Eurasia Insight:
ONE YEAR AFTER ANDIJAN: UZBEKISTAN FIGHTS ITS OWN “INFORMATION WAR”
5/11/06
A EurasiaNet Commentary

Four years ago this May, supporters of independent media cautiously greeted the removal of Uzbekistan’s official censor. Self-censorship remained, of course, with cynics seeing this as enough rope for editors to hang themselves, and optimists hoping that a fresh generation of journalists might take advantage of the opening.

But recently, the government has adopted a policy that may make free-press advocates nostalgic for the good old days. Rather than reinstating censorship to counter what President Islam Karimov has characterized as an “information war,” Uzbek officials have gone on the counter-offensive. Their aim was recently summed up in an article in the government newspaper Uzbekiston Ovozi. “Of course, one could adhere to the wisdom that the dog barks, but the caravan rolls on,” commentator Ibrohim Normatov wrote April 20. “But this display of tact could be seen as cowardliness, so it’s better to say what we think.”

The barking of tightly controlled mass media outlets has certainly been loud, at least inside Uzbekistan. The government campaign, launched in the aftermath of the Andijan events of May 2005, has sought to both to discredit its critics, namely those in the United States and European Union, and to insulate the country against outside ideological and cultural influences. [For additional information see the Eurasia Insight archive].

Under the government’s direction, Uzbek media have tried to neutralize foreign outlets. For example, the British Broadcasting Corp. and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty have been the focus of a series of blistering attacks by the pro-governmental site www.press-uz.info. One May 5 report began; “The BBC’s unreliable information makes one doubt the professionalism of this media outlet.”

Chris Patten, the former EU External Relations Commissioner who now heads the Brussels-based Crisis Group think tank, has likewise been the target of several attack articles. They have all responded to his March 22 piece in the International Herald Tribune, in which he predicted that Uzbekistan would “snap” at some point in the medium- to long-term. He ranked Uzbekistan as among the most “self-destructively repressive regimes” in the world, going on urge the international community to prepare for “a potential meltdown in Central Asia.” One immediate step that should be taken, Patten suggested, was a move “beef up media development targeting Uzbekistan, to support journalism training in the region and broadcasting into the country from abroad, including news and educational programs.” Patten’s “position as chairman of Crisis Group … obligates him to write such horrible scenarios, and to bring them to life far beyond Europe or the United States,” wrote political analyst Dmitry Pertzov in a commentary posted on the Centrasia.org website. [www.centrasia.org]. Another commentator, Sarvar Rashidov, writing in the May 3 edition of the Namangani Haqiqati newspaper provided a fairly lengthy summary of Patten’s op-ed before dismissing him as “acting in the interests of the USA and UK.”

Beyond the attempt to discredit foreign sources of information, the Uzbek media campaign tries to rally citizens to the nation’s defense against what is billed a coordinated attempt to foist alien Western values on Uzbeks. At least one commentator went so far as to say that the West has been essentially on auto-pilot since the Cold War. Others have painted Uzbekistan as facing cultural annihilation at the hands of the West.

In comments broadcast April 27 on Uzbek state radio, political scientist Narzulla Jorayev claimed that the West was attempting to “ideologically conquer” developing nations such as Uzbekistan. “Wise countries and wise policies follow the path of conquering a nation without hurting its people. Europe is following this exact path in dealing with us,” Jorayev said. “On the outside, it appears as though they are promoting global civilization. ... Beneath this integration, there are very strong efforts to deprive very large, newly awakened nations ... of their great histories.”

“We shouldn’t import things that are at variance with our own national culture,” Jorayev added, sounding a commonly heard theme in the Uzbek media these days. A wide array of articles and broadcasts has urged vigilance. A program broadcast on state radio on May 2, for example, quoted Abduqodir Otabayev, identified as a political science student at Uzbek National University, as saying: “We cannot deny that a yearning for the West has become very strong. ... We can prevent this in the future, only if we keep shaping and propagating our own national ideology.”

By vigorously countering, sometimes to the point of libel, its critics, these pro-governmental voices may be attempting to portray critical information as merely a matter of opinion. Karimov, for example cited the World Bank’s estimate of 31 percent inflation as “an attempt to discredit Uzbekistan.”

Yet there may be an upside, from the Western perspective, to the Uzbek decision to raise the decibel level. By attacking its critics, the Uzbek government is violating a cardinal rule of advertising: never mention your competitor. For example, the UzReport web site recently criticized a Freedom House report on Uzbek media. But in attacking it, UzReport also called its readers’ attention to the report. All it forgot to do was provide a hyperlink to Freedom House’s site.

Likewise, the Uzbekistan prosecutor general likely brought to a wider audience Amnesty International’s report on the death penalty, when he quoted from the report that “Uzbekistan’s inadequate justice system enables a wide range of legal mistakes, and sentences are often passed based on unfair court proceedings,” before saying this statement is unfounded, in a report distributed by the officials Russian RIA Novosti news agency.

Could it be then, that, the belligerent tone aside, independent-minded Uzbek journalists within the state system are finding ways to provide both sides of the debate, and allow readers and listeners to judge for themselves?