Comments on: Germans to Stay at Termez

By: Random

Random — Tue, 27 Dec 2005 12:41:15 +0000

Full sheet!
Do you really think that everything will be Ok if Karimov get out?
Andijan region has 70% of population of Uzbekistan and of course there are a lot of pure people. I hope you understand that pure people haven’t money to make revolt but vahabists have.
Nothing happens without people that want to have big money from situation.
And of course if you want to defense your country from vahabists and drugs you have to be cruel person. Look on Georgia. Is it better now? Is their people happy? No!
So, as I understand, Rustam and others only can bla-bla without understanding situation.

By: uzbekistan.neweurasia.net » Blog Archive » Germany’s Uzbekistan policy

Thu, 22 Dec 2005 17:04:51 +0000

[...] Germany’s contingent of troops will stay in Uzbekistan, as Nathan reported some while ago. I held this post back as the German media tends either to overlook Central Asia and the German involvement in the region or comes up with valuable stories rather late. [...]

By: Sam

Sam — Fri, 16 Dec 2005 10:22:28 +0000

An interesting little twist to this story:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/16/international/europe/16uzbek.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1134728523-3sXblmNa09RFVFnfStUWBw

http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2005/12/15/uzbeki12294.htm

Let’s see which way the German Federal Prosecutor jumps…

By: Major John

Major John — Wed, 14 Dec 2005 17:15:28 +0000

Andy,

Has a nice, Andropovian ring to it, yes?

By: Andy

Andy — Wed, 14 Dec 2005 07:47:07 +0000

I hadn’t actually read the German foreign Office page until today. This really quite shocked me – the kind of quote a tin-pot dictator would come up with, not a stable democracy.

“Uzbekistan looks on Germany as an important, preferential partner in Western Europe, views the German political and economic system as exemplary”

By: Nathan

Nathan — Tue, 13 Dec 2005 18:34:46 +0000

Oh, and what really bugs me is that by sticking around, Germany is in a way saying (and I’m reading some of this by the way they put things on their Uzbekistan policy page I linked) that they are the “good Westerners” who are not trying to overthrow Karimov.

By: Nathan

Nathan — Tue, 13 Dec 2005 18:33:09 +0000

Major John, I think you’re 100% correct about not much being achievable anymore. I believed it was possible long past many felt such sentiments were plausible, and I think it’s painfully obvious now that pressuring or bribing the Uzbek government to reform is impossible now. And the way the deal is described, it looks more like Germany is paying off the government to stick around by agreeing to do all kinds of improvements.

By: Major John

Major John — Tue, 13 Dec 2005 17:47:20 +0000

Rustam,

I am not sure I agree about the US/NATO struggling to replace Uz bases – we were, um…preparing for just such a contingency (Shindand *cough* *cough*) long before I redeployed home in April 2005. I am a bit disappointed in the Germans – They don’t have to be ham-handed and strident, but I don’t think working in the background will accomplish much with this bunch.

By: Nathan

Nathan — Tue, 13 Dec 2005 01:38:18 +0000

I agree the Israel remark is ignorant and anti-semitism lite, but the point is more gracefully made when it’s not thusly announced.

By: Laurence

Laurence — Tue, 13 Dec 2005 01:33:15 +0000

Rustam,

I don’t think Angela Merkel is a friend of communist dictators, just that she is smarter, better educated about the former Soviet Union and more subtle in her approach than Bush or Blair in bringing about change. She didn’t get to the top of the CDU by being stupid or cowardly. Also, don’t think more JFK-type speeches (he got the US into Vietnam, remember?), riots, “tulip revolutions,” or whatever are going to work. And if it takes 30 years for a peaceful transition to real democracy, peace and prosperity, it’s a better bet than some rush job leading to civil war, a Russian invasion — or another Islamic Republic.

Bringing Israel into this discussion of Germany’s relations with Uzbekistan shows either extreme ignorance or dangerous prejudice. So I’m not going to comment further in this thread.