WASHINGTON - This week's decision by the US
State Department to cut up to US$18 million in aid to
its staunchest anti-terrorism ally in Central Asia is a
warning for the government of President Islam Karimov,
who has ruled Uzbekistan with an iron hand since even
before it became independent of the Soviet Union in
1991. Last year, US Congress-approved aid delivered to
Uzbekistan was $86 million.
The move should add
some credibility to the claims made by President George
W Bush's administration that it is serious about
supporting democratization in the Islamic world. But at
the same time, the decision, which has been expected
since Washington issued a warning about Karimov's
human-rights performance last December, is unlikely to
prompt any major downgrading of bilateral relations, at
least for the moment, and even rights groups say
Washington should continue to be engaged with Tashkent
to encourage reform.
The US has deployed about
1,000 of its troops at a military base in Uzbekistan,
the remnant of a much larger force that played a key
role in the military campaign that ousted the Taliban in
neighboring Afghanistan in late 2001. It also has been
buying up nuclear-related equipment and weapons
stockpiles left over from Soviet times, under a
long-standing aid program that is not affected by the
aid cut.
A spokesman at the Uzbek Embassy in
Washington assured reporters his country remained
"united with the United States in the war against
terrorism, and we will continue our strategic
partnership", a theme echoed by the State Department
statement that announced the cut.
"Uzbekistan is
an important partner of the United States in the war on
terror, and we have many shared strategic goals," said
spokesman Richard Boucher. "This does not mean that
either our interests in the region or our desire for
continued cooperation with Uzbekistan has changed."
The State Department based its decision on a
2002 law that made US aid to the Uzbek government
conditional on its efforts to improve its human rights
record and institute political, judicial and other
reforms.
For aid funds to be made available, the
Bush administration has to certify the Uzbek government
is making "substantial and continuing progress" in
meeting its commitments under the joint US-Uzbek
Declaration on the Strategic Partnership and Cooperation
Framework, which was signed during Karimov's visit to
Washington in March 2002.
Even at that time -
the honeymoon period of the US-Uzbek courtship - the
Bush administration displayed unusual sensitivity about
Karimov and his government's human-rights performance,
widely regarded as the worst - possibly next to
Turkmenistan's - in Central Asia.
Instead of
being feted with a state dinner, or even offered an
extended photo opportunity with Bush, Karimov was
discreetly invited for afternoon tea at the White House
and then quickly whisked away from the cameras and
reporters' questions.
Still, Karimov's
cooperation in the Afghan campaign was much appreciated
by Washington, and the alacrity with which Uzbekistan
offered access to his bases and other support after the
September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and the
Pentagon, was duly rewarded.
In a nationally
televised speech on September 18 of that year, Bush
denounced the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), a
violent anti-Karimov group accused of a series of
bombings and hit-and-run attacks - as an affiliate of
al-Qaeda - and hence a common enemy of both countries.
While the IMU, which was based in Afghanistan,
was effectively dispersed by the Taliban's ouster,
Karimov's rule has not become any less heavy-handed,
according to regional experts, who were not surprised
last March when nearly 50 people were killed over three
days in Tashkent and Bukhara in attacks - which included
at least two suicide bombings by women - by Islamist
militants against security forces.
While
Tashkent blamed the violence on the work of
"international terror" and on members of a non-violent
Islamist group, Hizb ut-Tahrir, Washington took a
somewhat more nuanced view typical of its balancing act
between, on the one hand, supporting Karimov as a
strategic ally in the "war on terrorism" and, on the
other, trying to steer him toward political reform.
"These attacks only strengthen our resolve to
defeat terrorists wherever they hide and strike," the
White House said, while, at the same time, the State
Department stressed "more democracy is the best antidote
to terror".
One week later, Human Rights Watch
(HRW) released a 319-page report entitled "Creating
Enemies of the State: Religious Persecution in
Uzbekistan", detailing what its Central Asia director,
Rachel Denber, called "a merciless campaign against
peaceful Muslim dissidents".
The report
estimated that some 7,000 Muslims, most of them
associated with Hizb ut-Tahrir, were serving
often-lengthy sentences in prison, where many were
subject to torture and other abuses.
This record
provoked groups like HRW, Amnesty International and
Freedom House to call for cuts in Western aid to the
regime which, despite repeated exhortations by visiting
Bush officials, was slow to react, although in recent
weeks it invited international observers to help
investigate two other in-custody cases and set up a
permanent commission on the problem.
The
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, which
had expressed strong concern about torture during its
annual meeting in Tashkent last year, announced in April
that it would limit new investment in Uzbekistan.
The State Department's decision to cut aid was
based not so much on the torture issue as on the
government's failure to make "progress on democratic
reform and restrictions put on US assistance partners on
the ground".
Instead of making it easier for
non-governmental organizations and opposition parties to
organize and operate, the Uzbek government has actually
increased their regulation and made it much harder to
receive foreign funding, including some of the $18
million in US aid, according to Maria Brill Olcott, a
Central Asia specialist at the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace.
While the amount of money
involved is relatively little, some analysts said the
move might reflect some strategic reassessments by both
countries. "This is a sign that Central Asia is less
important [to the Bush administration] than it was three
years ago," said Olcott, who noted that US military
access to the air base in Uzbekistan was less critical
strategically now that Washington had several bases in
Afghanistan.
"Will it make Uzbekistan move
closer to Russia? It probably will," she added, noting
that Karimov, who already has close ties with China, has
been moving in that direction for some time.
S
Frederick Starr, a Central Asia specialist at the Johns
Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies, told
the Washington Times that the move was self-defeating
because it would strengthen the hand of "the worst
troglodytes in the Ministry of Internal Affairs and
police", who were themselves targeted for some of the
aid that has been cut.
