Friday, December 30, 2005
Bush Sanctioned Torture in Uzbekistan
from Greg Saunders - This Modern World
Former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray is defying a gag-order and publishing torture memos on his blog relating to the coordination between the Uzbek, British, and American governments. As Kos says, it's brutal.
Last year, the US gave half a billion dollars in aid to Uzbekistan, about a quarter of it military aid. Bush and Powell repeatedly hail Karimov (its dictator) as a friend and ally. Yet this regime has at least seven thousand prisoners of conscience; it is a one party state without freedom of speech, without freedom of media, without freedom of movement, without freedom of assembly, without freedom of religion. It practices, systematically, the most hideous tortures on thousands. Most of the population live in conditions precisely analogous with medieval serfdom.
Uzbekistan's geo-strategic position is crucial. It has half the population of the whole of Central Asia. It alone borders all the other states in a region which is important to future Western oil and gas supplies. It is the regional military power. That is why the US is here, and here to stay. Contractors at the US military bases are extending the design life of the buildings from ten to twenty five years.
Democracy and human rights are, despite their protestations to the contrary, in practice a long way down the US agenda here. Aid this year will be slightly less, but there is no intention to introduce any meaningful conditionality. Nobody can believe this level of aid, more than US aid to all of West Africa, is related to comparative developmental need as opposed to political support for Karimov. While the US makes token and low-level references to human rights to appease domestic opinion, they view Karimov's vicious regime as a bastion against fundamentalism. He, and they, are in fact creating fundamentalism. When the US gives this much support to a regime that tortures people to death for having a beard or praying five times a day, is it any surprise that Muslims come to hate the West?
The torture record of the Uzbek security services could hardly be more widely known. And, the information retracted could only be useless. Consequently, the aim of the torture is to convince the West that the Uzbeks are a vital cog against a common foe (al Qaeda), that they should keep the assistance, especially military assistance, coming, and that they should mute the international criticism on human rights and economic reform.
Keep in mind that Article 2 of the U.N. Convention, to which we are a party, could not be plainer. "No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture."
Here's what this partnership between the Bush administration and Uzbekistan looks like in action :
At the Khuderbegainov trial I met an old man from Andizhan. Two of his children had been tortured in front of him until he signed a confession on the family's links with Bin Laden. Tears were streaming down his face. I have no doubt they had as much connection with Bin Laden as I do. This is the standard of the Uzbek intelligence services.
And, this is the standard that we're living under with a President who looks the other way while children are being tortured.
(Editor's note .... Bush's collaboration with tyranny and torture in Uzbekistan negates his latest stated reason for his illegal war in Iraq. His statement for public consumption that he is in Iraq to bring Democracy and freedom from tyranny to the Iraqi people is quite obviously just another big Bush lie.)
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from Greg Saunders - This Modern World
Former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray is defying a gag-order and publishing torture memos on his blog relating to the coordination between the Uzbek, British, and American governments. As Kos says, it's brutal.
Last year, the US gave half a billion dollars in aid to Uzbekistan, about a quarter of it military aid. Bush and Powell repeatedly hail Karimov (its dictator) as a friend and ally. Yet this regime has at least seven thousand prisoners of conscience; it is a one party state without freedom of speech, without freedom of media, without freedom of movement, without freedom of assembly, without freedom of religion. It practices, systematically, the most hideous tortures on thousands. Most of the population live in conditions precisely analogous with medieval serfdom.
Uzbekistan's geo-strategic position is crucial. It has half the population of the whole of Central Asia. It alone borders all the other states in a region which is important to future Western oil and gas supplies. It is the regional military power. That is why the US is here, and here to stay. Contractors at the US military bases are extending the design life of the buildings from ten to twenty five years.
Democracy and human rights are, despite their protestations to the contrary, in practice a long way down the US agenda here. Aid this year will be slightly less, but there is no intention to introduce any meaningful conditionality. Nobody can believe this level of aid, more than US aid to all of West Africa, is related to comparative developmental need as opposed to political support for Karimov. While the US makes token and low-level references to human rights to appease domestic opinion, they view Karimov's vicious regime as a bastion against fundamentalism. He, and they, are in fact creating fundamentalism. When the US gives this much support to a regime that tortures people to death for having a beard or praying five times a day, is it any surprise that Muslims come to hate the West?
The torture record of the Uzbek security services could hardly be more widely known. And, the information retracted could only be useless. Consequently, the aim of the torture is to convince the West that the Uzbeks are a vital cog against a common foe (al Qaeda), that they should keep the assistance, especially military assistance, coming, and that they should mute the international criticism on human rights and economic reform.
Keep in mind that Article 2 of the U.N. Convention, to which we are a party, could not be plainer. "No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture."
Here's what this partnership between the Bush administration and Uzbekistan looks like in action :
At the Khuderbegainov trial I met an old man from Andizhan. Two of his children had been tortured in front of him until he signed a confession on the family's links with Bin Laden. Tears were streaming down his face. I have no doubt they had as much connection with Bin Laden as I do. This is the standard of the Uzbek intelligence services.
And, this is the standard that we're living under with a President who looks the other way while children are being tortured.
(Editor's note .... Bush's collaboration with tyranny and torture in Uzbekistan negates his latest stated reason for his illegal war in Iraq. His statement for public consumption that he is in Iraq to bring Democracy and freedom from tyranny to the Iraqi people is quite obviously just another big Bush lie.)
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