Tag Archives: Uzbekistan

Comment: Uzbekistan’s smooth power transition

SEPT. 16 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – In some quarters it had been feared that Islam Karimov’s death in Uzbekistan would set off instability in Central Asia’s largest country as rival groups battled for control. So far, though, the power transition in Uzbekistan since Karimov’s death on Sept. 2 has been smooth.

Shavkat Mirziyoyev, the former PM, has been installed as acting president and will, presumably, be given the job on a full-time basis at an election in December. There is still some time before his coronation can be complete but, so far, there doesn’t appear to be any other actors coming to the fore to challenge Mirziyoyev’s ascension.

There are several striking characteristic about the smooth Uzbek power shift. Firstly, it appears to have been well-organised and well-rehearsed before Karimov’s death. The authorities were able to control the information flow, apparently even delaying the official announcement of Karimov’s death until they were ready, put together a state funeral and arrange for the Speaker of the Senate to decline taking over in favour of Mirziyoyev.

There was planning and agreement in all this. Deals were made on how to retain power and status in Uzbekistan well before Karimov died.

And the second point is that Karimov must have been in on it.

He must have agreed to this succession process while he was alive. It appears that he finally gave up on the idea of installing his favourite daughter, Gulnara, as his successor in 2014. She was deeply unpopular with ordinary Uzbeks and the elite may have considered her a liability that they wanted to get out of the way before dealing with the succession issue.

Their chance came in 2013 and 2014 with corruption accusations linked to Western telecoms companies which had paid out bribes to the Karimovs seven years earlier to access the Uzbek market. The Uzbek elite were then able to imprison Gulnara’s supporters and place her under house arrest. She has not been seen or heard of since.

March 2014, marked the real transition of power in Uzbekistan. Karimov was unable to protect his daughter and most probably had to go along with plans devised by the Uzbek elite to hold on to power.

And their plan meant stripping the Karimov family of power.

In Uzbekistan this month we have seen the natural culmination of what is effectively an internal Uzbek regime change.

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(News report from Issue No. 296, published on Sept. 16 2016)

Russia to increase gas supplies from Uzbekistan

SEPT. 13 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Russia has intensified talks to increase gas supplies from Uzbekistan, as it looks to buy more Central Asian gas. Alexei Miller, chairman of Russia’s gas company Gazprom, met with Alisher Sultanov, his counterpart from Uzbekistan’s state-owned energy company Uzbekneftegaz, in Moscow. Last year, Gazprom imported 6.4b cubic metres of Uzbek gas. Gazprom has been steadily increasing its dealings with Uzbekistan, once seen as the most awkward of the Central Asian states. The death this month of Uzbek Pres. Islam Karimov may also improve bilateral relations.

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(News report from Issue No. 296, published on Sept. 16 2016)

ITF bannes corrupt Uzbek officials

SEPT. 14 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The International Tennis Federation banned for life two Uzbek officials for betting offences. The two officials, Sherzod Hasanov and Arkhip Molotyagin,communicated via mobile phone the scores of games they were officiating to a third party, before recording them into the official electronic score- board, allowing illegal betting.

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(News report from Issue No. 296, published on Sept. 16 2016)

World Bank finances Uzbek textile factory

SEPT. 13 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The International Labor Rights Forum published a report corroborating claims that the World Bank could be inadvertently financing a textile factory involved in forced labour practices. The report, which follows a petition in July sent by human rights activists directly to the World Bank, targets specifically an Uzbek-Indonesian joint venture, Indorama Kokand Textile. The World Bank had previously denied the allegations, saying it only deals with forced labour-free companies.

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(News report from Issue No. 296, published on Sept. 16 2016)

China connects with AF through Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan

SEPT. 11 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The first rail freight from China arrived in Afghanistan via Central Asia, potentially opening up a new trade route. China has tried to create interconnected transport infrastructure in Central Asia to promote alternatives to sea shipping. The railway linking China and Afghanistan also crosses Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan for a total length of 7,500 km.

