Five years after Uzbekistan’s Islam Karimov rejected inquiries into the shooting of hundreds of his unarmed citizens, Central Asia’s most fearsome despot made a touchingly hypocritical about-face this summer and called for an international investigation into ethnic violence in southern Kyrgyzstan.
How’s that for resuscitating his legacy?
Now, Kyrgyzstan’s deeply distrusted “National Commission” investigating the June events has nominated Karimov for some sort of state award because he accepted up to 80,000 refugees (before quickly ushering them back home).
Never mind they still cannot present a convincing picture of what happened in June and that several of the most prominent members left the commission in disgust; the body is also mulling how to nominate Karimov -- the dictator who tried to make boiling alive his opponents chic -- for the Nobel Peace Prize.
David Trilling is Eurasianet’s managing editor.
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