Uzbekistan is chairing a meeting of the five Central Asian nations with Japan, the state news site gazeta.ru reported. This is the first such meeting of Central Asian foreign ministers with Japan's foreign minister since 2004. The meeting's agenda includes discussions on regional security and advancement of various economic programs. Japan has made considerable investment in the Central Asian countries. According to the European Union, Uzbekistan exported 66.8 million euros' worth of goods to Japan in 2009. In May, Uzbekistan signed a $300 million loan agreement with the Japan International Cooperation Agency.
President Karimov reportedly took part in an informal summit of the heads of state of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) on July 31 in Issyk-Kul, Kyrgyzstan, the semi-official online news site uzmetronom.com reported, citing sources close to the president. Karimov was expected to firmly articulate Uzbekistan's position against deploying a CSTO base in southern Kyrgyzstan, saying it was not in the interests of regional security. Yet it was Tashkent that proposed deployment of the Police Advisory Group of the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Asia Times reported. The 52-person unarmed police presence is still not fully deployed and faces opposition from local officials in southern Kyrgyzstan, who have even ominously claimed they cannot guarantee its security, EurasiaNet reported. While the CSTO declined to send peace-keepers to quell riots in southern Kyrgyzstan in June, the security body promised equipment to assist the Kyrgyz police, but it has not been delivered yet.
Kyrgyzstan's Interim President Roza Otunbayeva has acknowledged that Kyrgyz security forces abused the rights of minority Uzbeks during the June conflict, including in a police sweep of the village of Nariman, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) reported, citing Otunbayeva's interview with the French AFP news agency. The admission comes following allegations from rights groups and the United Nations that Kyrgyz security forces targeted Uzbeks after the riots. On August 2, a Kyrgyz national commission set up by presidential decree began investigating the violence in the south. Kyrgyz Ombudsman Tursunbek Akun told RFE/RL that he is performing his own investigation with another commission made up of 13 people from different ethnic groups, including Uzbeks. Akun said he will make the results of his inquiry know by September 30, i.e. before the October parliamentary elections. Finnish MP Kimmo Kiljunen, who is heading up an international investigation at the request of Otunbayeva, visited Moscow and Geneva in a quest for more support for his inquiry, which reportedly would not be completed before the elections.
The UN has not formally responded to Otunbayeva's request on July 21 for participation in the international inquiry. A Security Council meeting August 5 with a briefing by Ambassador Miroslav Jenca of the UN Regional Centre for Preventive Diplomacy for Central Asia produced only a weak compromise statement indicating general support for the diplomatic efforts of the Centre.
Faced with lack of justice at home, tens of thousands of ethnic Uzbeks are departing from Kyrgyzstan for Russia, Kazakhstan, and other neighboring countries, EurasiaNet reports. Their desperation has proven fertile ground for rampant bribe-taking from various officials who demand extensive paperwork before authorizing departure.
Tashkent is expanding its de-facto trade embargo against Dushanbe, levying new tariffs for trucks crossing the border, and continuing to delay train freight bound for Tajikistan. With freight delayed for seven months, Tajik businesses have suffered losses, and the government is worried about its long-term economic impact. Freight destined for Afghanistan for U.S. and NATO operations is also delayed.
In response to increasing international coverage of the problem of forced sterilizations in Uzbekistan, the state-sponsored media is fighting back with a series of propagandistic pieces portraying generous maternal policies in Uzbekistan, claiming the government is promoting maternal health care and is reducing the number of abortions. The government boasted of a $5 million program to supply vitamins to pregnant women, and also said that the number of abortions has been reduced by a factor of five since 1990, with more than 60 percent of women of fertile age using intrauterine devices (IUDs).
Yet in reporting on its progress, the government failed to indicate just how many women had undergone "surgical contraception" as sterilization is known. And in describing a policy of only offering the procedure voluntarily with the consent of a woman and her spouse, the government only further revealed that women are not free to make their own reproductive decisions. NGOs report that doctors in fact have received verbal orders to increase the number of sterilizations, and urge women to find ways to avoid telling their spouses, who have been known to abandon women who have opted for sterilization. The Expert Working Group and other local NGOs in Uzbekistan have also reported that women have been forced to undergo the procedure, or have had their reproductive organs removed without their knowledge when undergoing surgery.
Some activists fear that under cover of his newly-burnished reputation -- even if deserved for his temporary housing of those fleeing pogroms in Kyrgyzstan -- President Karimov has sanctioned a concerted crackdown on his domestic critics. It's too early to tell whether there are more court cases than usual in violation of basic international standards for freedom of speech and association, but they have continued steadily in recent months.
This month, a Tashkent prosecutor launched a libel case against human rights activist Surat Ikramov, uznews.net and ferghana.ru report. Ikramov is head of the Initiative Group of Independent Human Rights Activists of Uzbekistan. The charges stem from a complicated case involving the reported suicide of a famous Uzbek singer, Dilnura Kadyrjanova. Ikramov's group made a statement about the case on February 26, 2008 on behalf of Kadyrjanova's family, expressing their concerns that facts about her death were allegedly covered up by a district police chief, the brother of the interior minister, who was said to be the father of Kadyrjanova's child.
Anatoly Volkov of the Human Rights Alliance is also facing criminal charges of fraud based on the complaint of a client he represented in court. These and other cases are believed to be trumped up by authorities in retaliation for critical statements about the Uzbek government's human rights violations.
Catherine A. Fitzpatrick compiles the Uzbekistan weekly roundup for EurasiaNet. She is also editor of EurasiaNet's Choihona blog. To subscribe to Uzbekistan News Briefs, write [email protected]
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