A posting from the Deep Blade Journal

Paying the price for defending human rights

GUEST POST by Mike Walls

In light of new findings regarding the extent to which the US has aided and abetted the Karimov regime in Uzbekistan, I feel that a reprisal of the experiences of former British diplomat to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, is timely. Back in 2002 Murray exposed the human rights abuses going on in Uzbekistan and unwittingly revealed the Blair government’s support for such abuses.

Craig Murray’s story tells of a dedicated British diplomat who felt that by bringing to light human rights abuses on the part of the Karimov regime, his government would condemn them, sever diplomatic ties with Uzbekistan and take measures to prevent such abuses from continuing. To Murray’s stunned dismay this was not to be. In a recent documentary here in Sweden entitled ”Agenda”, aired following the alleged massacres in Uzbekistan some weeks ago, Murray spoke out about his grisly experiences in Uzbekistan. On the question of torture he reports:

We received photos of a corpse, Mr Abazov, who had been boiled to death. The corpse, in addition to having its fingernails removed, showed complete scolding damage to the skin on the lower arms, legs and lower torso.

Murray made the claim that torture was systemic in Uzbekistan and that the information being procured from victims of this torture was being used by his own British government. Murray tried in vain to bring all of this to light to foreign secretary Jack Straw, as he explains:

When I first went back in November 2002 and said, ”look, America’s supporting this really vicious dictatorship here”, and the intelligence material we’re gaining has been gained under torture, maybe I was na?ve but I actually thought that if I brought this to Jack Straw’s attention, brought it up to a high enough level, then they’d stop.

Unfortunately for Mr Murray, he was being na?ve, but his na?vet? was a sign of his own human decency which contrasted greatly, as it transpired, to that of his superiors. On discovering his own government’s complicity, Murray, in the Financial Times in 2004, openly criticised MI6 and the CIA after publishing information in a Foreign Office document. This adherence to democratic principles did not bode him well, however. Murray was called home from Uzbekistan and an investigation was carried out, after which Murray was fired from his position as Ambassador. To this injury, much insult was hurled too:

So then they [the British Government] started contacting the Media, telling people I was an alcoholic, telling people I was offering visas in exchange for sex. They brought up these amazing allegations against me as formal charges which were then dropped.

According to the UN, there are currently up to 8000 people imprisoned in Uzbekistan for no more reason than their religious and political persuasions. Very few Uzbeks dare to speak out about Karimov’s crimes in Uzbekistan, but those who do have a chilling tale to tell. For example, peace activist, Surat Akrakov, told of beatings, rape and electric shock occurring as part of the torture regime.

Unwaveringly, Craig Murray, despite his ouster, travelled back to Uzbekistan in April 2003 in order to speak with one Professor Jamal Mersajdov, an outspoken critic of the Karimov regime. Unfortunately, Murray’s visit did not go unnoticed:

I left the house that evening, at 3 o’clock the next morning the body of his [Professor Jamal] grandson was dumped on the doorstep. The right hand had been immersed in boiling water or liquid for a long period. His murder was a warning to dissidents for meeting me or perhaps a warning to me for meeting dissidents.

The usual arguments from the Karimov regime were that torture is necessary in order to curb the threat of Islamic terrorism. However, dissidents and critics, alike, claim that this is merely used as a pretext in order to continue the repression and torture that is already emblematic of the Karimov regime; war on terror or no war on terror.

Craig Murray’s tenacity is to be commended in light of the many obstacles he has had to face. The sacrifices he and his compatriots in Uzbekistan have made to bring this story to light is worthy of praise too, since their sacrifices have shone the spotlight on the corrupt and despicable policies of the Bush and Blair governments since 9/11 and prior to 9/11.

Craig Murray, himself, has begun the slow journey back into politics. He has as his goal to displace the current foreign secretary, Jack Straw, for, like many of us, Murray understands the dire and dangerous consequences of a foreign policy which reneges on human rights laws and international law. To illustrate this point, Murray leaves us with a chilling reminder:

Torture breeds hatred, ill-treatment, repression, breeds hatred. That hatred is not just directed at karimov, but at the West who are seen as his close supporters. So really, we’re creating terrorism. In the future this is going to come back and hit us.

The last two sentences are a definitive mantra for our times, unfortunately. And it is one which resonates with layman and activists alike. It is encouraging that more and more people are becoming aware of the true meaning of power in relation to the US and UK. However, it is disconcerting that those, like Murray, who were once placed at power’s political epicentre are shunned and scorned when practising their duties of office, namely, to promote democracy and protect the rights of others at home and abroad. This once again reconfirms the truism that democracy in our beloved Occident is no more than rhetorical window dressing used in order to divert our attention from our leaders’ destructive Realpolitik. –Mike Walls

By STEPHEN J. SNIEGOSKI

Their product line has its faults, but American propaganda-hawkers have proved one thing, at least: they are a nimble bunch of peddlers. When their fables about Saddam’s link to Osama bin Laden fell flat in the marketplace, they concentrated on retailing the WMD lie; and then, when they could no longer sell that one, they promptly updated their inventory. Now, they said, the United States was fighting for democracy. And, of course, against tyranny.

In fact, as President Bush maintained in his second Inaugural Address, the fundamental goal of American democracy was spreading that sacred system throughout the world. Who could possibly criticize the liberation of Iraq and the nurturing of a nascent democracy there? And Iraq was just the beginning: the United States, the world’s good and faithful steward, would bring democracy to other benighted lands, too.

Like the earlier justifications for interventionist war, the global-democracy theme had first been promoted by the neoconservatives and then adopted by the administration. But unlike the earlier justifications that turned out to be bogus, and written off by critics as deceptive propaganda to monger war, observers have generally accepted democracy-for-export as a real, though perhaps misguided, motive for American action. Thus, “realist” critics of America’s war policy have focused on the destructive results of relying on democracy as the lodestar for U.S. foreign policy, branding the neocons as naive idealists, Wilsonians, Jacobin radicals, and Trotskyists.

Despite their rhetoric, however, there is much in the neoconservatives’ record that belies the claim that they are sincerely wedded to the democratic ideal. Obviously neocons have shown little interest in democratic majority rule in Palestine, where Israel has sought to elevate to leadership men who would accede to Israeli demands rather than try to represent the Palestinian people; nor have neocons cared much about democracy in Israel proper, as shown by their identification with the Israeli Right, which promotes an exclusivist Jewish state at the expense of its Palestinian citizens.

The neoconservatives showed little appreciation for democracy in their buildup for war against Iraq, either. They had nothing but condemnation for the European democracies ‘ especially France ‘ that opposed the war on Iraq. The overwhelming majority of the people in all of those countries fiercely opposed the war in Iraq, but the United States expected their governments to turn a deaf ear to the purportedly sacrosanct vox populi. Later, in 2004, the neocons condemned the new Spanish government for carrying out its election pledge to remove Spanish occupation troops from Iraq.

