The UN Human Rights Committee is a body which routinely pulls its punches. It treats member states with respect, whether they deserve it or not. The UN is of course composed of nations many of which have much to hide on human rights, so the glass houses and stones argument is much applied.
In that context, the new advisory report of the UN Human Rights Committee on Uzbekistan is absolutely damning – as damning as these reports ever get. It contains one paragraph of “Positive Aspects” and 25 paragraphs of “Concerns”.
Concerns include lack of judicial independence, widespread use of torture, the position of women, the failure to produce bodies or graves of those executed by the state, lack of freedom of speech and movement, and use of forced labour – to name but a few.
Not even the UN can pretend that the human rights situation in Uzbekistan is anything other than abysmal.
Still more astonishing then that the Home Office has refused the asylum applications of every single one of the few dozen escapees from Uzbekistan to make it to the UK – which still has the Soviet exit visa system and locks its people in. Even last week the Home Office was still claiming at immigration hearings that there is no human rights problem in Uzbekistan. (Fortunately judges have been less blinkered and asylum cases have been won on appeal).
The UN and EU countries continue to use Uzbekistan as a major supply base for the occupation of Afghanistan. Major new contracts between the US and Uzbekistan were signed in March 2009, and Hilary Clinton is to pay an official visit to President Karimov in November this year.
Even more disgusting is that it now emerges that the newly reinvigorated US/Uzbek relationship was made possible in negotiations because the US agreed to contract Gulnara Karimova’s company FMN Logistics to provide the transport for all the US supplies passing through Central Asia to the US forces in Afghanistan.
Not only that, but the Karimov company FMN Logistics is involved in construction and supply services on the US airbases in Afghanistan itself, and has been involved in the massive expansion work to the prison at Baghram Airbase to provide a replacement Guantanamo torture centre further away from media access.
The Pentagon contracts are worth $850 million a year to the Karimovs.
And then there’s the heroin:
“Just as the indirect American intervention of 1979 was followed by an unprecedented increase in Afghan opium production, so the pattern has repeated itself since the American invasion of 2001. Opium poppy cultivation in hectares more than doubled, from a previous high of 91,000 in 1999 (reduced by the Taliban to 8,000 in 2001) to 165,000 in 2006 and 193,000 in 2007. (Though 2008 saw a reduced planting of 157,000 hectares, this was chiefly explained by previous over-production, in excess of what the world market could absorb.
“No one should have been surprised by these increases: they merely repeated the dramatic increases in every other drug-producing area where America has become militarily or politically involved. This was demonstrated over and over in the 1950s, in Burma (thanks to CIA intervention, from 40 tons in 1939 to 600 tons in 1970),[35] in Thailand (from 7 tons in 1939 to 200 tons in 1968) and Laos (less than 15 tons in 1939 to 50 tons in 1973).[36]
“The most dramatic case is that of Colombia, where the intervention of U.S. troops since the late 1980s has been misleadingly justified as a part of a “war on drugs.” At a conference in 1990 I predicted that this intervention would be followed by an increase in drug production, not a reduction.[37] But even I was surprised by the size of the increase that ensued. Coca production in Colombia tripled between 1991 and 1999 (from 3.8 to 12.3 thousand hectares), while the cultivation of opium poppy increased by a multiple of 5.6 (from .13 to .75 thousand hectares).[38]”
http://tinyurl.com/y8qjnh9
[Peter Dale Scott, a former Canadian diplomat and English Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, is a poet, writer, and researcher.]
Stephen:
I think I will call you legion, like the demons the posed the pig.
It is not the fact that you disagree with me that makes me hate you. We all disagree with each other here.
With you, and yours it isn’t about disagreements. It is about evil, and you are our definition of evil.
I see you as a racist baby killer. Nothing more and nothing less.
If anything I see you as worse than the ones who pull the trigger. you are someone who justify it, calls for it, but are too cowardly to risk yourself in pulling the trigger.
So you are a coward as well as a Nazi.
You know this already.
Stephen:
I think I will call you legion, like the demons the posed the pig.
It is not the fact that you disagree with me that makes me hate you. We all disagree with each other here.
With you, and yours it isn’t about disagreements. It is about evil, and you are our definition of evil.
I see you as a racist baby killer. Nothing more and nothing less.
If anything I see you as worse than the ones who pull the trigger. you are someone who justify it, calls for it, but are too cowardly to risk yourself in pulling the trigger.
So you are a coward as well as a Nazi.
You know this already.
This is funny:
“The UK Home Office last week released a study naming the most influential “pro-Islamic” bloggers in an attempt to estimate the scale and influence of Islamic bloggers in the UK …”:
http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2010/03/2010331142233983829.html
or
http://tinyurl.com/yec4jyk
“This is funny:”
“*Hrmph*” says A Disgruntled Taxpayer. It’s a gravy train, isn’t it ?
