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Russia plays Uzbekistan blame
game
By Claire Bigg
MOSCOW - Uzbek President Islam Karimov,
who is in Moscow on an official visit, said last
month's violence in his country was planned from
abroad. Russian President Vladimir Putin and
Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov are backing his
claims. Karimov has also made thinly veiled
accusations that the West orchestrated the unrest
to strengthen its presence in Central Asia.
Karimov has taken advantage of his visit
to Moscow to make it clear he views the May
uprising in Uzbekistan's eastern city of Andijan
as an "operation" planned from abroad. During a
meeting with Ivanov, he said the unrest had been
carefully organized by people who had experience
planning similar revolts in former Soviet
countries.
"The events in Andijan were
planned in advance and were a very serious,
thoroughly prepared operation, to put it
accurately," Karimov said. "It is clear that it
was prepared in headquarters and centers where
there are people who have carried out operations
like this before on the territory of both CIS
[Commonwealth of Independent States] and other
states."
On Wednesday Ivanov announced
that Russia is to conduct joint military exercises
with Uzbekistan. The defense minister said the
joint maneuvers would be the first since the
collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The
exercises will be held in central Uzbekistan over
the summer. The Russian news agency RIA-Novosti
quoted Ivanov as saying the maneuvers would be of
a special nature in light of the events in
Andijan.
Unrest in Andijan erupted on May
13, when militants seized a local prison and
government headquarters after what many residents
described as an unfair trial of local businessmen.
Witnesses and rights group say a demonstration
following the attack was violently crushed by
government troops. The Uzbek authorities, who
blame the attack on terrorists, say 176 people
died in the confrontation - but human-rights
groups have put the death toll at more than 500.
During his meeting with President Putin on
Wednesday, Karimov linked the Andijan revolt to
recent movements that toppled the governments in
Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan. He then implicitly accused
the US Congress, the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO), and the European Parliament
of hearing a resolution that he claimed was
prepared prior to the unrest and demanded the
Uzbek government answer for the violence in
Andijan.
"This wittingly prepared
resolution was ready. And, of course, imagine: the
US Congress would have discussed this resolution
and passed the subsequent decisions, the European
Parliament would have discussed it, NATO would
have discussed it," he said.
Karimov gave no
further details. There have been no previous
reports that resolutions were prepared anywhere in
anticipation of the Andijan violence, and the
charge is impossible to verify independently.
This is the first time Karimov, who sees
himself as a US ally in the "war against terror",
has made a direct link between the West and the
Andijan events.
The Kremlin has refrained
from commenting on Karimov's accusations that the
West was behind the revolt, but it did say it
supports his claims that the revolt had been
planned from abroad.
Ivanov told the Uzbek
president that Russia had known about the revolt.
"We, in fact, knew how all this was prepared [the
events in Andijan], or at least we knew some of
the elements [of the plan]," the Russian defense
minister said. "It's quite clear there was an
external link. This helped us to take really an
objective stance [on the events in Andijan] based
on all circumstances of what had happened and [to
avoid] any one-sided assessment which has only
political considerations."
Putin also told
Karimov that Russia possessed information that
militants had crossed from Afghanistan into
Uzbekistan. "We confirm the information that
militants penetrated from specially prepared bases
in Afghanistan. They were concentrating on border
territories and this is a fact. Our secret
services confirm that."
Karimov once again
rejected calls by the West for an international
inquiry, saying the Uzbek authorities would
complete their own investigation in several
months. At the meeting with Putin, he slammed NATO
for supporting demands for an international
inquiry, accusing it of seeking to increase its
influence in Central Asia.
"We are not
members of NATO," Karimov said. "So, the question
arises: Why is NATO trying to take certain
decisions in relation to us? Obviously there is
one answer: For some reason they think that we are
interested in becoming NATO members, or in
partnership with NATO. But listen, we live in
[Central] Asia. Look how insistent NATO is about
moving towards the territory of the Caucasus, how
insistently it's trying to get into or to
strengthen its presence in Central Asia."
The Uzbek president said those involved in
the uprising would be brought before justice but
vowed the trial would be open to foreign observers
and human-rights activists.
Copyright
(c) 2005, RFE/RL Inc. Reprinted with the
permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio
Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW,
Washington DC 20036 |
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