Washington even attempted to bribe the Turkish government with financial aid to back the war on Iraq, but that government actually put the decision to the vote of its parliament, which rejected the U.S. offer. Then-Deputy Secretary of State Paul Wolfowitz was enraged by the Turkish military’s failure to sufficiently pressure the government to go to war. “I think for whatever reason, they did not play the strong leadership role that we would have expected,” he complained. Leadership role! Presumably Wolfowitz would have considered a pro-war military coup preferable to the repudiation of American war policy by a democratically elected regime. [1]

Assuming democracy as a system of rule is to be taken seriously, reams could be written about the violations of democratic principles in the United States itself since September 11, 2001, especially as exemplified by the deceptive and fraudulent propaganda that the administration and its neocon supporters have relied on to gain public and congressional support for war. Obviously, under democratic ideology as commonly preached, a people can make an educated decision on any matter only if they know the truth ‘ and war is surely the most important issue for a people to decide on. But the entire effort of the Bush administration has been to use the purportedly non-partisan organs of government to spread falsehoods. Furthermore, it is remarkable that as apostles of the American Way continue to instruct us that democracy necessitates the protection of civil liberties, the Bush regime mounts serious attacks on those liberties through the USA PATRIOT Act and its looming successor.

In fact, contradicting officialdom’s Fourth of July-style speechifying, the neocons actually admit that democracy must take a back seat when it comes to fighting Islamic radicals. As David Frum and Richard Perle point out in their neocon tour de force, An End to Evil: “In the Middle East, democratization does not mean calling immediate elections and then living with whatever happens next.” [2] Since elections in any Islamic country would always risk empowering Islamic radicals, or at least enemies of the United States and Israel, the logic of Frum and Perle’s position would basically prohibit democracy in the Middle East.

The neocons themselves have plainly revealed their dislike of bona fide democracy, but the total hypocrisy of the democracy motive emerges in the starkest colors with respect to America’s Central Asian ally Uzbekistan, which has recently been in the media spotlight because of anti-government protests and the regime’s concomitant slaughter of hundreds, if not thousands, of protesters. [3] As Marc Perelman puts it in the Forward: “The recent violence in Uzbekistan has cast a spotlight on the cozy relationship between the authoritarian regime of President Islam Karimov and Israel and its American supporters.” [4]

The massacre in Uzbekistan took place on May 13, 2005, when government troops fired on a large crowd of protesters in the eastern city of Andijan. Numerous reports of gruesome atrocity have filtered out to the West; one eyewitness described “smashed brains, guts, and blood, blood, everywhere.” [5] According to some reports, military death squads hunted down and killed civilian protesters in mopping-up operations. An accurate assessment of the situation, however, is difficult since the Uzbek regime cut off all communications with Andijan and blocked access to the city. [6]

Protests and governmental killings spread to other parts of eastern Uzbekistan, with reports of thousands of civilians being killed. Thousands of refugees, including women and children, tried to flee the slaughter but were trapped on the border with Kyrgyzstan when Uzbek troops refused to let them cross. [7]

Those particular events attracted worldwide media attention, but government-induced carnage is far from being an aberration in Uzbekistan; rather, sheer brutality has long been the rule in that country, which suffers under the iron-fisted rule of Islam Karimov. This dictator simply tolerates no opposition. And he expresses his lust for blood quite openly. Of political opponents, Karimov has said, “Such people must be shot in the forehead.” And more: “If necessary, I’ll shoot them myself.” On another occasion, he averred: “I’m prepared to rip off the heads of 200 people, to sacrifice their lives, in order to save peace and calm in the republic…. If my child chose such a path, I myself would rip off his head.” [8]

Observers estimate there are more than 6,000 political and religious prisoners in Uzbekistan, many of whom have been sentenced for such non-crimes as wearing an Islamic-style beard or praying at a mosque not sanctioned by the state. In a policy reminiscent of Stalinist Russia, the regime often imprisons entire families. And those incarcerated in Uzbekistan sometimes undergo the most grisly tortures. International human-rights groups have reported that the atrocities committed by Uzbek jailers include applying electroshock to genitals, ripping off fingernails and toenails with pliers, stabbing with screwdrivers, and, perhaps the most creative, boiling prisoners to death. [9] Even the U.S. State Department, in pallid understatement, admits that “the police force and the intelligence service use torture as a routine investigation technique.” [10]

But in the eyes of the U.S. government, all of that brutality is trumped by the fact that Uzbekistan supports the “war on terror,” the full irony of which terminology we may now begin to appreciate. As the Times of London puts it: “When the West is your pal you are able, quite literally, to get away with murder. And what murder! It is a surprise Karimov has time for governing at all, once he has spent the morning formulating new ways to poach, grill, tenderise, smoke, and flamb’ his citizens to death.” [11]

Karimov is a former Soviet Communist boss who has ruled Uzbekistan with a blood-encrusted iron grip since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991; and he has done it all draped in the trappings of democracy. In December 1991, after banning the main opposition parties and imprisoning their leaders, Karimov unsurprisingly won rigged elections for himself and his former communist organization, renamed the People’s Democratic Party. In 1995 he extended his term in office through a “democratic” plebiscite.

In 2000 Karimov was re-elected for what was supposed to be his final five-year term. That victory was of near-Stalinist proportions: according to official records, he won more than 90 percent of the votes of the more than 95 percent of the eligible voters who participated. Impressive “democratic” numbers indeed! The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) refused to send election observers on the grounds that the entire election process was a sham. Karimov’s hand-picked opponent in the election, whose sole purpose for being on the ballot was to provide a democratic facade, admitted that he had cast his ballot for Karimov. [12]

Another referendum was held in January 2002 to extend President Karimov’s presidency to 2007, by amending Uzbekistan’s constitution to allow for seven-year presidential terms. Somehow Karimov achieved success in that exercise of democracy, too.

The Uzbek dictatorship does not rely entirely on facades, though; sometimes Karimov speaks plainly. When the OSCE refused to send observers, Karimov acknowledged that he was repudiating the very concept of democratic rights, though he did try to make that sound like a new development. “The OSCE focuses only on establishment of democracy, the protection of human rights, and the freedom of the press,” he regally intoned. “I am now questioning these values.” [13] Since Karimov not only runs a terribly brutal state but also explicitly rejects democratic freedoms as Western democrats understand them, it would be hard for the United States to justify its support for him ‘ that is, if it actually cared about democracy.

What Washington does care about is something quite different. Uzbekistan, which has Central Asia’s largest population, economy, and military, is a strategic American asset, just as Saddam Hussein’s Iraq was in the 1980s. After the 9/11 attacks, Uzbekistan granted the U.S. military permission to use its Khanbad base just north of the border of Afghanistan, providing a key location for U.S. operations in the latter country.

