Now, the closest I’ve come to making predictions about Uzbek reforms between January, when the State Department gave Uzbekistan a failing grade on human rights certifications required under the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Act, and April, when the State Department will pass judgment on Uzbekistan again and determine how its practices impact US aid, is in this post. I more or less said that we need to signal that we are both serious about human rights reforms and very interested in maintaining our partnership. By letting Uzbekistan know that the health of the latter depends on the former and telling them they have a second chance to make changes, we might see some token moves on their part.
Turns out that the Uzbek government is willing to make changes to keep receiving US money. Rumsfeld is about to arrive in Uzbekistan for the third time in two years, and Uzbekistan’s Foreign Minister, Sadyk Safayev, is already throwing out the welcome mat, kissing American ass from afar.
Regarding US military bases, Safayev said that troops will be allowed to stay as long as the US says they are needed for support of operations in Afghanistan. Even better, Karimov’s “no permanent base” declaration is off the table. Uzbekistan will put off any decision on US bases until the Pentagon finishes its assessment of worldwide troop deployments.
On the human rights front, Safayev says that both Ruslan Sharipov and Fatima Mukhadirova will receive amnesties in the near future.
“It might happen that (Sharipov) would be amnestied,” Safayev said. “Personally I am against that … but somehow the international community thinks that I’m wrong.”
Something about the end of that quotation says to me that engagement and pressure works. Make no bones about it, there would be not a chance in hell of either of these two getting out of prison were it not for the United States.
