[Mb-civic] Uzbekistan - by the ex-British Ambassador

[Alexander Harper]

A brutal reminder
>By Craig Murray
>Published: May 27 2005 15:47 | Last updated: May 27 2005 15:47
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I have lost count of the number of journalists who have asked me “Do you feel vindicated about what has been happening in Uzbekistan?” My replies to that one have been unprintable. How can you feel vindicated by several hundred dead people? Mostly I just feel miserable. I think we are in a real sense culpable. It is western support for Karimov that gives him such arrogant assurance in gunning down his opponents.

Ever since I heard by e-mail that street protests were taking off in Andizhan, I had been longing to be there. I would never get a visa, but was speculating about getting over from Kyrgyzstan on a smuggler’s route. Once the massacre, happened sections of the border were out of control for a few days. I desperately wanted to go but, annoyingly, I was scheduled to go into hospital for a heart operation soon afterwards. I have been trying to convince myself that I have done more good by media work here.

That desire to be there did not entail a longing to be British ambassador again. At least, not until I saw reports of the pathetic trip by diplomats to inspect the scene. I had predicted on ITN that this would be “a nauseating propaganda charade”. It was. They travelled in a tightly controlled convoy on a sealed-off route. The blood had been hosed away. The government dictated who they could meet. The only civilian was the father of a dead soldier. This charabanc trip ended an hour and a half before they expected - Karimov doesn’t just get the buses to run on time, they even run early. The bulk of the time was taken in a formal banquet.

My successor, David Moran, bleated “Can we not meet some people?” Of course you can. You don’t have to sit on your arse. At that moment I wished I was back in his shoes. You just walk out, pushing past the soldiers, down to the bazaar, and talk to people. One of my more delightful memories was of Clare Short doing exactly that in May 2003, to the huge consternation of the regime. You, David, are one of the tiny number of people in Uzbekistan they can’t shoot.

I have been keeping up with events both by phone and e-mail contacts to Uzbekistan, and via the internet. I see The Australian has reported I had a habit of manhandling obstructive Uzbek officials (how did they know?). I wouldn’t call it a habit, but you do sometimes have to show in a totalitarian state that you are not going to be obstructed in your work. To be fair to David Moran, his semi-protest showed at least some backbone; it was more than most of my senior former colleagues would have done.

The next day, we had the Uzbek procurator general announcing that 170 people had, after all, been killed but that they were all armed rebels. I did feel vindicated by the sheer disbelief that greeted this. Here is why.

In March 2004 there was a series of explosions and shootings in Tashkent, in which at least 30 people died. I dashed round to the scene of each incident, arriving within hours or even minutes, accompanied by Giles Whittell of The Times who had just walked into the embassy to interview me.

Suicide bombers from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, linked to al-Qaeda, had carried out a series of attacks on security forces. That remains the internationally accepted version of events. But it isn’t true.

I attended the briefings the procurator general (the same man) gave to journalists and diplomats. His claims were completely incompatible with the facts I had observed. He said suicide belts had been used each with the force of two kilos of TNT. But at the sites there just wasn’t the physical damage. Not so much as a cracked paving stone, let alone a crater. The first “bomb” had been in a roughly triangular courtyard a maximum of 30m wide. Allegedly six soldiers and a suicide bomber had been killed. Not a pane of glass was broken in the buildings overlooking the courtyard, not a branch or sprig torn from the tree in the centre.

My reports that the procurator general was lying through his teeth brought me startled reproof from my management in London. You see, the attacks by Islamic terrorists fitted our narrative. So I feel a personal relief that the lies are at last being exposed.

(Craig Murray was the British ambassador to Uzbekistan until last October when he was recalled after protesting against the brutality of President Islam Karimov’s regime. He left the Foreign Office in February and ran against his former boss, foreign secretary Jack Straw, in the general election. He is now writing a memoir).
 
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