The strategic importance of Uzbekistan for the United States far transcends Afghanistan, for the American military presence there provides Washington with significant leverage in the vital heart of energy-rich Central Asia, with its oil and gas fields stretching eastward from the Caspian Sea to border of China.

In fact, the American military and intelligence connection with Uzbekistan predates 9/11, having begun in the 1990s. The U.S. military had trained Uzbek soldiers, and American troops had conducted exercises in Uzbekistan, as long ago as 1996. After the 9/11 attacks, it transpired that the United States and Uzbekistan had been sharing intelligence and conducting joint covert operations against the Taliban for two to three years. That well-established secret relationship helped explain the rapid emergence of the post-9/11 military partnership between the two countries, whereby Uzbekistan became an American base for launching attacks on Afghanistan. [14]

Uzbekistan currently serves Washington in a more sinister way: it is believed to be one of the destination countries for the highly secretive “renditions program,” in which the CIA ships suspected terrorists to third-party countries where abusive interrogation methods are employed that are illegal in the United States. Essentially, the “renditions program” is the conscious and deliberate outsourcing of torture.

Media reports claim that dozens of suspects have been transported to Uzbek jails. [15] Of course, if one wants to torture prisoners, Uzbekistan is the ideal place to send them. The threat of being boiled alive might loosen the lips of the hardest prisoner, encouraging him to provide any answer his captors desired. As the London Times put it: “The CIA would not shop anywhere else, which is why a mysterious Gulfstream 5 executive jet routinely delivers terrorist subjects from Afghanistan [to Uzbekistan] for interrogation and, perhaps, percolation.” [16]

In the case of renditions, Washington values the Uzbek regime not in spite of its being a brutal despotism but because of its brutality: it provides a service to American imperialism that a freer, more civilized country could not offer. Even better, if U.S. raisons d’etat should ever require the disposal of such a regime, Washington could use allegations of those very same practices to justify an American attack. One can easily imagine the sudden burst of shocked indignation that U.S. propagandists would produce.

What was the official American reaction to the recent bloodbath in Uzbekistan? While Washington has issued strident calls for regime change in the Middle East, when it came to Uzbekistan it crafted a low-key approach predicated on moral equivalency, balancing the regime’s torture and mass murder with the alleged threat of anti-government Islamic terrorism ‘ that is, it accepted as true Karimov’s claims that “terrorist groups” precipitated the protest against his rule.

As Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, explained:

We have had concerns about human rights in Uzbekistan, but we are concerned about the outbreak of violence, particularly by some members of a terrorist organization that were freed from prison. And we urge both the government and the demonstrators to exercise restraint at this time. The people of Uzbekistan want to see a more representative and democratic government, but that should come through peaceful means, not through violence. And that’s what our message is. [17]

A similar message of moral equivalency was presented by State Department spokesman Richard Boucher, who said that the United States continues to urge the Uzbek government “to exercise restraint, stressing that violence cannot lead to long-term stability.” In a display of perverse even-handedness, Boucher also condemned armed attacks by the demonstrators on the prison and other government facilities in Andijan. It “is the kind of violence that we cannot countenance in any way,” he proclaimed. “There’s nothing that justifies acts of violence or terrorism, and we’re very concerned at reports of either the release or the escape of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan members.” [18]

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice continued this advocacy of peaceful change initiated by the Karimov government by telling reporters on her way back from her visit to Iraq: “We have been encouraging the government to make reforms, to make it possible for people to have a political life.” [19]

In short, the United States is advocating only peaceful change in Uzbekistan; anti-government violence is to be completely eschewed. But Karimov’s murderous dictatorship does not allow any peaceful outlets for reform. Presumably, in the eyes of the U.S. government, those Uzbeks who want to overthrow the Karimov regime by force are ipso facto “terrorists.” In contrast, people who violently oppose regimes the United States wants to remove, such as the one in Iran, are lionized as “freedom fighters.” It should be added that the United States only very belatedly made much noise at all about peaceful reform in Uzbekistan; it was roused to do so only when the world’s spotlight was focused on its homicidal ally.

To what extent is the violence in Uzbekistan actually caused by Islamic terrorists? Karimov claimed that the protests were organized by Hizb ut-Tahrir (“The Liberation”), an Islamic group, which his government brands as terrorist. The United States, however, does not so classify it. Hizb-ut-Tahrir preaches non-violent methods, in particular the distribution of anti-government leaflets, in an effort to bring down the Karimov regime. But the group does want to establish an Islamic state, which would undermine the current American policy. (One may recall that when the United States was opposing the Soviet Union, Washington supported those same Islamicists as allies.)

Witnesses and area experts largely dispute Karimov’s depiction of the events and contend that most protesters were not espousing Islamic extremism but instead were complaining about government brutality, corruption, economic mismanagement, and poverty. [20] The anti-government protest had been sparked by the trial and imprisonment of 23 Muslim businessmen who were accused of membership in a terrorist organization that sought to overthrow the government. Knowledgeable sources, however, maintain that the businessmen had actually been prosecuted because of the growing popularity of their free-market business practices, which had provided the people with many consumer goods otherwise unavailable in Uzbekistan’s mostly state-controlled economy. As a result, the Karimov apparat saw them as a threat to its communistic bureaucratic system, which has changed little since the Soviet era. [21]

Shedding some light on the situation, former British ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray blamed the United States and Britain as being partly responsible for the bloodletting because they had habitually ignored Karimov’s horrific human-rights record. “The Americans and British wouldn’t do anything to help democracy in Uzbekistan,” Murray maintained. “People are turning to violence because we … gave them no support.” [22] Murray had been forced out of his ambassadorial post after he publicly rebuked the Karimov regime for its policy of torture, especially its boiling people to death. [23]

Before the recent massacre, the U.S. government essentially had collaborated with Karimov while remaining largely silent about his brutality. On a trip to the country in 2004, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld ignored Karimov’s human-rights violations and instead lauded Tashkent’s “stalwart support” for the American “war on terrorism” in the Middle East. He even went so far as to cite Uzbekistan as a “key member of the coalition’s global War on Terror.” [24]

In 2004, Mira Ricardel, then acting assistant secretary of defense for international security policy, defended Karimov’s regime before the House International Relations Committee, trumpeting its alleged merits: “Uzbekistan is making significant progress reforming its Soviet-style military. Indeed, in many areas it serves as a model for other countries in the region. Alone among Central Asian states, Uzbekistan has appointed a civilian defense minister and has established firm civilian control of the military.” [25] In May 2003, the State Department touted Uzbekistan’s “substantial and continuing progress” in its human-rights record. Foggy Bottom had to strain mightily to arrive at that positive assessment. For example, the “average sentencing” for members of peaceful religious organizations declined to “7-12 years,” whereas two years before, such felons were “usually sentenced to 12-19 years.” [26]

