Frustrated over lack of reform in the economy, the IMF withdrew its representative from Tashkent last year. The US State Department too was worried over the consequences of allying itself with one of the most repressive regimes in the region, whose poor human rights record is matched by its faltering economy. But the Pentagon, which has been training Uzbek troops, has had no such doubts.
Indeed, the US authorities have been almost as silent about its new friendship with Uzbekistan as the Uzbeki regime itself. Maybe they justify this silence on security grounds. The question is, whose security are they talking about: American or Uzbek?
Sources in both countries have leaked information about the airport and the base where the American troops are stationed. They have said little about the citizens near those bases, whose lives have become hellish since the troops arrived. The Uzbek government has sealed off the region, making it difficult for people to travel. The police require residents as in Soviet days to legitimise their residence at an address with a permit, or propiska. They also have to report any guests who stay in their houses.
Freedom is Slavery
Uzbekistans decade of independence is scarred by devastating poverty, deteriorating health, worsening education, lack of safe drinking water, and a repressive police regime. A typical salary in a city is roughly $10-15 a month, while living costs are ten times as high. As for farmers, they are paid in goods rather than money. If they try to sell them, the police will shake them down for profiteering or stealing. Often, they are unable to feed their families.
Political life is as bleak as the economy. Karimovs one-man regime has eliminated all opposition, sending his main opponent into exile back in 1992. Nowadays, anybody who disagrees with the government is automatically charged with unconstitutional activities or with being a fundamentalist member of the outlawed group Hizb-u-Tahrir.
War is Peace
After the attacks in New York and Washington, these charges were extended to include being linked to Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida organisation. Human Rights Watch estimates that 7,000 political prisoners are detained with false or no evidence at all, kept without trial, tortured and in some cases arbitrarily executed. The current friendship with the US lets the regime glorify such behaviour as part of the war against terrorism.
This persecution began in the early Nineties, shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union in August 1991. Uzbekistans transition to independence was extraordinarily smooth. The once dominant Communist Party became the Democratic Party of Uzbekistan. The former Communist leaders, such as current president Islam Karimov changed their labels, emblems and slogans and stayed in power. Karimov, already president of the Soviet Republic decided to run for the presidency of the now independent state.
At the time, Karimov had a strong opponent Muhhamed Solih, a prominent academic who was popular with the intelligentsia. Karimov let him run. But with total control of the election and the media, and with total government control of the count, Karimov was elected. Once this formality was over, he accused Solih of anti-constitutional activities and drove him into exile, banning his Erk (Freedom) Party.
Since then, the very word opposition has been construed as evil and seditious as an attempt at overthrowing the government. To be on the safe side, in 1995 Karimov decided to extend his own term until last year, when he ran for election against no significant opposition.
His repression of the secular opposition led to the growth of fundamentalist groups, who could reach people through religion. To begin with, Karimov courted popularity by allowing religious freedom to its predominately Moslem population. In the early years of relative freedom, many clerics organised religious groups, preached Islam in the mosques and even on television. However, when this brought a few high-ranking Muftis to prominence, Karimov felt threatened. He began intimidating the clerics and when that did not work, he started jailing them on various excuses.
Unlike Orwells Tele Screens, which watched every persons movements, the Uzbek regimes technological backwardness forces it to use human monitors. Most of these are unofficial agents recruited by the SNB (the KGBs successor). They exist in every mahalla, or political unit, each with leaders and political instructors. They lurk among students, farmers, and workers.
The result is a regime that combines the penal injustice of the Stalin era without even the social benefits of health or education. Prisoners are tortured and never given fair trial. They are denied lawyers and their family members are harassed at Orwellian public hate rallies organised by the local authorities.
The winner of this years Human Rights Watch award, Ismail Adylov, was sentenced to six years in prison in 1999, after the police planted leaflets and bullets on him. Ismail Adylov is a prominent human rights activist in Uzbekistan. He interviewed family members of imprisoned men and monitored the trials.
In one such trial, he spoke out in defence of a blind young man who was accused of having bullets in his pocket and of being a member of the outlawed Islamic group Hiz-bu-Tahrir. The bullets were obviously planted. How do you suppose he was going to use them? Adylov pointed out. Thinking that he was being ridiculed, the judge threatened to jail Adylov.
After two horrifying years behind bars, Adylov was pardoned by Karimov in June. He left prison a toothless invalid at the age of fifty one, having been severely tortured.
Uzbekistans Ministry of Truth
Human Rights Watch has tried to persuade the US Commission on International Religious Freedom to recommend that the Clinton and now Bush administrations designate Uzbekistan as a country of particular concern for religious freedom, as provided under the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA). The State Department did, in fact, accord Uzbekistan this status. But it seems this will not stop the Bush administration from giving millions of dollars in military aid to the Uzbek government.
In order to control journalists, intellectual and expatriates, the SNB threatens their families. Of course, the local media never reports any of this. Journalists are silent on these issues since if they try to voice any of these concerns they soon find themselves sharing the fate of those whose rights they tried to defend. So for the most part they exercise self-censorship.
As a result, the Uzbek media is run like Orwells Ministry of Truth. All newspapers, TV and radio stations are state run. For Big Brother Karimov, of course War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength.
Ignorance is strength
With a sense of irony worthy of Stalin, Karimov publicly upbraids the journalists for being so uncritical, implying that it is not he who controls the media, but pussy-cat journalists who are afraid to raise issues. However, when recent events brought foreign journalists to the country, government ministers, who had no experience of dealing with the media were puzzled. Why did foreign journalists ask such rude questions, they wanted to know? They accused Russian television and newspapers, which are still widely followed, of false reports about the US troops in Uzbekistan.
Like their Western counterparts, but much more successfully, the authorities cite security reasons for their censorship. They claim that accurate reports about the war in Afghanistan and Uzbekistans involvement in it might disturb the masses.
During the recent visit of General Frank to Uzbekistan, American and Uzbek top officials had discussions behind closed doors. At the press conference, General Frank mentioned that the Uzbek president had refused use of its land and air space for military actions, but stipulated that it could be used for rescue and humanitarian operations.
Such statements stretched credulity. Would the US really send its one thousand special force troops just to carry out food drops, which some experts describe as a mere public relations gesture? What does rescue and humanitarian operations mean for Uzbek officials? Does it mean that if the Americans need to rescue their comrades and secure their humanitarian operations with military backup, they can do it?
In the rush to consolidate allies in the war against the Taliban, issues of oppression, censorship and its appalling human rights record are now likely to be buried through expediency. Like other repressive regimes jumping on the bandwagon of Enduring Freedom, Tashkent is eager to get US and international validation for branding all opposition as terrorism.
The US government should beware, lest it fall once again into the trap it created for itself with Iraq. There, US support for Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq war backfired when Saddam turned his back on the US.
Uzbekistan needs US help more than the US needs its airspace or land bases. If the Americans can put pressure on Israel to withdraw its tanks from the West Bank and Gaza, it can also pressurise the Uzbek government to move towards democracy.
The question is, will it? Or does it prefer to support a regime whose closest model is North Korea.
