[wvns] Souring Relations in Central Asia
As Uzbekistan's President Islam Karimov prepares to make his first
visit to Egypt in 15 years, Eric Walberg reflects on the changing
orientation of Central Asia
Souring relations
12 - 18 April 2007
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2007/840/in7.htm
In the past year, there has been a dramatic shift in Central Asia's
relations with the world, both political and economic, especially
those of Uzbekistan, towards much closer ties with Russia and China in
trade, production, politics and culture. This shift reflects a
changing orientation throughout the world, including Egypt, as the
United States continues its struggle for world hegemony. According to
Egyptian historian Anwar Abdel-Malek, "Egypt, having been burned by
America's appetite for foreign intervention, is seeking solace in
Asian waters."
The shift is not uniform: Turkmenistan (4.5 million) has completely
isolated itself from world politics to date; Tajikistan (6 million),
Kyrgyzstan (4.7 million) and Kazakhstan (17 million) retain a guarded
openness to the West.
Kazakhstan, with its huge oil reserves and extensive wheat and cotton
production is the most open and prosperous of Central Asian states and
gets the most attention -- President Hosni Mubarak visited Kazakhstan
last year and President Nursultan Nazarbaev's visit to Egypt in March
made headlines with talks of wheat and oil in exchange for Egyptian
manufactures. Politically Kazakhstan is similar to Egypt, with a
strong secular president and presidential family active in political
life, but tolerating some opposition and relative freedom of the press
(though opposition politicians are regularly arrested and newspapers
closed abruptly or charged with "insulting the president", etc). But
Kazakhstan is much more like Russia than other republics -- 40 per
cent of its population is Russian, and Islam plays a relatively minor
role in the culture, unlike in Egypt.
In contrast, Egypt's relations with Uzbekistan are lukewarm at best,
though it has impressive natural wealth -- Uzbek President Islam
Karimov has not visited Egypt since 1992, and President Mubarak has
never gone there, even to visit Bukhara. Government contacts have been
low level -- the visit of Egypt's Minister of International
Cooperation Fayza Abul-Naga in March caused nary a ripple here, though
Uzbekistan, with its 23 million people, is really the central Central
Asian republic, and in many ways is similar to Egypt, with its long
tradition of Islamic learning and its priceless heritage, as
exemplified by the medieval cities of Samarkand, Bukhara, Khiva and
great medieval scholars such as Avicenna and Naqshibandi, and in the
prominent role that Islam plays among the people today, if not the elite.
On the contrary, Islam sends shivers down the spine of the leadership
and led to a massive crackdown in the past decade, resulting in the
ongoing imprisonment and torture of up to 6,000 Muslims and the
cold-blooded murder of up to 1,000 in Andijan two years ago -- no one
knows how many because the Uzbek government prevented any independent
investigation and insisted only 169 "terrorists" were killed, despite
many eyewitness reports to the contrary. Déjà vu? Uzbekistan,
"strangely" absent from Egyptian eyes, is worth careful consideration
here. And it is in Uzbekistan that we see most clearly the change in
political and economic direction of the entire region. Part One
outlines the current situation in Central Asia, with its dramatic
shift in relations, while Part Two considers the lessons for Egypt and
the lessons which Central Asia can learn from Egypt.
The terrible events in Andijan in 2005 still send shockwaves
throughout the region and forced the US and the EU to reluctantly
isolate Uzbekistan. Karimov rightly became a bit of an international
pariah after that, and has had no invitations to the West since. In
fact, there is a "no-visa" list for prominent Uzbek officials who are
suspected of involvement in the tragedy in Andijan and a half-hearted
arms embargo by the US and the EU. Criticism and calls for an
independent investigation into "Andijan" prompted Uzbek leadership
cries that the West was trying to destabilise the government and
promote another "democratic" revolution, as happened earlier in 2005
in Georgia and Kyrgyzstan -- as indeed, at that point, it most
probably was. As a result, its relations with the West cooled and
paved the way for a radical shift in its political and economic
allegiance.
Overnight, Uzbekistan introduced stricter controls on local
representatives of foreign media and closed the offices of the UN High
Commission on Refugees, the American Bar Association, the Soros Fund,
Internews, Freedom House, IREX, Eurasia Foundation, and foreign media
such as Radio Free Europe, BBC, Deutsche Welle... The list goes on.
At the same time, Uzbekistan's relations with Asia and Russia expanded
to fill the vacuum left by the departure of Westerners. President
Putin was quick to see a "window of opportunity" to patch up relations
which had soured following the collapse of the Soviet Union and
Karimov's love affair with the US as the new economic, if not
political, model. President Karimov soon was feted by Russia, where he
signed an "allied strategic partnership accord" and joined the
Eurasian Economic Organisation (EEO), which was created in 2000 by
Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgystan, Russia and Tajikistan to establish a
customs union which Karimov had earlier spurned.