Washington backs up its words with actual financial support for the regime: to date the United States has supplied the country with some $800 million in military and humanitarian aid. [27] But it isn’t just the formal organs of government that pay honor to Karimov in the United States; he is honored by non-government neocons and many leading figures in the Jewish community as well. Perhaps the greatest American apologist for Uzbekistan’s tyrant has been Stephen Schwartz, a onetime member of the neocon Foundation for the Defense of Democracies who is most celebrated for his purple prose advocating regime change in Saudi Arabia. Neocon luminary William Kristol wrote of Schwartz: “No one has done more to expose the radical, Saudi-Wahhabi face of Islam than Stephen Schwartz.” [28]

However, from Schwartz’s standpoint Uzbekistan is the polar opposite of Saudi Arabia. As he wrote in the neocon journal The Weekly Standard in 2002, the situation in Uzbekistan was about as good as it could get. Explaining away the grisly record of the Karimov regime, Schwartz asserted that “before freedom can be established, the enemies of freedom must be defeated. The fate of democracies that do not defeat the enemies of democracy is illustrated by the histories of Germany and Italy after the First World War. Democracies can grant mercy to their enemies only from a position of unchallengeable strength.” [29]

Given the danger facing Uzbekistan, it was essential for the regime to take a hard line:

Central Asia and the neighboring areas, including Pakistan and Afghanistan, along with the Sunni zones of Iraq, are on the front lines in the battle against infiltration by agents of the extremist Wahhabi sect, which is the state religion in Saudi Arabia, and its various ideological satellites. HT [the Islamic group Hizb-ut-Tahrir] represents a mixture of Communist methodology, Wahhabi theology, and fascist rhetoric. [30]

Schwartz portrayed the government repression in Uzbekistan as a necessity under the circumstances. “Since September 11, the United States no longer accepts the claim that the free exercise of terrorist agitation, incitement, and organization outweighs the benefits of legal sanction,” Schwartz wrote. “Here [Uzbekistan], the ‘fallacy of prior restraint’ has been replaced by a reliance on the doctrines of ‘probable cause’ and ‘preemption.’ That is, extremist rhetoric provides sufficient probable cause to take preemptive action to prevent bloodshed. In addition, it was never anything but ludicrous to imagine that the domestic legal standards of the United States could be applied to Uzbekistan and other transitional states.” [31]

As is apparent, Schwartz justifies suppression of free speech because “by their radicalism, groups like HT that do not presently carry out acts of violence nonetheless prepare an environment conducive to violence.” [32] For Karimov’s regime, such logic is used to justify the suppression of any speech deemed critical of the government or its policies. Moreover, Schwartz held that the United States should not simply tolerate Karimov’s repressive actions but actually support them: “The United States, which has entered into a military alliance with Uzbekistan, must support the Uzbeks in their internal as well as their external combat, and must repudiate the blandishments of the human rights industry.” [33] In short, in Schwartz’s view the United States had to be an active partner in Karimov’s tyranny.

Another key supporter of the brutal Karimov regime has been Natan Sharansky, the noted former Soviet dissident who until recently was minister of Jerusalem and Diaspora affairs for the Israeli government. Sharansky is a well-publicized champion of democracy, and he has been very close to neoconservatives, such as Richard Perle, since his Soviet refusenik days. The ideas in his The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror provided the inspiration for Bush’s second Inaugural Address, in which the president passionately proclaimed that the fundamental goal of American foreign policy would be to spread democracy.

In his book, Sharansky stresses the need for “moral clarity” in fighting evil. Like Bush, he describes a world “divided between those who are prepared to confront evil and those who are willing to appease it.” And he writes: “I am convinced that all peoples desire to be free. I am convinced that freedom anywhere will make the world safer everywhere. And I am convinced that democratic nations, led by the United States, have a critical role to play in expanding freedom around the globe.” [34]

But how does Sharansky-style democracy apply to the Uzbek tyranny? In an August 2004 interview with the Israeli Russian-language daily Novosti Nedeli, Sharansky justified Karimov’s actions as a necessary response to terrorism. “The Uzbek government adopted such an uncompromising position because it is understood in Tashkent, in the same way as Jerusalem, that the battle against terrorism is not some sort of tribal conflict; it is a world war of the forces of democracy against international terrorism,” he pontificated.

“It goes without saying that the strengthening, development, and defense of democracy in Uzbekistan are an important part of the struggle for human rights all over the world,” Sharansky continued. “However, it would be a mistake to believe that the democratization process could be speeded up by way of slander and defaming the courageous struggle that Uzbekistan is waging against terrorism.” [35]

Despite his reputation as a crusader for human rights, Sharansky is a hard-line Likudnik who emphasizes the need for an exclusivist Jewish state that at least indirectly controls the West Bank. Israeli Leon Hadar points out that Sharansky

refuses to acknowledge that Palestinians too want freedom from foreign rule and to recognize Palestinian nationalism as legitimate. For the Israeli ideologue the notion of making the Middle East ‘ and the West Bank ‘ safe for democracy under American leadership is self-serving.

It is an attempt to draw the U.S. into a never-ending war against the Arab world in a way that would serve the interests of Mr. Sharansky’s ultra-nationalist vision of a Greater Israel ruling over the Palestinians until they would “be ready for democracy.” [36]

The fact of the matter is that Karimov’s positions mesh with those of Sharon’s Israel and its American supporters, and that those ties have been used to enhance his standing with the United States. As Marc Perelman wrote in the Forward: “Observers said that Karimov … has used the American Jewish community as a beachhead to cement relations with both Washington and Jerusalem. Israeli and American Jewish communal leaders said that their efforts to cultivate ties with Uzbekistan have been motivated primarily by the regime’s positive attitude toward the local Jewish community and Israel as well as its hawkish stand against radical Islam.” [37]

For example, legendary Wall Street investor and financier Leon Levy, then chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, once hailed Karimov’s regime as a “democracy for all the Islamic countries.” [38] The Conference is an umbrella organization made up of more than 50 Jewish groups, and it styles itself as the “voice of organized American Jewry.”

When he visited the United States in 2002, Karimov was feted by some of America’s leading Jews. In New York City, he was honored in a special ceremony in which the Be’er Hagolah Institutes, an educational organization of Soviet Jews from the former Soviet Union, presented him with an award for “international leadership.” [39]

In his speech at the ceremony, Karimov emphasized the symbolic importance of getting such an award in post-9/11 New York:

If prior to that day there were some who did not fully understand the great threat that is posed by terrorism, whose roots are intricately connected to inhumane ideology of racism, religious fanaticism, and extremism, I believe the events of September 11 opened their eyes to the danger to which this menace exposes the civilized world.

