Poverty, crime, and oppression seen as fueling Uzbeks' anger

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By Anna Dolgov,

MOSCOW -- Positioned on the ancient Great Silk Road between Asia and Europe, and on a modern drug-trafficking route, Uzbekistan has been torn by religious violence, crime, poverty, and political persecution since gaining independence in 1991 through the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Clashes between protesters and government forces in eastern Uzbekistan reportedly have left hundreds dead since Friday. Uzbek witnesses interviewed by news agencies accused the government of opening fire on demonstrators. Islam Karimov, who became president of the Soviet republic in 1990 and has held power ever since, blamed Islamic extremists for the clashes.

Uzbekistan holds a strategically valuable position on the border with Afghanistan, and has allowed the United States to operate a military base at Khanabad near the border since soon after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, becoming a major US ally in Central Asia during the war on terrorism. But human rights campaigners have accused Uzbek authorities of using their cooperation with the West to gain tolerance of human rights violations in Uzbekistan.

Uzbekistan also shares a border with Kyrgyzstan, another former Soviet republic where street protests toppled the government earlier this spring and forced the president to flee the country. The Kyrgyz protests disintegrated into a looting spree that left behind smashed shop windows and ransacked stores.

Similar to Kyrgyzstan, the Uzbek opposition appears to have no single leader or common cause, while Uzbekistan's human rights record is poorer than that of its neighbor, and its post-Soviet history more violent. The United Nations has accused Karimov's government of systematic torture of his political opponents. All Uzbek press is controlled by the state, and the country has virtually no legitimate political opposition.

Political life in Uzbekistan has been ''burnt out and razed" by government suppression, Russian analyst Maxim Shevchenko told the Radio Rossii station yesterday. He described the Uzbek unrest as a spontaneous revolt, which may be difficult to direct or contain.

The Uzbek protests were prompted by the jailing of a group of businessmen accused of Islamic extremism, but whom protesters described as peaceful opponents of the government. The protest also seemed a manifestation of public anger over deep poverty and social problems.

Uzbekistan is one of the poorest among the 15 former Soviet republics, according to the World Bank, and unemployment is rife. The country is famed for its majestic mosques in the ancient cities of Bukhara and Samarkand, which had prospered when busy trade moved through Uzbekistan along the Great Silk Road. Now, Afghan opiates move through Uzbekistan on the way to Russia and Western Europe.

The other governments of Central Asian nations also fear a rise of Islamic extremism a concern that Karimov has cited as the reason for his crackdown on human rights.

Bombings in Uzbekistan killed more than a dozen people in 1999, and claimed several dozen more last year. The government blamed the attacks on radical Islamic groups. Rebels who seek to carve out a Muslim state in Central Asia clashed with government troops in the 1990s in the Fergana Valley, which Uzbekistan shares with Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, which operates largely from exile, has been declared a terrorist group by the US State Department and has been accused of carrying out numerous past attacks in the region.