Serious Unrest In Uzbekistan - 05.16.2005

Jewish Week: Many NYC Bukharan Jews Support Karimov


Forward: Uzbek Unrest Shines Light on Leader's Ties to Jewry


JTA: Uzbek Jews scared but safe


JTA: A brief history of Uzbek Jewry 


Jerusalem Post: Uzbek Jews asked God to stop this war


Ha'arertz: Man with fake bomb killed at embassy in Tashkent

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Jewish Week - 05.27.2005

Jewish Week

Bukharans Standing By Their Man

President in violence-marred Uzbekistan has been good to the Jews, community leaders here say. 

Walter Ruby - Special To The Jewish Week 

Most of the estimated 40,000-strong Bukharan Jews living in the New York area appear to be maintaining their community’s longstanding support for Islam Karimov, the beleaguered president of their native Uzbekistan, despite international media reports that Karimov’s army responded to an uprising and prison break by firing on protesters and killing 500 or more people, including innocent civilians. 

That support comes with a caution, though. 

The United States, several prominent Bukharan leaders said, should stand by Karimov in this crisis for fear that Islamists might take over the country and persecute the estimated 30,000 to 50,000 Jews remaining there. But these leaders contend that Karimov must change course and allow more democracy and economic liberalization. 

Bukharans, who have roots in the Uzbek cities of Bukhara and Samarkand stretching back more than 1,000 years, immigrated en masse to New York and Israel in the early 1990s. Today there are about 10,000 of those Jews remaining in Uzbekistan; the rest are Russian-speaking Ashkenazim, many from families evacuated to Central Asia during World War II who never left. 

The Bukharan community here, which is centered in the Queens neighborhoods of Forest Hills, Rego Park and Kew Gardens, has maintained close personal and commercial ties with their homeland. Leading Bukharans here have met frequently with Karimov and other top Uzbek officials over the years, and have consistently advocated closer relations between the U.S. and Uzbekistan. 

The Bush administration, which in the aftermath of 9-11 opened a military base in Uzbekistan, once hailed that country as an ally in the war on terror, but has strongly criticized the Karimov regime for its recent violent crackdown. 

Rafael Nektalov, editor-in-chief of the Bukharian Times, the largest newspaper of the New York Bukharan community, was in Uzbekistan last week for Jewish communal events in Bukhara, Samarkand and the capital city of Tashkent, all far from the violence in the city of Andijan. 

Nektalov said the Jews he met were calm and maintaining staunch support for Karimov — a position he shares. 

“I think the U.S. must support Karimov at this moment,” he said. “Do people who call for a new regime in Uzbekistan really think those who carried out the uprising and prison break in Andijan are humanitarians who would govern democratically if they ever take power?” 

Boris Pincus, founder and president of the American Association of Central Asian and Caucasian Countries, who days before the eruption of the deadly riot in Andijan met with a State Department official to urge continued strong U.S. support for Karimov, stands by that position. 

“The collapsed economies of the central Asian countries, including Uzbekistan, are a result of the Soviet heritage,” said Pincus, 57. “Instead of publicly condemning Karimov, the U.S. should help Uzbekistan improve its economy and build democratic institutions over time.” 

Pincus, who helped arrange two recent visits by Uzbek government-approved imams to the Bukharan community in Queens, confirmed that one reason the Bukharan community here supports Karimov, the autocratic ruler of Uzbekistan since the country’s independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, is his steadfastness in protecting the Jews in Uzbekistan. 

“Karimov has not only been a friend of our community, but has worked hard to build a secular state where Islam is separated from the government,” the Andijan-born Pincus added. 

Asked if he thought it was unconscionable to support a leader whose troops apparently massacred hundreds of civilians, Pincus replied, “I have serious doubts about the accuracy of the Western media reports. When I spoke by phone last week to the leader of the small Jewish community in Andijan, he told me that most of those killed were shot by the Islamic extremists who started the uprising, not the army.” 

