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 been prosecuted. That is an improvement, but again related to the Karimov 
 visit and does not appear to presage a general change of policy. On the 
 latest cases of torture deaths the Uzbeks have given the OSCE an incredible 
 explanation, given the nature of the injuries, that the victims died in a 
 fight between prisoners. 
  
 But allowing a single NGO, a token prosecution of police officers and a fake 
 press freedom cannot possibly outweigh the huge scale of detentions, the 
 torture and the secret executions. President Karimov has admitted to 100 
 executions a year but human rights groups believe there are more. Added to 
 this, all opposition parties remain banned (the President got a 98% vote) 
 and the Internet is strictly controlled. All Internet providers must go 
 through a single government server and access is barred to many sites 
 including all dissident and opposition sites and much international media 
 (including, ironically, waronterrorism.com). This is in essence still a 
 totalitarian state: there is far less freedom than still prevails, for 
 example, in Mugabe's Zimbabwe. A Movement for Democratic Change or any 
 judicial independence would be impossible here. 
  
 Karimov is a dictator who is committed to neither political nor economic 
 reform. The purpose of his regime is not the development of his country but 
 the diversion of economic rent to his oligarchic supporters through 
 government controls. As a senior Uzbek academic told me privately, there is 
 more repression here now than in Brezhnev's time. The US are trying to prop 
 up Karimov economically and to justify this support they need to claim that 
 a process of economic and political reform is underway. That they do so 
 claim is either cynicism or self-delusion. 
  
 This policy is doomed to failure. Karimov is driving this resource-rich 
 country towards economic ruin like an Abacha. And the policy of increasing 
 repression aimed indiscriminately at pious Muslims, combined with a 
 deepening poverty, is the most certain way to ensure continuing support for 
 the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. They have certainly been decimated and 
 disorganised in Afghanistan, and Karimov's repression may keep the lid on 
 for years € but pressure is building and could ultimately explode. 
  
 I quite understand the interest of the US in strategic airbases and why they 
 back Karimov, but I believe US policy is misconceived. In the short term it 
 may help fight terrorism but in the medium term it will promote it, as the 
 Economist points out. And it can never be right to lower our standards on 
 human rights. There is a complex situation in Central Asia and it is wrong 
 to look at it only through a prism picked up on September 12. Worst of all 
 is what appears to be the philosophy underlying the current US view of 
 Uzbekistan: that September 11 divided the World into two camps in the "War 
 against Terrorism" and that Karimov is on "our" side. 
  
 If Karimov is on "our" side, then this war cannot be simply between the 
 forces of good and evil. It must be about more complex things, like securing 
 the long-term US military presence in Uzbekistan. I silently wept at the 11 
 September commemoration here. The right words on New York have all been 
 said. But last week was also another anniversary € the US-led overthrow of 
 Salvador Allende in Chile. The subsequent dictatorship killed, dare I say 
 it, rather more people than died on September 11. Should we not remember 
 then also, and learn from that too? I fear that we are heading down the same 
 path of US-sponsored dictatorship here. It is ironic that the beneficiary is 
 perhaps the most unreformed of the World's old communist leaders. 
  
 We need to think much more deeply about Central Asia. It is easy to place 
 Uzbekistan in the "too difficult" tray and let the US run with it, but I 
 think they are running in the wrong direction. We should tell them of the 
 dangers we see. Our policy is theoretically one of engagement, but in 
 practice this has not meant much. Engagement makes sense, but it must mean 
 grappling with the problems, not mute collaboration. We need to start 
 actively to state a distinctive position on democracy and human rights, and 
 press for a realistic view to be taken in the IMF. We should continue to 
 resist pressures to start a bilateral DFID programme, unless channelled 
 non-governmentally, and not restore ECGD cover despite the constant 
 lobbying. We should not invite Karimov to the UK. We should step up our 
 public diplomacy effort, stressing democratic values, including more 
 resources from the British Council. We should increase support to human 
 rights activists, and strive for contact with non-official Islamic groups. 
  
 Above all we need to care about the 22 million Uzbek people, suffering from 
 poverty and lack of freedom. They are not just pawns in the new Great Game. 
  
 MURRAY 
  
 - ------------- 
  
 Letter #2 
 Confidential 
 Fm Tashkent 
 To FCO 
  
 18 March 2003 
  
 SUBJECT: US FOREIGN POLICY 
  
 SUMMARY 
  
 1. As seen from Tashkent, US policy is not much focussed on democracy or 
 freedom. It is about oil, gas and hegemony. In Uzbekistan the US pursues 
 those ends through supporting a ruthless dictatorship. We must not close our 
 eyes to uncomfortable truth. 
  
 DETAIL 
  
 2. Last year the US gave half a billion dollars in aid to Uzbekistan, about 
 a quarter of it military aid. Bush and Powell repeatedly hail Karimov as a 
 friend and ally. Yet this regime has at least seven thousand prisoners of 
 conscience; it is a one party state without freedom of speech, without 
 freedom of media, without freedom of movement, without freedom of assembly, 
 without freedom of religion. It practices, systematically, the most hideous 
 tortures on thousands. Most of the population live in conditions precisely 
 analogous with medieval serfdom. 
  
 3. Uzbekistan's geo-strategic position is crucial. It has half the 
 population of the whole of Central Asia. It alone borders all the other 
 states in a region which is important to future Western oil and gas 
 supplies. It is the regional military power. That is why the US is here, and 
 here to stay. Contractors at the US military bases are extending the design 
 life of the buildings from ten to twenty five years. 
  
 4. Democracy and human rights are, despite their protestations to the 
 contrary, in practice a long way down the US agenda here. Aid this year will 
 be slightly less, but there is no intention to introduce any meaningful 
 conditionality. Nobody can believe this level of aid € more than US aid to 
 all of West Africa € is related to comparative developmental need as opposed 
 to political support for Karimov. While the US makes token and low-level 
 references to human rights to appease domestic opinion, they view Karimov's 
 vicious regime as a bastion against fundamentalism. He € and they € are in 
 fact creating fundamentalism. When the US gives this much support to a 
 regime that tortures people to death for having a beard or praying five 
 times a day, is it any surprise that Muslims come to hate the West? 
  
 5. I was stunned to hear that the US had pressured the EU to withdraw a 
 motion on Human Rights in Uzbekistan which the EU was tabling at the UN 
 Commission for Human Rights in Geneva. I was most unhappy to find that we 
 are helping the US in what I can only call this cover-up. I am saddened when 
 the US constantly quote fake improvements in human rights in Uzbekistan, 
 such as the abolition of censorship and Internet freedom, which quite simply 
  
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 --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05 
  * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)