The Parable of the Isms - a guest post by Matthew Rojansky



[image source]



The Parable of the Isms, as Applied to the Former Soviet Union
Guest post by Matthew Rojansky

My colleague Karim Sadjadpour recently published a satirical analysis of Middle East politics, "The Cynical Dairy Farmer's Guide to the New Middle East," riffing on a famous Cold War joke about communism and capitalism, known as "the parable of the isms."  As Karim noted,

 No one really knows how the two-cow joke known as "Parable of the Isms" came about, but most students of Political Science 101 have likely come across some variation of the following definitions:

Socialism: You have two cows. The government takes one of them and gives it to your neighbor.

Communism: You have two cows. The government takes them both and provides you with milk.

Nazism: You have two cows. The government shoots you and takes the cows.

Capitalism: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.

Satire it may be, but the essential truth of the "cow jokes" is what makes them funny. Karim's thirteen terse metaphors for Middle Eastern regimes cut to the heart of a complex region in which increasing American interest has followed increasing investments of blood and treasure, with very little added understanding of what's really going on.

The Soviet Union suffered no dearth of American attention over nearly half a century after World War II. Yet even the keenest observers, like Kennan and Kissinger, were focused almost entirely on Moscow, and within it mostly on the Kremlin. During the Cold War, that made good sense - after all, no one in Kiev or Almaty, let alone in Chisinau or Ashgabat, was making particularly important decisions for US foreign policy and global security.

But twenty years after the collapse of Communism and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, things work a bit differently in Eurasia. To understand why drugs flow so readily from Afghanistan through Central Asia and into Russia and Western Europe requires some sense of what's going on - and what's not - in places like Dushanbe and Astana. To see why a NATO-Russia impasse over missile defense is so serious requires an understanding of how the people, and the governments, in Kyiv and Tbilisi relate to their massive neighbor.

The former Soviet republics are no longer defined so much by being formerly Soviet, as by what they have become after twenty years of independence. Yet the old categories - socialist, communist, capitalist, fascist - don't easily work to describe a region where political cultures draw on everything from Rome and Byzantium to Baghdad and Beijing. Let's see how the "parable of the isms" might offer a convenient shorthand guide to the fifteen states that once made up the USSR.

Russia
You have six cows and four bulls. Two of the bulls die from alcoholism, and the remaining two form a "tandem" to take the cows' milk and sell it to Germany and China.

Ukraine
You have four of the most productive cows on the farm, two of which allow themselves to be milked by Russia, which upsets the other two so much their milk goes sour.

Georgia
You have two cows and one prize-winning bull. The bull is so distracted winning prizes that Russia runs away with both cows.

Belarus
You have one cow which you savagely beat until it produces milk. The milk dries up after your last savage beating, so now you must sell the cow to Russia.

Moldova
You have two cows and a calf, but the cows live in Italy and Russia and send milk home by Western Union. You ferment the milk into wine, and launch a frenzied campaign to join the EU. Meanwhile, the calf is stolen and sold by rustlers.

Armenia
You have four cows, but three of them live in Los Angeles and think they are horses. They send money for you to build stables.

Azerbaijan
You have one cow that produces lots of excellent milk. You sell the milk to Farmer Browne and buy cattle prods from Israel and Turkey.

Turkmenistan
You had one cow but you sold it to buy a golden statue of a cow that rotates with the sun.

Kazakhstan
You have two cows that produce vast quantities of milk. You sell the milk, buy each cow a gold-plated cow bell, and declare yourself bull for life.

Kyrgyzstan
You have two cows: one Kyrgyz and one Uzbek; they hate each other and refuse to be milked. Instead of hay, feed them tulips. Then sell one each to Russia and the United States. After six months sell them again.

Tajikistan
You have three cows: one Tajik, one Uzbek, and one Russian. You beat the Russian cow until it runs away, and use your misfortune to plead for international aid. Meanwhile Iran milks your remaining cows.

Uzbekistan
You have four cows. You let them drink all the water in the neighborhood swimming pool. Now no one can go swimming. You blame this on "corrupt and lawless elements," and volunteer to remain in power until the problem is solved.

The Baltic States

You have lost half your cows, for which you blame Russia and demand an apology. As consolation, the EU gives you a sleek Scandinavian-designed barn and NATO farmers teach you advanced milking techniques.

[image source]

Alisher Usmanov - Богатые тоже плачут

The world's 142nd-richest person is wounded by a blog.

[Image source]

Thanks to a web host's fear of the UK's plaintiff-friendly libel laws, Uzbek/Russian oligarch Alisher Usmanov was able to temporarily suppress some interesting material posted about him at Craig Murray's website. Notably, Usmanov has not taken Murray to court, presumably because his lawyers don't think he would win, even with the UK libel laws which put the burden of proof on the defendant. Based on material available elsewhere on the internet (for example, see Anticompromat's extensive bio and other information on Usmanov), it looks like at least some of what Murray claims may be true. More on Usmanov, including his interests in Transnistria (a topic not discussed by Murray), below the cut.

Murray, of course, was the UK's Ambassador to Uzbekistan who was sacked, according to him for being an opponent of the West's policy of tolerating Uzbek President Islam Karimov's human rights abuses. Murray has now reposted the article that drew the letter from Usmanov's lawyers, which is titled "Alisher Usmanov, potential Arsenal chairman, is a Vicious Thug, Criminal, Racketeer, Heroin Trafficker and Accused Rapist," at a newly created Blogger blog - alisherusmanov.blogspot.com. The bit about Arsenal relates to Usmanov's ownership of a stake in the British football (soccer) club.

Usmanov may be learning a difficult lesson about using heavy-handed tactics to go after speech you don't like - often (at least in an open society), such tactics just get more people talking about the material you find offensive. Perhaps if Murray's blog was hosted in Russia, Usmanov would have had success getting his friends in the Kremlin (Usmanov, you'll recall, was the tycoon who recently pre-empted the auction of Rostropovich's art collection and declared his plans to donate the collection to the Russian state - he's identified by one study as belonging to the "liberal-technocratic" camp of Russian elites, as opposed to the siloviki - page 33 of this pdf) to deploy the new "anti-extremism" law against him. Another advantage he would have on his home-field media space is that he's the owner of the Kommersant publishing house.

But instead of anything resembling such a result, the case - well, actually, there's no legal case - the story has become a cause celebre for bloggers the world over, it appears. Nathan has an interesting post about the brouhaha at Registan, with interesting comments. The Moscow Times also had an article about the story yesterday, noting that part of the reason it's become such a big story is that the website of at least one other politician aside from Murray, hosted on the same server, was also shut down for "technical reasons." We'll see if Usmanov gets to be Arsenal Chairman, regardless of the size of his ownership stake. For the moment, it looks like he fought the blogs, and the blogs won.



