What's more important: massacres or airbases?
In case anybody has forgotten who our allies in the war on terror are, here's a friendly reminder.
Moral of the story: freedom can't march when it's shot by U.S.-backed dictators.
To the -stan countries!
From Human Rights Watch, posted five days ago.
(New York, August 25, 2006) - Four Uzbek asylum seekers have disappeared from southern Kyrgyzstan in the past week, raising fears that they were forcibly returned to Uzbekistan, Human Rights Watch said today. Kyrgyzstan has been developing a closer relationship with Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyz authorities recently carried out policing operations allegedly targeting "religious extremists" or suspected "terrorists" in the south.
"We're afraid these men have been handed over to Uzbek authorities and that their lives are in danger," said Holly Cartner, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "Kyrgyzstan is responsible for the safety of refugees and asylum seekers in its territory and it must find these men. The United Nations, the European Union and Washington should call upon the Kyrgyz government to protect refugees and asylum seekers."
The U.S. maintains a military base in Kyrgyzstan that plays a major supporting role in the war in Afghanistan.
A few months ago, President Kurmanbek Bakiev decided to start charging the U.S. more money for use of this base, raising the rent from 2 million to 207 million dollars.
Richard Boucher, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian affairs, told RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service in April that Washington is determined to maintain a military presence in the region, whatever the cost.
"The [Manas] base is very important to us and to Kyrgyzstan and to the countries of the region to be able to fight the danger of terrorism that affects all of us," Boucher said. "That is why the base is here. That is why we want it to stay here, and that is why the government wants it to stay here. We are also prepared to pay the costs of having the base here."
This base is extremely important now, as the U.S. was kicked out of neighboring Uzbekistan last summer.
Uzbekistan formally evicted the United States yesterday from a military base that has served as a hub for combat and humanitarian missions to Afghanistan since shortly after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Pentagon and State Department officials said yesterday.
Why?
Because we were (rightly) mad about this:
On May 13, 2005, Uzbek government forces killed hundreds of unarmed people who participated in a massive public protest in the eastern Uzbek city of Andijan. The scale of this killing was so extensive, and its nature was so indiscriminate and disproportionate, that it can best be described as a massacre.
The government has denied all responsibility for the killings. It claims the death toll was 173 people-- law enforcement officials and civilians killed by the attackers, along with the attackers themselves. The government says the attackers were "Islamic extremists," who initiated "disturbances" in the city. Uzbek authorities did everything to hide the truth behind the massacre and have tried to block any independent inquiry into the events.
A Human Rights Watch field investigation in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan recreated a comprehensive account of the events of May 13 and 14 in Andijan, presented in this report. Our findings clearly demonstrate the Uzbek government forces' undeniable responsibility for the massacre.
While the government's efforts at sealing off the city and intimidating people from talking about the events to outsiders have made it exceedingly difficult to establish the true death toll - and reveal an attempt to cover up the truth - Human Rights Watch believes that hundreds were killed. Eyewitnesses told us that about 300-400 people were present at the worst shooting incident, which left few survivors. There were several incidents of shooting throughout the day.
But before we pat ourselves on the back for doing the right thing here, let's return to that July 2005 Washington Post article. Why did the Bush administration feel comfortable condemning Uzbekistan?
Simply put: we could afford to lose the base in Uzbekistan because we could replace it with the base in Kyrgyzstan. Rummy speaks:
"We always think ahead. We'll be fine," Rumsfeld said Sunday when asked how the United States would cope with losing the base in Uzbekistan.
In May, however, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman called access to the airfield "undeniably critical in supporting our combat operations" and humanitarian deliveries. The United States has paid $15 million to Uzbek authorities for use of the airfield since 2001, he said.
Yesterday, Pentagon spokesman Lawrence T. Di Rita said that the U.S. military does not depend on one base in any part of the world. "We'll be able to conduct our operations as we need to, regardless of how this turns out. It's a diplomatic issue at the moment," Di Rita said.
Translation: We have a base in Kyrgyzstan that will pick up the slack. So we can afford to act pissed at Uzbekistan and keep up our "freedom-on-the-march" racket.
Two months later, Kyrgyzstan ups the rent on us. I mean, it takes nerrrrrve to raise the rent from $2,000,000 to $207,000,000 on somebody. You gotta have some pretty good leverage to pull that off.
Now the U.S. has been plunged into a situation where these two countries, each with severely flawed human rights records, are starting to develop closer ties. So what now?
Back to Uzbekistan, it looks like.
Three weeks ago, Richard Boucher visited Uzbekistan in what appears to be a bid to renew ties to that country. Other Western countries are joining in, as evidenced by Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visit to the country today.
But the West's door to Uzbekistan, which borders Afghanistan, could be gradually reopening, analysts say, as Karimov becomes uneasy with Russia's clear attempts to link good relations to favourable deals in the gas sector.
The United States is also keen to re-establish contacts, and sent Richard Boucher, Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs, to Tashkent for closed-door talks with Karimov last month.
"It seems Washington is beginning to regret cutting off ties with Uzbekistan so abruptly and seeks to gradually restore them," Russia's Kommersant daily wrote.
"The Japanese premier may have found the right words and backed them up with promises of Japanese and U.S. investments."
Umm. Anybody else disgusted by this?
To their credit, it appears that Boucher did discuss human rights with President Islam Karimov at the aforementioned closed-door meeting three weeks ago.
"We obviously have very strong differences about the events in Andijon and the human rights situation," Boucher said during his August 9 news conference in Tashkent. He said he talked with Uzbek leaders "in a practical way about the actions that are needed to try to rebuild trust, to try to achieve real cooperation in these areas."
The assistant secretary added that he could not predict "what will happen next. It will depend on what both sides actually do to pursue and develop this cooperation. For our part, we are willing to try. But we have to see what happens."
snip
Boucher said the United States wants "to establish a new basis for cooperation" with Uzbekistan. In talks with Uzbek officials, he said, "we agreed that we do have common interests in security issues, fighting terrorism, drugs, proliferation and things like that. We have interests in economic and business cooperation and all of the things that go with such cooperation. And we have an interest in the economic and political development of a healthy society here."
Cynical translation: "What's it gonna take to get our base back? Sorry for saying all that mean stuff about the bang-bang incident last year. Come on back to papa, baby????"
I could be wrong, though.
Either way, cut through the spin, and this article is an interesting read. I highly recommend it.
Now, the bases in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan are clearly helpful for operations in Afghanistan. And two bases can handle a heavier load than one, so it would be nice to reestablish a presence in Uzbekistan. But why would we need a heavier load in that region... what other country is Uzbekistan very close to?
Hint: four letters, starts with I, ends with ran.
Aint we been talkin bout bombin them lately?
Hmm.
That might be too cynical/tinfoilhattish, but at this point, I hear any Bush official say anything about the Middle East and I immediately suspect the worst.
Either way, Boucher and Koizumi can rationalize and posture all they like, but that doesn't change the fact that they're dealing with a regime that massacred several hundred protesters last year. Uzbekistan's leaders will clearly go to great lengths to maintain power and intimidate opposition; their society is based on fear, and a free exchange of ideas is practically impossible.
Not to mention that reestablishing ties with Uzbekistan would send a terrible message to other dictators around the world, namely that the U.S. doesn't give a ** what you do as long as you'll be our friend in the war on terr'r. Kill a few hundred of your people, so what? We'll act mad at you for a few months, but then we'll take you back with open arms.
...
Shouldn't we be outgrowing this crap?