Uzbekistan: Keeping the Peace

Turkish Gambit, a Russian-made epic in Hollywood style filmed by an expatriate Uzbek, could have been expected to be one of the hits of the year in Uzbekistan. But the film never made it to Uzbek cinemas. Why is not clear. No official reason has been given. But, according to reports in the independent media, once again a "recommendation" by officials was enough to stop any showings.

What authorities find troubling in a film about the 19th-century wars between the Russian and Ottoman empires is, then, just a matter of speculation. The talk on the street, though, is that the authorities fear war films could stimulate the population out of its passivity. The effects of the revolution in Kyrgyzstan work in mysterious ways. A far-fetched explanation? Just possibly – but when the authorities have also said that they will not show any war films to mark Victory Day on 9 May, it is clear to ordinary Uzbeks that the regime of President Islam Karimov is anxious to ensure their adrenalin levels are kept low.

A lesser mystery is the recent change in national television's top managers. They have now been replaced by members of Uzbekistan's secret services, the SNB. Karimov, it seems, does not trust journalists to maintain their support for him if there were ever an Uzbek remake of the uprising in Kyrgyzstan.

Karimov's fear of a copy-cat revolt might seem overstated. The only official coverage of the Kyrgyz revolution was the briefest of notifications that President Askar Akaev had left the country and that a new government was in place. What state-owned television is now willing to divulge is that the president is happy with the new leadership in Kyrgyzstan. It also proudly shows a trainload of aid sent to Kyrgyzstan.

But Uzbeks know about the revolution. However tight Karimov's control of the media, Uzbeks have other sources of information. Russian television is widely viewed – and its state-appointed managers followed a very different policy from their Uzbek counterparts, by giving the revolution prominent coverage and lingering on scenes of looting. Those with access to the Internet – around 800,000 people in a country of 25.5 million – managed to find out what was going on (though most connections are from state-run organizations). In the bazaars, some feel comfortable enough to state quite openly that a change would be good for Uzbekistan.

Karimov, a hard man with little charisma to distract attention from his harshness, is deeply disliked by most Uzbeks. Old people still entertain some liking for him, but most others look at declining standards of living and the restrictions and feel anger. The greatest animosity, though, is caused by the fabulous wealth of the president and his family, and particularly the vast assets held by his 32-year-old daughter, Gulnara. A Harvard graduate, she has built up a gigantic business empire, which includes everything from nightclubs and restaurants to travel agencies, a cement plant, and a mobile-phone provider. Amid the general poverty of her countrymen, Gulnara's wealth is offensive enough, and on top of that her marriages and divorces elicit an extremely negative reaction among the majority of the country's population.

Dissatisfaction with the power accrued by the presidential family was a significant factor in the downfall of Akaev. But, in Uzbekistan, fear outweighs anger. Human-rights groups have provided ample evidence for those outside Uzbekistan that political imprisonment and the use of torture are commonplace; within Uzbekistan, there may be official silence on the topic, but Uzbeks know about human-rights abuses. They certainly know enough to fear crossing the authorities. And any would-be revolutionary knows how little chance there would be of reaching Karimov. Every day, the people of Tashkent find streets closed off and soldiers lining the road: a clear indication that, in a matter of hours, the president's motorcade will pass this way. The security checks are thorough: the rubbish bins are examined, nearby buildings are cleared, windows must be closed, and all cars are checked for explosives or towed away.

In the face of a harsh and very careful regime, ordinary Uzbeks prefer to take no interest in politics, to keep their heads down, to mind their own business. And minding their business is hard enough. Setting up a business is a challenge and making money is tough when the standard of living is as low as it is in Uzbekistan. Those who do earn regular, reasonable salaries are often employed by the state. Such dependence does not encourage independent thinking.

But this poverty may be the Achilles heel of the Karimov regime. The president recently introduced a new minimum wage, 7,800 soms, roughly equivalent to $7. That is the minimum wage for a month, not a day. The UN considers anyone who lives on less than $1 a day to be poor.

