EurasiaNet Eurasia Insight - Uzbek Opposition Calls for US Pressure on Karimov

EURASIA INSIGHT

UZBEK OPPOSITION CALLS FOR US PRESSURE ON KARIMOV
Joshua Kucera 7/26/06

Uzbek opposition politicians charged at a July 25 meeting of the US Helsinki Commission in Washington, DC that the US government and other Western states are doing too little to put pressure on the government of Uzbekistan’s President Islam Karimov.

"We Uzbek democrats need the support of the US and the West, but there’s no interest from the US and the West in our problems," Abdurahim Polat, chairman of the opposition Birlik Party, told the Commission, an independent government agency that monitors compliance with acts adopted by members of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

Polat was joined by Erk Party Chairman Muhammad Salih, and Gulam Umarov, son of Sanjar Umarov, head of the Sunshine Coalition, a loose grouping of human rights activists and members of the Ozod Dekhkonlar Party. Sanjar Umarov was arrested in Tashkent in October 2005.

The politicians argued that Western governments’ failure to impose harsh sanctions on Uzbekistan after the May 2005 crackdown on demonstrators in the Uzbek town of Andijan has been interpreted by President Karimov as a laissez-faire for his domestic policies. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

"For three months after the shooting of the peaceful demonstrators, Karimov was in shock from his own crime and awaited the coming punishment � this fear, as it turned out, was unjustified," commented Muhammed Salih.

Western governments’ lenience eventually emboldened Karimov to crack down on opposition groups, Salih continued. "Three months of fear passed and the season of revenge commenced. Large-scale repressions began against survivors of the Andijan massacre, against journalists who reported the massacre, against the political opposition, and against other dissenting voices," he said.

Two bills designed to respond to the events in Andijan are scheduled to come before the US Congress this year. One, sponsored by Helsinki Commission Co-Chairman Representative Christopher Smith, a New Jersey Republican, would freeze financial assets owned by members of the Karimov government, impose a ban on US visas for Uzbek government officials and set up an arms embargo. The bill is designed to improve human rights conditions throughout Central Asia. The second, proposed by Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona, would impose similar sanctions, but focuses exclusively on Uzbekistan. Both bills remain under committee review, but Rep. Smith stated that he hoped to see his bill put before Congress before it adjourns "in a few months."

Salih placed blame for the failure of earlier attempts to get tough with the Uzbek government on US companies interested in investing in Uzbekistan, the US military, which had sought Tashkent’s cooperation in the "war on terror," and "some professors from prestigious US universities."

"If the same sanctions that are in place against the Lukashenko regime [Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko] were enacted against the Karimov regime, then the situation in Uzbekistan would be entirely different," he said. Salih claimed that members of the government, fearing that their economic holdings and European bank accounts were in jeopardy, would be willing to foment a "palace coup."

But one Central Asia expert disagreed. Sanctions may not have the effect on the Karimov regime that the opposition hopes, commented Martha Brill Olcott of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who also testified at the Helsinki Commission briefing. "Karimov has found ways to minimize the damage to him personally, to his family, and to his regime that resulted from US and European attempts at isolation," in particular finding new backers in Russia and China, she said.

Divisions among the opposition, however, were clear. Polat devoted a significant portion of his testimony at the briefing to criticizing the Erk Party and Salih, its chairman, going so far as to compare Salih with Osama bin Laden for pro-Islam statements the party leader had made, and charging that Erk has no more than 50 members in Uzbekistan.

Salih and Polat both said that the US is overreacting to the threat of Islamism in Uzbekistan and falsely believe that if Karimov is ousted, a Taliban-like government will take over. "This is a myth invented by Karimov himself � if there were elections, [Islamists] would receive less than one percent of the vote. Uzbeks, like all Central Asian Turkic people, are not radicals," Salih said.

Olcott, however, said there is potential for Islamism to grow in Uzbekistan. "It is important to note that there is more dynamism in Uzbekistan’s religious establishment than in their secular political and educational establishment," she said.

Editor�s Note: Joshua Kucera is a Washington, DC,-based freelance writer who specializes in security issues in Central Asia, the Caucasus and the Middle East.

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