Uzbekistan: Sifting for
clues By Kathleen Knox and Daniel
Kimmage
PRAGUE - During a shooting in Tashkent
on Wednesday, Uzbek special forces battled armed
fighters holed up in a suburban apartment block. Some 23
people - mostly suspects - were killed by the time
special forces ended the siege.
The incident was
the latest in a series of blasts and shootouts to hit
Tashkent and the ancient Silk Road city of Bukhara,
killing at least 43 people since Sunday night.
Authorities have blamed the Hizb ut-Tahrir, an
Islamic group seeking the creation of a caliphate
spanning all of Central Asia. Officials in Tashkent
claim that the group is working in concert with Islamic
militants and with help from extremists abroad.
Uzbek Foreign Minister Sadyk Safayev called the
attacks an attempt to undermine the US-led coalition
against terrorism, of which Uzbekistan is a member.
"Today we can say that there were attempts to destroy
the international anti-terrorist coalition. The targets
were not chosen by chance. We see a direct connection
between the ideology of Hizb ut-Tahrir, other extremist
ideologies, and terrorism," Safayev said.
The
prosecutor-general was quoted as saying that 30 suspects
had been arrested in connection with the violence.
But with still no claim of responsibility, and
little information from officials, it's a guessing game
of who is behind the attacks.
Svante Cornell is
an expert on Central Asia at Sweden's Uppsala
University. "The reigning assumption is that this is a
work done by the most prevalent armed opposition to the
government, which is the Islamic extremists," he says.
"[It could be] in the form of the Islamic Movement of
Uzbekistan [IMU], which has a known track record for
armed uprising. It could be linked to international
terrorism with al-Qaeda - which does not exclude the
IMU, which was tightly linked to al-Qaeda. And a third
version is that it's a splinter group of Hizb ut-Tahrir,
which is a self-avowed peaceful grouping but which has
been showing signs of not being as united in Central
Asia as in other parts of the world," Cornell said.
Hizb ut-Tahrir has no known ties to violent
activities. Observers say that the group's literature
does not renounce violence in armed struggles, already
under way, in which it views Muslims as victims of
persecution - as in Chechnya or Kashmir. But members
reject the use of violence to achieve their own aim of
establishing the caliphate.
Hizb ut-Tahir, which
has its base in Western Europe, has been banned in
Germany for disseminating what was deemed anti-Semitic
and anti-Israeli propaganda. Although the group has
never been officially banned in Uzbekistan, it is not a
registered group, and therefore operates illegally, and
with considerable secrecy.
Critics say that
blaming the group suits the political agenda of
President Islam Karimov and his repression of religious
freedoms.
There was a fresh reminder of that on
Tuesday, in a new report by the New York-based Human
Rights Watch. It says that the government has arrested
and tortured thousands of Muslims who practice their
faith outside strict state controls - including members
of Hizb ut-Tahrir.
Tamara Makarenko is a
research fellow at Scotland's Center for the Study of
Terrorism. She says: "The Uzbek government has been
trying very hard to demonize Hizb ut-Tahrir. So if they
can provide evidence or say that they have evidence that
points to Hizb ut-Tahrir, then it would justify every
single action that they've perpetrated against Hizb
ut-Tahrir members."
Analysts say that there is a
possibility that some on the fringe of Hizb ut-Tahrir
have become disenchanted and radicalized. But even such
observers are skeptical of the government's claim of
links between Hizb ut-Tahrir and the unabashedly
militant IMU.
The IMU was set up with the goal
of overthrowing Karimov's government and is listed by
the US State Department as a terrorist organization. It
set up training camps in Afghanistan and carried out
armed raids into Uzbekistan in the late 1990s.
Authorities accused the group of being behind a series
of bombings in Tashkent in 1999.
The IMU lost a
lot of its military manpower in the US-led war in
Afghanistan. But some - like Aleksei Malashenko of the
Carnegie Center in Moscow - say that remnants may be
behind the recent violence.
"I don't think it
was Hizb ut-Tahrir - they have other slogans, other
principles, and they're never acted like this before.
It's probably the homegrown IMU or an analogous
organization. Another thing is, you can't look at these
attacks outside the context of what is happening in
general in the Islamic political landscape. Those
governments that are supporting the US - and Uzbekistan
supports them - are under threat. What happened recently
in Madrid shows that. So it's a double strike -
unfortunately, probably not the last such strike - and
it shows that governments that are involved in some way
in the anti-terror coalition are, from the point of view
of terrorists, enemies of Islam and legitimate targets
of any actions," Malashenko said.