Karimov justified his tough measures as necessary to deal with terrorism. “Everyone must understand the futility of the attempts to reason with this evil; that no country can afford to stand aside from the battle against this plague of the 21st century,” he asserted. “There can be no compromise, no deals struck with this vicious monster of modern times.” [40]

Fondly recalling his trip to Israel in 1998, Karimov remarked on the “shared dream” Israel has with his country in “seeking peace and becoming united in the future.” He emphasized that Uzbekistan “has not known of a single occurrence of anti-Semitism, racial and religious intolerance” in the course of its centuries-long history. Referring to the Bukharan Jewish community, which has resided in Uzbekistan for more than a thousand years, Karimov said that their culture is “based on the richest Hebraic spiritual tradition and the comprehensive positive influence of the ancient legacy of the Central Asian peoples. We are proud of this history.” [41]

Yehuda Lancry, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations and a participant in the fete, lauded Karimov as a leader of “vision and courage” who had taken “bold actions in order to establish peace and unity in his young republic.” Declaring that Israel and Uzbekistan had made common cause in the war against evildoing, Lancry maintained that Israel and Uzbekistan were fighting “the same battle against forces of destruction, and against terror. Through shared values and shared commitments in our two countries we will emerge victorious.” [42]

Also speaking at the ceremony was Lev Leviev, the Uzbekistan-born Israeli billionaire and diamond magnate. Leviev, who is president of the Federation of the Jewish communities of the Former Soviet Union and the World Bukharan Jewish Congress, called Karimov a “a true friend of the Jewish people.” Leviev announced that “in the last 100 years Jews in Uzbekistan have never felt so safe, so secure.” Referring to Karimov’s having grown up in the same Jewish neighborhood as Leviev’s father and grandfather, Leviev promised Karimov: “As you have been a friend to us, we will be a loyal friend to you.” [43]

Present as well at the ceremony was former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who lauded Karimov for his “courageous” decision to support America. [44]

Israel and Uzbekistan established diplomatic relations in 1992, right after Uzbekistan’s independence, and their relations have been warm ever since. The two states have signed several cooperative agreements on investment, science, culture, education, and trade. Evidence that Israel and Uzbekistan have collaborated also in combating Islamic terrorism may lie in the fact that, in 2000, Uzbekistan requested counterterrorism equipment and training for its security forces ‘ though Israel’s response does not seem to be documented. It is on the record that about 30 Uzbek-Israeli joint ventures do business in Uzbekistan, and in early 2000 the Uzbek state gas company signed a $160 million contract with an Israeli firm. Then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met Karimov in Tashkent in May 1998, and Karimov went to Israel later that year. [45]

The Jewish state’s befriending of Karimov accords with Israel’s long-standing “periphery states” geostrategic doctrine, whereby it seeks counterweights to its hostile Arab neighbors by forming alliances with more remote, non-Arab states ‘ for example, Turkey and, in the past, the Shah’s Iran. Karimov, in turn, benefits not only from direct Israeli support but also from help provided by the influential pro-Israeli lobby in Washington.

Support for Karimov is one case in which Israel’s interests coincide with those of both the new-style Bush imperialists and Big Oil. The interests of the latter two groups were not in harmony in the Middle East, where Big Oil preferred the stability of peace to the instability of war. [46] In Uzbekistan, the United States is simply propping up a dictator to maintain stability ‘ a classic technique of old-style U.S. imperialism that in the past has included support for Saddam Hussein and the Shah’s Iran.

The aim is to counter instability in an energy-rich region ‘ the Caspian Basin and Central Asia ‘ where American oil and gas interests would like to reap benefits, and the United States would gain leverage over vital resources not currently in its domain. Moreover, the American support for a dictator involves limited costs in terms of military manpower and money, in contrast to the huge costs involved in waging war and occupying Iraq, which have become so great as to make it difficult for the United States to act elsewhere.

Furthermore, the American presence in central Asia helps check the power of Russia, actually exerting pressure on Moscow; and it counters the maneuverings of China as well, though to a lesser extent. In his 1997 work The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives, old-style imperialist Zbigniew Brzezinski portrays the Eurasian landmass as the linchpin for world power, with Central Asia being key to the domination of Eurasia. [47] For the United States to maintain the global primacy that Brzezinski equates with American security, the United States must, at the very least, prevent any possible adversary or coalition of adversaries from controlling that crucial region. And, of course, the best way for the United States to prevent adversaries from controlling a region is to control it herself.

As is apparent, therefore, the American empire and Israel have important geostrategic reasons to support Karimov’s Uzbekistan. But all of that has absolutely nothing to do with democracy. It would seem that the ideology of “democracy” simply serves as a weapon to advance concrete foreign-policy goals. But democracy itself? ‘ that was totally absent in the decision to adopt this policy. Obviously, a foreign policy really based on democratic ideals as traditionally understood would preclude collaboration with a murderous dictator such as Islam Karimov. To claim otherwise is to venture into the nether depths of Orwellianism ‘ but as the justifications for U.S. foreign policy are relentlessly spun and re-spun, Americans must beware lest we all be lured unwitting into that tenebrous realm of anti-thought.

By Mark Brzezinski in The Boston Globe

ACTUAL FIGURES on last month’s loss of life from Uzbekistan’s crushing of an antigovernment demonstration remain cloudy. The government claims 169 people were killed, including 32 troops. Opposition figures claim over 700 dead, mostly innocent protesters. Following the events in Andijon, the United States should send a clear signal that even close allies in the war on terror must adhere to human rights standards. The blatant indifference to human rights, in the name of security, undermines our strategic objectives.

For the Bush administration, Uzbekistan presents a dilemma. It remains an important ally in our efforts to consolidate peace and stability in post-Taliban Afghanistan. After 9/11, Uzbekistan granted US forces the use of a key air base near the border of Afghanistan. Even today, the US military uses bases in Uzbekistan to stage missions into remote areas of western Afghanistan. Since 9/11, to bolster regional security, the United States has given Uzbekistan more than $500 million for border control and other measures. That the United States and Uzbekistan would have a much closer relationship was clear a few months after 9/11 when President Bush welcomed Uzbek President Islam Karimov to the White House.

While President Bush has made democratization and human rights the core of his second term’s foreign policy doctrine, Uzbekistan’s human rights record has not improved and may be getting worse. State Department reports have described how police repeatedly torture prisoners. The latest State Department report, issued in February, said, ”Torture was common in prisons, pretrial facilities, and local police and security service precincts.” The State Department noted that in 2003 the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture ”concluded that torture or similar ill-treatment was systematic.”

The way the United States has reacted to Uzbek government human rights abuses has sent mixed messages. In early 2004, following a string of suicide bombings in Tashkent that killed 47 people, the Uzbek government cracked down on people on religious grounds. Three months later, the State Department said it would cut $18 million in military and economic aid to Uzbekistan because of its failure to improve its human rights record.

But the next month, Pentagon officials announced an additional $21 million to help Uzbekistan in its campaign to remove its stockpile of biological weapons. A Pentagon official on a visit to Tashkent in August of 2004 reportedly noted concern about Uzbekistan’s human rights record but said: ”In my view, we shouldn’t let any single issue drive a relationship with any single country. It doesn’t seem to be good policy to me.”