Interestingly enough, I had been reading just a few days ago about Mr. Usmanov's ownership of a controlling stake in the crown jewel of Transdniester's industrial sector - Moldova Steel Works, better known as MMZ, which is the abbreviation its Russian name, Молдавский металлургический завод, at Rîbniţa (also spelled Râbniţa or Rybnitsa, or Рыбница in Russian):

The metallurgic production unit in Rabnita is by far one of the most important objectives in Transnistria. 4,000 people are employed in this factory and the whole Northern part of the separatist republic depends on this factory. At maximum capacity, the factory can produce up to one million tons of steel and one million tons of laminated products a year.

Several groups benefited of this production unit. First it was the Russian group Itera, which at the end of '98 bought 75% of the shares. Once the group fell into the disgrace of president Putin, Itera had to sell in 2004. The shares were bought by the companies from Liechtenstein , which at this moment control 90% of MMZ. The two companies are called Rumney Trust Reg and EIM Energy Investment & Management Corporation. Both companies used to belong to the Itera Group. The buyers hurried up to certify with documents the new property, while the only ones who admitted being part of the Itera group, were Youssouf Hares and Alisher Usmanov, a Syrian businessman also active in the Ukraine, and of Uzbek origin. [...] Hares declared to us that the factory cost 100 million dollars and that the exclusive manager of MMZ is Alisher Usmanov. [source]

Organizational chart compiled by the Romanian Center for Investigative Journalism,
showing the ownership structure of the MMZ steel plant in Rybnitsa .
[image source]

According to a report published last year by the Association of the Bar of the City of New York on various legal aspects of the situation in Transdniester (which the report refers to as "the TMR"), economic influence is one of the levers Russia uses to maintain its outsized role as a third party to the secessionist conflict between Moldova and the PMR authorities:

Besides direct economic assistance by Russia, the fortunes of Russian economic elites have become intertwined with a successful secession of the TMR. The TMR’s economy is highly reliant on Russia. “Just over 50% of [the TMR’s] officially registered exports are direct towards two key markets—Russia and Russian companies registered in North Cyprus.” To pick just one example, the ECHR found credible evidence that “from 1993 onwards Transdniestrian arms firms began to specialize in the production of high-tech weapons, using funds and orders from various Russian companies.”

More generally, though, the risk of the TMR’s privatizations—which were largely bought by Russian and Ukrainian companies—being unwound or otherwise jeopardized leads to a substantial interest on the part of some of Russia’s business elite. This is redoubled with the substantial interest that Gazprom now has in the proper transfer of shares in Moldova-Gas from the TMR to Gazprom as a valid means of paying off debt.

Or consider as another example the story of the Moldovan Metallurgical Plant (MMZ) in Ribnita. The Ribnita plant was built in 1984 using German technology and is widely considered to still be the most advanced steel works in the former Soviet Union. The Ribnita plant also generates between 40 percent and 66 percent of the TMR’s tax revenues. The TMR sold the Ribnita plant, despite the protests of the government of Moldova, to the Russian company Itera.

Then, in April 2004, Itera sold 75 percent of the plant to the Hares Group, an Austrian company, which purchased another 15 percent from other co-owners. Some have argued that the Hares Group is a “political buffer” which purchases assets in former Soviet republics and then re-sells them to the actual intended owners. In the summer of 2004, Hares allegedly sold 30 percent of the MMZ shares to Alisher Usmanov, one of the “metal tycoons” of Russia, who then announced a plan to consolidate MMZ with five other enterprises from Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan making the new enterprise the fourth largest ore mining and processing company in the world. Such high economic stakes may well play a part in driving Russia’s political agenda, regardless of the requirements of international law.

[source: pp. 292-293 in this pdf (footnotes omitted)]

"Conditional recognition of privatizations" in Transdniester has been proposed as part of one potential settlement plan, but this doesn't seem to have made a critical difference in resolving the conflict just yet.



A few years ago, Usmanov seemed confident that there would be no unwinding of MMZ's privatization, or at least that he'd be able to "take steps" to avoid losing control of the enterprise:

Moscow 19 October 2004 14:56 Alisher Usmanov’s holdings in Moldovan Steel Works (MMZ) should not be jeopardised by the recent decision of the Moldovan parliament that cancelled all privatisation deals in the breakaway region of Transdniestr, the Russian businessman said last week. “I believe that the privatisation of MMZ was done under the legislation effective at that moment and that my subsequent participation in the acquisition of a share package in a company that owns MMZ stock was in good faith and should not be cancelled,” said Usmanov, who controls Urals Steel in Russia and holds a substantial minority stake in Corus Group. Usmanov said that he is planning no immediate action. “However, if [the recent developments] infringe the interests of the mill’s owners in any way, we will take steps aimed at the preservation of the mill’s uninterrupted operation, jobs and corporate ownership structure,” he added.

More recently, earlier this year there was speculation that Gazprom would give its right to receive Transdniester's extensive natural gas debts to Usmanov's holding company, Metalloinvest, which would then take payment of the debts from Transdniester in the form of the portion of MMZ shares that remained in control of the de facto state. However, all of the parties supposedly involved denied that a deal had taken place. Quite a tangled web, and I'm not sure of the situation as it stands today.

[Image source for all images of MMZ]

[Update - according to this multipart investigative report on the sale of Moldovan assets to Gazprom, what happened this March was the following:

“Gazprom” assigned Transnistria’s gas debts, in the amount of USD 1.3 billion, to the “Metalloinvest” Holding, which is also co-owner of Râbniţa Metallurgical Plant and Cement Factory. When informing the local media about the transaction, Anatolii Belitcenco, President of the Board of Administration of Râbniţa Metallurgical Plant specified that he did know the debt assignment conditions but that, thanks to them, Transnistria obtained a deferral for a few decades. Igor Smirnov, the leader of the self-proclaimed Transnistrian republic, responded to Belitcenco’s statement with as surprising as cynical a declaration: “Transnistria does not have legal gas debts because it did not sign any contracts with ‘Gazprom’. And so, Transnistria will not pay anything to “Metalloinvest”. Moldova must come to an agreement with Usmanov (Holding’s leader, who holds 30 percent of the shares of Râbniţa Metallurgical Plant), it is the one that has debts.”]

[Update Oct 10: IHT has an article about the brouhaha surrounding Murray's blogging about Usmanov, which is titled "Bloggers beware when you criticize the rich and powerful" and describes the initial shutting down of Murray's site as "the Internet equivalent of a smackdown." Via Registan.]

