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THE
ROVING EYE
The US and its 'special'
dictator
By Pepe Escobar
"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.
(Copyright 2005 Asia Times Online
Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us for
information on sales, syndication and republishing.) |
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