One Year After Andijan, Karimov Tries to Cow Uzbeks into Submission

About two dozen low-income families in Uzbekistan's Kashkadarya province recently received an unexpected gift – a cow each. The donors were local entrepreneurs, mostly private farmers, who quietly say they are the victims of a state-sponsored shakedown.

The cow-distribution initiative is the brainchild of Uzbekistan's hardline leader, Islam Karimov, who issued instructions in late March for low-income families to receive a bovine benefit. The catch was that the state wouldn't fund the program. Instead, Karimov said the money would come from private-sector "sponsors."

The initiative has caused much grumbling among entrepreneurs, most of them small private farmers. "When I heard about the instructions on television, my heart sank," said one private farmer in Karshi. "[It meant] new requisitions." Anyone familiar with the Karimov's administration's groupthink knew that the term "sponsors" in reality meant private farmers and other member members of Uzbekistan's comparatively miniscule entrepreneurial class – whether they wanted to, or not.

The Karshi farmer complain that long before the "cow tax" Uzbek authorities were shaking down anyone and everyone to help prop up the crumbling state infrastructure. "Every month, when we come to the bank for our money, we are forced to make donations to schools and kindergartens, or for various events, like Navruz, Independence Day and others," the farmer said. He added that those active in the private sector are coerced into making special payments for road construction and maintenance, as well as for the support of school-related activities and the state youth organization, Kamolot, the successor to the old Soviet Komsomol.

Uzbekistan's Cabinet of Ministers hastily cobbled together the guidelines for the One Family-One Cow program and left implementation to local hokimiyats, or regional and district councils. The heavy-handed methods used by local officials have compounded entrepreneurs' discontent. Rather than actually solicit donations, local officials compelled entrepreneurs to wire pre-determined sums to special bank accounts ostensibly established to help low-income families. Those familiar with bureaucratic methods, however, suspect the program is fueling corrupt practices.

"The president did not specify who the sponsors are and how much money should be taken from them to buy and distribute the cows," said a policy analyst in Kashkadarya. "It is yet another