Rafael Shalomov, a singer of Bukharan music who arrived in New York in 1998 from the Uzbek city of Fergana, not far from Andijan, said, “I still have a cousin in the Fergana Valley and a sister in Tashkent, so my first concern is for them. I blame the Islamic extremists, who are ready to use all means, including violence, to grab power for what is happening now. 

“Yes, government troops may have killed some civilians while fighting the extremists, but such tragic accidents often happen to armies at war, including the U.S. Army in Iraq and Afghanistan.” 

Shalomov was one of several Bukharans who met last week for a community party at Da Mikelle II, a Bukharan restaurant in Forest Hills. 

Taking a break from frenetic dancing to lilting, hypnotic Uzbek music and tables filled with Bukharan and international foods, Mara Bababegov, who came here from Tashkent with her husband in 1978, said: “Everyone in the Bukharan community supports Karimov. In a place like Uzbekistan, it is necessary to have a leader with a strong hand in order to maintain order.” 

Ilya Zavolunov, 26, the general manager of Da Mikelle II and two other nearby restaurants founded by his father, Michael, remarked, “It will take 100 years for Central Asian societies to reach the present level of the U.S., so we shouldn’t pressure Karimov to do the impossible. Instead, we should more closely monitor the Islamic agitators in Central Asia, who are a danger not only to Uzbekistan, but to the world.” 

David and Sarah Tamayev, who moved here 16 years ago from Bukhara and visited their hometown two years ago, disagreed. 

“We found that things were so bad economically in Bukhara that almost the entire male population of the city was away working in Russia in order to help their families survive,” said David, a 54-year-old medic. 

“Karimov is guilty of creating a situation where people have nothing to eat,” Sarah said. “Karimov’s rule is good only for his relatives. The vast majority endure terrible poverty.” 

But if Karimov falls, might that not lead to a takeover by Islamic extremists? 

“Yes, that is a real danger, especially for the Jewish population,” Sarah acknowledged. “Perhaps the U.S. should not try to push Karimov out, but we certainly should be pressing him to reform the system and allow democracy.”


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 Forward - 05.26.2005

Forward

Uzbek Unrest Shines Light on Leader's Ties to Jewry

By MARC PERELMAN

The recent violence in Uzbekistan has cast a spotlight on the cozy relationship between the authoritarian regime of President Islam Karimov and Israel and its American supporters.

Earlier this month, Karimov unleashed his security forces to quell an opposition demonstration in the east of the Central Asian republic, causing hundreds of civilian deaths. Even before the latest violence, in recent years the State Department, the United Nations and major human rights organizations all have criticized the Uzbek regime for alleged abuses, including the systematic use of rape and torture against opponents.

Observers said that Karimov, the local communist party's former head who clung to power following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, has used the American Jewish community as a beachhead to cement relations with both Washington and Jerusalem. Israeli and American Jewish communal leaders said that their efforts to cultivate ties with Uzbekistan have been motivated primarily by the regime's positive attitude toward the local Jewish community and Israel as well as its hawkish stand against radical Islam.

Some Israelis and Jewish community leaders have gone even further, defending Uzbekistan's democratic record. Leon Levy, then chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, an umbrella organization comprising 52 national Jewish groups, once hailed Karimov's regime as a "democracy for all the Islamic countries." Last summer, former Israeli minister Natan Sharansky, a prominent advocate of spreading democracy around the world, defended the regime against critics who would defame "the courageous struggle that Uzbekistan is waging against terrorism."

The failure to press Uzbekistan for democratic reforms and to speak out against the regime's human rights abuses is being criticized by some outside observers and communal insiders.

"Uzbekistan has a genuine security problem," said Felice Gaer, director of the Jacob Blaustein Institute for Human Rights at the American Jewish Committee. Gaer was a member of a U.N. committee against torture that issued a scathing report about Uzbekistan in 2002. "But there are very serious human rights violations, and not to recognize them is unconscionable. Jewish groups should be more sensitive to the systematic abuses in Uzbekistan." 

Both Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Presidents Conference, and Mark Levin, executive director of the National Council on Soviet Jewry, countered that the topic of human rights violations was indeed brought up during meetings with Central Asian leaders, including Karimov.

