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The lessons from
Ferghana
By M K Bhadrakumar
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw
initiated a discussion in the "international
community" on developments in Andijan in
Uzbekistan. Straw said on Saturday, a day after an
unspecified number of protesters were killed by
security forces, "The situation is very serious,
there has been a clear abuse of human rights, a
lack of democracy and a lack of openness." He
demanded that the government should allow
"independent observers such as the Red Cross" to
visit Andijan. But, asked whether Britain would
support an opposition movement in Uzbekistan,
Straw parried, "It's for the people to decide on a
change of regime, not outsiders."
Why wouldn't Straw comment on the "opposition"
- the Hizbut Tahrir (HT) - in the
Andijan incidents? Tashkent has alleged that HT activists in
the city communicated with "mentors" in
Afghanistan and Kyrgyzstan. Moreover, it is well-known
that the HT's "headquarters" are in the United
Kingdom. HT spokesmen appear routinely in the
coffee shops of plush London hotels to give media
interviews.
Significantly, in the first
detailed Russian reaction on Monday, Foreign
Minister Sergei Lavrov spoke of the Andijan unrest
as a "Taliban-like provocation". He said foreign
radical forces, particularly Taliban, were behind
the unrest. Lavrov expressed full understanding
for the government's handling of the critical
situation: "I do not think any country will
tolerate foreign forces seizing arms depots,
staging violence, raiding administrative buildings
and taking hostages on its territory."
Lavrov
called for a "thorough investigation"
into who sent the group of gunmen into
Andijan and why, as intelligence reports indicated,
"foreigners were among the gunmen". Interestingly,
Lavrov went several steps ahead of Straw's
modest proposal regarding the Red Cross and
suggested that the UN Security Council's anti-terrorism
committee, the Commonwealth of Independent
States' anti-terrorist committee and the
Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) should
all be involved in the investigation. Lavrov
stressed the importance of avoiding "further
escalation and more casualties" and the need to
ensure stability so that "people calmed down and
did not respond to provocative acts".
The
HT's potential for stirring the pot in Central
Asia, and beyond in Russia's Volga regions or
China's Xinjiang, is not in doubt. Once ensconced
in Central Asia, HT could look to South Asian
countries too. Historically, in the churning
ethnic, religious, cultural cauldron, Central Asia
and South Asia become indivisible.
Russian security forces have detained HT activists in recent
weeks in seven regions of the Volga federal
district - the autonomous republics of Tatarstan,
Bashkiria, Chuvashia and Udmurtia and in the
Nizhny-Novgorod, Kirov and Samara regions - and in
Ulyanovsk region. There were "foreigners" among
the detainees who were in possession of
topographic maps, especially of Russian oil and
gas pipelines, elements of explosive devices and
HT propaganda material.
The Andijan unrest
should not have taken Tashkent (and regional
capitals) by surprise. Uzbekistan authorities have
been sharing information about HT activities with
friendly countries in the region. Consultations
were held by security agencies in the region in
April about the likelihood of HT-instigated
upheavals. All this would have enabled Tashkent to
act swiftly. A key ingredient of a "velvet
revolution" - authorities' inability to be
proactive - could not have come into play.
But there are deeper reasons why the
Andijan incident could be localized. First, an
assessment of President Islam Karimov's leadership
is needed. Uzbekistan is the only country in
Central Asia where post-Soviet state formation has
been systematically advanced. (Historically, Uzbek
people have been far more advanced in social
formation.) Karimov moved according to a plan -
avoiding the "shock therapy" route of Boris
Yeltsin's Russia; listening to prescriptions on
market reforms, but avoiding what Joseph Stiglitz
called "globalization's discontent"; retaining
national control over mineral and natural
resources; placing emphasis on "self-reliance".
The "doctrine of international community" cannot
be easily imposed on leaders like Karimov, such
strongmen insulate their agenda and carry on.
