Uzbekistan's Nightmare: Made in Washington

[norml]

Uzbekistan's Nightmare:
Made in Washington
Why our government stands by Karimov
– even as he massacres his own people
by Justin Raimondo
Why is Washington standing by Uzbekistan's dictator Islam Karimov, even as he massacres his own people – 500 of them so far? "They shot at us like rabbits," says one Uzbek who escaped the carnage in Andijan, where Uzbek troops fired directly into a crowd of thousands, killing "hundreds," according to news accounts. The whole world recoiled, but White House spokesman Scott McClellan echoed staunch U.S. ally President Karimov in answer to a question at the daily press briefing:

"We have had concerns about human rights in Uzbekistan, but we are concerned about the outbreak of violence, particularly by some members of a terrorist organization that were freed from prison. And we urge both the government and the demonstrators to exercise restraint at this time. The people of Uzbekistan want to see a more representative and democratic government, but that should come through peaceful means, not through violence. And that's what our message is."

We won't see any U.S.-backed and funded color-coded "revolution" in Uzbekistan against the viciously repressive neo-Soviet regime headed up by Karimov, the former head of the Uzbek Communist party. Go here for a documentary history of the Bush administration's nervous yet thorough support for the Uzbek strongman. What is really inexcusable, however, is that the Bushies are trumpeting a charge that has no apparent reality outside of the Uzbek regime itself.

At a Tashkent press conference, Karimov repeated the assertion his propagandists have been making ever since the Uzbek secret police began their crackdown in the eastern city of Andijan at the beginning of this year, when 23 prominent businessmen were rounded up and jailed on charges of aiding and abetting "terrorist" organizations. According to Uzbek prosecutors, the 23 are associated with what Karimov called "a faction of Hizb ut-Tahrir," a radical Islamist group founded in 1953, in Jerusalem, by Taqiuddin al Nabhani, an appeals court judge. Now spread throughout Western Europe, Central Asia, and even reaching into China's far west, it calls itself the "Party of Liberation" and means to establish a worldwide caliphate, ostensibly by peaceful political means.




snip




http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=5958