Uzbekistan has
cooperated with the US-led war in Afghanistan, in part
by opening its Khanabad air base to coalition troops.
But some observers dispute the violence has anything to
do with Uzbekistan's support of the US in its "war on
terror".
Frederick Starr heads the Central Asia
Caucasus Institute at Johns Hopkins University in the
US. He notes that the targets in the recent violence
have been mainly police - not the army, president's
office, or other government institutions. And he notes
that at least one suicide bomber is said to have been a
woman.
"What women might have reason to be
concerned or hostile? A possibility there - again, it's
only a hypothesis - is families of those who have been
convicted and incarcerated for religious extremism. This
would be a consistent activity and again, we don't know,
but it seems entirely possible. I don't think the
hypothesis that this is family members carrying out acts
of revenge against the police is incompatible with the
notion that this is centrally organized, which is
evident, or that it has connections abroad, which is
more than likely," Starr said.
The targeting of
police also raises another possibility - that the
attacks were prompted by widespread anger at police
corruption and brutality.
Confusion about the
attacks has been heightened by the fact that the Uzbek
government has been largely silent regarding the
violence. The state-run television news opened on
Wednesday with details of a meeting between Karimov and
former Lithuanian president Valdas Adamkus - not the
days of local violence.
Whoever was behind the
attacks, observers say that authorities are likely to
crack down further on religious and opposition groups.
Annette Bohr, a Central Asia expert at Cambridge
University, says: "It will have a definite impact on the
security situation in Uzbekistan in particular, and in
all of Central Asia, since President Karimov's actions -
in particular, repressive measures - do have a great
impact on neighboring countries. I think it's clear he
will attempt to crack down even more, which will
ultimately lead to a greater backlash, so it's
foreseeable that these kinds of attacks and
counterattacks will continue for a long time to come."
Rumors Two persistent rumors floated
at the margins of news reports and formed the basis of
heated discussions on Uzbek web forums. The first was
that the Interior Ministry and National Security Service
had been placed on high alert in the week preceding the
attacks. The second rumor was that policemen were called
up for special duty at 3 am the night before events
began, and that some policemen had instructed their
relatives to remain at home.
Official
reactions Karimov announced in a televised
interview on March 29 that extremists with backing from
abroad had spent six to eight months preparing the
terror attacks. He termed them "evil forces" and
described them as hoping "to destabilize the situation".
Prosecutor-General Rashid Qodirov was more specific in a
news conference the same day, blaming Hizb ut-Tahrir and
the IMU.
A spokesperson for Hizb ut-Tahrir
denied the charge. Imran Waheed in London stressed that
the group eschews violence and suggested that the Uzbek
government itself could be behind the attacks.
Muhammad Solih, leader of the opposition Erk
(Freedom) Party, condemned the terror attacks while
noting that "the political regime of Uzbekistan, with
its emphasis on repression against dissidents, has
created good conditions for terror". Other opposition
figures and groups also mixed condemnation for the
attacks with criticism of the government in their
statements.
Official international reaction was
largely uniform. US State Department spokesman Richard
Boucher delivered characteristic remarks, saying: "We'd
like to extend our condolences to the government of
Uzbekistan and the Uzbek people for the injuries and
loss of life caused by these terrorist attacks. The
attacks are yet another example of the importance of
continuing cooperation against those who would stop at
nothing to achieve their misguided goals." US Secretary
of State Colin Powell told Uzbek Foreign Minister Sodiq
Safoyev that the US is ready to assist Uzbekistan in the
wake of the terror attacks.
International
context The terror attacks come at a time when
Uzbekistan is experiencing growing international
pressure over its human rights record. One notes that
many of the cases that have stirred international
indignation took place in the context of Uzbek efforts
to contain such Islamist groups as Hizb ut-Tahrir.
Recent reports by International Crisis Group and
Human Rights Watch have lambasted the Uzbek government
for an egregious and worsening record of human rights
violations. The European Bank for Reconstruction and
Development will soon make a decision on whether to
maintain its current level of engagement with
Uzbekistan; most observers view Uzbek economic reforms
as stalled.
Finally, the Bush administration
faces a difficult decision in the spring over
Uzbekistan, where the US maintains a forward supply base
in Uzbekistan to support operations in Afghanistan. A
recent State Department report gave Uzbekistan low marks
on human rights, and government-to-government assistance
programs totaling some US$50 million will have to be
axed unless the Bush administration decides to waive the
human rights requirements. Domestic pressure has been
building on the issue, with a number of op-eds and
editorials in The Washington Post condemning
Uzbekistan's human rights record, questioning the
country's usefulness as a US ally in the "war on
terror", and urging increased US pressure on the Karimov
regime to take action on human rights issues.