Thus, when we speak about deprivation in
Uzbekistan, we tend to forget that although the
average monthly income for an Uzbek is about
US$30, the salary drawn by a top official is also
below $100. Equally so, Karimov never placed lids
on social mobility. Uzbekistan's growth rate of
6-7% in recent years has been appreciable, though
it might be low given the huge backlog of the
Soviet Union's collapse. Karimov has reversed
Uzbekistan's post-Soviet decline. Therefore,
beyond the underpinnings of clan or family
kinships that may or may not provide substrata of
support, the Uzbekistan establishment has a social
base. This is a difference between the
"revolutionary climates" in Uzbekistan and
Kyrgyzstan.
Again, the Ferghana Valley, a critical region for Central
Asia, is not
typical of Uzbekistan in its religious fervor.
Uzbek people are deeply religious (which is
natural considering the country's fantastic
history as a cradle of Islamic culture), but
Uzbekistan culture is drawn from several layers of
identity. In the Khorezm or Bukhara-Samarkand
regions, arguably, there could be layers of
collective consciousness, such as Persian
(Zoroastrian) civilization or the Samanid legacy.
(Uzbeks do not disown Buddhist heritage either.)
Thus, the HT's clarion calls incited rural
Ferghana, but failed to evoke resonance in the
"urbanized" Uzbek hinterlands.
Karimov's
main problem has been distinguishing friends from
foes. Partly this had been because he was in a
hurry to modernize his country, and partly due to
choices to be made in a difficult world. This
predicament accounted for the zig-zag in
Uzbekistan's foreign policy during the past 15
years. Hopefully, there will be greater
predictability ahead.
The decision to give
a military base to the US in October 2001 is a
fine example. True, Uzbekistan was literally
stampeded into the decision by an insistent US
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld camping in
Tashkent. But Karimov was too preoccupied with the
specter of Islamic militancy in next-door
Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. As an erudite leader
(schooled in dialectical materialism and economics
at that), he could have anticipated that an entree
for neo-liberalism would have consequences.
Karimov began to rethink somewhere toward the end of 2002,
when he refrained from backing the US invasion
of Iraq (unlike Kazakhstan, which dispatched
a token contingent of "coalition forces").
Alongside, he took a major step in aligning
Uzbekistan with the SCO, even insisting that
the SCO's anti-terrorist center must be located
in Tashkent. Through 2003, Uzbek foreign policy
began edging away from the US.
The "Rose Revolution"
in Georgia must have come as a rude awakening.
Eduard Shevardnadze (and Heydar Aliyev in
Azerbaijan) had been something of a role model
for Karimov - in what was believed to be their
sheer skill in steering their countries through
the choppy waters of the Great Game. Yet
Shevardnadze, who was the darling of the West, was
rubbished overnight by Washington and
unceremoniously dumped.
A chronicle
of Uzbekistan's foreign policy moves since
Mikhail Saakashvili's appearance in Georgia is
revealing: Uzbekistan's offer to host the next summit
meeting of SCO; the visit of Uzbekistan's Foreign
Minister Sodik Safaev to China; the visit by
Chinese President Hu Jintao to Tashkent; the SCO
summit meeting in Tashkent (a turning point in
SCO's graduation as a regional security organization
- the first of its kind in Central Asia);
Karimov's decision to open up Uzbekistan's energy
reserves to China (an agreement on energy cooperation
was signed during Hu's visit); Karimov's
"personal initiative" with Russian President Vladimir
Putin for concluding a bilateral treaty
heralding military cooperation with Russia on a scale
that Tashkent had been notoriously lukewarm about
until then (Uzbekistan is still not a member of
the Collective Security Treaty Organization
binding Russia with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan
and Tajikistan); Tashkent's criticism of the
"Orange Revolution" in Ukraine in January; Tashkent
giving short shrift to US entreaties to play a role
in reactivating GUUAM (the Georgian foreign minister
who visited Tashkent in April had to cut short his
visit); Tashkent's summary cancellation of a visit
by British Foreign Office Minister Bill Rammell in
March; Uzbekistan's endorsement of the
anti-secession law on Taiwan passed by the Chinese
National People's Congress; Uzbekistan's decision
in May to withdraw from GUUAM. (The pro-US
regional cooperation organization was set up in
1997 by Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova
with a view to enhancing energy and economic
cooperation among its founding members. Uzbekistan
joined in 1999.)
