The Foreign Service Journal, April 2003

tance during 2002, and, in September, President Akayev was accorded a visit with President Bush. HRW noted that at that meeting, the U.S. failed to ask for specific human rights improvements. The U.S. provides non- lethal equipment and military training to Kyrgyzstan’s military. In Kazakhstan the Nazerbayev government is increasingly authoritarian, according to HRW’s January 2003 report. The regime uses false arrest to intimidate the media and opposition politicians. President Nazerbayev rigged a 1995 referendum and committed electoral fraud in 1999 to strengthen and extend his hold on power. The persistence of a moderate political opposition in the face of such pressure underscores the potential value of a U.S. reprioritization of human rights and democratic development. Failure of the U.S. to insist on democratic reform and respect for basic human rights could enable Nazerbayev to snuff out that peaceful, democratic opposition or drive it underground. Thus far, the U.S. has effectively endorsed Nazerbayev’s authoritarian rule. In eight years from 1992 to 2000, Kazakhstan received $610 million in U.S. assistance. And in January 2002, on the heels of a rigged referendum extending Nazerbayev’s rule, Assistant Secretary of State Elizabeth Jones announced in Tashkent that the U.S. would triple its economic assistance. Uzbekistan is by far the most important Central Asian state for the U.S., serving as it does as the princi- pal platform for U.S. and international coalition opera- tions in Afghanistan. The importance of the role played by President Islam Karimov’s government was reflected in his March 2002 visit to Washington. At the same time, no state in the region can match the Karimov regime for sheer brutality. The January 2003 HRW report describes human rights abuse in Uzbekistan as occurring on a “massive scale.” It notes “gestures” by the regime such as allowing one political party to register and admitting ICRC personnel and a U.N. Human Rights Committee rapporteur. Officials of the opposition Birlik Party have been allowed to reg- ister but remain under tight police scrutiny. Formal censorship rules have been replaced by an equally effective system of self-censorship. A judicial reform program, touted as progress by the State Department, remains unimplemented. The report concludes that these steps, undertaken to appease international human rights concerns, do not represent “fundamental improvement.” The government has also launched Soviet-style repression of Muslims seeking to practice their faith, falsely contending that its campaign of brutal repression was a part of the war on terrorism. Uzbekistan’s 7,000 or more political prisoners include minors who inhabit a prison system that is notorious for its abuses and poses conditions that are life-threatening. Forced child labor is rampant in the important cotton sector. The 2003 HRW Report observes that the U.S. “sometimes exaggerated Uzbekistan’s progress in meeting its human rights com- mitments,” citing an August 2002 State Department cer- tification that Uzbekistan was making progress as demanded by supplemental aid legislation. The decision allowed the release of $16 million in military and securi- ty assistance to the very security personnel enforcing Karimov’s dictatorial rule. The administration has yet to issue a biannual report established by Congress regarding Uzbekistan’s “serious human rights violations” that is required for the release of $173 million in aid. In Turkmenistan, President Saparmurat Niyazov is building a Stalin-like personality cult with attendant powers. He persecutes all manifestations of religious faith other than Islamic and Orthodox Christian. An alleged assassination attempt targeting Niyazov at the end of 2002 has led to a broadening purge, with show trials reminiscent of the Soviet Union in the 1930s. There are credible allegations of torture; family mem- bers of the accused have been rounded up and diplo- mats have been denied access to the trials. The Niyazov government defends the broadening purge as part of the international campaign against terrorism. Altering the U.S. Course Under the political and diplomatic cover accorded by a strategy of intermittent public criticism and “engagement,” the Bush administration is rendering important and growing support to dictatorial regimes in Central Asia. Doubling aid, with especially significant increases in the security sector; empowering despots by allowing them to visit Washington; and acquiescing to claims by these regimes that their persecution of polit- ical opponents and believers is a part of the interna- tional war on terrorism, are all betrayals of the peoples of the region who once placed great hope in the U.S. Congress has attempted to correct the administra- F O C U S 30 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / A P R I L 2 0 0 3