An insider’s view of Uzbekistan is a case history of how Bush’s foreign policy fails.
The Uzbekistan example
By
John Smart
I spent the three years from September 1995 through August 1998 in the Republic of Uzbekistan, in Central Asia. I was a volunteer there with the Peace Corps, and I feel a very close connection with the country and its people now even though when they first assigned me to Uzbekistan I had to go to the library to consult an atlas to find out where it was.
Uzbekistan is an ancient land. I was in the city of Bukhara, which celebrated its "official" 2,500th Birthday while I was there, and being surrounded by such an amazing history and culture was extraordinary.
I was very proud to be a U.S. citizen there. During the Soviet era, the people were told that we were all capitalist pirates and spies, but, as they got to know me and the rest of the Peace Corps volunteers we became highly respected. Our students hung on our every word. They were so curious, and we told them about the rest of the world.
The highlight of my three year stay was when our First Lady, Hillary Clinton, visited in November of 1997 and came to my school for a session with my students.
The government of Uzbekistan was then and still is a very bad one. The president, Islom Karimov, is an unreformed, Soviet-style dictator. His repressive regime has one of the worst human rights and civil rights records in the world. The people are afraid and have good cause to be.
We volunteers were cautioned not to engage in political discussions, but it was hard to avoid such topics. As I said, our students were so curious, looked to us to explain the world to them, and it was difficult not to talk to them about issues that are so important. I think we did good work there in preparing the people for eventual freedom.
But with the change from the Clinton to the Bush administrations in 2001, the political landscape in Uzbekistan also shifted. The Bush government began to court the Karimov regime with increased foreign aid funds and public silence about Uzbek human rights violations.
The reason for the change did not make sense to close observers like me until we learned that U.S. military forces were taking over a gigantic airbase in the southern part of Uzbekistan, Khanabad, which had been the major Soviet airbase for their ultimately failed war on Afghanistan during the 1980s.
The Pentagon spent unreported millions improving the airbase, which proved valuable after 9/11 when we attacked Afghanistan ourselves, and later, of course, waged our unprovoked attack on Iraq. How did they know that a big military airbase in Uzbekistan would prove so useful?
Eventually, Rumsfeld's Pentagon started working with an internal affairs counter-terrorism unit of the Uzbek military, bringing them to the U.S. to receive the latest in technical training and equipment. Rumsfeld visited Karimov in Tashkent to praise his leadership in "The War on Terror," and Bush invited him to visit the White House.
Karimov then proceeded to use The War on Terror as his new excuse to tighten the grip on his own people, and his unique methods of torture—such as immersing people in boiling water—were reputed to be used on suspects captured by the U.S. and sent to Uzbekistan, the process known as "extreme rendition."
The U.S. also listed the Islamic movement of Uzbekistan as one of the world's most dangerous terrorist groups although that organization considers its mission to be civil rights, arguing for religious freedom in their homeland. Karimov takes a dim view of their activities.
One voice raised during this build-up was that of then-British ambassador Craig Murray. He learned details of the human rights violations of the Karimov regime and spoke out about them to anyone who would listen, including the U.N. Human Rights Commission. But Ambassador Murray was quickly removed from his position by the Blair government, allegedly in response to demands from Washington.
The unholy alliance might have continued unreported had a large group of Uzbeks in the eastern city of Andijon not decided that they wanted to protest against the Karimov regime and organized a demonstration in the city square in May 2005.
The very same counter-terrorism troops that had been trained in the U.S. then trained their guns on their own citizenry and shot some 750 of them dead in the streets. The Uzbek government's official report says that 173 armed "Islamist extremists" were killed.
Many fled the bloody scene and crossed the border into Kirghizstan, where they were rescued and sent to safe harbor in Europe and later told their stories to the international press.
The European Union issued a statement condemning the Uzbek government for its barbarous actions, as did much of the developing world. Even British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw called it a "clear abuse of human rights [that] cannot be justified."
At first, the story was not much reported in the U.S., but eventually the rest of the world was buzzing about the atrocity and the press here finally picked up on it. This forced the Bush administration to make a muted comment. Condoleeza Rice asked for a full explanation from the Uzbek government. Agence France Presse reported that the U.S. "Defense [Department] officials prevailed over the State Department view that a probe was in order by arguing that an investigation could compromise U.S. access to a military base in Uzbekistan they said was crucial in the fight against international terrorism."
Islom Karimov didn't understand the subtlety of official Washington's response and resented the Bush administration's "criticism." He turned on them angrily, evicting U.S. military forces from the Khanabad airbase, on which we'd spent millions. He followed that by also kicking out every U.S. organization working in the country, including Counterpart Intl., which had provided the computers that my students learned to use in Bukhara; Aid to Artisans, which had helped to develop the Uzbek craft market; Mercy Corps, which conducted classes in pre-natal care, among other things; the American Bar Association, which was training young lawyers in international law; and the Peace Corps.
Karimov just signed new cooperation agreements with both China and Russia. Uzbekistan is now considered lost to the West and I watched it happen. Things had been looking so promising, but now I worry about my friends and former students in that sad country.
We don't have many friends left in the world, but everyone is afraid of us. How did we arrive at this point? This cautionary tale is just one example of where the Bush Doctrine has led us. Who will lead us out?
June 27, 2006
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John Smart lives in Park Falls, is a member of the Wisconsin Governor's Commission on the United Nations, the board of the Wisconsin Alliance for Excellent Schools and a frequent guest on Wisconsin Public Radio's Ideas Network.