C-Asia on my mind

Andy at Siberian Light has continued his interesting interview series with one of Nathan Hamm, the man behind the legend that is Registan.net. Registan is still one of this blog's top referrers of all time, with most of the hits probably dating back to May of 2005, when I was obsessively blogging about the Andijan massacre. But Nathan is an inspiration for different reasons - he has created an authoritative website about this part of the world, a blog which I'm sure is a must-read for English-speaking followers of the region; and his blog definitely played some role in my decision to just say WTF and take a trip to Uzbekistan in the summer of '05 - though I didn't get around to posting some of the better photos from that trip until last month! People I "met" in Registan's comments section gave me a couple of the more useful travel tips I received.

Anyway, with that long preamble, Nathan's thoughts about the generally poor quality of leadership at the national level in the 'Stans reminded me that I have been meaning to post this little nugget from Martha Brill Olcott's 2005 book on the region, Central Asia's Second Chance:

None of the region's presidents was truly prepared for the job of leading an independent state. While we can debate what the ideal training would be, bad training is easy to identify and would certainly include a successful career in the top ranks of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union - an institution that demanded blind obedience and inspired devious behavior.

It's an obvious point, of course, but she phrases it well, and it has considerable applicability for other post-Soviet (when will that term cease to be appropriate...?) countries - Georgia and Moldova come immediately to mind as having suffered especially from the rule of former CPSU bigwigs (Shevardnadze and Lucinschi, or Luchinskii, if you prefer the Russified spelling). I suppose the legacy of Heydar Aliyev in Azerbaijan is debatable, but I think that country's government would have come in for a lot more criticism from the West during the '90's and the first half of this decade if not for all of that oil. And actually, if one considers that Heydar's most obvious legacy was putting his son Ilham in power, maybe it's not so debatable after all.

"For lust of knowing what should not be known"

Memories from my trip to Samarkand in late July 2005. The first one was taken on July 23; the rest on July 24. As you can see, some of the more photogenic things turned out to be Soviet-era cars. I decided not to include any classic tourist photos, although of course the city's architectural marvels are quite photogenic as well. A highly recommended destination - lots of inexpensive B&B's. These people can hook it all up for you.

The sign says, "Uzbekistan - a country with a great future" - I. Karimov

An old "humpbacked" Zaporozhets.

A mint-condition "kopeika" (VAZ 2101) in one of the factory colors.

Transporting something - bread, I presume.
The pipes in the background are above-ground
gas lines - common in the post-Soviet space.

A later and lest aesthetically successful version of the Zaporozhets.

Vegetable oil, which I believe is cottonseed oil - and little else - in this aisle of the
local market. Note the reused packaging - Coke, Fanta and mineral water bottles

More reliable than a Zaporozhets.

Unoriginality

Russian Kafe ("Something Interesting About Russia") has a great post with some photos of Soviet soda-water dispensers. So I decided to scour my archives for the best examples of these dinosaur-machines, and found surprising diversity.

The most presentable gazirovannaya voda machine I've ever seen. Disposable cups; bilingual signage (the Russian tag line, "не дай себе засохнуть" - "don't let yourself dry up" - is taken directly from a Sprite ad campaign in Russia); a friendly bunny rabbit - this one has it all.
Chisinau, Moldova, August 1, 2005.

A ramshackle bank of machines, still apparently in use.
Tiraspol, Transnistria, Moldova. Aug. 7, 2006, shortly before 5pm.

A bank of brightly repainted machines serves as a gathering point for some of Chisinau's down-and-out.
August 7, 2006, shortly before noon.

Bukhara, Uzbekistan, July 22, 2005. Smartly redone in pastel shades, this machine offers different prices for water with flavored syrup and without. The sign on the building in the upper right-hand corner offers an amazing array of services: umbrella repair, artistic engraving, and license-plate painting.

Russian tabloid waves the flag for Karimov and Khinshtein

I had been following the story about the US getting evicted from the Karshi-Khanabad base in Uzbekistan out of the corner of my eye - my sister thoughtfully sent me a Washington Post article on the topic, and of course I've been following posts on the issue on Registan.

Then last week at the McDonald's (yes, friends, sometimes while in faraway lands I succumb to the temptation that dare not speak its name, a piping-hot 9-piece bag of Chicken McNuggets) in downtown Chisinau, I started reading the August 2 issue of Komsomol'skaya Pravda Moldova. This is the local version of the Russian tabloid Komsomol'skaia Pravda, which runs stories from the parent publication along with local items such as "Second-hand [clothing] Banned in Moldova." KP also has a Kazakhstan edition, and perhaps others.

Tashkent has given the USA six months to remove its bases" (translated by me)
Viktor Baranets, August 2, 2005

The Uzbek authorities have given Washington an ultimatum - they are to remove from Uzbek territory the Khanabad airbase (twenty airplanes and nearly 800 personnel) within six months. The base has been deployed in the republic since the spring of 2002, when the forces of the antiterrorist coalition were conducting the operation against the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Until recently, the Uzbek authorities had not even dropped hints that the Americans should go home. But after the bloody events in Andijan in June [sic. - the events actually occurred in May] everything changed dramatically. The USA accused Tashkent of "crushing democracy." The response was not long in coming: President Islam Karimov advised the Americans to "go home."

They apparently thought he was joking and did not react for some time. But when Karimov once again officially repeated his position, US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld traveled to Tashkent in an instant in order to try to save the situation.

But the Uzbek leader didn't give in to the Americans' persuasion (or even to their threats). The Americans immediately took revenge - giving the Uzbeks who had fled to Kirghizia the status of "political refugees," they transported them to Europe and began presenting them as "victims of Karimov's totalitarian regime." Then Karimov demanded, rather than suggesting, that the USA leave Khanabad. And gave them six months to do so.

This escalation of tensions in Uzbek-American relations has yet another, little-known cause: the Khanabad base housed not only airmen but also personnel from one of the branches of the US special services, who were clandestinely preparing a "cotton" revolution in the republic. Now this operation has apparently fallen through.

Why does it matter what a newspaper publishes when it can't even get basic facts straight (it's a striking dereliction of journalistic duty, or at the very least astonishingly bad fact-checking, to report that the uprising in Andijan occurred in June) ? Well, maybe it doesn't, but, say what you will about KP, it does have a large circulation - 30 million per month, counting all of the paper's various editions, according to the proud graphic on the newspaper's front page, and 10,000 for the daily edition in Moldova. This is the type of news read by the average Russian, who's either far away from Moscow where pulp like KP is all that's available or is not inclined to read more responsible newspapers like Kommersant and Vedomosti.