But, yes 🙂
“But what if Larry From St Louis,Arsalan,Stephen AND Angrysoba were all part of the SAME mirrored call-and-response provocateur dialectic? Who’d reeeeally be surprised?”
I don’t think arsalan’s playing mindgames with us, I think he’s being a real live human being.
(I think he makes a mistake to let larry wind him up so much, but it’s for him to decide).
Do you think I’m trying to wind up Arsalan? He was fairly quick to accuse the Jews of harvesting organs of young Eastern European women and selling them to young Americans. And to accuse me and the other detractor here of being Israeli intelligence operatives.
Btw, good morning Arsalan!
Perhaps Ms Karimova could spend some of her ill gotten gains on improvements in the Uzbekistan Health Sevice.
http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2010/04/01/hiv-children-uzbekistan-hospital-jail.html
Uzbek child HIV deaths punished
Last Updated: Thursday, April 1, 2010
CBC News
Medical staff behind the HIV infection of nearly 150 children in Uzbekistan have been jailed for negligence, a news website says.
At least 14 of the 147 children who were infected in the eastern city of Namangan in 2007 and 2008 died, the news portal Ferghana.ru said in a documentary.
In the film, regional prosecutor Bakhtier Shodmonov blames the infections on negligent hospital workers who failed to observe sanitary rules.
“The main reason for this situation is that the main doctors and their deputies and the chief nurses did not perform their work with full responsibility,” Shodmonov told Reuters in Uzbek. “Sanitary rules were not observed, and they did not take any anti-epidemiological measures. The staff were negligent in their duties.”
Unsterilized syringes and intravenous drips caused the infections, relatives of the victims said in the film.
“Today in the hospitals of Namangan, Andjizhan and other towns in the Ferghana valley, in that part of Uzbekistan, the picture is the same,” Shodmonov told Reuters.
“There is a total neglect and disregard for medical rules. This is caused by a lack of money, medicines and necessary medical equipment.”
The documentary was made earlier this year for state television but was never broadcast because Uzbek authorities had second thoughts.
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2010/04/01/hiv-children-uzbekistan-hospital-jail.html#ixzz0jlZLOTwa
Jives, thanks. Yes, I’ve never seen a report in the MSM (though I may have missed them) about this: who supplies the Taliban with their equipment? To tight a superpower/ an aggregation of of hyperpower in a country as large as France and Spain put together, even in a guerilla war situation, you need serious amounts of ordnance. As with the war against the Soviet Union, it’s not simply ‘captured weapons’ – which was the official Western narrative back then!
Btw, on another, much pleasanter note, I checked-out Acoustic Butterfly, – fantastic stuff, I really enjoyed listening to the music. Some of the songs, in their subtlety, reminded me a little of Canterbury group, Spirogyra, others, the ‘Warner’ period Everly Brothers – ‘Lord of the Manor’, etc.
Did you ever comes across the work of a short-lived band from the mid-1990s called ‘The Colour of Memory’? Alyth McCormack used to be in the band, as did Alasdair Joss and Julia Dow. Celtic rock. I drew on their album, ‘The Old Man and the Sea’ a lot in ‘Psychoraag’. And on the work of Phamie Gow (harpist) in ‘Joseph’s Box’, esp. the bits set in Scotland or concerning the Great Magus of Selkirk, Michael Scot (who traveled to Cordoba and Sicily to translate Arabic texts into Latin).
We really need a magus who, like Walter Scott’s Michael Scot in ‘The Lay of the Last Minstrel’, could cleave mountains with a movement of his hand!
“a war that “may” last 50 years”
This timescale is (by one of those odd coincidences) an upper estimate of the expected useful lifetime of an oil pipeline through the country. Can the Taliban be propped up that long? Reminds me of this story.
Frightened caller: My house is on fire!
Highland Fire Brigade: Try to keep it going until we get there.
Tsk, tsk, Suhayl. A ‘harpist’ is a lady in a long gown who sits at the back of a western orchestra and strums long glissandi on something that looks like a gilded waterfall. The celtic instrument is a rough thing of wood and gut and those who play it are called ‘harpers’ – as found in a few place names and the common surname.
My apologies, Vronsky – thanks for reminding me – and by extrapolation to all harpers who are, will be or ever were!
Though Phamie Gow plays both types and in fact on the front page of her website she describes herself as (among many other things) a “harpist”:
http://www.phamiegow.com/
That Karimov is a sadistic tyrant, is pretty obvious now. But as, in the case of Saddam Hussein, he is America’s man–for the time being. Unfortunately, while he is supported and supplied by the “Great Satan” there will be no way of removing him.
Saddam Hussein was dispatched a little too hastily for my liking. His barbaric hanging and avoidance of the ICC at The Hague, denied us of much information, which may have cast further light on the modus operandi of our base “special relationship” alloys.
