The Uzbek Lament

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With the first trials resulting from last May's large-scale violence in Andijan now concluded, Uzbekistan's authoritarian regime has officially given its verdict on the events. On Dec. 2, 25 defendants were sentenced to jail terms from 12 years to 22 years on charges of organizing and executing the uprising. Uzbeks themselves drew their own conclusions a long time ago, of course, and did so in spite of the scant information available to them. Exchanges with a variety of Uzbeks yielded casualty estimates from the low hundreds to multiple thousands. The government's policy of assiduous disinformation in the wake of the massacre has served only to inspire outrageous guesswork: No one among the taxi drivers, restauranteurs, merchants and students questioned shortly after the uprising believed the figure of 187 dead offered by Uzbek authorities.

The disturbances began on May 12 with an apparently peaceful protest against the trial of local businessmen accused of Islamic extremism. According to various eyewitness reports, the security forces' response was quick, brutal and merciless.

Like all self-respecting genre dramaturgy, the regime's version of the Andijan narrative has emerged in its own terms, irrespective of the credulity of its audience. Accordingly, it was with remarkable haste that Uzbek President Islam Karimov resolved that those fomenting trouble were clearly jihadists of the worst sort. From Moscow, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov did his bit by claiming in early June that he had cast-iron evidence that Chechens were involved, an allegation quickly rebutted by pro-Kremlin Chechen President Alu Alkhanov. Confused international observers might have thought themselves safe in relying on the reporting of the BBC and CNN, but prosecutors in one of the two November trials held that those organizations may themselves have been materially implicated in the events.

To avoid further uncertainties in the state's version of events, the upcoming prosecution of over 160 suspected "murderers, terrorists and constitution violators" is to be held behind closed doors. That way there is unlikely to be a repeat of awkward testimony like that of Mahbuba Zokirova, an unemployed 33-year-old from the Andijan region, who recounted her ordeal as she fled Andijan for the Kyrgyz border. Zokirova maintained that women and children were fired upon as they waved improvised white flags, an account that was brusquely dismissed by state media as the ravings of a brainwashed stooge.

The superficial calm that has permitted Karimov to rule contentedly for so long has not been uniform. So long as public discontent with government policy could be controlled by periodic repression, the status quo remained viable. But as the Khokand riots of November 2004 illustrated, many people had begun to lose patience with a social contract that was steadily reducing them to indigence. At Khokand, some 6,000 merchants reportedly attacked the local tax agency and set fire to police cars. After that incident, the Uzbek police force was said to be spoiling for an opportunity to crack down on traders in the Ferghana Valley.

As the repercussions of the Andijan events continue to be felt in various parts of the country, it has been easier to read one external development: Diplomatic relations between Uzbekistan and the United States have totally collapsed. Though reaction to the violence was initially slow in coming from U.S. representatives, in the following weeks the volume and tenor of risk warnings from the U.S. Embassy to its nationals in Tashkent provided a fair amount of light relief, stopping just short of urging the destruction of livestock and flight to the hills.

Once the U.S. State Department understood that the furor was not about to blow over, it called for independent investigations -- much to the irritation of the publicity-shy Karimov. That put a definitive end to the frosty, if mutually beneficial, detente between the two states, the disruption culminating in the order for U.S. armed forces to vacate their base in Karshi-Khanabad.

The U.S. loss was Russia's gain: Russia and Uzbekistan have now signed a bilateral Treaty on Allied Relations, signaling a sea change that has effectively outsourced Uzbekistan's geopolitical responsibilities

A clearer picture is now emerging of an increasingly isolated Uzbek nation dependant on China and Russia, two states whose interests can hardly be said to lie in the enhancement of democratic values. While international blocs of common interest gradually take more tangible form, there is every indication that in Uzbekistan localized politics, often radical and violent, will prove the only outlet for continuing and deepening unrest.

The bleakest possible outcome of this situation is that no lessons will have been learned and that things will continue as before. In a perverse variation on the Wild West adage, the Uzbek authorities shoot first and ask no questions later.

Peter Leonard is writing a thesis on Uzbek foreign policy after Andijan at the University of Oxford.