It has been reported that the United States has sent terror suspects to Uzbekistan for detention and interrogation, even as Uzbekistan’s treatment of its own prisoners continues to earn it international condemnation. The US government’s program of ”rendition,” under which the Central Intelligence Agency transfers terror suspects to foreign countries to be held and interrogated, is said to have resulted in possibly dozens of terror suspects being sent by the United States to Uzbekistan. The message received by the Uzbek regime is that as long as effective intelligence collaboration with the CIA is maintained, other priorities in the United States-Uzbekistan relationship, including improvements in human rights, can be ignored.

Not all Western officials have tolerated this unfortunate arrangement. In July 2004, the British ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, resigned after confidentially and then publicly urging colleagues in the British Foreign Office to stop using intelligence gleaned from terror suspects because it had been elicited through torture and other coercive means. Murray reportedly said his superiors in London told him that intelligence gleaned in Uzbekistan could still be used by British officials, even if it was elicited by torture, as long as the mistreatment was not at the hands of British interrogators.

To send a clear signal to Uzbek authorities that the United States is serious about human rights, the CIA’s rendition program with Uzbekistan must end. To be sure, Uzbekistan is in a position to offer some help in tackling critical security threats, especially in remote parts of Afghanistan. But seeking Karimov’s support on these issues — and it is in Uzbekistan’s own interest to do so — does not mean the Bush administration should remain quiet about negative trends in human rights.

The Uzbek government will continue to claim that their actions in Andijon were aimed solely at terrorist extremists and not at the political opposition, and as such are part and parcel of the global fight against terrorism.

And this is where the United States must convey a clear message to both Uzbekistan and other international partners with poor human rights records: ”Join us in the war on terror; don’t exploit the war on terror to crush political opposition and activists pressing for social change.”

Mark Brzezinski, an attorney, served as director for Russia/Eurasia on the National Security Council staff in the Clinton administration.

By Pepe Escobar writing in the Asia Times

“I am delighted to be back in Uzbekistan. I’ve just had a long and very interesting and helpful discussion with the president … Uzbekistan is a key member of the coalition’s global war on terror. And I brought the president the good wishes of President Bush and our appreciation for their stalwart support in the war on terror … Our relationship is strong and has been growing stronger.”

– US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in Tashkent, February 2004

Uzbekistan dictator Islam Karimov’s army, which last Friday opened fire on thousands of unarmed protesters in Andijan, in the Ferghana Valley, has been showered by Washington in the past few years with hundreds of millions of dollars (US$200 million in 2002 alone) – all on behalf of the “war on terror”.

So you won’t see the White House, or Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, hammering Karimov. You won’t hear many in Washington calling for free elections in Uzbekistan. The former strongmen of color-coded, “revolutionary” Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan were monsters who had to be removed for “freedom and democracy” to prevail. So is the dictator of Belarus. Not Karimov. He’s “our” dictator: the Saddam Hussein of Central Asia is George W Bush’s man.

‘Either with me or against me’

This is what happened in Andijan. Twenty-three local businessmen – who even resorted to hunger strike – have been on trial since February, accused of “Islamic terrorism”. They were part of Akramia, a small Islamic movement whose platform privileges economic success over ideology and religious fundamentalism. Soon after they had set up a construction company – and apparently also a mutual fund – to help local people get a few jobs, the businessmen were arrested.

Washington has listed the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) as a terrorist organization. Hizbut Tahrir (HT) – which does not condone armed jihad – may soon follow, as Washington always follows Karimov’s leads. In Uzbekistan, any opposition against the Karimov system is considered terrorism. Karimov blames HT for a series of bombings – which the group vehemently denies – as well as unspecified al-Qaeda-connected organizations (it was the IMU which was responsible for the 1999 bombings in Tashkent). According to Alison Gill of Human Rights Watch in Uzbekistan, Karimov’s security apparatus cracks down heavily on HT, but now Akramia is also a target.

The group was founded in 1992 by a math teacher, Akram Yuldashev, and it’s in fact a splinter group from HT. It’s very popular with relatively educated youngsters in the Ferghana Valley – as it promotes a direct connection between an honest, pious Islamic way of life and economic success. Amplifying the Islamic tradition of zakat, Akramia also insists that part of business profits must be consecrated to help the poor and the needy. Yuldashev has been in jail since 1999. His wife, a defense witness at the trial, vehemently denied that Akramia’s teachings encouraged political subversion: it’s all about economic freedom.

Last Thursday, exasperated protesters close to the 23 businessmen organized a commando raid to release them, taking over the local administration center – with many also demanding for Karimov to go. According to the protesters, had they not acted this way, the 23 would have been condemned, tortured and killed: that’s how it works in the Karimov system. The next day came the bloodbath. Galima Bukharbaeva, on site for the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, described a column of armored personnel carriers firing at will – and unprovoked – at the protesters. As many as 500 may have been killed, including women and children, and more than 2,000 wounded. People were angrily protesting against the corruption of the Karimov system, which they blame for their appalling living conditions. Karimov blamed it all on “terrorist groups”. The White House copied him almost verbatim.

Seven decades of the Soviet system imprinted their atheist mark on Uzbekistan. This is not an Islamist haven. Talibanization is a deadend (and that’s why the IMU is only a minor sect). The only true national religion is vodka – capable of alleviating even economic distress. Most women in Tashkent use makeup and mini-skirts with thigh-high boots. HT preaches peaceful jihad. The Karimov system’s repression is relentless. All Muslim organizations and even mosques have to be registered. Sheikhs need a work permit issued by the government. If you don’t pray in a state-sanctioned mosque and wear a long beard, traditional turbans or a hijab, you can go to jail.

A throne drenched in blood

When Uzbekistan became an independent republic in 1991 Karimov operated a classic emperor’s new clothes facelift: exit the communist apparatchik, enter the president; exit Marx, Lenin and Stalin, enter Tamerlan. Karimov, stony face and vacant eyes, is the new Tamerlan – without the conquering spirit (Tamerlan built an empire stretching from Egypt to the Great Wall of China).

The legendary, last nomadic ruler of the Central Asian plains used to order pyramids of skulls to be erected after battles to better terrify subdued populations. Karimov relies on proven “counterinsurgency” torture methods with a macabre, creative touch (immersion in boiling water) thrown in. He once declared, on the record, that Islamists should be killed by a bullet in the head – exactly like scores of wounded may have been killed in Andijan by the Uzbek army, according to some witnesses. In 2004, Human Rights Watch released a book with more than 300 pages of case studies in Uzbek torture. One of the key objectives of torture is to give the US “intelligence” connecting the Uzbek opposition – any kind of opposition – to al-Qaeda and “terrorist groups”. Once again: the Karimov system regards any kind of opposition as “terrorism”.