It would be nice to see Karimov in the dock, before his evidence is wiped out.
Wise words John especially on that dreadful execution allowed to be televised to the world by the barbarian Occupiers.
Overnight some more cruelty took place in Gaza. 13 air ‘strikes’ were carried out on the captive Palestinians. Nowhere to run to, nowhere to hide as the F16s (with the British made head-up displays in the cockpits) scream overhead delivering their deadly weapons.
I said this on Dissident Voice in the night following a Zionist troll on the meaning of the Passover –
Any drops of wine dripped from your cups for the Palestinians in Gaza or is it the vinegar-soaked sponge for them again in their suffering on this Good Friday?
As promised, the Israelis carried out 13 air ‘strikes’ overnight. How cruel as the people shiver in their makeshift tents and the mothers cuddle their children, terrified all over again.
The BBC report omits to mention that over 90 Palestinians have been killed by the IOF since the end of Cast Lead in January 2009.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8600285.stm
Keith on medialens has written to the BBC Chairman about the content of this report.
http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/msg/1270176640.html
Now that is terrorism.
Total waste of time complaining to the BBC about their collusion in the murder and maiming of Palestinians.
Does anyone really believe they don’t know what they’re doing?
Larry the liar it is not me doing the accusing it is the antisemitic American government:
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE56M3QU20090723
Accuse them of blood libel wont you?
http://www.news24.com/Content/World/News/1073/fa96392d011e4723a492dcf72b408825/24-03-2005-05-01/Sex_slavery_rife_in_Israel
And they sell these women to old Israelis not young Americans.
There is only one way it is possible to stop Israel chopping people up to sell their kidneys, there is only one way to stop Israel kidnaping women, girls and even you boys to satisfypeople like Larry, and that is to end Israel. Muslims nations must unite in to a single khilafah and remove this racist cesspit.
Here’s an interesting article:
Mark Pythian Arming Iraq: How the US and Britain Secretly Built Saddam’s War Machine.
http://www.infocollective.org/mark%20pythian%20abstract.htm
I thought the cosy relationship between the US government and the dictatorship of Uzbekistan would have ended with the Karimov’s going back into the Russian orbit.
This shows i was completely wrong.
I’m also sickened by the government refusing asylum to Uzbeks.
Thank you for continuing to stand up for Uzbek refugees and against supporting dictatorships Craig – you’re continuing to do important work and doing it well, with so much personal knowledge and experience that no-one can dismiss what you say (as much as some of them would like to).
From your post Mary:
“Many ordinary people on both sides feel it is only a matter of time before there is another war”. Says Jon Donnison
As Professor Norman Finkelstein has recently reported: Cast Lead was no war. When 1400 people are killed on one side and 13 people on the other–this is a massacre.
Only the cowardly Zionist Israelis, would call such overwhelming odds–a war.
Have they forgotten the Warzaw Ghetto 1943?
How do they see the uprising of those captive Jews? I thought they were immensely brave and desperate to fight back against their overwhelming brutal oppressors.
However, the Warzaw Ghetto persecution and horror did not last a generation and impose a living death on a defenceless people.
Those sanctimonious Zionist apologists of Obama, now carrying their painted doves to the Middle East have no shame or conscience.
On the subject of the stupidity of backing dictatorships if the aim is supposed to be reducing violent extremism did you see Mohammed El Baradei is saying something i strongly agree with – that backing dictatorships and not recognising democratically elected Islamic governments (e.g Hamas) feeds extremism and will backfire in the long run.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/31/mohamed-elbaradei-tyrants-support-militants
He’s also talking of standing against Mubarak – though the last candidate with a chance of beating Mubarak was jailed and his supporters beaten and theatened by government paid agents and thugs (while the US government made noises about ‘democracy’ but continued to arm and fnd Mubarak – just as it continues to do under Obama)
Duncan McFarlane
That is democracy American style, where everyone has the right to vote for America’s puppet president, while no one has the right to stand against America’s puppet.
Stephen: you refer to the ‘Russian fear of Islam’. Again, this is disingenuous. Of course Russia has been fighting in the Caucasus for centuries. But Putin has installed and backed Kadyrov in Chechnya; the latter’s fundamentalist stance has led to the banning of alchohol, the imposition of head scarves, and the promotion of homour killings. He is their ‘son of a bitch’, of course, but even so it hardly argues Islamophobia.
What you mean, I think, is dictatorships are in fear of the people rising up against them; whether this is under the unifying flag of moderate Islam or any other label. You didn’t answer my question about why removing a dictatorship would necessarily create a ‘political vacuum’: perhaps you too are aware of the Velvet Revolution.
