Foreign Correspondence

[Amaunet]

Central Asia: An iron fist, without the glove
May 17, 2005



By Sergei Blagov

MOSCOW - More or less peaceful regime changes in neighboring Kyrgyzstan, as well as Georgia and Ukraine, could have given protesters in Andijan, Uzbekistan's fourth-largest city, a sense that the Uzbek regime was vulnerable as well. But instead they faced bullets, with hundreds of people killed in an uncompromising crackdown on any hint of a "franchised revolution".

There had been ominous signs for Uzbekistan authorities. Uneasiness among residents of the Ferghana Valley, Uzbekistan's main agricultural region and a hub of Islamic extremism, has been growing for some time. Since early 2005, human-rights activists in the region have contacted foreign media outlets, indicating plans to stage protests throughout the valley.

And just a few days ago, Uzbekistan moved to abandon the pro-US regional cooperation organization, GUUAM. The grouping was set up in 1997 by Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova with a view to enhancing energy and economic cooperation among its founding members. Uzbekistan joined in 1999.

Before Ukraine's Orange Revolution in late 2004, GUUAM was widely seen as a political deadweight. However, the new administrations in Georgia and Ukraine have expressed renewed interest in GUUAM, seeing it as a potential vehicle to promote integration with Western economic and political structures.

The regime changes in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan over the past 18 months seemingly affected Uzbekistan's decision. Strongman President Islam Karimov did not want to remain in partnership with Georgia's Mikhail Saakashvili and Ukraine's Viktor Yushchenko. Distancing Uzbekistan from GUUAM appears to be part of Karimov's strategy to diminish revolutionary pressures on his regime.

Uzbekistan said GUUAM had drifted away from its initial goal of economic cooperation, focusing too much recently on security issues. Uzbekistan regretted that GUUAM had turned into what it said was a "political organization". Coincidence or not, the Andijan riots ensued just a week after Karimov's decision to quit GUUAM.

Karimov has defended his heavy-handed crackdown and mentioned only 10 fatalities. Other sources indicate up to 500 were killed, including many civilians.

"The organizers of the unrest were 'Akramites', a new offshoot of the Hizbut Tehrir [HT] group. Its goals are hatred and denial of the secular way of development," Karimov told a press conference in the capital Tashkent. "They are brainwashing young people with ideas of creating a unified Islamic state," he said. "Their aim is to unite the Muslims and establish a caliphate," Karimov said.

The HT claims to be non-violent, but the ultimate goal of the clandestine, cadre-operated, radical Islamist political organization is jihad against non-believers, the overthrow of existing political regimes and their replacement with a caliphate, a theocratic dictatorship based on religious Islamic law.

Following a series of simultaneous bombings in Tashkent in February 1999 and an alleged assassination attempt against Karimov, blamed on Islamic militants, the authorities pledged a tough crackdown. Karimov reportedly promised to shoot and kill extremists himself, if necessary.

Karimov is the longest serving post-Soviet politician. A native of Samarkand and once a finance minister in the Uzbek Soviet Republic, he came to power in 1989 and led the country to independence in 1991. He is considered one of the toughest leaders in Central Asia, and is in no mood to surrender his almost absolute powers.

Nonetheless, presumably anticipating Western criticism over civilian casualties, Karimov tried to distance himself from the reported atrocities. Karimov claimed that on Saturday no order had been given to shoot on a crowd. "No one ordered [troops] to fire at them," Karimov told a news conference.

The Uzbekistan strongman has seemingly learned from the recent revolution in Kyrgyzstan, which demonstrated that control over the military and police are crucial in the event of any uprising. Unlike Kyrgyzstan's ousted president Askar Akayev, who did nothing in the face of mounting protests, Karimov rushed to Andijan and personally directed the crackdown on demonstrations.

In the meantime, apart from violence, Uzbekistan authorities have also relied on an information blackout. No footage of the events in Andijan was released in Uzbekistan. Foreign journalists in the city of Andijan were ordered to leave. Broadcasts by foreign TV news channels, including Russian, were cut off on Friday. Authorities have jammed foreign television channels inside Uzbekistan.

Uzbekistan is one of America's strongest allies in Central Asia. At the March 2002 meeting in Washington between President George W Bush and Karimov, the two countries signed the Declaration of Strategic Partnership. According to State Department "background notes", last updated in February, "Uzbekistan has been a strong partner of the United States on foreign policy and security issues ranging from Iraq to Cuba, and nuclear proliferation to narcotics trafficking" and "is a strong supporter of US military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq and of the global war against terror". The note said the US "values Uzbekistan as a stable, moderate force in a turbulent region".

On the other hand, Uzbekistan has been wary of US criticism on its human-rights situation. US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said on Friday, "We've been very clear about the human rights situation there, been very factual about it, but unfortunately the facts are not pretty. We think everybody should be doing everything they can to avoid violence, to calm down the situation and to deal with these differences peacefully," he said.

Facing American criticism, Uzbekistan officials appear increasingly suspicious of US intentions, as they consider Washington to be a supporter of the regime-change trend in the former Soviet Union states.

At the White House, spokesman Scott McClellan urged "both the government and the demonstrators to exercise restraint at this time". "The people of Uzbekistan want to see a more representative and democratic government, but that should come through peaceful means, not through violence."

The Kremlin also supports Karimov, hence Russia promptly denounced the riots. President Vladimir Putin and Karimov discussed the situation by telephone on Saturday and expressed "serious concern" over possible destabilization in Central Asia.

"We are receiving disquieting information that everything that happened there was pre-planned," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Sunday. "According to our information, the group that had prepared all this and tried to bring it to fruition included various representatives, including the Taliban," Lavrov said. Lavrov also suggested the United Nations and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) should investigate the riots.

Uzbekistan is a member of the SCO, which groups together Russia, China, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. The group drafted "the Shanghai anti-terror convention" and decided that the organization would have a regional anti-terrorist force to tackle jointly such threats as terrorism, separatism and extremism. There have been no reports that Uzbekistan sought assistance from the force. However, in the wake of the riots in Andijan, Kazakhstan has increased border security, and Kyrgyz border guards followed suit along the Uzbek frontier.

Beijing could have reasons for concern about the Uzbekistan riots as well. There have been reports of cooperation between the militant groups and Uighur separatists, who, like the HT, have never formally advocated violence.

As it is evident that a soft approach does not work with franchised revolutions, Karimov's heavy-handed response could become a model for similar situations. On the other hand, the riots in Uzbekistan once again contradict claims that the American-led offensive in Afghanistan had effectively destroyed the hotbed of Muslim radicalism in the region.

Sergei Blagov covers Russia and post-Soviet states, with special attention to Asia-related issues. He has contributed to Asia Times Online since1996. Between 1983 and 1997, he was based in Southeast Asia. In 2001 and 2002, Nova Science Publishers, NY, published two of his books on Vietnamese history.

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