"We never hesitate to raise the issues with them," Hoenlein said, adding that the good relationship with the regime was a result of Karimov's friendly attitude toward the 25,000-strong local Jewish community and Uzbekistan's position in the "frontline" of the war on terror.

Since the attacks of September 11, 2001, Uzbekistan has leased a strategically located base to the American military and, according to The New York Times, has been involved in a dozen cases of "renditions," the practice through which Washington sends terrorist suspects to countries known for practicing torture. Karimov met President Bush at the White House in March 2002. Last year, the administration cut $18 million in aid to Uzbekistan for failing to improve its human rights record.

Democratic revolutions in the former Soviet Union, in Ukraine and Georgia, as well as in neighboring Kyrgyzstan, have ratcheted up pressure on the regime by highlighting its more repressive nature. Opponents have long claimed that Karimov is exaggerating the threat of radical Islam in order to tighten his grip on the country. Regime advocates counter by pointing to several violent incidents over the past years as evidence of the threat's reality. 

Several weeks ago, Karimov dispatched his security forces to the eastern town of Andijan to crack down on a popular demonstration, which was prompted by the jailbreak of several businessmen accused of having links to radical Islamist groups. The government has prevented international observers from reaching the area, but accounts from witnesses indicate that at least several hundred people were killed.

Just as the violence was unfolding in Andijan, an alleged suicide bomber was shot and killed by the police May 13 outside the Israeli embassy in the capital city of Tashkent. As it turned out, he was carrying fake explosives. 

In July 2004, three Uzbek bodyguards were killed in suicide bombings outside the Israeli and American embassies and the Uzbek chief prosecutor's office. American and Israeli officials praised the Uzbek government for its swift reaction.

Israel and Uzbekistan established diplomatic relations in 1992 and have since signed several cooperation agreements. Then-prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu met Karimov in Tashkent in May 1998, and the Uzbek president visited Israel four months later. In September 2000, Karimov appealed to Israel for aid in combating the rise of Islamic violence in the region.

Eager to forge ties with a Muslim country perceived as friendly to Israel, American Jewish communal leaders have maintained good relations with Karimov's regime. Another factor in the relationship has been Sheikh Muhammad Hisham Kabbani, the Uzbek-born head of the Islamic Supreme Council of America whose moderate views have endeared him to Jewish communal leaders. Kabbani, a Sufi, has condemned radical Islam and terrorism repeatedly and has praised the Karimov regime regularly. 

In February 2003, a delegation from the Presidents Conference toured Central Asia and met with six regional leaders. They adopted a declaration stressing the need to denounce terrorism and develop peaceful inter-religious dialogue.

In Israel, one key supporter of Uzbekistan has been Natan Sharansky, the former Soviet refusenik who until recently was minister of Jerusalem and Diaspora affairs.

In an interview with the Israeli daily Novosti Nedeli last August, Sharansky said that terrorism threats were a reminder that Karimov's uncompromising stance against extremists was justified, according to the BBC monitoring service.

"The Uzbek government adopted such an uncompromising position because it is understood in Tashkent, in the same way as Jerusalem, that the battle against terrorism is not some sort of tribal conflict; it is a world war of the forces of democracy against international terrorism," Sharansky was quoted as saying. He added, "It goes without saying that the strengthening, development and defense of democracy in Uzbekistan are an important part of the struggle for human rights all over the world. However, it would be a mistake to believe that the democratization process could be speeded up by way of slander and defaming the courageous struggle that Uzbekistan is waging against terrorism."

Sharansky could not be reached for further comment.

The Weekly Standard, the main neoconservative journal in Washington, published a May 30 editorial arguing that "toleration of Karimov's brutality threatens to undercut this administration's impressive and successful foreign policy." The magazine argued that "it is hardly in our interest to let brutality become a winning strategy, or to let massacres pass without consequences for a regime's relations with the United States."

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JTA - 05.18.2005

Uzbek Jews scared but safe as turmoil hits parts of country

By Lev Krichevsky

MOSCOW (JTA) -- Jewish leaders in Uzbekistan say members of their community feel safe and that no Jews have been hurt in recent unrest that has hit parts of the country. 

