Karimov's return

Time Europe November 19 Islam Karimov wouldn't win any international popularity contests. Reviled by U.S. and European politicians since last May's crackdown on unrest in Andijan left over 300 dead, the Uzbek President's image took a further dent last week when a court in the capital, Tashkent, sentenced 15 alleged ringleaders of the unrest to prison terms of 14 to 20 years after a trial widely denounced as a blatant miscarriage of justice "a show trial that violated international fair-trial standards," in the words of Human Rights Watch. But as the Tashkent court was handing out its sentences, the Uzbek President was enjoying the hospitality of his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, in Moscow. The two hailed a new treaty of cooperation that allows each country to use the other's military bases and binds the signatories to come to each other's aid in the event of a "situation" that could menace their security. Shortly after this display of solidarity, the European Union announced a travel ban on 12 senior Uzbek officials who are thought to have overseen the violence in Andijan. But Putin clearly feels he has scored a strategic coup. Karimov's post-Sept. 11 flirtation with the West notably making a major air base available to the U.S. is over and Uzbekistan is more firmly than ever part of the Russian camp. The treaty may still come at a high price for Putin, though. Kommersant, one of Russia's last independent dailies, questioned the President's wisdom in an unusually tart analysis: "And by signing this agreement, Russia is automatically making a probable civil war in Uzbekistan its own internal problem."