Uzbek President Islam Karimov’s visit to Brussels [4] in early 2011 was something of a PR dud for him. Even so, Uzbek human rights activists contend that the trip emboldened the Uzbek leader to crack down on the last major international rights watchdog in Uzbekistan.
Human Rights Watch (HRW), a New York-based advocacy group, announced March 15 that it would end its 15-year presence [5]in Uzbekistan after the government acted to revoke its Tashkent office permit. HRW managed to maintain registration in the country after government troops massacred protesters [6] in Andijan in May 2005, probably, observers suggested, so that the Uzbek government could maintain the fiction that it was interested in improving the country’s human rights climate. Since Andijan, however, the HRW office had encountered numerous problems, including the constant government denial of visas and accreditation for staff.
HRW played a critical role in collecting evidence [7] on the Andijan events and the government’s subsequent human rights abuses. In the aftermath of the tragedy, Karimov closed foreign-funded non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and kicked American forces out of the Karshi-Kanabad Airbase [8].
Uzbek rights activists, many of them now living in exile, believe Karimov’s administration had long wanted to shut down the HRW office in Tashkent, but was waiting for the right opportunity, a time when such action would not stir too large a controversy among Western governments. That moment finally arrived, according to activist Mutabar Tajibayeva, when Karimov received an invitation to visit Brussels in January, offering a clear indication that Western powers were willing to put the Andijan legacy to rest.
Other observers suggested that Karimov is convinced that Western leaders will not respond vigorously due to their concern about keeping the Northern Distribution Network [9] operational. Uzbekistan is a hub for the road-rail-and-air network, which ferries supplies from Europe to US and NATO forces in Afghanistan. In February, Karimov abruptly raised transit NDN rates [10], and the move did not draw significant complaints from Western capitals or NATO headquarters. The silent reaction to the rate hike may have prompted Karimov to press his domestic offensive against civil society.
“The Uzbek government did not dare to expel Human Rights Watch after the Andijan bloodshed as it did other international organizations operating in the country, but since the European Union, NATO and the US government resumed maintaining relations with Karimov, regarding him as a strategic partner thanks to geopolitical interests, the Karimov regime has realized that it does not need to fear the West,” Tajibayeva told EurasiaNet.org.
The director of the Burning Hearts Club NGO in the Ferghana Valley town of Margilan, Tajibayeva is a prominent campaigner who won the US Secretary of State’s International Women of Courage Award in 2009. (The award infuriated Karimov, according to US Embassy diplomatic cables [11] leaked by WikiLeaks). For documenting abuses during and after the Andijan events, Tajibayeva was detained in October 2005 and sentenced to eight years in prison. She was released in June 2008 and is now living in exile in France.
On March 17, the Moscow-based rights group Memorial issued a report critical of Western tolerance of the Karimov administration’s systematic rights abuses. “The West underestimates the seriousness and scale of problems relating to political repressions in Uzbekistan and their possible dramatic impact on regional stability,” the report stated.
Although on the surface, Karimov appears to be in firm control of Uzbekistan, the Memorial report suggested that his administration is brittle. It said a “Libyan scenario” was possible in Uzbekistan, a reference to the current armed uprising against Col. Muammar Qaddafi’s authoritarian regime in the North African state.
Talib Yakubov, vice-president of the Human Rights Society of Uzbekistan, also living in exile in France, said Karimov had long wanted to gain retribution against HRW.
“Human Rights Watch is one of the few organizations which quickly reacted to the Andijan events with its ‘Bullets Were Falling Like Rain [7]’ report. That was murderous for Uzbek authorities,” he said, adding that the report prevented Uzbekistan from receiving a major loan from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and helped turn Karimov into an international pariah. “Islam Karimov does not forgive this sort of thing.”
Yakubov told EurasiaNet.org that the closure of HRW’s office in Tashkent would likely not have a significant impact on the country’s human rights conditions, which “will remain appalling as they have been.” However, international and intergovernmental organizations will receive much less accurate information about human rights abuses in Uzbekistan, he said.
As long as the Afghan war continues, Karimov will not have much to worry about, in terms of Western pressure on his administration, Yakubov said. “Karimov has the USA and NATO over a barrel over the transit of the alliance’s non-military cargoes by rail through Uzbekistan to Afghanistan. This is the most efficient route available,” Yakubov said.
After the announcement of the HRW office closure, the Tashkent-based Expert Working Group, an association of lawyers and human rights activists, issued a statement connecting the West’s need for a transit corridor and the worsening situation for human rights defenders in Tashkent: “Uzbekistan’s partners, such as the USA, the European Union, the OSCE and the UN, should also immediately respond to the government’s decision on HRW, if they really believe their interests regarding human rights and security issues are compatible with one another.”