Indeed we must ‘start from where we are’. Currently the UK government is helping to dig a monstrous pit. Stop digging is, I think, the usual advice in these circumstances. Noises about the rewriting of the ‘Special Relationship’ seem to suggest it might be possible.
Arsalan, with all due respect, re-installling the Caliphate is not a one size fits all solution. How many contenders would there be for the title, for one thing? And I have failed to find any proof of the Israeli government’s complicity in kidney-harvesting. You link to another story in which one man has been accused of buying kidneys. Again, I ask you, why, when the situation in Gaza is so terribly visible, would you need to throw in more?
Suhayl: good meditatation. Perhaps the internet is creating a global consciousness? Mary, thanks for the links. Vronsky, the oil routes need to be kept open, of course. Ruth: I hope you’re wrong.
Tech, right now there are no contenders for the title.
straight after it was abolished in 1924 there were a couple of conferences where nearly all of Muslim countries agreed on the need for its re-establishment, but they didn’t do much else.
So the title will belong to the first the decides to rule by Khilafah.
Tech, the proof of Israeli government complicity is the fact that these Kidney theifts were being reported for decades before the Newyork Arrests. And each and every time the Israeli government were told about it they shouted antisemitism and blood libel instead of stopping them. They tried to stop publication of these reports, instead of stopping the crime of organ theft.
Until the arrests by their slave. And that is when they decided to say, it happened but it wont happen any more instead of shout their Usual silencing slogans: Antisemitism, Blood libel, Jew haters.
And they did the same thing with sex slavery for a very long time. They were told about it for a very, long time. And choose not to act.
Until it was reported by their slaves in America.
But both are still going on as strong as ever. But to say so is Blood libel, Antisemitism, or what ever other slogans the Zionists use to silence, until their puppet decides to print again. then the cycle will continue.
They do the same thing when they use Palestinian Children as Human shields.
You say it happens, they call you an antisemite. They are filmed doing it, they say it is bad apples, and has stopped.
You say it continues. They say your are an antisemite. They are filmed doing it.
and the never ending cycle continues.
They are liars, Larry is a liar, Stephen is a liar.
Tech you have been here long enough to know their lies, and their slogan cycles.
You are smart enough to predict what stephen says before he says it, so why ask?
They all seem like they are reading from a script, and you have read what they write long enough to have memorised their script by now.
Tech, we are on the same side. We may disagree one how to make things better, but we all agree on making things better.
Those racist bastards want to make things worse. If they are those, I have the feeling those Zionists share the same brain cell even if they are different people.
I think I’ve found out who Larry is.
See this amusing interview with Larry, where Prof. Norman Finkelstein demolishes his every point and all Larry can do is run away calling him names.
Turns out Larry is in fact former US Ambassador to Israel and grandee of AIPAC.
No wonder they all try to ban Norm. He demolishes them every time.
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/1/8/former_amb_martin_indyk_vs_author
It starts just about 12mins in, or you can read the transcript below the video.
Jed
And I have found Stephen
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxL5hPnuz5o
See how USUKIsNATO military aggression is poisoning us, our children and their children ad infinitum, and the planet on which we all have to live.
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=64719
Depleted Uranium Radiation resulting from NATO Bombings in Serbia : High Incidence of Cancer
by Ljubica Vujadinovic
All Voices, April 1, 2010
A leading Serbian expert in the field says the NATO’s use of depleted uranium ammunition in it’s aggression on Serbia has caused enormous increase in cancer rates and number of newborns with genetic malformations.
aa
These defects are being found in Iraq, especially Fallujah, and the fear is that the contaminated dust is being spread in the winds and sandstorms all over the ME and beyond. Nice thought?
@ arsalan
You’re correct that they’re liars. But what else can they do. Their crimes are so horrendous that they can do nothing else but lie.
But worry not, more and more people are seeing through their lies and they know it.
That bitch cries just like Stephen doesn’t she.
Arsalan, was that you? I don’t think calling people names helps, you know. Norman Finkelstein keeps the factual high ground – good link, Jed, thanks. Stephen seems to be coming from an establishment mindset I know quite well; given thought & information it can open up, I think. But then I haven’t read all his posts.
Larry is the worst advocate for his cause, I agree. But I still think one has to acknowledge that attacks on Israel per se can be motivated by sheer anti-semitism, and that such people do not give two hoots about the Palestinians. They just hate Jewish people (and Muslims). Apparently the ‘blood libel’ (I’d never heard of it) was a powerful propaganda tool. It’s important to stick to what we know to be the facts, as Finkelstein does. They are surely bad enough. I’m open to information, so could you substantiate the claims in your second paragraph?
Not that anything would surprise me; this is all a viciously cold-blooded exercise. Mary, the DU stories are – words fail me. Despite all the evidence the mainstream refused to cover the use of DU at the time, as far as I know.
Back to Karimov; would add thanks & respect for Craig’s efforts here too.