhaps as important, since the end of the Cold War, was the platform RFE/RL provides, whenever possible, for people in these countries to explain their views to the outside world.

I know, because I worked at RFE/RL for 25 years covering Central Asia.

RFE/RL was founded in 1950, and I didn’t show up there until 1997. I can only speak about what I saw and heard when I was an RFE/RL employee.

My understanding of my tasks as an RFE/RL employee was that we were supposed to keep close track of what was happening in Central Asia, cover as many of the important topics of the region as possible, and make objective and accurate information on these topics available to the people in Central Asia.

During Tajikistan’s 1992-1997 civil war, for example, RFE/RL’s Tajik service, Radio Ozodi, was the most trusted source of information for the people of Tajikistan.

During the Coronavirus pandemic, the Turkmen government would not even allow the word COVID to be spoken and denied there were any cases of the virus in the country, leaving RFE/RL’s Turkmen service, Azatlyk, as one of the only sources of information for Turkmenistan’s people about the illness.

I lived in Central Asia before joining RFE/RL, so I had some idea of what was important to people there.

Calling for respect for fundamental rights is a big part of RFE/RL’s work.

Read the constitutions of any Central Asian country and you will see enshrined there the right to freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, the right to freely receive or disseminate information, and much more.

In practice, these rights are not always observed in Central Asia.

In such a situation, RFE/RL’s Central Asian services are a voice for those who, with good reason, are afraid to speak out publicly or, more importantly, for those who did speak out and are punished for that.

At RFE/RL, we looked for “impact stories,” testimony from people of the region about unfulfilled government promises, abuses, or state mismanagement that were hurting communities and individuals.

Central Asian government officials are among the most faithful RFE/RL listeners, and often RFE/RL reports that raised social issues led officials to rectify the situation.

Ramshackle buildings or schools were suddenly repaired, electricity or running water became accessible to city districts and rural areas, sufficient food became available to communities.

The pleas of average citizens too often fell on deaf ears in government halls, but the criticism by an international organization such as RFE/RL, which was broadcasting to the entire country and Central Asian region, was too embarrassing for officials to ignore.

This made RFE/RL unpopular with Central Asian governments; but if it resulted in an improvement in the lives of the Central Asian people, that was really what was important.

In all those years I was working for RFE/RL and traveling in Central Asia, hundreds of people told me how much they appreciated RFE/RL for helping shed light on their problems. The people of Central Asia also told me, and tell RFE/RL’s Central Asian services every day, about how they see their countries and the world.

This is hugely important for the world’s understanding of Central Asia.

Too many reports from foreign media refer to “post-Soviet” Central Asia, or “the Stans,” but behind these terms are a variety of peoples and cultures that pre-date by millennia the Soviet Union or the use of the suffix “stan.”

Anyone accessing RFE/RL’s Central Asian services’ website can find out what people living in Central Asia are saying about Russia, China, the United States, Europe, the Middle East, or issues such as climate change, global trade, terrorism, and other topics.

Their views are often different from what their governments say publicly.

One last point is RFE/RL’s legacy.

When I started working there, it was less than a decade since the Berlin Wall had come down and countries in East and Central Europe were freed from being part of the Communist Bloc.

Czech President Vaclav Havel visited the RFE/RL building in Prague several times. So did top officials from the governments of former Communist countries. Like Havel, they were opposed to the Soviet-imposed governments in their countries.

I and other RFE/RL employees would gather to listen to them speak, and these officials told us how much RFE/RL meant to them when they were living under communism. RFE/RL was a source of information, in the local languages, about what was happening in their countries and in the wider world, and they were grateful for that information.

What I remember best was that some of these Central and Eastern European officials said RFE/RL’s broadcasts were a reminder that America had not forgotten them.

Those broadcasts brought hope; and when hope became reality and independence finally came, the leaders of these countries wanted to express their gratitude to RFE/RL, and more broadly to the United States, for never having forgotten about them and their countries, and for having supported their nations’ aspirations to be free.

I am not looking to sugarcoat RFE/RL or America’s reputation in Central Asia. For every person there who expressed their gratitude to me for RFE/RL’s work, there were at least two others who criticized RFE/RL as American propaganda and an attempt to push Western values on Central Asia. But even this shows the huge difference between RFE/RL and media from countries such as China or Russia.

Central Asians felt comfortable enough to exercise their right to freedom of speech and tell me, an American, about what they believed were RFE/RL’s shortcomings. Would they feel sufficiently comfortable to criticize Russian or Chinese reporting on Central Asia to a Russian or Chinese journalist?

And here is where the real dilemma of abandoning RFE/RL’s media space in its target countries is clearly seen.

Recent incidents in Central Asia highlight the use of force by authorities to manage unrest, often leading to casualties. Examples include events in Andijan (2005), and Kazakhstan, Gorno-Badakhshan in Tajikistan, and Karakalpakstan in Uzbekistan (2022). Critics have suggested these responses involved excessive force. While outlets like RFE/RL raised concerns, Russian and Chinese media backed the government’s actions, reflecting their interest in supporting the stability of existing regimes and aligning their narratives with local authorities. The loss of RFE/RL is the loss of the other side of the story.