The trajectory of Uzbek foreign
policy puts paid to the misperception that if
Washington is treading softly while commenting over
Andijan, that is because Uzbekistan is a "close
ally". If the US has been caught in a cleft stick
over Andijan, the reasons are not far to seek.
First, it so happens that US military operations
in Afghanistan will be handicapped without
the availability of the Khanabad base in
Uzbekistan. Washington cannot afford to drive
Tashkent into a hostile mode.
Second,
pragmatic considerations apart, Washington faces a
"moral twister". How far to go in lining up
Islamist outfits like HT or the Islamic Movement
of Uzbekistan as its tools of regional policy?
Unlike Britain, which broke up the Ottoman
Sultan's caliphate in the early 19th century, and
has rich experience in manipulating Islamism for
geopolitics, the US is a relative novice to the
game.
Third, the regime change in
Kyrgyzstan has been Washington's baptism by fire
in Muslim Central Asia. Things being where they
are, Washington may need what Leon Trotsky called
a state of "permanent revolutions" if it regards
geopolitics in Central Asia as a zero-sum game. No
matter the rhetoric that Russia "lost" Kyrgyzstan
or that the torch of "freedom" journeyed from
Tibilisi to Kiev to Bishkek, the plain truth is
that Russia, China, the SCO or the Collective
Security Treaty Organization have not "lost"
anything. Only Kyrgyzstan has "lost" - it has
become more volatile.
Russia has
since taken the role of mediator to calm the
political turbulence in post-revolution Bishkek.
Acting President Kurmanbek Bakiyev and prominent
leader Felix Kulov have been to Moscow and have
taken the friendly advice that they should forge
national unity for averting Kyrgyzstan's descent
into anarchy. They have just announced a
power-sharing formula whereby they will field a
joint candidacy in the presidential election in
July. Bakiyev will be the presidential candidate
and Kulov his running mate. Kulov also reconciled
with ousted president Askar Akayev.
Interestingly, Bakiyev was the first
regional leader to openly support Karimov over the
events in Andijan. Bakiyev stated: "This violence
happened because of those known as the Islamic
Movement of Uzbekistan and Hizbut Tahrir. In no
way this can lead to a good life. There should be
peace. I do not support the views of those who
want to establish a state under the rule of a
religious body." The Kyrgyz security authorities
have been coordinating with their Uzbekistan
counterparts in stabilizing the situation.
Kyrgyzstan evidently abhors "color revolutions" in
its neighborhood.
The Andijan events will
be a turning point in Central Asia's passage
through a very difficult period. Reforms have
become inevitable. The Central Asian leaderships
realize that. When centralized polities enter the
vortex of democratic reform, there is bound to be
high volatility in the situation. Things can well
spiral out of control - as was the case in Shah's
Iran and Mikhail Gorbachev's Soviet Union. A
hiatus can arise between popular expectations and
the state's inability to fulfill them; differences
over the pace and directions of reform can lead to
new discords and create tensions; discarding old
modes of behavior or management is never too easy,
nor does it come naturally, it often needs
careful, patient cultivation; reforms are bound to
affect vested interests and in turn can breed new
interest groups, which means that reforms can meet
with resistance or can get hijacked altogether.
What stands out is an oft-quoted saying by Karimov
that until the new house is ready for habitation,
the old house should not be destroyed.
Reform in Central Asia must take place in
an environment free of outside interference.
Geopolitical rivalries are manifestly acute in the
region. The million-dollar question is whether the
"international community" will allow the region to
figure out its way, lending a helping hand now and
then perhaps, but without being intrusive or
prescriptive. If they allow the region such
latitude, those who died in Andijan did not die in
vain.
M K Bhadrakumar is a
former Indian career diplomat who has served in
Islamabad, Kabul, Tashkent and Moscow.
(Copyright 2005 Asia Times Online Ltd. All
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