It is these people, people with nothing to lose, who may perhaps one day take to the streets against Karimov. This year there have already been demonstrations. On 3 May, Uzbek police broke up a demonstration by about 100 people outside the U.S. embassy in Tashkent. The demonstrators, many of them from the countryside, had been protesting against poverty and a lack of jobs. Before the police waded in, there had been talk of camping out in the capital in a "tent city."

Before that, there had also been trouble in the southern province of Jizzakh. In March, the region's governor, Ubaidullah Yamankulov, together with the prosecutor's office and police, confiscated the land holdings of several hundred farmers under the pretext that they were bankrupt. As a result, the farmers began to look for political support and found it in an unregistered opposition party, Ozod Dehqonlar. The party took the regional governor to court. A member of the party, Egamnazar Shaimanov, was then beaten up by unknown assailants, an assault that so infuriated the Jizzakh farmers that they attacked local policemen and a local town hall, overturning and setting fire to several cars belonging to local officials. The revolt ended when Yamankulov returned the land and, in a gesture of appeasement, apologized and served pilov, the national dish, to protesters.

But the tensions persist. On 23 April, a journalist and member of the human-rights group Ezgulik, Ulugbek Haydarov, was attacked in Jizzakh, and on 28 April, three men badly beat another member of the group, Khurshid Mukhtorov.

A MISTAKE-FREE ZONE

Karimov has said that the Uzbek government has done everything to ensure it does not repeat the "mistakes" made by the government of Ukraine ousted in the Orange Revolution. The events in Jizzakh show one "mistake" is being repeated – a failure to reduce poverty – but in other ways Karimov is right.

Ozod Dehqonlar may have proved a force to be reckoned with in Jizzakh, but, nationally, many of the opposition's leaders are now in prison and many of the opposition's activities are now conducted in secret. In any case, the opposition has little way of affecting public opinion, as the media (with the partial exception of online media) are tightly controlled by the state.

Nor can the opposition look to international organizations for help. The Uzbek government is expelling those international organizations that played a role – direct or indirect – in the revolutions in Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan. A year ago, the authorities used a technicality to stop the activities of the Soros Foundation, which is funded by the U.S. philanthropist George Soros. The American Institute for Democratic Freedoms simply did not get permission from the Uzbek authorities to operate. Representatives of Human Rights Watch have been unable to get visas to enter the country. And recently the Uzbek prosecutor general brought criminal charges against representatives of the U.S. nongovernmental organization Internews Network, which has been helping the independent media with training and technical support. Internews' troubles started in September 2004, when it was accused of violating its own statutes and the activities of the organization's local branch, Internews Tashkent, were suspended for six months.

In this political vacuum and international isolation, those who want change are left to wonder whether Karimov could be toppled in a palace coup, by an uprising of the poor, or by radical Islamists.

The prospect of such change or turmoil does not seem to worry many ordinary Uzbeks. There is understanding for, rather than fear of the poor. Nor is there much fear of Islamic extremists. The prospect of a challenge by groups who want to replace Karimov 's authoritarian secular regime with an Islamic caliphate – a single Islamic state on the territory of Central Asia – may thrill no one, but nor does the threat of extremism frighten many. That is partly because the extremists are still relatively weak (though the potent combination of unemployment, low living standards, and poor education means they have fairly strong support in the regions), but also because the sporadic attacks made in recent years have all been targeted at police and other representatives of the state. As for a palace coup, the alternatives to Karimov may also be hard men, but they are unlikely to be harsher than Karimov himself.

Above all, while change may be wanted, the question of revolution – spoken at most among friends and in a quiet voice – is not a question that many Uzbeks are contemplating. They may be unhappy with Karimov, but they – and their families – might have even more reason to be unhappy if they voiced their complaints too loudly.