These days the people of Uzbekistan celebrates the 14th Anniversary of the Independence. On this happy occasion, I would like to extend my sincere congratulations and best wishes for the successful development and prosperity to amicable people of Uzbekistan.

Chang Hoon, Former South Korean Ambassador to Uzbekistan

[T]he population of Uzbekistan are poor, and getting poorer. There is, as you might imagine, widespread disillusionment with the government. But just as economically the reinforced Soviet system crushes the hopes of the aspiring, so the political system crushes all who oppose.

Craig Murray, Former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan

Chicken Yoghurt: Ah, Uzbekistan. Land of contrasts. Its amicable, prosperous people. Its terrifying, blood-streaked prisons. Its corrupt, violent regime. Its strategic importance in the region.

Welcome to our special debate between two illustrious figures who know Uzbekistan best, Chang Hoon, former South Korean Ambassador to Uzbekistan and Craig Murray, former British Ambassador to the country. I’m also pleased to say we’ve been joined by British Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw.

Starting with you Mr Hoon, where do you think Uzbekistan fits in today’s modern, globalized economy?

Hoon: I would like to mention that despite the plenty of natural resources, including oil, gas, gold and cotton, as well as agricultural products, Uzbekistan is much eager to attract foreign investments in contrast to other former Soviet republics.

Murray: But the climate for foreign investors is dreadful. In effect there is no respect by the government of Uzbekistan of private property rights or the sanctity of contract. The civil, just as the criminal, courts entirely lack independence and follow government instruction. I know of one British company which one morning found that its 60 per cent share in a joint enterprise with an Uzbek state entity, had been reduced to 30 per cent by a court case they had not been told was happening. Jahn International, a Danish investor, had approximately $1 million simply removed from its bank account as “excess profits”. Another British businessman this year had his assets awarded to an Uzbek former partner, with the Uzbek court refusing to acknowledge British legalised documents showing the partner had sold out and been fully paid up.

The anti-trade measures, the lack of redress, and the petty and continual interference of corrupt officials thriving on massive over-regulation, make Uzbekistan a very poor investment prospect.

Hoon: I would also like to comment such important direction of democratization of social life in Uzbekistan as judicial and legal reform. Consecutive liberalization of this system, radical changes in criminal policy and law enforcement practice have positively effected social, political and criminal situation in Uzbekistan.

Murray: But on an everyday basis, there is also no way to protest. There is no freedom of the media, no freedom of religion, no freedom of speech, no freedom of assembly. A regime so harsh to the many, so luxurious for the few, rules only by the harshest of repression. There are not only exit visas, but still the propusk system of internal movement control. Almost all of those born on state farms are condemned to be, in effect, serf labour for life.

Straw: It’s for the people to decide on a change of regime not outsiders. What you have to have however is a democratic process in which a change of regime can be decided if that is wished freely by the people of the country.

Hoon: Recently the parliamentary elections were held in Uzbekistan which become an important landmark in further democratization of the country. For the first time in the history of Uzbekistan a two-chamber parliament consisting of Legislative chamber and the Senate is formed.

Murray: There is no democracy in Uzbekistan. President Karimov’s term in office has been repeatedly extended by rigged elections and referenda.

Hoon: Uzbekistan firmly, steadily and consistently moves along its chosen path of democratic build-up and formation of the civil society, deepening market reforms and strengthening democratic values in minds of citizens.

Following criminal policy of the state, principles of humanism and equity President Karimov has signed the decree on abolishing death penalty from Jan. 1, 2008 as a punishment for especially grave crimes and replacing it with life imprisonment.

Extension of reforms in this sphere might be a Presidential Decree on transferring to courts the right to issue sanctions for arrest which, in my view, allows to considerably improve the effectiveness of the protection of the constitutional rights of citizens for freedom and personal inviolability.

Murray: I am not going today to produce an exhaustive list of human rights offences. I do not think the appalling human rights record of the Uzbek government is in dispute. There remain many thousands of political and religious prisoners, and torture and brutality remain the instruments by which the regime maintains its fierce grip. I came personally, very close to incidents and victims. When I had dinner with Professor Mirsaidov and other leading dissidents in Samarkand at the end of March 2002, some four hours after I left the house his grandson’s body was dumped on the doorstep.

The lad was eighteen. His knees and elbows had been smashed by blows with a hammer, or perhaps a spade or rifle butt. One hand had been immersed in boiling liquid until the flesh was peeling away from the bone. He had been killed with a blow that caved in the back of his skull.