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(News report from Issue No. 296, published on Sept. 16 2016)

Comment: Mirziyoyev promoted to acting Uzbek president

SEPT. 8 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan’s parliament named PM Shavkat Mirziyoyev as interim president, another step towards confirming him as Islam Karimov’s successor.

Two days earlier, Mr Mirziyoyev had appeared to win the endorsement of Russian president Vladimir Putin, the region’s real kingmaker, when he visited Karimov’s grave in Samarkand.

Mr Mirziyoyev fills a power vacuum left by the death of Islam Karimov, independent Uzbekistan’s only president, last week.

According to Uzbekistan’s Constitution, the next-in-line for the top job, at least on a temporary basis, was the speaker of the Senate, Nigmatilla Yuldashev.

During a parliament session to name the acting president, though, Mr Yuldashev declined to take the job, saying that wasn’t experienced enough. Instead he endorsed Mr Mirziyoyev.

PM since 2003, the 59-year-old Mirziyoyev was born in Samarkand, also Karimov’s birthplace.

He was considered Karimov’s righthand-man and a like-for-like successor. Mr Mirziyoyev had already acted presidential during the mourning ceremonies after Karimov’s death, meeting with the world leaders who visited Samarkand for the funeral.

The last to visit was Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, who said that stability and good relations were the chief objectives of his country’s relations with Uzbekistan (Sept. 6).

In Samarkand, Mr Putin appeared to endorse Mr Mirziyoyev, making all-but-certain that he would take over the top job.

“Of course, we hope that everything Islam Abduganiyevich (Karimov) had started will be continued,” he was quoted by Russian media as saying. “For our part, we will do everything to support this path of mutual development and the people and leadership of Uzbekistan. You can fully count on us as your most reliable friends.”

And Mr Mirziyoyev is likely to continue many of his predecessor’s policies which will worry human rights groups who have criticised the Uzbek leadership for presiding over one of the most repressive regimes in the world.

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(News report from Issue No. 295, published on Sept. 9 2016)

Uzbeks worry about the future

BISHKEK, AUG. 31 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Human rights activists and Western analysts have lauded the death of Islam Karimov, Uzbekistan’s only post-Soviet leader and a man they detest for his cruel human rights abuses, but many ordinary Uzbeks are more worried about the potential instability that could follow.

A Conway Bulletin correspondent in Bishkek spoke to people in Uzbekistan who all said that Karimov’s death this week from a stroke was a worrying moment for the country.

Murodjan, a 26-year-old businessman who lives in the southern Uzbek city of Gulistan, said Karimov had done a lot for Uzbekistan.

“Any young politician who comes after him will struggle to maintain stability,” he told the Bulletin.

During his 25-year reign, Mr Karimov often talked up the dangers posed by Islamic radicals. His opponents said that he played the security card too strongly and that it was simply an excuse to crackdown on dissidents. They said that massive human rights abuses showed what a tyrant he was.

And yet the West appreciated the stability Mr Karimov was able to impose, using Uzbekistan as a key transit route for sending military kit into and out of neighbouring Afghanistan during NATO’s war against the Taliban.

Abror, 24, who lives in Tahskent, told the Bulletin before confirmation of Karimov’s death that he hoped the news was wrong.

“The authorities informed us that his health state is stable, I really hope this is the case,” he said.

He will be disappointed.

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(News report from Issue No. 294, published on Sept. 2 2016)

Uzbek President Karimov dies

SEPT. 2 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan declared that President Islam Karimov, its first and only leader since independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, had died.

Throughout Friday speculation had been mounting that Karimov, who was 78, had died after a stroke six days earlier but it took until around 10pm local time for Uzbekistan’s government to confirmed it.

“On September 2 2016 after a long illness, President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov, an outstanding statesman and politician, died,” the Interfax news agency quoted from an official statement.

A news reader on an Uzbek government station later said that the funeral would be held on Saturday Sept. 3 and that there would be three days of official mourning.

