UZBEKISTAN: Repression will not end unrest

Analysis

Two alternative accounts have been put forward to explain the uprising in the Ferghana Valley (see UZBEKISTAN: Karimov restores order for time being - May 16, 2005). Implicit in these are competing ideas about what policies should be pursued to promote stability in the region:

• The authorities in Tashkent say that 169 were killed in Andizhan -- including 32 from the security forces. In the official version, a radical Islamic group crossed into Uzbekistan from Kyrgyzstan and launched a pre-planned attack on security forces, gathering arms, freeing prisoners and then taking hostages and seizing government buildings. When the terrorists refused to negotiate, fighting broke out. The Andizhan events were an isolated phenomenon provoked by outside radical forces.
• Human rights organisations offer a very different account. In this version, up to 1,000 may have died, including in fighting in other towns and villages around Andizhan. They also report eyewitness accounts of summary execution of many wounded people by security forces. They note that most protesters were not radical Muslims, but simply people disaffected with the government's economic and political policies.

Karimov's rule. There is no dispute about the fact that President Islam Karimov has been unprepared to accept any criticism or opposition to his hardline policies:

• In the early 1990s, he consolidated his power through marginalising potential rivals, repressing secular opposition, and strengthening the security services. He initially justified these steps in terms of the threat to stability posed by democratisation.
• His government resisted international pressure to liberalise the economy. Instead, the state assumed an even more direct economic role, with the bureaucracy seeking to control all aspects of private business, fuelling corruption.

Issue of Islam. The secular opposition was a relatively recent phenomenon in Uzbekistan and so easily repressed. Islam, by contrast, is deeply integrated. To challenge it directly risked a widescale backlash. Karimov therefore sought to establish a distinction between 'official Islam', tightly state-controlled and monitored, and extremist Islam, presented as something alien to Uzbekistan and resulting from foreign influence. The latter form was combated aggressively from the mid-1990s.

This threat replaced fear of democratisation as the justification for the extension of repressive measures. State control over the media became absolute and tight restrictions were placed on the borders. A series of explosions in Tashkent in 1999, which Karimov blamed on Islamic extremists, provided the pretext for an intensification of the crackdown on any groups, particularly Islamic ones, which operated independently from the authorities. A brutal campaign led to the imprisonment of tens of thousands and the systematic use of torture by the security forces.

Meanwhile, corruption became endemic. As the economy stagnated and the population grew poorer, state officials increasingly sought to extract money through bribes and bureaucratic procedures. The private sector was all but destroyed as a source of wealth creation. Chronic poverty and unemployment became common, with much of the population at subsistence levels.

Increasing repression. After the September 11 terrorist attacks, Tashkent became a key US ally, hosting a US military base. Tashkent has viewed its relationship with Washington as a source of protection from criticism of its human rights record. There have been some half-hearted US initiatives to curb the use of torture and liberalise the economy, but they have had little effect.

Tashkent continued to view Islamic groups as a challenge, despite the defeat of the Taliban and destruction of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan through the US intervention in Afghanistan. Karimov refocused the security forces on the avowedly peaceful Hizb-ut Tahrir Islamic movement. Thousands were arrested, many with little relation to the movement, and Tashkent strongly criticised neighbouring countries, especially Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, for allowing it to operate on their territory.

Such repression was matched by tighter control over economic activity, with measures to force peasant farmers to sell their produce to the state at low prices -- the products were then sold abroad at a profit. Small-scale traders faced constant demands to pay bribes to local officials and harassment by the police and tax inspectors. The government introduced measures making it almost impossible to under take cross-border trading. Foreign investment dried up.

Increasing unrest. This intense pressure on Uzbekistan's population has produced growing social unrest:

• What appear to have been Islamic cells in Uzbekistan launched violent attacks in March 2004, and suicide bombings against the Israeli and US embassies in the following July.
• Farmers, journalists and traders are among groups which have mounted public protests. In November 2004, protests by some 10,000 people in Kokand in the Ferghana Valley against new restrictions on the city market quickly spread to other towns (see UZBEKISTAN: Trade regulations provoke discontent - November 9, 2004). Further social unrest was reported in the Ferghana Valley in December.

The Andizhan events are thus but the latest in a history of confrontation between the Karimov regime and disaffected sections of population and radical Islamist elements. The novelty of what happened in Andizhan was the fusion of Islamist groups with the broad social unrest. Islamic radicalism was probably not at the root of the recent violence, but militant Islamist groups may well have played some role in events in Andizhan, highlighting the danger that such groups may be able to exploit social frustration for their own ends.

Outlook. The international community was slow to react to events in Andizhan:

• Countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States which have developed a close relationship to Uzbekistan through the 'war on terror' offered relatively muted criticism.
• Russia, which has recently experienced a rapprochement with Uzbekistan, was quick to accept Tashkent's line (see UZBEKISTAN: Russia could move in on US step-back - April 29, 2004).

However, Uzbekistan is now at a crossroads, and the international community's approach will be crucial. The Uzbek authorities seem unable to develop effective policies to address the country's growing problems, and instead are relying on intensified repression. Yet this seems counterproductive. The unrest being created by Tashkent's policies now threatens stability not only in Uzbekistan but also Kyrgyzstan, which faces the challenges of a delicate presidential election, and Tajikistan, which has yet to recover from the devastating civil war of the 1990s. The international community could reduce the risks to stability by seeking to promote genuine reform.