Uzbekistan was already a member of the Shanghai Cooperation
Organisation (SCO) which was founded in 2001 by China, Russia,
Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan, and now includes Mongolia,
Iran, India and Pakistan as observers and wanna-be members. With its
new Eastern orientation, Uzbekistan now made the SCO the centrepiece
of its foreign politics and economics, hosting the SCO's Regional
Anti-Terrorist Structure which has the bizarre, if appropriate acronym
RATS. The haemorrhaging of US businesses continues, the latest
casualty being Newmont Mining, which was forced to leave last summer.
The re-orientation towards Russian and China would no doubt have taken
place in any case, despite the events in Andijan in May 2005. China is
a growing international economic powerhouse, and throughout the past
100 years of close integration of Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Russia
both economically and culturally, was bound to assert itself
eventually despite attempts by a newly independent Uzbekistan to
downplay these relations. In this regard, Fukiyama's "end of history"
might better be phrased the "inertia of history".
Uzbekistan's infrastructure and economic links are still primarily
Soviet, meaning trade, production and even financial relations are
increasing rapidly with Russia and Kazakhstan, based on the past, now
that there is the will. However, at the same time, China is drawing
Central Asia away from its Soviet past, making Russia look like a
junior partner, flooding Central Asian markets with cheap Chinese
imports, oil pipelines, and various rail and road transport corridors
along ancient Silk Road routes. As with its diplomatic sorties into
Africa, China's agenda in Central Asia studiously avoids any criticism
of other countries' "internal affairs", so the tragic deaths and
oppression of Muslims is most likely even seen as a plus, especially
considering China's own problems in western Turkestan with the restive
Uighurs.
In addition to mending relations with Russia and its immediate
neighbours, and expanding relations with China, Uzbekistan is
tentatively broadening its relations with the Muslim world through the
57-member Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC), which includes
Iran, Pakistan, Turkey and other Central Asian states.
Relations with both India and Pakistan are expanding as well. There
has long been a cultural affinity between Uzbekistan and India, dating
back to the common history of the Moghul empire. Indian movies have
been a staple of Uzbek entertainment for half a century. India's close
ties to the Soviet Union have translated easily into close ties with
all the independent Central Asian states, and especially Uzbekistan,
and it is now mending fences with China. If Pakistan and India are
admitted to the SCO soon, this will only emphasise the importance of
the SCO as a real counterweight to US and European- oriented
multilateral organisations in determining the foreign policy
orientation of not only Uzbekistan but all of Central Asia without the
fear on the part of their governments of any criticism of their
"internal affairs".
The broad and relatively uniform shift throughout the region away from
Washington, despite sharply different scenarios in each country, seems
to be part of the "inertia of politics" for the region. Though
Kyrgyzstan experienced a surprise "revolution" in 2005 largely
instigated by the energetic activity of US and Western NGOs -- in
2004, the US spent $12.2 million in tiny Kyrgyzstan on "promoting
democracy" -- its new President Kurmanbek Bakiev quickly distanced
himself from Washington, and Kyrgyzstan's political and economic
orientation has followed Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan's lead. The only
legacy of the pathetic "tulip revolution" being a weakened central
government and increased influence of local clan leaders and mafia.
After the sudden death of Turkmenistan's President Niyazov, it is
still not clear whether there will be a new political direction in
Turkmenistan -- the US could just slip in the back door. The new
leader Gurganguli Berdymukhamedov, though a faithful supporter of
former President Niyazov (and elected in similarly pro forma
elections), might just be convinced to accept US "support" if he feels
insecure, which would muddy the region's politics, but my guess is the
"inertia of politics" will preclude that. Tiny, weak Turkmenistan is
much like North Korea in its isolation, and lack of involvement in any
politics beyond its borders. Though it has lots of natural gas, it is
not a major player.
*********************************************************************
WORLD VIEW NEWS SERVICE
To subscribe to this group, send an email to:
wvns-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
NEWS ARCHIVE IS OPEN TO PUBLIC VIEW
http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/wvns/
Need some good karma? Appreciate the service?
Please consider donating to WVNS today.
Email ummyakoub@yahoo.com for instructions.
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
wvns-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/wvns/
<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional
<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/wvns/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
<*> To change settings via email:
mailto:wvns-digest@yahoogroups.com
mailto:wvns-fullfeatured@yahoogroups.com
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
wvns-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
No comments:
Post a Comment