Everything in Uzbekistan is Soviet/clannish, Karimov-controlled. Practically every square inch in every neighborhood (mahalle ) in Uzbekistan is under surveillance by the so-called “White Beards” – the system’s informants. Karimov’s only weakness is his daughters. Gulnara Karimova, the eldest, practically owns the country – factories, mobile phone companies, travel agencies, the nightclubs where the micro-power elite dances to Russian techno. There may be lots of gas, oil and cotton – but the majority of 26 million Uzbeks subsist with less than a dollar a day. The currency – the som – is virtually worthless: 0.0007 euros. Changing money in Tashkent can become a war operation lasting a full hour.

Rosebud

If Orson Welles could remake Citizen Kane (Citizen Karimov?) Uzbekistan’s Rosebud would be Khanabad. Khanabad embodies a graphic post-Cold War irony. It used to be the biggest Soviet airbase during the 1980s war in Afghanistan. Now it hosts the Americans – ostensively serving to help the “war on terror” in Afghanistan.

The Washington-Tashkent “special relationship” started as early as the mid-1990s, during the Bill Clinton administration. In 1999, Green Berets were actively training Uzbek Special Forces. Khanabad has nothing to do with Afghanistan: Bagram takes care of this. But Khanabad is crucial as one of the key bases surrounding Bush’s Greater Middle East, or to put it in the relevant perspective, the Middle East/Caucasus/Central Asia heavenly arc of oil and gas. It’s on a seven-year lease to the Pentagon, due to expire in late 2008.

So Karimov in Uzbekistan is as essential a piece in the great oil and gas chessboard as Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan. Inevitably, there will be more uprisings in the impoverished Ferghana Valley that has reached a boiling point. Karimov again will unleash his American-funded army. The White House will be silent. The Kremlin will be silent (or dub it “green revolution” – by Islamic fundamentalists, as it did with Andijan). Corporate media will be silent: one imagines the furor had Andijan happened in Lebanon when Syrian troops were still in the country. Uzbeks in the Ferghana won’t be valued as people legitimately fighting for freedom and democracy: they will be labeled as terrorists. And Rumsfeld will keep cultivating a “strong relationship” with Karimov’s Rosebud.

Transcript of an interview from AM – a radio programme by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Reporter: Rafael Epstein

ELIZABETH JACKSON: There’s been a new wave of popular discontent, violence and repression in Uzbekistan, one of Washington’s key allies in Central Asia.

Government forces in the country have opened fire on thousands of people demonstrating in the city of Andijan.

The trouble began when a group of armed men stormed the city’s prison and freed hundreds of inmates.

Our Europe Correspondent Rafael Epstein reports.

RAFAEL EPSTEIN: Thousands of people were on the streets of Andijan in Uzbekistan’s east. Though it’s hard for anyone outside the country to really know what’s going on.

But it does seem soldiers spent several hours firing on a crowd of at least 2,000. As many as a dozen people were reported killed.

The troops sealed off the city after thousands of prisoners, including 23 men accused of Islamic extremism, were freed from the town’s jail, along with up to 4,000 other prisoners.

The Uzbek President Islam Karimov was said to be heading to the city, but he hasn’t appeared there.

For the President’s critics it’s a popular uprising.

For the President, they’re dangerous radicals fuelled by Islamic fundamentalism.

That’s a claim dismissed by the former British ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray.

CRAIG MURRAY: That’s complete nonsense. The Uzbek Government routinely accuses any of its opponents of being Muslim extremists in order to discredit them. Andijan has long been a centre of democratic opposition to the Uzbek Government.

RAFAEL EPSTEIN: Craig Murray left the British diplomatic service after what he says was his Government’s failure to see Uzbekistan for what it is ? a repressive regime, torturing and killing anyone asking for basic human rights, while allies like the UK and the US turn a blind eye because hundreds of American soldiers use an Uzbek airbase with good access to countries like Iran and Afghanistan.

CRAIG MURRAY: I strongly suspect that the Uzbek Government will resort to extreme violence. This is a Government which is by no means concerned at shedding the blood of its citizens.

(sound of Uzbek television)

RAFAEL EPSTEIN: President Karimov watching yet another parade and display of nationalist fervour.

He rules a country accused of accepting subjects for torture on behalf of Western countries. He receives hundreds of millions of dollar in aid from the US, some in the form of military support, to help in the war on terror.

But is that war on terror an excuse for simple and brutal repression?

The UN says the state employs systemic torture on its opponents.

Media control is so tight it’s thought few in the country outside of the city of Andijan would even know there was a clash for hours between protesters and Government troops.

Opposition politician Atanazar Arifov spoke to ABC TV’s a few months ago.

(sound of Atanazar Arifov speaking)

He says the suppression of the secular democratic opposition is one of the conditions which leads to the evolution and spreading of religious extremism.

Craig Murray says the US preaches freedom while supporting a brutal dictatorship.

CRAIG MURRAY: The elections held on the 26th of December from which the opposition were banned, were held the same day as the Ukrainian rerun. We had Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice all over our television screens demanding democracy in the Ukraine. Whereas the United States was remarkably silent on the regime banning the opposition from even competing in the Uzbek elections. And I think now you won’t be hearing any great calls for democracy in Uzbekistan coming from the US.

RAFAEL EPSTEIN: This is Rafael Epstein reporting for Saturday AM.

American ambassador has praised Uzbekistan for human rights

By Shavkat Turon, writing in OzodOvoz

On December, 10, 2004 the plenipotentiary ambassador of the USA in Uzbekistan John Purnell, talking with journalists of foreign mass media, has told, that Uzbekistan has made considerable progress in sphere of human rights. The correspondent of Ozod Ovoz Shavkat Turon informs from Tashkent.

The praise of the American diplomatic corps head has sounded in hotel Le Meridien in Tashkent on the celebratory action organized by representations of Freedom House and USAID in honor of the World day of human rights. In interview to the correspondents of radio BBC, “Ozodlik”, Deutche Welle and other foreign news agencies John Purnell has told: In comparison with former years Uzbekistan has made considerable progress in sphere of observance of human rights .

The main American diplomat in Uzbekistan has proved the words up to conversation with foreign journalists, during special speech to participants of the celebratory action organized in honor of the World day of human rights.

John Purnell began the story from apart, having told, that by education he is a historian. Therefore I want to address to history , – the ambassador has told and informed, that in the beginning of 80th years he worked as the 2-secretary of the USA embassy in the former USSR, in Moscow. Then the simple Soviet people marked this holiday that came to Pushkin’s monument in Moscow and simply removed the caps. And the Soviet militia arrested them only that they removed the headdresses. Thank God, that now it is not present: nobody pursues people for removal of headdresses , – John Purnell has told.

And after this speech the American ambassador has given interview to foreign mass media and has noted considerable progress in sphere of observance of human rights in Uzbekistan .