The August 2 KP also provides us with some insight into the thought process, if it can be called that, of Russian Duma Deputy Alexander Khinshtein, the man behind the attempt to discredit Mikhail Kas'ianov with allegations that he privatized his government dacha in a shady way (here's Kommersant's take on that story, in English).

State Duma Deputy Alexander Khinshtein: "I won't say who's next, so as not to scare anyone!" (translated by me)

It's possible that members of Yeltsin's family will come under fire in the near future.

Alexander Khinshtein: "Prepare for landing [trans. - in Russian this word - posadka - is similar to the word for being put in jail], Mr. Rushailo!"
[AK:] "Well, what of it, I really don't like the Family," Alexander Khinshtein confirmed in a telephone interview. "I think that the state should be an orphan. And all members of the Family should be locked up in the same cell, after dividing the men and women, of course."
[KP:] "Why did you jump so quickly from Kas'ianov to Rushailo?"
[AK:] "The one doesn't interfere with the other. Some information was received, and I put in a request for data on the property holdings of Rushailo and his family members."
[KP:] "Where do you get such information?"
[AK:] "From various places. Sometimes voters write in, sometimes it's journalists I know. Let's say you were to call me and tell me that you saw a fancy mansion somewhere, and the locals confirm that someone in power is living there. We'll get to the bottom of it."
[KP:] "And what are the potential results?"
[AK:] "It depends who you're talking about. With respect to Vladimir Rushailo, it's hard to say, for the time being. But with Kas'ianov, I think, everything's become clear already. All of the schemes he used to acquire the real estate are apparent, and all of the deals have been uncovered. Khodorkovsky said that the former Prime Minister would become president. Well, now they can propose each other as candidates to be the senior guy in their prison cell. It's too bad they let Yaponchik out. They would have made a great trio."
[KP:] "They say that Kas'ianov has some compromising information [kompromat], which might help him get out of this situation."
[AK:] "What compromising information, about who? Our President is a saint - he doesn't smoke, he doesn't drink, he does judo."
[KP:] "Who's the next person on your 'black list'?"
[AK:] "It's too soon to say, I don't want to scare anyone."

At the same time, sources in the Duma have told us that the next "target" of Alexander Khinshtein will be none other than family members (with a lower-case letter) of the first President of the Russian Federation [Yeltsin].

Leaving aside how distasteful it is for an elected official to posture in print like this about what is essentially a watered-down reprise of the 1930's purges (with anonymous tips and show trials used to get rid of former political elites who have become inconvenient to those currently in Putin's inner circle), the supportive tone of KP's reportage leaves a reader with no doubt where the publication's sympathies lie. I guess one of the attractions of tabloid journalism to its readers is that it tells them how to think. It's not surprising that Khinshtein's career, prior to attaining the exalted status of Russian Duma Deputy, was as a columnist for the tabloid Moskovskii Komsomolets, which is just as "yellow" as KP.

Tashkent - beneath the surface

I returned yesterday from my trip to Uzbekistan; thanks to Aeroflot's flight schedule - 0430 departure from Tashkent with an 0810 arrival in Moscow - I slept about half of the day and was up all last night reading at home. Even though I had only a week to spend there, my first trip to Central Asia definitely lived up to expectations, and fortunately failed to justify the misgivings of some of my relatives about traveling to an area which is portrayed so often in the press as "unsettled."

The itinerary was 2 nights, 2 days in Tashkent; 2 nights, 2 days in Bukhara; 2 nights, 2 days in Samarkand; and 1 night, 1 day in Tashkent. Mainly I wanted to get just a small taste of life in this country which first drew my attention when I closely followed developments after the Andijan massacre back in May of this year. I also wanted to visit some of the country's "must-see" architectural treasures, although I wasn't able to make it to all of them (Khiva, for example, will have to wait for next time).

I didn't glean any particularly original insights into people's quality of life there - by "original" I mean observations which are not already conventional wisdom (e.g., people are friendly and hospitable, but this is a pretty poor country, everyone seems to want to emigrate, etc.) and/or have not already been bandied about on Registan.net - but that wasn't really my primary goal anyway. As for those observations I had which might be interesting to a wider audience, I may post them here later once I've had time to digest them a bit myself.

For now I just wanted to post a couple of photos from the Tashkent metro - the two which I had time to snap before being approached by a cop and told that photography in the metro is not allowed. Luckily, he was not in the mood to extort money from a guest, so he told me that while some of his colleagues might have berated me (he used the Russian word rugat' - the conversation took place in Russian, and I identified myself as being "from Moscow," as I did in many instances on the trip), he wasn't going to do that, and let me go on my way.

This was probably as far beneath the surface of things as I got in Uzbekistan. Both of these photos are from the Hamid Olimjon station, which seems to have a cotton-related theme like so much of Tashkent's Soviet-designed architecture, and were taken around 1:30pm on July 20. In general, Tashkent's metro stations are beautiful and seem to be designed with the idea of echoing or repeating the grandeur of the Moscow metro. I saw at least one instance where Soviet-era wall decorations (mosaics? bas-reliefs?), whose message presumably did not suit independent Uzbekistan's ruler, had been ripped out of the wall, with nothing left in their place.

My trusty guidebook, MacLeod & Mayhew's Uzbekistan: The Golden Road to Samarkand, mentions the photo ban in the metro and directs readers to a website which I couldn't get to open for photos - perhaps this resource was disabled by the Uzbek powers-that-be due to security concerns.

Other places online where photos of and information about the Tashkent Metro are available are the following: Tashkent Subway (in English), the Toshkent (Tashkent) Metro page on UrbanRail.net (in English), Tashkentskoe Metro (in Russian), and this photo gallery. None of these sites, though, has photos which do justice to the more spectacular stations.


This is probably the only Uzbekistan-related post for which I'll have time before leaving for Moldova tomorrow morning. That promises to be another interesting trip, although I've been to Moldova many times (at least once in each of the past 5 years) since it's my wife's homeland. For that reason, the trip to Moldova will have more the feel of a comfortable trip down memory lane, as opposed to the Uzbekistan trip's rush of new impressions.

Since I probably won't have time to post anything while I'm in Moldova, further updates will come no sooner than next Thursday, when I'll be back in Moscow (leaving Chisinau at 0615 on the brutally scheduled Air Moldova flight).

Russia: Stop picking on Karimov!

This story almost got drowned out by the power outage hullabaloo:

Russia says UN, NATO calls for Uzbek probe 'unfair'
Wed May 25, 2005 8:52 AM ET

ARE, Sweden (Reuters) - Russia on Wednesday denounced as unfair a call by the United Nations and NATO for an international investigation into a military crackdown in Uzbekistan, in which hundreds of people may have died.

Moscow backs the Uzbek government in blaming the bloodshed in the town of Andizhan earlier this month on radical Islamists. [...]

