Most countries in Central Asia have messed up health systems, but in typically competitive fashion, Uzbekistan refuses to be outdone.
Undeterred by a slew of health care scandals over the past year, Uzbekistan is forging ahead with a law banning private practices from carrying out medical activities.
On Friday, the Uzbek Senate approved changes to health legislation in response to what the authorities have described as the "serious shortcomings" of private medical practitioners. Critics see the move as little more than an attempt by the government to consolidate their already overwhelming control over society, however.
Sure enough, recent months have thrown up some disturbing cases of medical incompetence, but has the private sector really been to blame? Here is a quick reminder of the highlights:
- In February, activist Maxim Popov was sentenced to seven years in jail for handing out leaflets explaining that condoms and disposable syringes can help prevent HIV. That behavior was interpreted by the courts as promotion of homosexuality, prostitution and drug use.
- In March, Tashkent-based think tank Expert Working Group reported that the government has ordered health workers to secretly sterilize two women every month in the bid to curb soaring population growing. After days of dithering, the health ministry fired off a robust denial, although verification is virtually impossible in such a closed country.
Five years after Uzbek security forces killed hundreds of protestors in the Ferghana Valley town of Andijan, President Islam Karimov's government is persecuting the victim's relatives, says Human Rights Watch.
Is Karimov afraid of Kyrgyz instability spilling over the border? It sure looks that way. Andijan is only 50 kilometers from Osh, Kyrgyzstan, the scene of ethnic tensions in recent weeks.
New research by Human Rights Watch reveals that the Uzbek government continues to intimidate and harass the families of Andijan survivors who have sought refuge abroad. The police regularly summon them for questioning, subject them to constant surveillance, and threaten to bring criminal charges against them or confiscate their homes. School officials humiliate refugees' children. Five years after the massacre, on May 13, 2005, people suspected of having participated in or witnessed the massacre are still being detained, beaten, and threatened. The sentencing on April 30 of Diloram Abdukodirova, an Andijan refugee who returned to Uzbekistan in January, to 10 years and two months in prison, shows the lengths to which the government will go to persecute anyone it perceives as linked to the Andijan events.
"Instead of ensuring justice for the victims of Andijan, the Uzbek government persecutes anyone associated with the protesters," said Holly Cartner, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "There is a climate of fear in Andijan that is still palpable five years after the atrocities."
There's been a lot of recent insta-analysis about how Uzbekistan's president Islam Karimov may be seeking closer ties Russia as a result of the revolution in Kyrgyzstan in Uzbekistan, along with the nonstop speculation about what would happen to the U.S.'s Manas Air Base. But almost none of this analysis has discussed the situation in southern Kyrgyzstan, where both the U.S. and Russia were in the process of seeking new military installations: Russia, a CSTO rapid reaction force base in Osh, the U.S. an anti-terror training center in Batken.
Of these proposals, Uzbekistan was definitely more concerned about the Russian base. IWPR's News Briefing Central Asia has some useful analysis about how that has factored in to the Uzbek reaction to the "Roza revolution":
NBCentralAsia: How well-founded are Uzbek authorities’ fears about a possible deployment of more Russian forces in neighbouring Kyrgyzstan?
Tolipov: They are as well-founded as the need for this deployment is unfounded. Militarising the region is clearly inappropriate, and there’s clearly a geopolitical context to decisions like these. The first indications of what was termed Russia’s second military base in Kyrgyzstan, to be located in the south, came after agreement was reached to maintain the United States military airbase at Manas airport, albeit under a new name. [In 2009, the Kyrgyz authorities announced that the US base was to close, but a deal was later reached for it to remain, renamed a “transit hub”, apparently to save face.]
Is anyone shocked that the U.S. military cooperation with Uzbekistan in the Northern Distribution Network has tied the Pentagon up with some unsavory characters there? No? Well, now there is some proof. Ken Silverstein of Harper's reports that a company tied to Gulnara Karimova, daughter of Islam Karimov, as well as to the American-Uzbekistan Chamber of Commerce, has a contract to do some NDN shipping:
FMN says it is a subcontractor on a deal for “Line Haul Trucking Operations” for the U.S. Army. The contract calls for FMN to move supplies between Tajikistan and the Manas Air Base in Kyrgyzstan, with thirty trucks a month traveling the route and carrying “outsized” equipment on low-bed trailers. FMN also claims to have serviced “every US air base in Afghanistan to date.”
EurasiaNet's Deirdre Tynan uncovers an intriguing tidbit about some of the aviation activities at Manas Transit Center:
A company with ties to Blackwater, the controversial private security firm now known as Xe, has been ferrying US government-directed cargos over the past five-plus years across Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan. In addition, the company may be a candidate to continue its services for years to come, if a Sources Sought Announcement posted by the US Defense Department becomes a live contract.
Given what we know about contractors in Afghanistan, none of this should be surprising. But the most intriguing part to me: Apparently there remains at least some slim hope or expectation among the military and contractors that the U.S. will again get use of Karshi-Khanabad:
A separate solicitation issued on February 25, 2010, to provide fixed-wing transportation services for US Central Command and the National Geospatial Agency (NGA), to which Presidential Airways is listed as an interested vendor, also includes Karshi-Khanabad as one of 16 airfields that could be potentially used within the scope of the contract.
Richard Holbrooke, the U.S.'s envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, had a press conference today in which he briefly discussed his recent trip through the ex-Soviet 'stans and Georgia. He's trying to drum up support from those countries for U.S. efforts in Afghanistan, and although Holbrooke's portfolio is primarily diplomatic and civilian, it seems most of the support he discussed in the former USSR was military:
In the case of Kyrgyzstan, which doesn’t have a common border with Afghanistan – the very important Manas Transit Center, which will be – which we will renew the arrangements some in the next few weeks, and I wanted to launch that process. We’ve very grateful to the Kyrgyz’s Government for that support.
...
In Tashkent, of course, we talked about the Northern Distribution Network and its importance to us. Most of the supplies coming through that entry point into Afghanistan – the Northern Distribution Network – come through Uzbekistan. In Kazakhstan, we talked about improving and increasing our over-flight facilities and improving rail transit, which is an issue we’re interested in. And in Tajikistan, we talked about also northern distribution issues. And in addition, we talked about resources. Water is a huge problem, as you all know, in Pakistan and Afghanistan. And Tajikistan has one of the greatest water potentials in the world, and President Rahmon described that to us in some detail. And we have, on a separate basis we have got a water resources task force now set up in the Department to examine how we can additionally help the countries of the area, and particularly Pakistan with the water issue.
And finally, after the four Central Asian Republics, we went on to Georgia. Now, Georgia – and we visited the Georgian battalion outside Tbilisi which will – will be deployed next month to Afghanistan.
