WikiLeaks and Central Asia: "Substandard governments and substandard civil society"

An allleged State Department cable from Brussels recently released by the activist group WikiLeaks illustrates the challenge to governments by the radical Islamic organization Hizb-ut-Tahrir which seeks to restore theocratic government under the caliphate. WikiLeaks said the full text of the original cable, which was sent September 8, 2004 and discusses events in the Caucasus and Central Asia, was not available.

Noting that summer's terrorist attacks in Uzbekistan, the EU said the Uzbeks had asked them to designate Hizb-ut-Tahrir as a terrorist group; the US had not done so.

The cable is a good example of how governments talk about groups in civil society behind their backs, hoping to encourage some civic actors even as they remain ambivalent about others. Referenced in the cable are Michael Swann, South Caucasus and Central Asia Desk Officer in the EU Council Secretariat, and Jan Lucas Van Hoorn, Director of the Southeast and Eastern Europe Department in the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs (the Netherlands was then EU president):

On Central Asia, both sides agreed on the difficulty and importance of helping to build civil society. Swann commented that the EU had to deal with "substandard governments and substandard civil society" -- the governments were suspicious of efforts to reach out to NGOs and other groups, while NGOs and the press tended to take irresponsible actions that aroused further government suspicion. The U.S. and EU, suggested van Hoorn, needed to call all parties on their behavior -- and to encourage further contact between government and civil society representatives.

The diplomats discussed various assistance projects in Central Asia, the view of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe as key to the "regional approach" they wish to take to Central Asia, and hopes (subsequently dashed) that Kazakhstan's chair for the OSCE would help bring about reforms.

The EU also wished to hear how Tashkent has reacted to the US decision not to certify Uzbekistan for military cooperation due to failure to make progress on human rights, and the attitude to Hizb-ut-Tahrir:

Noting this summer's terrorist attacks on US and Israeli embassies, Van Hoorn asked whether we had added a group called Hizb-ut Tahrir to our list of terrorist groups; he said that the EU would consider this soon but he was not himself convinced that the group should be so designated. Van der Togt opined that there are no legal grounds for banning them in most other EU countries, especially given the group's vague message -- it is hard, he said, to determine exactly what the organization stands for or intends to do. [Tony] Van der Togt [head of East Europen Department of Netherlands MFA] added that the Uzbeks raise this group with the Dutch "all the time" in meetings. (NOTE: Uzbekistan has also approached the U.S. repeatedly with the same request, but the USG has not designated the group as a terrorist organization. END NOTE.)

Uzbekistan has imprisoned at least 5,000 Muslim prisoners charged with threatening the constitutional order or extremism, who have been tried behind closed doors without sufficient legal counsel, often after torture was used to extract confessions.