"Putting forward a demand for an international investigation as an ultimatum is neither appropriate nor fair," said Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Vladimir Chizhov at a meeting of NATO countries and partner states in Sweden. [...]

"We are gathered here as partners and partnership means trust. If one partner says it can carry out an investigation itself, that should be respected," Chizhov told reporters.

"The countries calling for an international investigation recently competed with each other hailing Uzbekistan's role as a key player in the global anti-terrorist coalition. Now they realize who they were dealing with," he said.

Presumably Russia would like the US to replicate its reprehensible mid-1990's stance on Chechnya and say that this is Uzbekistan's "internal affair."

But it will be interesting to see whether the last sentences quoted are much talked about - this Russian Deputy Foreign Minister seems to be saying, "lay off the Uzbeks, you knew Karimov was capable of this and so did we." He may have a point, but at least the West is half-heartedly demanding an investigation. Russia, on the other hand, appears to be standing shoulder-to-shoulder with China in its response to the events in Andijan.

"Numbered toe tags" - the NYT on Andijan

This New York Times article ("Toe Tags Offer Clues to Uzbeks' Uprising," by C.J. Chivers, from yesterday's paper - you'll have to register to read it, but it's worth it) has one of the most even-handed accounts of what took place there that I've seen yet.

The most interesting information that I hadn't seen elsewhere was about another way of calculating the death toll:

The scale of death is fiercely contested. Mr. Karimov said 32 Uzbek troops and 137 other people had been killed. An opposition party says that at least 745 civilians died in Andijon and Pakhtaabad, a border town, the next day. The International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights, a Vienna-based group, says Uzbek troops may have killed 1,000 unarmed people.

An independent visit to Andijon by a photographer working for The New York Times also found indications that the death toll was much larger than Mr. Karimov has said. Bullet-riddled bodies were returned to families with numbered toe tags and certificates, families told the photographer and her translator. The numbers on the tags, they said, ranged from the teens to the hundreds.

And although the government has since tried to collect the certificates, they said, two families retained them and showed them to the photographer. One was No. 284. The other, which accompanied the remains of Rakhmatula Nadirov, 30, was 378. The same number was written on the dead man's leg, his mother said.

The article also has survivors' accounts of the demonstration in Andijan and of the flight of some of the demonstrators into Kyrgyzstan. It is a must-read if you are trying to stay current on the situation. Don't overlook it just because it's the "mainstream media," not surprisingly they are often better equipped than bloggers to cover stories in remote areas.

How Andijan is playing in Russia

From yesterday's Eurasia Daily Monitor:

UZBEKISTAN'S RIOTS YIELD MIXED RESPONSE IN RUSSIA
By Sergei Blagov
Thursday, May 19, 2005

[...] Russian politicians appear split over the situation in Uzbekistan. Dmitry Rogozin, head of Rodina party, claimed that Karimov became a target of radical Islamists when he allowed U.S. military bases on Uzbek soil. Konstantin Zatulin of the pro-Kremlin United Russia party argued that Karimov "did it all right" to forestall destabilization. Alexei Mitrofanov, deputy of the Liberal-Democratic party, blamed U.S. interference in Afghanistan for general destabilization across Central Asia.

Yet, Sergei Mitrokhin of Yabloko warned against Russian support for the Karimov regime, which could trigger civil war in Uzbekistan. Boris Nemtsov, of the Union of Right Forces, picked up this notion and argued that the Karimov regime was doomed and that by supporting Karimov the Kremlin had picked a loosing scenario, as it had in Ukraine. [...]

It's interesting to see that each of the Russian politicians mentioned in the first two paragraphs came up with an interpretation of the crisis that fit his own worldview. Sort of like the old joke about different people blindly feeling different parts of an elephant and coming up with totally different conclusions about what it is. Rogozin finds a way to blame both the US and Islamists; the United Russia guy provides a scary look inside the mind of Russia's leadership today, though hopefully Russia would not actually handle a crisis like Andijan the way Karimov did; the LDPR guy stays in character with an implausible, verging on outlandish, theory about the causes behind Andijan; and the politicians belonging to the fractious group of Russian "liberals" stay on-message by concluding that the Kremlin is doing things wrong. The article continues:

Russian media outlets were divided over the Andijan crisis. Some, like NTV and RenTV channels, were critical of Karimov's crackdown and questioned the wisdom of the Kremlin's support of Karimov. The second group, notably official media outlets, tacitly backed Uzbek authorities and suggested continued Russian support of Karimov's "secular regime." The third group highlighted broader geopolitical maneuverings as crucial factors behind the Uzbek riots.

Initially, the mainstream media in Russia, notably First Channel and RTR television, appeared to be siding with Karimov and interpreted the events in Uzbekistan mainly as a plot by Islamic extremists. The one-sided view seen on Russia's major television channels earned a measure of criticism from other Russian media outlets. Izvestiya ran a series of articles, headlined: "Events in Uzbekistan: Popular revolt or extremist rebellion?" The daily described events in Andijan as a revolution, adding that the coverage by Russian official media outlets was somewhat detached from reality. Izvestiya specifically criticized Russian First Channel, which merely followed Uzbek official statements, described Uzbek protesters as extremists, and ignored alternative versions of the Andijan events (Izvestiya, May 17).

Presumably responding to such criticism, the First Channel on Tuesday reported not only the official death toll of 169 for Andijan, but also mentioned unofficial estimate of 745 fatalities (TV First Channel, May 17).

Check out the rest of the article for more on Russian newspaper coverage of the situation in Uzbekistan.

Protest at the Russian embassy in Tashkent

From Ferghana.Ru's English-language page:

Uzbek women organized a picket in front of the Russian Embassy in Tashkent protesting against Moscow's support of Islam Karimov
Ferghana.Ru, Andrei Kudryashov (Tashkent), 19.05.2005

"We came to express our protest against the biased coverage of the tragic events in Andizhan by ORT and NTV channels of the Russian television," Gavkhar Aripova, leader of Uzbek human rights organization Ozod Ael [Free Women], told journalists before the Russian Embassy on May 19. "Mikhail Leontiev (http://www.1tv.ru/owa/win/ort6_main.main?p_news_razdel_id=100 Odnako program anchorman) either does not know the first thing about the situation in Uzbekistan or shamelessly acts on political orders of unscrupulous government of Russia that backs Islam Karimov's regime. Enough of the claims that it is Islamists and terrorists who rise against the authorities of Uzbekistan. Ordinary people will no longer tolerate impoverishment, starvation, unemployment, crib deaths, and coercive sterilization of women in the Ferghana Valley with the help of which the regime is trying to solve economic and social problems. Uzbek women, old men, and children are in the streets nowadays because they are fed up with hopelessness while their men are already jailed or harassed. The Russians have always supported the Uzbek people. As for Leontiev and others like him, give them Orders of Pinochet or something even though not even Pinochet ordered his soldiers to fire at children like Karimov's soldiers did in Andizhan on May 13."

