Despite great expectations following talks in Tashkent last month between the Uzbek government and the US and German special envoys to Afghanistan, Uzbekistan did not show up at a meeting November 2 in Istanbul of foreign ministers from Afghanistan and its neighbors to discuss plans for stability in Central Asia after US and NATO troop withdrawal in 2014, The Bug Pit reported.
The document signed at the meeting by countries as diverse as China, Russia, Pakistan and Iran might have been something in principle that Tashkent could have signed, as it was filled with platitudes. But Uzbekistan was not involved, despite being called a "key partner” by the State Department last week, and it's not clear why. Neither Tashkent nor Washington has spoken about it.
Uzbekistan has always promoted its own peace process, dubbed the "6+3 proposal," which tacked on NATO last and put itself more at the center of a regional post-conflict arrangement. It will be interesting to see if Uzbekistan comes to the Bonn meeting in December on the Afghan peace process, which will have more than 1,000 delegates. Uzbekistan did take part in the London conference on Afghanistan last year.
Tashkent appears to have become skittish with US and NATO cooperation, despite the carrots it has received recently from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's visit last month and the Senate's proposed lifting of sanctions against military aid. Yet it is no friendlier to the Russian-dominated Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), where it is nominally a member but refrains from taking part in military exercises and some meetings.
According to a recent report at fergananews.com, Uzbekistan recently refused to sign a document on aligning the foreign policies of CSTO members, The Bug Pit Reports.
In October, the Belarusian autocrat Alyaksandr Lukashenka berated Uzbekistan for not participating in the CSTO.. “Even Uzbekistan that today has a specific stance will eventually understand that it will find it hard to preserve independence without the CSTO,” the Belarusian state news agency belta.by quoted Lukashenka as saying. It's hard to understand how the Moscow-run CSTO would help Uzbekistan keep its independence from anything but NATO, which isn't exactly threatening it but is cajoling for cooperation itself.
As The Bug Pit remarked: “Clearly Uzbekistan is playing hard-to-get with all its suitors these days.” And it loses nothing by doing so, as those suitors will go on chasing Tashkent and it can write its own ticket these days given its strategic location, although at a certain point it has to give to get and keep the balancing act between Russia and the US credible.
A political analyst in Tajikistan, Rustam Haydarov, told the Tajik news agency Asia-Plus that Lukashenka was referring to the possibility of the US stationing troops again in Uzbekistan. He even implied that the US would use its influence in the World Bank to stop the Roghun hydroelectric power station project in Tajikistan, and some of Hillary Clinton's remarks in Dushanbe at her town hall two weeks ago seemed to lean in that direction. If Lukashenka's point is that Tashkent is playing a two-faced game, there's still its growing economic relationship with China to consider, detailed in a document on the Uzbekistan Ministry of Finance website .
In other areas, Tashkent has also seemed to disrespect Moscow. A planned visit by Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill expected to have begun November 2 appears to have been obstructed by the Uzbek authorities, Forum 18 News Service reports. Some believe the Uzbek authorities were unhappy over the Moscow Patriarchate's decision in July to change its administration in Central Asia and appoint a new bishop to Tashkent without consulting with or gaining the approval of the Uzbek authorities. The trip may be rescheduled later this month.
Uzbek and international human rights groups were disappointed with Clinton's trip to Uzbekistan, which seemed largely about finalizing Uzbekistan’s cooperation on the Northern Distribution Network (NDN) and short on condemnation of ongoing human rights concerns. By contrast with her town hall in Tajikistan, where she took some sharp questions about both Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, in Tashkent, she met off the record with just four carefully-chosen non-governmental organization leaders. They were evidently chosen to symbolize issues on the US Administration's agenda related to promoting small business, women's empowerment and combating trafficking, as the softer options by contrast with hard-core human rights issues like political imprisonment, religious freedom and torture.
A number of outspoken human rights leaders were not invited to meet with Clinton, however, such as Vasila Inoyatova of Ezgulik, which works on torture and political and religious prisoners, Elena Urlayeva of the Human Rights Alliance, who has recently been reporting on forced child labor in the cotton fields, and Sukhrobjon Ismoilov, of the Expert Working Group which has critically analyzed legislation and documented torture as well.
In a briefing with a senior State Department official in Tashkent, reporters asked if the oft-mentioned incidents of pouring boiling water on prisoners -- documented by Human Rights Watch -- had continued. The official said “not any more.“ As Susan Corke, Senior Program Manager for Eurasia at Freedom House put it in a recent blog post, "The fact that this question needed to be asked is a worrisome sign for U.S. moral authority." She suggested that Clinton should have consulted more with human rights groups at home and in Uzbekistan and been more outspoken in conveying benchmarks for better behavior.
The American snub comes at a time when human rights activists are fewer and fewer, and under more and more pressure from the Uzbek regime. Earlier this year, Urlayeva was stopped and had her cell phone seized after taking pictures of young children working in the cotton fields. Ezgulik has just received notification that it is facing yet another fine over a statement made in 2008 about the death of a prominent singer, Dilnara Kadyrjanova (Dilnura Qodirjonova), who had a child by a police chief, Jamshid Matlyubov. Ezgulik has already paid four court-ordered fines for "insult" over its efforts to defend the family of the singer. The family sought custody of their child, taken by a nanny hired by the Matlyubovs, as well as an investigation into Dilnura's death, which had been ruled a suicide. There has been concern that Jamshid and his brother, who happens to be the Interior Minister, are instigating harassment of the human rights group over their efforts to help Kadyrjanova’s family. Already Ezgulik has had office equipment seized in payment of a past fine,
Recently, the Expert Working Group documented more torture cases involving incarceration of prisoners in freezing cells, and another human rights defender reported that cold water is poured on the floor to make them colder. In another alarming development, an Uzbek military court has rejected an appeal for the release of Said Ashurov, the imprisoned chief metallurgist of the British company Oxus Gold.
Catherine A. Fitzpatrick compiles the Uzbekistan weekly roundup for EurasiaNet. She is also editor of EurasiaNet's Choihona blog.
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