The EU’s decision this week to ease sanctions on Uzbekistan imposed after a bloody government crackdown two years ago sends a dangerous message to the country’s hardline regime and threatensprospects for meaningful reform, a top Uzbek political figure has warned.
The exiled opposition leader Muhammad Salih argued instead that punitive measures should be firmed up as current measures are largely ineffectual.
Salih told Emerging Markets in an interview this weekend that the peeling back of sanctions gives a green light to the Uzbek government to step up its campaign against political freedom. “These measures will encourage the Uzbek regime to commit new crimes,” he said, adding that “political repression against the opposition have intensified” since Uzbek troops gunned down protesters in the eastern town or Andijan in 2005, claiming they were Islamic millitants.
The EU decided on May 14 to drop a visa ban against four Uzbek officials but keep an arms embargo which will be reviewed in the next six months. The sanctions were imposed in 2005 after the Andijan incident.
Salih added that the EU “doesn’t really understand that this dictatorship cannot be changed by applying half -hearted measures against it.”
He singled out Germany for what he described as posturing over human rights and its push for an easing of sanctions despite Tashkent’s continued refusal to make improvements on its human rights record. “We were well aware that the year of 2007 when Germany assumes chairmanship in the EU, would be very good for Karimov and unfortunate for Uzbek democracy,” he said. “I do not think that Germany has ever really asked for democratization of Uzbekistan”.
Germany has traditionally been pragmatic towards Uzbekistan, choosing economic benefits over human rights, he said. Germany was reportedly pushing for a further relaxation of sanctions to diversify its energy policy and safeguard its military base near the Uzbek city of Temez.
Nor are other EU states taking a much tougher line on human rights, focusing instead on energy security. “Geopolitics plays a huge role in determining EU policy, it is the struggle between world powers for the heart of Central Asia and access to energy resources of region which is the main factor.”
Craig Murray, the former British ambassador to Tashkent who resigned over the government’s policy agreed. “Germany’s desire to have better relations with Uzbekistan is a relatively new development over the last couple of years and it is clearly for commercial energy interests,” he told Emerging Markets.
Michael Denison, Central Asia analyst at Control Risks, a London-based consultancy, argues that EU policies to stimulate political reform are bound to fail: “There is not a large amount the EU can do as [President Islam] Karimov can play hard ball and just cement his alliance with Russia if the EU disengages or imposes harsh sanctions”. Karimov has ruled the Central Asian state since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Salih, who now lives in exile in Norway, was confident that internal opposition forces can still oust Karimov. “Well organised public action can overthrow Karimov’s regime in the same way anti-democratic regimes in Georgia and Ukraine were overthrown. But we do everything possible to overthrow the Uzbek regime in a non-violent way”.