"Look at us! Are we Islamists?" Tatiana Dovlatova asked journalists. "We only want no more harassment of citizens of Uzbekistan, regardless of their ethnic origins, for the smallest disagreement with the authorities. We want our human rights. We urge Russian women - if their men, politicians and journalists, are impotent - to support us and organize protests in front of the Embassy of Uzbekistan in Moscow." [...]

Organizers of the protest action say that dozens of women intended to participate but most of them were intercepted by the police. A group of 9 women ended up in a police van barely 100 meters from the Embassy. [...] It was men passing by who helped the women to unfold placards "Mothers of Andizhan - We Are With You!" and "Remember, Russia: Uzbek Cotton is Saturated with Blood!"Cars driving own Nukusskaya Street began pulling over, their passengers and drivers shouting to the protesters, "Right! Let Russia discover the truth!" The police then asked the protesters to leave the roadway for the sidewalk. Dialogue with pedestrians continued there. The latter supported the protesters. Seeing, however, that foreign camera crews were not the only ones to film the proceedings, that Uzbek secret services were filming the proceedings too, they immediately walked away.

So, Karimov has come out with harsh criticism of Russian TV coverage, and now so have these anti-Karimov protesters. This isn't as strange as it looks at first glance. For one thing, Karimov was most critical of NTV's coverage, and the opposition is strongly criticizing the other two major Russian channels, Channel 1 (ORT) and RTR. Also, my interpretation (partially cribbed from the Vremia Novostei piece that I translated late last night) of Karimov's criticism is that it's intended to "discredit the sources of information which Uzbek citizens were able to access," i.e., Russian TV channels (even though, as has been reported, the ability to view Russian TV news reports in Uzbekistan has been far from universal since last Friday the 13th). He knows he won't be able to completely keep people from seeing these news sources or control their coverage, so he's just trying to discredit them generally without regard for the tone of their coverage.

The opposition, on the other hand, has watched the coverage on certain Russian TV channels (ORT/Channel 1 and RTR) and become outraged with the tone of commentary provided by people like ORT's Leontiev. Parenthetically, Leontiev, in my opinion, is a reflexively pro-Kremlin hack - my irritation at his misrepresentations has often been exacerbated by his infuriatingly smug way of delivering his monologues, although I watch his TV appearances much more rarely nowadays - so I can understand the irritation even though I haven't seen a text of his commentary on Andijan.

One other thought about this article - a couple of days ago in some comments at Registan.net, I expressed the (admittedly not as informed as I would like) opinion that it would be possible for Karimov to retain power, barring further unrest, by ratcheting up his repressive measures and retaining the support of at least Russia from the outside world. It now looks to me, though, like the opposition within Uzbekistan may be more determined in making the demand for an independent investigation of what happened in Andijan, together with the demands from several countries (including the US) and international organizations (including the UN). Maybe it will emerge that the Andijan events really were provoked by a militant and/or Islamist group, and that most or all of the dead belong to that group, but I don't think anyone will be satisfied with that conclusion if it's reached by an investigation run by the Uzbek government without substantial, independent outside involvement.

More on Uzbekistan

Yes, there's still more. For the seeming dearth of facts about the actual number of people who perished in Andijan last week, there certainly continues to be a healthy amount of media coverage of the story. Here are a couple of items of interest:

WHO IS BEHIND ANDIJAN UNREST AND WILL IT SPREAD TO KYRGYZSTAN? 18:39 19.05.2005

MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti commentator Pyotr Goncharov) - [...] The question of who is to blame for the high death toll in Andijan, President Islam Karimov or rebels, can soon be replaced with a more acute and unnerving one: Will the developments in Andijan trigger similar events in Osh? There were fierce clashes there 15 years ago.

The authorities in the two republics, which were then part of the Soviet Union, suppressed the 1990 conflict between ethnic Kyrgyz and Uzbeks, who had coexisted in Osh for centuries. However, there were many casualties: 155 people died and 845 were injured. It is highly likely that ethnic clashes will again erupt there today, only this time on a far greater scale. [...]

The Andizhan unrest can hardly be said to utterly unexpected. The socioeconomic situation in the Fergana Valley has been a sore point for Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan since the Soviet times. It is an overpopulated area suffering from a shortage of land and water for irrigation. The excess of workforce - about 1.5 million people aged 17 to 25 in the Uzbek-dominated part of the valley alone - became a particular problem after the collapse of the Soviet Union. [...]

President Karimov can be accused of being a tyrant whose regime has committed massive human rights violations. However, criticizing the regime without advancing alternatives is easy. The policy he has pursued is designed to maintain stability in the republic. Karimov has repeatedly indicated that steps need to be taken to gradually liberalize the economy and political regime in Uzbekistan, even to the detriment of the local elites supporting him.

The last graf I included not because I agree with it, but because it's valuable to see all perspectives here.

On Thursday evening, Moscow time, RIA Novosti reported UN sources saying that Karimov had refused the UN's request to conduct an independent investigation of the tragic events at Andijan (article is in Russian).

Switzerland has decided to "reconsider continuation of development cooperation in Uzbekistan," according to TRIBUNE-uz (in English).

According to Turkey's Anadolu News Agency, NATO's Secretary-General is "'Awfuly Worried' About Uzbek Violence."

An AP report (picked up by The Scotsman, among others) quotes US Gen. John Abizaid, head of CENTCOM, as saying that the US is "Scaling Back Uzbekistan Operations." I was unable to find the full transcript of these remarks on the press section of the US Department of Defense website. RIA Novosti picked this story up as well (in Russian).

Negative reaction to Andijan visit

I've spent a fair bit of time translating this article from Russian newspaper Vremia Novostei (the site has a page which aggregates the paper's several recent articles on the situation in Uzbekistan, including one early one cleverly titled "Islam against Karimov?"), which I happened to pick up on the plane back from London today.

I have sown some of the key words in the article with links to more information, much more so than I usually do with articles I translate. Hopefully people will find this to be useful and informative.

The sometimes-sarcastic, sometimes-chatty tone of this article is typical for Russian newspapers in general and this one in particular, and that articles like this one give the lie to blanket statements about the Russian press being monolithically pro-Russian government.

