Eurasia Insight:
OUSTED AMBASSADOR MAKES UZBEKISTAN KEY ELECTION ISSUE IN BRITAIN
4/11/05

Britain’s parliamentary election campaign is heating up, with politicians grappling with the familiar themes of the welfare state and the economy. In the northern English constituency of Blackburn, though, Uzbekistan has emerged as an unlikely central election issue, as Britain’s ousted ambassador to Tashkent, Craig Murray, challenges his former boss, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw.

Murray is running on an independent ticket, and is making British foreign policy towards Uzbekistan and Iraq the central issues of his campaign. While Murray believes he is on the right side of the issues, he admits his chances of defeating Straw seem slim. The Labor Party has held the Blackburn constituency for the last 60 years, and in the last general election, Straw dominated the Blackburn race by winning 53 percent of the votes cast.

Ordinary voters “are not really that interested in Uzbekistan,” Murray recently told a EurasiaNet correspondent in an interview. However, a large percentage of Blackburn’s voters are Muslims, and Murray hopes to tap into their dissatisfaction over Straw’s support of the global “war on terror” and detention-without-trail of co-religionists in Britain. Furthermore, the local Labor party has been hit by accusations of corruption, with one official imprisoned in early April for ballot-fraud in local elections. A leaked Labor memo suggests that the party leadership regards the seat as at-risk, and early opinion polls have shown the party’s lead narrowing. Whatever happens on election day, May 5, Murray has ensured that Britain’s uncomfortable alliance with Uzbekistan will receive public scrutiny.

Having served as Britain’s envoy to Uzbekistan from 2002-04, Murray is perhaps best known for his outspoken criticism of the human rights practices of Uzbek President Islam Karimov’s administration. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. In a speech in October 2002, he broke with diplomatic protocol by publicly stating that Uzbekistan was ‘not a functioning democracy,’ adding that it was a country where authorities routinely engaged in torture of people in custody. He also assailed US and British policy toward Tashkent, accusing Washington and London of having double standards in giving “blind support” to Uzbekistan as an ally in the anti-terrorism campaign. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

In September 2003 the British government levelled 18 formal accusations of personal misconduct against him, ranging them sexual misconduct to drunkenness, recalled him, and demanded his resignation. Although the stress associated with the investigation triggered a nervous breakdown, Murray resisted the resignation demand, and an official inquiry ultimately cleared him of all charges. After subsequently criticising US and British intelligence agencies for using data obtained from Uzbekistan through the use of torture, Murray was finally recalled in October 2004, and eventually sacked by Britain’s Labor government.

Upon his return, Murray quickly became a cause celebre in Britain -- his views, actions and fate receiving intense media scrutiny. The publicity helped him build momentum for his parliamentary campaign. In recent months, he has addressed Chatham House, Britain’s most prominent foreign policy discussion forum, and also a crowd of 100,000 anti-war protestors in the heart of London. He has a regular column in – ironically – leading pro-Labour newspaper, The Guardian. His life even features in a play currently touring Britain and made by the Royal Court Theatre, which casts a critical eye at British foreign policy. Murray is hoping to capitalise on this publicity in his bid to unseat Jack Straw. “‘A vote for Jack Straw,” claims his promotional material, “is a vote for lies, torture, and George Bush.”

He explains that he specifically sought to run against Straw in order to publicize what he characterizes as London’s misguided policies toward Uzbekistan, in particular “the issue of British use of intelligence obtained by torture.” Straw’s office declined an interview request for this article. In spite of the high moral tone of his campaign, and his lionization by liberal British media outlets, his campaign has encountered vigorous criticism from some quarters of the policy-making and academic establishments in Britain and Uzbekistan. An Uzbek expert on international law told EurasiaNet that while human rights activists generally appreciated Murray’s activities, many members of the diplomatic community in Tashkent believe the former envoy’s personal lifestyle, along with his high-profile oppositional stance, undermined his work as a diplomat. Murray reportedly hosted extravagant parties during his tenure in Tashkent, prompting disapproval in some circles.

A British scholar of Central Asia with sympathy for Murray’s rights concerns, speaking on condition of anonymity, alleged that the former envoy’s confrontational approach prompted retaliation against those Uzbeks he spoke with, and deterred people from seeking help at the embassy. Murray, he argued, should have used diplomatic channels to assist people. EurasiaNet put this to Murray, who rejected it as “the excuse of cowardly people. It is utter nonsense to suggest people were put off coming to the embassy.”

Murray maintained that a high-profile approach was more effective than “quiet diplomacy” in defending Uzbeks against human rights abuses. While it pained him that some people appear to have been punished for speaking to him, he insisted that he did more than anyone else for the oppressed, and he can point to people alive and at liberty in Uzbekistan today because of his intervention. “There was a flood of dissidents all the time, and that continued until the day of my departure,” he said. “We became the first point of call, but that stopped after I left. I have complete contempt for those who argue; “softly, softly.” The former envoy expressed similar disdain for critics of his personal habits.

Some critics have suggested Murray’s comments and actions were motivated primarily by a quest for celebrity. He adamantly denies the charge, saying that until his assignment in Uzbekistan he had not exhibited a penchant for courting controversy. His shock over the vast scale of rights abuses in Uzbekistan compelled him to speak out, Murray indicated. “It is a vicious regime,” he said. “I went to the trials of opponents, I met the families of dissidents who had been arrested or killed. It was just quite appalling. And what was also appalling is that the US backed – is sill backing – the regime, and then invaded Iraq allegedly to overthrow a similar regime. It was hypocritical.”

Since late March, when protesters in neighboring Kyrgyzstan forced President Askar Akayev from power, speculation has mounted over whether Karimov’s administration could suffer a similar fate. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Helping to fuel such speculation is the fact that Uzbeks have become increasingly restive in recent months, with protests occurring in several areas of the country, including the Ferghana Valley. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Murray, though, is reserved in his analysis of current conditions. He observed a hardening of opposition to the regime during his time in Tashkent, but thinks that the revolution in Bishkek occurred mainly because of independent media and semi-free elections in Kyrgyzstan. As both are absent in Uzbekistan, he suggested that “the lesson that Karimov will draw will be that this sort of thing is what happens if you are too liberal.”

Murray said the international community should sharply limit its engagement with Karimov’s administration. “The only way to get Uzbekistan to transform itself is to make plain that we will not conduct a normal relationship with if it continues to act as it does,” he said. He argues that the West needs to apply ‘smart sanctions’ on members of the Uzbek political and economic elite “to target them, their families, to place restrictions on their travel and their financial dealings.”