The International Crisis Group (ICG) released a new report, "Central Asia: Decay and Decline," about the deterioration of Central Asia's infrastructure as former centralized Soviet-era subsidies are not replaced by investment from the post-Soviet independent states. The detailed report, citing fresh analysis from regional experts, paints a bleak picture of buildings, roads, and power plants at risk of falling apart, and teachers and doctors woefully undertrained, underpaid, and neglected by donor-dependent leaders more interested in personal gain than helping their people, says IGC.
The problems of the two poorest countries, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, risk a "catastrophic systematic collapse" that could spill over into other countries nearby, says ICG. In fact, ICG identified most of the region's problems to be rooted in graft and corruption. Health care is in a particularly deplorable state, even in resource-rich Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. Authorities routinely deny the enormity of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and have blocked people from learning about prevention; one HIV campaigner in Uzbekistan, Maxim Popov, remains in prison on evidently unjust charges of mishandling of foreign grants and "corruption of youth" for dissemination of sex education pamphlets.
ICG makes the case that as the Soviet era's vast infrastructure and last generation of educated specialists begins to wane, Central Asia is in trouble. Despite "Uzbekistan's mendacious claims of prosperity," the country is suffering. The Soviet-trained experts who were also sustained through the Soviet Academy of Sciences are aging and not sufficiently replaced by national personnel; corruption has eaten up funds allocated for replacement of physical plant. "This collapse has already sparked protests and contributed to the overthrow of a government," says ICG, referring to Kyrgyzstan.
ICG believes that donors have a critical role to play in reversing this ominous decline. “When widely respected international organizations abet governments in hiding and distorting reality, they not only fail to justify working in these states, but they also bear equal responsibility for the present situation and future failures," concludes ICG. ICG's recommendations to individual donors and the international community involve asking for more access to ascertain the facts, and more study to try to determine the extent of the problems; ICG would also like to see an independent, thorough, and critical review of assistance provided to date, with more engagement of civil societies in the discussions with host governments.
Yet the very factors causing the decline -- corruption and lack of transparency from the authoritarian rule of President Islam Karimov in the case of Uzbekistan -- make such idealistic NGO recommendations hard to implement. Tashkent routinely supplies inflated numbers to international financial institutions and international organizations are restricted in their access and reluctant to report critically and risk expulsion. ICG also promotes opening the energy sector to market reforms that would encourage competition and outside investment, yet if anything, the Karimov government is moving to seize back once nominally private conglomerates like Zeromax closely tied to the state in any event. Ultimately, ICG calls for conditionality in foreign investment – tying further financing to actual reforms. The question is how much leverage the international community really has to insist on these changes.
The U.S. has been working on re-establishing a close relationship with Tashkent after the hiatus following the 2005 Andijan massacre, yet due to pressure to make budget cuts in the global recession, the U.S. is intending to cut assistance programs in Central Asia under the Obama Administration's proposals. Aid for some countries will drop more than others; Uzbekistan will be somewhat spared as the budget will only decrease slightly,
says EurasiaNet.org . These cuts will need to be approved by Congress, which may make further reductions, although it is likely that military aid for Uzbekistan will be untouched, given its crucial role in the supply chain for the war in Afghanistan. In fact, for the first time since Andijan, Uzbekistan is slated to get a modest amount of $100,000 in Foreign Military Financing aid, which would enable Tashkent to buy weapons and equipment.
The recent publication of the memoirs of former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld shed light on the history of the military relationship between the U.S. and Uzbekistan. According to documents that Rumsfeld himself declassified and posted on the Internet, a month after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Uzbekistan opened up its airspace to the U.S. as well as one base for U.S. military aircraft and personnel to carry out search and rescue operations. Karshi-Khanabad, known as K2, was a key hub until 2005 when the U.S. protested the firing on demonstrators in Andijan and was expelled. Uzbekistan did not agree to any land operations, or use of its territory for air strikes. The documents contain some intriguing redactions about what was and what was not agreed. Rumsfeld also confirms what had long been rumored, that in addition to K2, the U.S. used some other bases as well, and Uzbekistan billed the Pentagon for them, i.e. $29,750 for Kokaidy, $141,800 for Jizzak and others.
The increase of U.S. military-to-military aid and the growing cooperation with the dictatorship of Karimov raises issues of complicity in the rampant human rights violations. Thousands of religious believers have been rounded up on charges of extremism, tortured, and sentenced to long terms. Thirteen people were sentenced February 3 by an Uzbek regional court to between six and 10 years in prison for their alleged membership in an Islamic group called Jihadists, RFE/RL's Uzbek Service reports.
Ezgulik (Mercy), a leading human rights group reported that the men were all from Kashkadarya region, and were tried behind closed doors. Their relatives only found out about the verdicts two weeks after the trial. According to the verdict, the accused, which included farmers and an imam, were "poisoned by the idea of an Islamic state" and committed crimes "against the constitutional order and public security and morality,” although no violent intentions or acts were cited. All reportedly plead guilty to the charges.
Two Muslim prisoners were reportedly to have died in Uzbekistan's notorious Jaslyk prison, Hizb-ut-Tahir, a radical Islamic group reported via email February 15. Hizb-ut-Tahir, which seeks to restore an Islamic caliphate in Central Asia, is banned in Uzbekistan and other countries as operating outside state-sanctioned religious bodies. Uzbek authorities reportedly released the corpses of two members whose names were not provided, one from Andijan and the other from Ferghana, claiming they had died of heart disease. The information could not be confirmed. The group said two other followers were handed additional prison terms just as their original terms were expiring;
Surat Ikramov, head of the Initiative Group of Independent Human Rights Advocates, reported in December that his organization had a list of 39 prisoners who had died in detention. He also told uznews.net that since 2006, each religious prisoner who reached the end of his sentence was being re-tried for "insubordination."
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, a weekly digest of international and regional press, write [email protected]
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