Again Congress is taking the lead on US policy towards Uzbekistan. (WaPo reports the administration is making statements on Umarov, but they aren’t in the report. Perhaps I’ve missed them?) Senators Bill Frist and Richard Lugar introduced a resolution yesterday calling on the Uzbek government to treat Sanjar Umarov fairly and respect his human rights.
Sunshine Uzbekistan has the text of the resolution.
Update: Apparently the State Department is making an issue of the situation.
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Nathan founded Registan.net in 2003. He was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Uzbekistan 2000-2001 and received his MA in Central Asian Studies from the University of Washington in 2007. Since 2007, he has worked full-time as an analyst, consulting with clients on Central Asian affairs, specializing in how socio-cultural factors shape risks and opportunities. Follow him on Twitter or drop him a line.
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The second link (to the NYT article) has, as almost an aside, a stunning image–Umarov being visited by his lawyer, sitting naked and dazed in his jail cell and unable to respond to questions.
This seems so typical to me of the system here–after days, they finally let his lawyer in, and they don’t even bother to clothe the prisoner or make any attept to hide the fact that they are abusing him.
The thing I never understand here (when the government lets you see really ugly things that shouldn’t be, whether it’s a child being starved in an orphanage or protesters being beaten on the street) is whether it just doesn’t occur to them that you would have a problem with the horrible thing that you are seeing, or whether (in this case) they want you to see it, they want to send a message through it.
Though this whole situation is still developing, I think the way they are treating the whole Umarov situation is the brashest and ugliest thing the Karimov government has openly done in a long time. I’m sure people will argue with that statement, but I’m looking at it this way–Andijon and other repressions were done in a way that visible for a very short time and then covered up quickly and usually pretty effectively, and then the government’s story becomes one of either “self-defense” (against terrorists) or just plain contradicting the reported facts about the situation.
While many, many minor opponents not just of the regime, but simply of the status quo, disspear in to the penal system of Uzbekistan on a very regular basis, they don’t get (unfortunately for them) the kind of attention that Umarov is getting and will get, and they also didn’t represent anything like the actual threat to the powers that be like he did/does.
Therefore, if they are not even going to attempt to hide the fact that they are abusing him (torturing, drugging, use whatever word you think is appropriate to the case), I have to wonder if this is a message both to other dissenters here and to the West, or is this just Karimov showing his true colors?
I posted something a couple of weeks ago wondering if anyone knew (or if we could figure out) who Umarov’s friends in power were, who was “his roof” (to protect him) as they say in Russian. Very unfortunately for him, I guess that question has been answered for all practical purproses.
I just hope that somebody can do something for him a little bit more effective than passing resolutions… not that I think it’s a bad thing to do, it just probably doesn’t keep him warm when he’s sitting huddle naked in his jail cell at night.
here’s the economist on uzbekistan.
I like it. Nice, hard-hitting summary. But one thing, it says that 1 in 3 people are employed by the army or security forces in Uzbekistan. I used to joke that it was 1 in 2, but in reality that seems a bit of an exaggeration to me. Maybe if it were 1/3 of all able-bodied men it’d be more realistic. Does anyone know if this ratio is accurate?
David,
I hear your frustration with it all. To add more to the pile o’ misery, Reuters reports on Elena Urlaeva’s recent release from a psychiatric hospital:
“I was given daily a dose of Rispolept [a strong drug used to treat schizophrenia] that had very bad side effects and for the last two days doctors had to stop forcible treatment,” Urlaeva said after her release.
Common side effects of Rispolept include nausea, anxiety, dizziness, insomnia and blurred vision. The medication can have several serious side effects which may be permanent, including an involuntary and often continuous movement of the tongue and lips, accompanied by grimacing.
Brian,
Of course 1/3 – is too exaggerated. Paradox that Economist notes this, while its own Intelligence Unit (www.eiu.com) states on Uzbekistan country profile:
Army- 40,000
Air force – 10,000-15,000
Interior ministry troops – 17,000-19,000
National Guard – 1,000
The same data in IISS’s Military Balance.
And big and interesting article on Umarov (in Russian from France
):
http://www.asiecentrale.fr/sanjar_1.html
While 1/3 may well be an exaggeration of some kind, even if we are considering only able bodied men, there are two things to take in to consideration here:
First, those numbers that Denzil quotes do not include the SNB, which is by all accounts not only larger than the Interior Ministry (the police) and more powerful, but no one knows how big they are, and as I recall even the government will not release any figures.
Secondly, you have to remember that military service is compuslary in Uzbekistan. Every male who cannot get out of the service or perform an alternate service goes through training and active service for the compulsory period– and afterwards, to my understanding, could be considered part of the army reserve. Therefore, the Economist article may have been discounting only women and the infirm, leaving literally one third of the country available to be mobilized for the armed forces. (I am not personally making this arguement, but I think they may have been looking it at from this viewpoint, which is probably not entirely correct, but can’t also be entirely discounted.)
Just to toss that out there…
From CIA ( http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/uz.html#Military ):
Population: 26,851,195 (July 2005 est.)
Manpower fit for military service – males age 18-49: 4,609,621 (2005 est.)
Literally – 1/6 of population.
..now toss it..
US Congressman meets Uzbek officials:
http://www.uzreport.com/e/index.cfm?sec=1&subsec=1&n_ID=18741
so we cleared that up i guess
Well… the article doesn’t specifically say that 1 in 3 are officers or soldiers… all other staff supporting them would be included too. Still, I agree it seems a bit of an exaggeration. I’ll send an email off to them about where they got their data and see if they’ll respond.
In any case, regardless of the ratio, even before Andijan, I’ve personally never seen such a heavily policed country.
Rough estimates I recall suggested there were around 250,000 police countrywide, that’s militia, including I think traffic police, but not other MVD forces or SNB. SNB is not so numerous of course. Another very rough estimate I heard for all employees in the security sector – including procuracy for example, prison guards, etc. – came to about a million total, including everybody down to the tea-lady. Sounds more realistic than one in three, but still a very high proportion compared with other similar countries, and despite some dissatisfaction with salaries etc., still an important source of support for the regime. Also a huge drain on the economy of course.
Million?! Hm..
David, it means that almost 1/6 of male adults (women are still few there) work in law enforcement? Who then those 80+% of rurals (even we forget about other economic sectors and another million in abroad)?
I don’t know the exact numbers. But if you’re seriously interested in this matter, I could try to ask people “from the system” or near?
sure, it would be interesting to get anything more accurate. It does sound a lot, but if you include everybody in any kind of security sector? I prefer the 250,000 figure, it sounds close to truth.
ok, I’ll try to make it clearer..