Protests, Hearings, etc.

CSCE Hearing

The US Helsinki Commission held a hearing on Uzbekistan yesterday. RFE/RL has a summary and the CSCE website has the testimony.

Some choice excerpts.

Daniel Kimmage on the prison assault:

None of the preceding constitutes sufficient evidence to conclude that the participants in the initial violence — the attack on the military garrison and prison; the seizure of the regional-administration building — were or were not extremists. Rather, it shows that there are ample grounds to doubt Uzbek official claims of extremist involvement in the absence of additional evidence to back up those claims. Thus far, none of the independent reports of events in Andijon on 12-13 May indicates that the armed men on the antigovernment side employed extremist rhetoric or symbolism. An individual identified as a Western journalist who was in Andijon on 13 May told the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR): “This rebellion has nothing to do with religion. I did not hear cries of Allahu Akbar, and none of the rebels inside the regional-administration building mentioned anything about an Islamic state.”

Contrasting evidence may come to light, but for now, the most that can be said is that the armed men committed violent acts. Independent reports, such as the BBC’s account of the initial violence, support that much of the official version; they do not, however, provide corroborating evidence for the official claim that the attackers were religious extremists.

Recommendations:

As the preceding suggests, an inquiry into the bloodshed in Uzbekistan should treat two distinct issues. Broadly speaking, these are 1) the actions of armed rebels and 2) the reports that government forces fired on civilians. An investigation may uncover significant overlap between these two issues. But in focusing on them separately, the investigation will be better able to organize its work along the lines of specific questions. Some, but not all, of those questions are:

On the actions of armed rebels:

• Who were the armed men who attacked a military garrison and prison on the night of 12 May?
• Did they have any ties supported by hard evidence to an extremist organization or organizations?
• What were their ultimate aims?
• How many inmates did they release from the prison on 12 May, and are there reasonable grounds for believing that any of those inmates were members of extremist and/or terrorist organizations?
• What are the current whereabouts of the inmates who were released?
• Did negotiations take place between the government and rebels
• If so, what was their substance and outcome?

On the reports that government forces fired on civilians:

• Who started the violence in the center of Andijon on the evening of 13 May?
• Did Uzbek troops fire on unarmed civilians?
• If so, were they acting under orders?
• If so, who gave those orders?
• How many people were killed, and under what circumstances?

Before I move on, we all have some idea of what the investigation would find. And as important as it is for us to address what we’re sure to find, it is worth our while to go through these motions before we commit to a reaction that will force us down a certain path.

It is worth your time to check out Dr. Abdurahim Polat’s testimony. I don’t think this is really the best testimony of his that I’ve read and he definitely pushes his party, Birlik, as the best hope for democratic change in Uzbekistan (he may be right), but all the same, he’s an important opposition figure.

Martha Brill Olcott’s testimony begins with a powerful observation.

While many aspects of recent events in Uzbekistan remain unclear, one thing is perfectly obvious. Unless the government of President Islam Karimov quickly moves to introduce economic and political reforms, it will not regain public confidence. And if it fails to regain public confidence it will face an escalating series of political crises like the one it confronted in Andijian, with little reason to assume that the Uzbek government will handle these future crises any better than it did the current one.

Which is kind of what I thought was already underway leading up to Andijon. The massacre and its fallout just makes the situation even worse for Karimov’s government.

She also has some important considerations for any upcoming inquiry into what happened.

As horrifying as some of these accounts are, and as incompetent as the Uzbek government has been in mounting its own defense, the international community has to make clear that it is looking for answers to what happened and not villains, answers that are necessary to produce the de-escalation of tensions between the government and the population.

And in asking for answers, the international community must make clear that it is not prejudging outcomes. It is not prejudging the guilt or innocence of the 23 businessmen who stood accused of supporting an outlawed religious group, that it recognizes that force was used to seize arms stores and take control of a prison, that it doesn’t by definition preclude the version that siege takers from within the crowd fired on the government troops.

Furthermore, there is no way that the Uzbek government will be permitting an international inquiry until they are convinced that this will be done by neutral and unbiased observers. And even then it is going to be a very hard sell, a point that I will return to below.

She has a lot more to say about the attack and possible inquiry. She also has a very important warning about a potential fall of Karimov.

Tragically, one thing is clear. There will not be the same smooth transfer in Uzbekistan that we saw in Georgia and Ukraine, or even in the bumpier Kyrgyz experience.

Among other things, there is no Saakashvili or Yushchenko waiting in the wings. While the secular democratic opposition in Uzbekistan includes many brave men and women, these people lack the political clout and the proven administrative skills of their Georgian and Ukrainian colleagues. There are also members of the ruling elite found in most walks of Uzbek life who support reform, but who have been frightened to speak up for fear of their jobs. But identifying them will be a difficult job, and more difficult will be to convince the small group of secular reformers and the long-time regime supporters to work together.

Rebuilding after regime collapse is difficult work, and as we see in Afghanistan and Iraq requires close international engagement, of the kind that has been lacking in Central Asia in the years since independence.

The consequences of state collapse in Uzbekistan are profound, and would endanger the survival of the Kyrgyz and Tajik states, and change considerably the path of development in Kazakhstan.
…
In a situation in which the risk of chaos or civil war is rapidly moving from vague to impending, U.S. policy-makers must find a way to translate noble pronouncements into action plans. But they cannot simply decide to abandon a sitting president without a plan of what they will do next and without making sure that the Uzbek president understands the door to chaos and civil war that he has opened.

Olcott recommends back door diplomacy with the Uzbek government to get the ball rolling on an inquiry and to redouble our efforts to convince Karimov that his failure to reform is risking ever-more dire consequences. Why she recommends back door diplomacy is probably the same reason why I am not particularly incensed that the US has not yet come out with a firey denunciation of the Uzbek government. The cost of failure is incredibly high.

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