Straw: What we call for in all these countries is for the introduction of democracy. It’s for the people to decide on a change of regime not outsiders. What you have to have however is a democratic process in which a change of regime can be decided if that is wished freely by the people of the country.

Murray: It was in my first few days in Uzbekistan that I was confronted with the pictures of Avazov, with Azimov boiled to death in Jaslyk prison. The University of Glasgow pathology department studied the detailed photos and concluded that this was immersion in, not spattering with, boiling liquid. There was a clear tidemark. The fingernails had also been pulled.

So how should the West react to this regime?

Straw: It’s for the people to decide on a change of regime not outsiders.

Hoon: I would like to urge the international community to support initiatives by President Karimov on creation of nuclear-free zone in Central Asia, a common market with development of transport and communication, water and energy infrastructures of the region, as well as his proposals on maintaining stability in Afghanistan which undoubtedly are the important contribution to the security and economic development in Central Asia.

Yoghurt: Moving on. Mr Murray, you’ve led calls for sanctions to be brought to bear on Uzbekistan’s cotton industry. Wouldn’t they harm the ordinary people of the country?

Murray: The Uzbek cotton industry is a disastrous aberration created by Soviet central planning. Over 80% of the loss of water from the Aral Sea is due to irrigation for the Uzbek cotton industry, so it is responsible for one of the World’s greatest environmental disasters. On most agricultural land in Uzbekistan, cotton has been grown as a monoculture for fifty years, with no rotation. This of course exhausts the soil and encourages pests. As a result the cotton industry employs massive quantities of pesticide and fertiliser. As a result it is not just that the Aral Sea is disappearing, but that and fertiliser years, with no rotation. The whole area of the former sea suffers appalling pollution, reflected in appalling levels of disease.

The economy is heavily dependent on massive production of cotton, the revenue from which brings almost no economic benefit to the wretches who pick it in conditions of serfdom.

We should be seeking to shorten Uzbekistan’s misery, not to extend it. It is the world’s second largest exporter of cotton. Citing the use of child and serf labour, concerted trade sanctions against Uzbek cotton and textiles containing Uzbek cotton should be the way forward. Given the self-interest of the very powerful US cotton lobby and the new frost in US-Uzbek relations, this might even be achievable.

Straw: It’s for the people to decide on a change of regime not outsiders.

Yoghurt: Thank you, gentlemen. We’ll have to leave it there. Viewers wishing to know more about what is going on inside Uzbekistan would do well to head for The Human Rights Watch website and read the reports there. Strong stomachs may be required.

The Foreign Office’s profile of Uzbekistan states:

The UK, bilaterally and with EU partners, regularly and repeatedly draws its concern about the human rights situation in Uzbekistan to senior level attention within the Uzbek Government. The Government has used the limited appeal of Islamic extremism as a pretext for repression. Torture is a particular concern. The UN Special Rapporteur for Torture visited Uzbekistan in November 2002 and said it was ’systematic’. Genuine opposition political parties are banned or prevented from registering. Independent human rights NGOs suffer similar problems, Only two - the Independent Human Rights Organisation of Uzbekistan (IHROU) and Ezgulik - are currently registered.. Journalists have been physically attacked and in some cases imprisoned. The press and mass media are subject to de facto censorship. There have been several ’show trials’, at the end of which long sentences have been handed down. There are frequent allegations of fabrication of evidence; and ‘disappearances’ of alleged Islamic activists have been reported.

This hasn’t stopped the Foreign Office approving export licences for “military, security and paramilitary goods and arms”. Uzbekistan, after all, is the forefront of The War Against Terror. Terrorist suspects have been “rendered” to Uzbekistan by the forces of good for questioning. Confessions have been coaxed from prisoners by Uzbek official via the use of boiling water, beating and the extracting of fingernails. “They’ve been very helpful in helping fight the war on terror,” said George Bush.

Today’s broadcast was brought to you as part of the Blog for Uzbekistan pledge inaugarated by the Disillusioned Kid. Other broadcast outlets will also be featuring programmes on Uzbekistan on this, the anniversary of the country’s independence.

Thanks again to my guests and thanks to you for joining us.

(These links may also be of interest: Wikipedia, New Scientist, Economist, Craig Murray. Mr Chang’s words were taken from an article in The Korea Times, Mr Murray’s from a speech he gave at Chatham House in 2004, Mr Straw’s from an interview he gave on Radio 4.)

Posted on September 1st, 2005 at 11:49 am

See also • Poisoned Chalice • 112357393448465007 • Craig Murray: Hazel Blears made a claim to MPs I know to be false		• Permalink • Trackback • Subscribe • Print
• Filed under Uncategorized		•