Karimov was reviled by human rights activists for his abuses and cruelty but Western governments, and many Uzbeks, appreciated the stability that he imposed, although often through repressive police operations, on Central Asia’s most populous country.

After independence in 1991, Karimov steadily increased the state’s control over the country, forfeiting its natural place as Central Asia’s economic and cultural hub to neighbouring Almaty in Kazakhstan by closing off its people and its economy.

Karimov brooked no dissent. Dissidents and opposition were imprisoned and beaten. In 2005 Uzbek soldiers shot dead an estimated 300 people protesting against the government in the eastern town of Andijan.

The question now for Uzbekistan is who takes over. Karimov didn’t, publicly at least, lay out a succession plan and his eldest daughter, Gulnara Karimova, who had been considered his natural successor has been under house arrest since 2014.

Media reported that PM Shavkat Mirziyoev had been appointed to head Karimov’s funeral committee. Some analysts said that this indicated that he was headed for the top job.

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(News report from Issue No. 294, published on Sept. 2 2016)

Comment: Uzbekistan’s quiet handover of power

SEPT. 2 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — After years of jostling, the real battle for power in a post-Karimov Uzbekistan has started.

President Islam Karimov, who has ruled since independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, has died after suffering a stroke. Officially this means that the Speaker of the Senate, Nigmatulla Yuldashev, will take over for three months. Long-term, though, the picture is more complicated.

Uzbekistan has been in the throes of a proxy war over succession for two years, ever since Karimov’s eldest daughter Gulnara Karimova was placed under house arrest and her closest associates imprisoned for financial crimes. She had been seen as Karimov’s natural, if unpopular, heir-apparent.

Her fall from grace left PM Shavkat Mirziyoyev and Rustam Azimov, the finance minister, as the front runners for the top job.

The orchestrator-in-chief, it was assumed, was Rustam Inoyatov, the Uzbek secret police chief, who popped up in a rare photo during a visit to China in 2014. Reports from Uzbekistan, a notoriously repressive and reclusive regime, have suggested that he has been keeping a lid as best as possible on warring factions within the elite.

Certainly, Karimov appears to have played a reduced role in organising his succession since 2014. It is doubtful he ever wanted to place Gulnara, the daughter he doted over, under house arrest.

Gulnara’s sister, Lola Karimova-Tillyaeva, has been the most vocal senior Uzbek over Karimov’s illness but she has little support and lives in Europe and has previously shown no interest in power.

So, it’s likely the Uzbek regime will agree on an insider to take over from Karimov, either one of the front-runners or – and perhaps this is more likely – an obscure bureaucrat who comes with neither a power base nor an agenda. A compromise figure acceptable to Uzbekistan’s power-groups.

This method has been tried and tested with relative success in Central Asia previously with the handover of power to Kurbangbuly Berdymukhamedov, an obscure former dentist, in Turkmenistan when Saparmurat Niyazov died suddenly in 2006. Berdymukhamedov has opened up Turkmenistan’s economy and made it a major source of gas to China. He has also built up a fairly serious personality cult.

Uzbekistan is a more complicated country than Turkmenistan but the power brokers inside the Uzbek government trying to work out their post-Karimov game plan do have a Turkmen blueprint to work from.

They may well choose to follow it.

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(News report from Issue No. 294, published on Sept. 2 2016)

Athletes from C.Asia and S.Caucasus win medals at Rio Olympics

AUG. 29 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — At the Olympics in Rio, Uzbekistan won four gold medals, including three in boxing. Kazakhstan once again pulled in a decent haul, winning three golds, including a first ever swimming win, five silvers and nine bronzes. Tajikistan also won its first gold medal since independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. Dilshod Nazarov won gold in the hammer, becoming an instant national hero in Tajikistan. In the South Caucasus, Azerbaijan won a gold medal in taekwondo, Georgia won golds in wrestling and weightlifting and Armenia won a wrestling gold, its first for 20 years.

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(News report from Issue No. 293, published on Aug. 29 2016)