"Tashkent must 'submit a sample for analysis' – the world searches for the wellspring of the tragedy in Andijan." Vremia Novostei, No. 86 (19 May 2005), page 5, by Arkadii Dubnov

Yesterday the Uzbek authorities organized a charter flight from Tashkent to Andijan for the diplomats and journalists who wanted to acquaint themselves with the situation in the city where bloody events took place May 12-14, claiming 170 victims, according to official information. As the President of Uzbekistan, Islam Karimov, felt it necessary to point out, the trip was “free of charge.” Apparently, he thought that this would be an additional stimulus for those individuals who are excited about the Andijan tragedy. In the words of Deutsche Welle Radio’s Tashkent correspondent Yurii Chernogaev, who took part in the trip, its participants “saw what they were shown.” This is not surprising, considering that Zokir Almatov, head of the country’s Ministry of Internal Affairs, was responsible for the trip, and it was he who acquainted the guests with the situation in Andijan and gave his assessment of what had happened in the city.

However, it differed little from those assessments which had been given the day before at a press conference in Tashkent by the head of state and the prosecutor-general of Uzbekistan. Islam Karimov, as quoted by his http://www.uza.uz/eng/ Uzbek information agency UzA, stated that “not one peaceful resident was killed in Andijan…can anyone name the names of women, old men, or children, who were killed?”

Maybe for the time being no one can…but what about the information about “the deaths of two teenagers and three women,” which was being broadcast for a couple of days by official Tashkent? Clearly, they were also bandits. After all, right after this statement Mr. Karimov announced that “during the operation only bandits were killed, weapons were always found on or near their dead bodies.” Are we to understand, then, that weapons were also found next to the dead bodies of these women and teenagers, as well as next to the bodies of every one (!) of the official tally of 170 victims who were not members of law enforcement?

The Uzbek leader has said a great deal about the role of the press in covering the Andijan tragedy. “I don’t have any complaints about Reuters, the BBC, CNN, or Radio “Deutsche Welle.” “I can disagree with their opinions or assessments,” said Mr. Karimov, “but I respect their work, which cannot be said about the Russian television channels which have been reproducing insinuations about the events in Andijan.” This statement was strange and not entirely consistent with elementary logic, to put it mildly. One may have many complaints about Russian TV, but among the “insinuations” they “reproduced” were numerous references to the very same media about which Mr. Karimov “has no complaints.”

It seems there is actually a different reason for the Uzbek president’s irritation. It was necessary for him to discredit the sources of information which Uzbek citizens were able to access one way or another. Among these, first and foremost were Russian television channels. It’s obvious, after all, that the average Uzbek citizen has no way to access the media “respected” by Karimov – CNN, Reuters, and the BBC.

Heading off the spread of “insinuations,” the Uzbek security forces demonstrated that they are quite well equipped technologically. Using the country’s mobile phone network operators, they were able to introduce additional settings, which automatically cut off telephone conversations upon the utterance by either party of the words “Andijan,” “killed,” “casualty,” or “SNB” (the SNB is the National Security Service). The internet resource Ferghana.Ru announced yesterday that its correspondent had personally experienced the effects of this “censorship” while placing a mobile phone call from Andijan to Namangan. After a ten-minute conversation, the word “Andijanis” was said, and the connection immediately went dead. He was then not able to reach the other party to the conversation any more…

As far as the work of the media “respected” by the president of Uzbekistan, among which he named Radio “Deutsche Welle,” the May 8th edition of their program “Focus” is extremely important to an analysis of the reasons behind the Andijan uprising. Five days prior to the bloodshed, this radio station broadcast an interview with one of the accused in the trial taking place at that time in Andijan of “Akramiya,” the so-called Islamic sect whose members, once freed from jail, became some of the leaders of the uprising.

Here is what Mamudjon Kurbanov, the deputy director of Andijan furniture-making concern Turon Production, had to say to Deutsche Welle’s correspondent: The SNB investigators “told us that they could do anything, and they said that even if I were to withstand their torture, they would go get my wife and would interrogate her in the room next door, and I would hear everything,” said Kurbanov. “They hinted at horrible things, you know, ‘you have a pretty wife,’ and so on, and I couldn’t stand it and signed a false statement.” Kurbanov was required to confess that he was a member of the “Akramiya” sect. According to him, the investigator’s case held that this “organization first attracts people by making them well-to-do, and then at some point they may become a threat to society."

But apparently the SNB investigators had more prosaic motives for persecuting the so-called members of "Akramiya." Deutsche Welle reported that "as long ago as last year valuables, cellular phones, cash money, and also personal automobiles were confiscated from the homes of twenty of the arrested employees of Turon Production," moreover, this was done "without filing a proper protocol of confiscation." Recall that the events in Andijan started with a two-day protest in front of the courthouse where the trial of the "Akramiya" members was being conducted. People were demanding justice from the court. But official Tashkent is currently avoiding any examination of the details of how this protest turned into an armed uprising. Yesterday reports emerged that the protesters were fired on first by local SNB officials who showed up at the square under orders to disperse the crowd. This was reported by Deutsche Welle.

Also yesterday, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour urged "the conduct of an independent investigation into the causes and circumstances of the incidents in eastern Uzbekistan."

Benita Waldner, the European Commissioner for External Relations, issued a similar statement. "I join US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in demanding an independent investigation," she said. "We need to know what really happened there in order to conduct an objective analysis."

This article is without a doubt the best account of why Karimov might have made his various comments about various media outlets.

Here's an article (in Russian) from Deutsche Welle's website titled "The foreigners were allowed to spend 3 hours in Andijan."

And a few more interesting links came up while I was translating and finding links with which to fill the article above:

The CNN link is to a fresh story (from May 19) on their website playing up claims by some human rights organizations of higher death tolls.

The EU's page on Central Asia - although it has links to news items items from 2004 and 2005 (the most recent is from early April) on the page, the "overview" says it was updated most recently in 2001. There's a page dealing with EU-Uzbekistan relationships and providing a backgrounder on Uzbekistan - last updated in March 2004.

If this is not a joke, then it's scary. The link is to the SNB.uz website, which consists of one page with a camouflage background scheme, a link allowing visitors to the site to send in emails, and the following text, in Russian and Uzbek:

Please send in only objective information.

Absolutely all messages will be examined and taken into account.

All will be kept top-secret!!!

But I guess it could just be a joke.

Update on Korasuv

From the English-language RIA Novosti website:

UZBEKISTAN RESTORES BORDER CONTROL NEAR KARA-SUU 10:16 MSK

BISHKEK, MAY 19, (RIA Novosti) - Uzbek authorities restored border control near Kara-Suu, Kyrgyzstan, after completing talks with their Kyrgyz counterparts.

According to eye-witness reports, the checkpoint in the vicinity of the Shakhrikhansai river is now working as usual. People show their passports, subsequently crossing that bridge.

