Washington Post - 01.22.2004

Washington Post

Uzbek Government Seeks to Control Groups

By BURT HERMAN

TASHKENT, Uzbekistan (AP) - The Uzbek government is seeking to tighten control over international human rights and democracy organizations out of fear that some are promoting a Georgian-style revolution, officials with the groups say. 

Authorities have adopted a new requirement for international groups to register with the Justice Ministry by March 1. The organizations previously registered only with the Foreign Ministry. 

U.S. diplomats, fearing that some groups may be denied registration and driven from the country, have threatened sanctions if the new policy is not reversed, a Western official said on condition of anonymity. 

The Americans argue that the new requirement violates a 1994 bilateral agreement concerning groups supported by the U.S. government in Uzbekistan. 

The targeted organizations - including George Soros' Open Society Institute and the U.S. government-backed National Democratic Institute and International Republican Institute - worked with Georgian opposition groups before President Eduard Shevardnadze's ouster in November following weeks of opposition protests. 

The Democratic and Republican institutes have temporarily halted work with Uzbek opposition parties pending resolution of the problem. 

Following the events in Georgia, the Uzbek government "realized the presence of international organizations could be an undermining presence from within - working with young people and changing their minds," said Alisher Ilkhamov, who heads the Open Society Institute in Uzbekistan. 

During a discussion of the new registration procedure, at least one U.S. government-funded organization was accused by an Uzbek official of interfering with the country's domestic politics and teaching opposition groups to follow the Georgian example, the Western official said. The group denied the claims. 

Uzbek Foreign Ministry spokesman Ilkhom Zakirov said the registration was a procedural matter that would not prevent any groups from working. He denied Uzbek authorities were concerned that Georgian events could be replayed here. 

But organizations are worried about the Justice Ministry, which is less accustomed to dealing with international organizations. Ilkhamov said the new procedure allows any other ministry to veto a group's registration. 

Uzbek President Islam Karimov - the former Communist boss who has ruled since the 1991 Soviet collapse - is a close associate of Shevardnadze, who welcomed him to Georgia on a state visit in October and awarded him that country's highest medal for foreigners, a gesture reciprocated by Tashkent. 

Like Shevardnadze, Karimov is accused of tolerating corruption, but he has not faced much public criticism in this tightly controlled country devoid of independent media. 

In a speech last month, Karimov lashed out at a critical report by New York-based Human Rights Watch, another group that will be required to register with the Justice Ministry. 

International organizations also have been criticized in state-run media. 

"It's no secret that the activity of some forces, in the form of the dissemination of democracy, forcibly implant a Western style of life," the daily Halq Suzi, or People's Word, wrote last month. 

Uzbekistan became a strategic partner of the United States by offering use of an air base that was a key staging point in the campaign to oust the Taliban from neighboring Afghanistan. 

Under a partnership agreement, Uzbekistan is required to make progress on human rights and develop a multiparty system, along with other democratic targets, to receive U.S. aid. None of the country's opposition parties are legal and are barred from the December parliamentary elections. 

Uzbekistan has already failed to meet benchmarks for human rights progress required under a separate U.S. program funding disarmament in former Soviet republics - forcing President Bush to step in last month and waive that requirement, citing national security. 

U.S. foreign aid to Uzbekistan was $86.1 million for the fiscal year ending in September, part of some $800 million Washington has given the country since its 1991 independence.