The American flattery aside the official Tashkent has been perceived by participants of celebratory action easy. One of the Uzbek human rights activist, invited on the celebratory action, has told, that all world has got used to hypocrisy of the USA concerning the dictatorial regime in Uzbekistan. Americans are not Scots, and John Purnell is not Craig Murray , – has told the Uzbek human rights activist.

Shavkat Turon is pseudonym of the correspondent of Ozod Ovoz in Tashkent

Published in The Scotsman

About a dozen people protested in the Uzbek capital today at the sacking of the British ambassador – an outspoken critic of the human rights situation in the Central Asian nation.

The protesters gathered outside the British Embassy in Tashkent, holding signs that read: “Uzbek people love our friend Murray,” “Don’t give up Mr Craig Murray, fight for democracy and freedom in Uzbekistan.”

“We are here to defend Craig Murray who has been betrayed by the British government,” said one of the demonstrators.

Public protests are rare in the tightly controlled former Soviet state.

The Foreign Office sacked Mr Murray two weeks ago, saying he had lost the confidence of senior officials and colleagues.

He had harshly criticised Uzbekistan’s government for widespread human rights abuses, including putting more than 6,000 political prisoners in squalid jails where dozens of people have reportedly died from torture.

He recently accused British and US intelligence services of using information collected from people tortured by Uzbekistan’s security services.

The Foreign Office denied the claims and said Mr Murray’s removal was not related to the allegations.

Daniel Grzenda, the embassy’s third political secretary, said officials visited the protesters today and told them that “the embassy respects their right to picket and will note the messages and pass them to London.”

The Central Asian country emerged as a key US ally after the 9/11 attacks in the United States, and hosts hundreds of American troops supporting operations in neighbouring Afghanistan.

By David Stern writing in Eurasianet

Three months after British Ambassador Craig Murray delivered a speech in Uzbekistan, diplomats and analysts are still debating how Murray has changed the tone of relations between Britain and this former Soviet republic. Murray caused a sensation for doing one small thing that very few people seem to have done here: he told the truth.

Uzbekistan, which sits north of Afghanistan, became a critical ally to the United States and United Kingdom in the autumn 2001 campaign to oust the Taliban from Afghanistan. Despite this elevation in status, though, the country has made only marginal improvements in its record of repressing dissidents. At the opening of the Uzbekistan offices of Freedom House on October 17, Ambassador Murray ? with top Uzbek officials and diplomats present ? delivered the diplomatic equivalent of a salvo. Ambassador Murray said: “Uzbekistan is not a functioning democracy, nor does it appear to be moving in the direction of democracy. The major political parties are banned; parliament is not subject to democratic election and checks and balances on the authority of the executive are lacking.”

The shock value of these statements ? as well as others discussing widespread torture in Uzbekistan and the government’s refusal to convert its currency or foster cross-border trade ? cannot be overstated. In one fell swoop the British diplomat stripped away the euphemisms that characterize much of the West’s relationship with Uzbekistan. He continued: “There is worse: we believe there to be between 7,000 and 10,000 people in detention whom we would consider as political and/or religious prisoners. In many cases they have been falsely convicted of crimes with which there appears to be no credible evidence they had any connection.”

Analysts point out that what the ambassador said was in essence nothing new. His count of political prisoners was higher than other published estimates: Human Rights Watch announced in a January 14 report that “conservative” guesses peg the number of prisoners of conscience in Uzbekistan at between 6,500 and 7,000. But many Western officials have criticized President Islam Karimov for the abuses Murray discussed, and US Secretary of State Colin Powell reportedly pressed Karimov to commit to democratic reforms before finalizing a bilateral treaty. Most of Murray’s statements are common currency among foreign diplomats and businessmen in the privacy of their homes and workplaces. Yet his speech stood so far apart from official parlance that it struck some listeners as provocative. “You could have cut the tension in the room with a blunt knife,” said one of those present at the Freedom House opening.

In the months since Murray’s speech, Karimov’s government has tried sporadically to improve its image. Authorities released activist Yuldash Rasulov of the Human Rights Society of Uzbekistan on January 3 as part of an amnesty declared in December. He had gone to jail on what western advocates called trumped-up charges, and Human Rights Watch applauded his release. Many suspected political prisoners remain behind bars, though, and a United Nations rapporteur announced in December that he had seen “systematic” use of torture while touring Uzbekistan’s prisons. [For background, see the Eurasia Insight archives.] In a January 14 report that broadly criticized the Bush Administration for downplaying human rights concerns as it prosecutes a war on terrorists, Human Rights Watch credited the administration for promoting reform in Uzbekistan.

Murray’s strident words, then, had an easy time finding sympathetic ears. More broadly, however, Murray’s choice split the foreign community into two camps. Some diplomats and analysts saw his speech as a result of fatigue, brought on after years of wielding more carrot than stick in the hope that Tashkent would respond to positive reinforcement. This approach has yielded very little progress, they say, since Uzbekistan’s human rights environment has basically stagnated. Other experts believe Murray’s gambit was naive and counterproductive. In this way, the British diplomat also revealed the sharp division that exists within Western governments and organizations over how best to deal with Karimov’s repressive regime during the murky next phase of antiterrorist operations. The main question in this debate is whether criticism of abhorrent policies in Uzbekistan spur the government to reform or instead cause it to circle its wagons and become more defensive.

Observers say that a number of European governments are prone to take a softer tone than the United States, which tends to conduct hard talk in private discussions. Murray’s remarks raise questions about Britain’s and Europe’s role as a counterweight to the United States’ approach. The Human Rights Watch report, which accused the European Union of “undue deference to Washington,” highlight the sensitivity of Murray’s statements.

The irony of Murray’s speech, some say, is that it caused friction between the US and British embassies ? the two foreign representations that are most concerned with democracy and human rights in Uzbekistan. US Ambassador John Herbst was present at the Freedom House function and had delivered, according to observers, a typical American take on human rights in Uzbekistan ? that problems exist but progress has been made. After this predictable address, Murray delivered his broadside. “The British ambassador’s speech was an embarrassment for the United States. It showed up the crack in the shield and many thought that he upstaged [Herbst],” said someone who was present.

In the end, Murray’s decisions about protocol may give his critics some high ground. Some say that no matter what he said, Murray should not have spoken out so early in his tenure, just months after he had arrived in Tashkent. They say that such a speech should have waited until the newly appointed diplomat had time to raise the issues with Uzbeks themselves. This would not have necessarily brought about a change, but it would have given the British ambassador a better defense when others challenged his approach. Murray in effect hamstrung himself, say experts, compromising the rest of his work in the country.

Even if that analysis proves accurate, though, the stridency in Murray’s words has emboldened some other critics of Karimov. “To me the fundamental question is not why did he say this, but why the other ambassadors didn’t?” said one Western observer.