The Japan Times
December 7

Uzbekistan President Islam Abduganievich Karimov will have been watching recent events in Georgia very closely. Could a "revolution" like the one that ousted President Eduard Shevardnadze happen in Uzbekistan?

Karimov can rest content in the knowledge that the factors that led to the success of the "velvet revolution" in Georgia are not present in Uzbekistan:

* In Georgia there was a real and organized opposition. True, its parliamentary representation and effectiveness had been cut by fraudulent elections and corruption in government, but opposition existed and had the power and capability to organize the street protests that brought down the government.

* There is a civil society in Georgia that could work to support the activities of the opposition and help ensure the success of the protest movement.

* The interests of the military, police and security services were not tied to the survival of Shevardnadze in power.

In Uzbekistan there is no opposition, no civil society, and the military, police and security services are integral parts of the "government," whose prime function seems to be to exploit the people of Uzbekistan in their own interest.

I had an interesting introduction to Uzbekistan this fall. When I arrived at the hotel on my first visit, I was told that it was a three-day weekend celebrating National Day, the day that independence from Russia was gained in 1991.

Good, I said, I will be able to watch the celebrations. I thought this would be a good introduction to the country.

No, the receptionist said, you had better stay in the hotel for the next two days. Only invited guests are allowed to take part in the celebrations.

The following morning, National Day itself, I left the hotel after breakfast, intending to go for a walk and find a good place to see the celebrations. Armed guards every 10 meters and vicious police dogs on every corner surrounded the hotel. All exits from the central square in which the hotel is located were cut off, for both cars and pedestrians, by lines of trucks parked nose to tail, with not a centimeter of space between them.

I went for a walk anyway, crawling under a truck out of sight of the guards. I walked around the square dedicated to the memory of the Uzbek hero, Tamberlane. When I crawled back under the truck on the way back I was met by 10 armed guards gesticulating and shouting. They would not let me through! I had to walk about 3 km before I could find a space where no guards were standing by and quickly crawled back into the central square.

The whole of the center of Tashkent, maybe 6 sq km, was blocked off with closely parked trucks. There were only three or four, well-guarded, gaps where security guards checked the papers of the few people who had been invited to the celebrations presided over by the president.

Later I discovered that for two weeks there had been tight restrictions on movements into and out of the capital and that all flights over whatever place the president was in were banned. Trees with vantage points to the stand in which the president presided over the celebrations had been cut down.

In the street cafe in the square opposite my hotel, the only clients other than me for two days were police and army personnel taking a break. I didn't try to break out again, worried that I might not get back. The only sign I, and everyone else in Tashkent who had not been invited, witnessed of the celebrations were the rockets in the fireworks display, a display that must have cost the equivalent of the annual salaries of a hundred or more teachers. All of the celebrations must have cost the equivalent of thousands of teachers' salaries.

"You will have to make up your own mind," the hotel receptionist said when I asked her why only a few people were allowed to share in the National Day celebrations with the president and his family.

After a month in Uzbekistan I was able to make up my mind. Uzbekistan is potentially a reasonably rich country, with oil and gas, gold and other metals and extensive high-quality cotton production. The benefits of these resources are, however, restricted to just a few families that support the exploitative economic mechanism established and maintained by the president and his cronies.

The exploited majority of the Uzbekistan population are, each and all, a vocal opposition. Even without a common language, people could communicate their opposition to me. I recall a taxi driver beginning a conversation by making a zero sign with his fingers and saying "Uzbekistan zero." I thought he was referring to a football match until he crossed his arms into a big X and said "no democracy," crossed his arms again and said "Karimov" and put his hands over his ears.

The mass opposition is kept under control by fear. Apart from one or two groups of friends of the leaders, there is no nongovernment organization in Uzbekistan and no political parties except those that support the government. The legal system and enforcement agencies, including the military, are part of the regime that exploits the country. They depend on the survival of the regime for their own survival.

There is another difference between Georgia and Uzbekistan that makes revolution unlikely in the latter. This is that, while the United States is withdrawing its support for the Shevardnadze regime, reducing aid and putting pressure on him to allow fair elections, in Uzbekistan the U.S. is increasing its economic support for the regime and does not put any pressure on it to reduce its exploitation or to allow its people democratic freedoms. It makes no mention of fair elections.

There are street protests in Uzbekistan (although other than those taking part few in Uzbekistan know this, censorship being so tight). In many parts of the country, wages and pensions have not been paid for months. Hundreds of thousands of people are living on bread and tea. But their protests are being suppressed by the enforcement agencies.

As long as the government is supported by the U.S., as many other brutal dictatorships have been supported, there is no prospect of such justified and disenfranchised dissent turning into a successful revolution.

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