Kyrgyz border guards were forced to close this checkpoint because they could not cope with all those people wishing to cross the border. Uzbek authorities, who promised to restore border control, did nothing of the kind for several days.

The bridge across the Shakhrikhansai river was dismantled by Uzbek authorities two years ago. Protesters in Uzbekistan's Kurgan-Tyube district restored that bridge May 14. The Kyrgyz side alone has guarded the bridge since then.

Kara-Suu is the Kyrgyz section of Ilyichevsk that was divided between Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan after the two countries received independence. The city's Uzbek section is called Karasu. The border passes along the river. Ethnic Uzbeks account for a considerable share of Kyrgyzstan's Osh-region population.

Here's another story on this in English from Netbreeze (seems to be a site where they change the links frequently, so that URL may not be permanent).

Update - David in the UK is blogging on this story.

Andijan inspection: "Potemkin villages" - Ferghana.Ru; US Ambassador critical?

Ive translated from Ferghana.Ru this account of the recent and widely reported observatory visit to Andijan, which includes their interpretation of remarks by US Ambassador Jon Purnell which I haven't seen reported anywhere else. Please see my comments about the veracity of their interpretation of Purnell's remarks at the bottom of this post.

US Ambassador: "The Uzbek authorities organized an 'excursion' for diplomats and journalists to Andijan"
Ferghana.Ru, Andrei Kudriashov (Tashkent), 18.05.2005 19.46 msk

In an interview with the "Akhborot" news show on Channel 1 of Uzbek State Television, United States Ambassador to Uzbekistan George Purnell [sic] unambiguously called the trip to Andijan organized May 18 by Uzbek authorities for foreign diplomats and selected journalists an "excursion."

"This was a very sad...excursion. It's good that the government of Uzbekistan organized it. But I have to say that this...excursion can only be a first step, after which there should be a more careful study and investigation about all of the circumstances surrounding the tragedy which took place in Andijan," said Purnell, looking into the TV camera and twice repeating the word ["excursion"] with a clear pause before the word [indicated by the ellipses - trans.], which made it clear to viewers that the diplomat did not misspeak due to poor knowledge of Russian, in which he is fluent; but rather expressed his position diplomatically yet firmly.

And the picture was not improved by the emotional interviews with the Turkmenistani and Algerian ambassadors which followed.

Viewers of the obviously propagandistic "Akhborota" program on Wednesday night also noticed that among the Russian journalists in Andijan were camera crews from only two channels - ORT and RTR [Russian Channel 1 and "Rossiia" or Channel 2, both of which are state-controlled - trans.] - that the people on the "excursion" met and spoke with members of the security forces and relatives of the policemen who perished in the incident; and that the streets of Andijan were absolutely empty as the motorcade carrying the official visitors passed.

Those Russian TV journalists who remained in Tashkent described their colleagues' trip to Andijan as "the deployment of a very limited contingent" of mass media. And a REN-TV camera crew, as has already been reported, left Uzbekistan on May 18 on the insistence of the local authorities and the recommendation of the Russian Embassy. An camera crew from NTV, which Islam Karimov knocked in his wide-ranging remarks at a press-conference, was also not allowed to participate in the touristic study of the "Potemkin villages" in the Andijan region. According to many journalists from foreign publications, the representatives of the media "saw only what they were shown."

It is a bit risky to translate Purnell's into English from Russian, since it's tough to know what he really meant or what words he would have used in English, and Ferghana.Ru's conclusion appears to rely on a nuanced interpretation of his word choice and manner of delivery. The key word in Ferghana.Ru's opinion is "экскурсия" (ekskursiia), which can be translated as "outing," "trip," "tour," or "excursion," and it's definitely a word which a non-native Russian-speaker (such as Purnell) might use to describe the visit to Andijan without implying any other meaning, even though there may be more appropriate words to describe such a visit which a native speaker might use. So I guess Purnell's delivery - the pause while looking into the TV camera - is the only real basis for this interpretation. Getting the Ambassador's name wrong does not exactly enhance the credibility of this article.

Also, remember that Ferghana.Ru does often spin stories in an anti-Uzbek-government way, editor Daniil Kislov's protestations to the contrary (here in the last graf of the interview) notwithstanding, and I don't exclude the possibility that they are doing that in this case. So, this is either a real story, or it's a good example of Ferghana.Ru spin, in either case I thought it was worth sharing with a wider audience.

I found a few English-language accounts of this wannabe fact-finding trip, one of which quotes remarks made by Purnell - in The Australian (which is VERY slow to load, for some reason) - and one of which paraphrases his reaction - in The Guardian - and neither of the stories mention these televised remarks. Reuters also reports on the visit, under the headline "Diplomats taken to Uzbek town, miss killing scene."

The website of the US Embassy in Tashkent does not have anything on the events in Andijan whatsoever at this point (that may be the right approach for them, so I'm not criticizing, just noting that I checked it because in my mind it's the logical place to look for a transcript of the Ambassador's remarks).

So I leave it up to readers to draw their own conclusions. We report, and you, uh, decide...sorry, I guess that motto is actually taken already.

Telephone conversations in Uzbekistan subject to "censorship" - Ferghana.ru

From Ferghana.Ru, translated by me:

Andijan: telephone communications in Uzbekistan are being blocked based on key phrases
IA Ferghana.Ru, Mobil'ny Reporter, 18.05.2005 00:17

Telephone operators in Uzbekistan, both fixed-line city networks and mobile networks, have introduced special settings. This is reported by residents of Andijan and Ferghana, who have experienced unexpected difficulties during telephone conversations. According to them, as soon as either of the parties to the conversation mentions the words "Andijan," "victim," "killed," "SNB," or others, the line goes dead.

Editorial employees of Ferghana.Ru have also encountered such "censorship" while trying to place a call to Namangan. After a ten-minute conversation, a phrase was said which included the word "Andijanis." The conversation immediately broke off, and it was subsequently impossible to reach the other party to the conversation again.

We present these facts for the consideration of professional specialists in the area of telecommunications. We are accepting comments on this subject.

Source: "Mobil'ny reporter" [interesting mobile phone news site with news on Andijan, in Russian - trans.]. Read more about the Mobil'ny Reporter project on News.ferghana.ru [also in Russian - trans.].

It doesn't take a "professional specialist" to conclude that maybe the people in Uzbekistan who Ferghana.Ru editor Daniil Kislov (the link is to some excellent comments of his in an interview with Gazeta.ru, which are translated into English on the Ferghana.Ru site) talks to from Moscow - presumably his correspondents and sources who might be under official surveillance - all have their phones tapped. Or, possibly, he has his phone tapped. Maybe he was trying to get that point across without expressing the idea directly.