Commentary While only Uzbek officials
seemed ready to assign blame for the attacks, some
independent observers were willing to offer cautious
analytical comments. Aleksei Malashenko of the Carnegie
Moscow Center told The New York Times on March 30 that
the attack was similar to the recent bombings in Spain
in that it targeted a US ally. In separate comments
quoted on polit.ru, Malashenko noted: "In addition to
the goals set by al-Qaeda and other international
Islamist organizations, there was another goal here - to
show Karimov and the entire Uzbek establishment that
they're not the sole rulers of the country. Uzbek
Islamist terrorists are trying to influence the domestic
situation; they're pursuing their own goals."
The domestic situation was the primary focus of
concern for other observers. Sergei Yezhkov, a
journalist from Uzbekistan who was recently dismissed
from a state-controlled newspaper for being too
outspoken, contributed two articles to fergana.ru in
response to the attacks. In the first, on March 30, he
wrote: "I recall the words of one of my colleagues, who
spoke immediately after the first explosions rang out in
Tashkent. 'This is the shot from the Aurora', he
remarked bitterly." In a later comment, Yezhkov remarked
that calm had returned to Tashkent by the morning of
March 31 and "the acts of violence and terror that
unexpectedly befell the country ended as quickly as they
began".
Yezhkov suggested that the organizers
had hoped to trigger a general uprising. "Knowing the
true attitude of most people toward the police," he
wrote, "those who prepared the acts of terror probably
hoped to be met with understanding and support [among
the populace]." But Yezhkov noted that the vast majority
of Uzbeks, however much they might dislike a police
force viewed as corrupt and often brutal, chose to
uphold the law in the face of instability. Still, he
warned: "Even though they were using live ammunition,
these suicidal individuals' plan misfired. But we should
not forget it, for it is important to remember its
causes."
Finally, Esmer Islamov, a freelance
journalist specializing in Uzbek political affairs,
writing under a pseudonym, opined on EurasiaNet on March
30: "The broad scope of the violence ... suggests that
the episode may be a home-grown insurgency, rather than
a strike by international terrorists." He concluded: "It
may be the work of a new group, with its origins rooted
in the despair generated by the Karimov government's
stranglehold over the country's political and economic
life."
Conclusion Only one conclusion
emerges clearly from the events in Uzbekistan at this
early stage. The above-noted similarity between the
attacks in Madrid and Uzbekistan - both are US allies -
is offset by a glaring difference: the attack in Madrid
was intended to kill a large number of ordinary people;
the attacks in Uzbekistan primarily targeted policemen
and do not appear to have been designed to cause
significant civilian casualties. The pattern of such
presumed al-Qaeda attacks as Madrid, Bali, and even
Casablanca does not hold in Uzbekistan. Even if a
subsequent link to a radical Islamist group emerges -
for now, the only evidence is the participation of
veiled women - the attacks appear to have been
regime-focused, and not just murderous mayhem.
Significantly, a similar focus on regime was
evident in initial reactions to the bombings at the
Chorsu market. RFE/RL's Uzbek Service reported on March
29 that police beat an old man to death at Chorsu on
March 28 after he interceded in a dispute between police
and saleswomen. EurasiaNet reported on March 30: "A
palpable hostility for the police could be felt among
onlookers at the Chorsu bazaar ... Some mentioned an
incident the day before the blasts occurred, in which a
vendor had been beaten to death by police." RFE/RL's
Uzbek Service recorded similar emotions: "But most of
the traders and witnesses at Chorsu linked [the
bombings] with the incident on March 28 when police beat
a 78-year-old man to death at Chorsu."
If its
initial reactions are any guide, the Uzbek government is
likely to try to demonstrate as much similarity as
possible between the attacks in Bukhara and Tashkent and
such strikes as Madrid, Bali, and Casablanca - stressing
foreign ties and underscoring an Islamist presence in
the form of such organizations as Hizb ut-Tahrir and the
Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. Barring a convincing
claim of responsibility, only a thorough and
professional investigation can show whether these
elements were indeed present. At the same time, the
Uzbek government will probably say as little as possible
about another possible scenario that it would very much
like to avoid - a violent, Islamic-inflected domestic
resistance movement that feeds on popular resentment and
strikes at regime targets.
(RFE/RL's Uzbek
Service contributed to this report.)
Copyright (c) 2004, RFE/RL Inc. Reprinted
with the permission of Radio
Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut
Ave NW, Washington DC 20036