But speaking off the record, some Jews told JTA that Jews could begin leaving Uzbekistan later this year if the situation continues to deteriorate. 

In an interview published Tuesday, Uzbekistan's main Jewish religious authority said it was business as usual for his community, and condemned those responsible for anti-government protests in the Central Asian nation of 26 million. 

"The Jewish community of Tashkent and other cities continues to live a normal life," David Gurevich, a Chabad emissary and chief rabbi of Uzbekistan, was quoted as saying by AEN, a Russian Jewish news agency affiliated with the Chabad-led Federation of Jewish Communities, a leading sponsor of Jewish life in Central Asia. 

"The Jewish community condemns any disorders against the existing authorities," he added. 

Violence erupted last week in the eastern city of Andijan when armed men stormed a jail and took control of the local administration building. The rebels were joined by thousands of people who took to the streets to protest the trial of 23 local businessmen on charges of Islamic extremism and to complain about poverty and unemployment. 

Government authorities blamed the turmoil on radical Islamic groups, and troops opened fire on the crowd. 

Uzbek authorities said soldiers shot only at gunmen from a radical Islamist group, but on Tuesday added that more that 150 people had been killed. Opposition sources said the death toll was closer to 800. 

The unrest later spread to the eastern border town of Korasuv, where locals seized control of government buildings Saturday. 

Andijan, where the turmoil started, is home to some 500 Jews, according to Gurevich. 

"No members of the Jewish community took part in the unrest," said the rabbi, adding that the small synagogue in Andijan remained open. 

A Moscow-based Jewish official said his organization has been in touch with the Uzbek Jewish community, and that there had been no calls for urgent help. 

"There is a certain sense of stability now after what happened in Uzbekistan, and although I don't think this will last long, at this point there is absolutely no panic or sense of urgency within the community," said Roman Spektor, a spokesman for the Moscow office of the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress. 

Nearly 90 percent of Uzbekistan's estimated 20,000 Jews live in Tashkent, the capital, which has not been hit by protests. 

"In Tashkent everything is quiet, as if nothing is happening anywhere in the country," a Jewish activist, who asked not to be identified, told JTA on Tuesday in a telephone interview from the Uzbek capital. 

"When the government point of view dominates the press and airwaves here, we don't even know exactly what is going on," the activist said. "Rumors seem to be the most reliable source of information." 

The Federation of Jewish Communities, which operates synagogues and day schools across the former Soviet Union, said it will increase the budget for Uzbekistan to make sure the Jewish community has enough security. 

"We are sending them additional funds to set up more armed guards around schools," said Avraham Berkowitz, the federation's Moscow-based executive director. "They are actually in a lot of fear, but the leaders of the community are trying to calm down the people." 

Since independence in 1991, Uzbekistan has been ruled by autocrat Islam Karimov. Despite his increasingly poor record on human rights and democratic issues, Karimov has earned a reputation in the United States as a leader able to keep a tight rein on Islamic fundamentalists in an area plagued by radical and separatist trends. 

Apparently as part of his campaign to please the West, Karimov has made many overtures to the Jewish community, allowing Jews to open synagogues, schools and charitable centers. 

"Karimov's government has always been very helpful to the Jewish community, allowing Jews to practice freely, to be public, to educate their children," Berkowitz said. 

A Moscow Jewish woman who has family in Uzbekistan said she urged her relatives to pack up and leave as soon as they can. 

"I called my sister in Tashkent the day it all began," said Mira Rivlina, a pediatrician from Moscow. "I asked her what else needs to happen to make her understand she doesn't have to sit there any more. But you know, she has family, two kids, and it's hard to make a quick decision unless someone breaks into your own apartment one day." 

While there's now no indication that Uzbek Jews are planning to leave, "if the situation drags on for months, we can expect more people will go on aliyah or move to Russia," Berkowitz said.

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JTA - 05.18.2005

A brief history of Uzbek Jewry

By Lev Krichevsky

MOSCOW (JTA) -- A large indigenous Jewish community -- known as Bukharan Jews, after the Uzbek city of Bukhara -- lived in what is now Uzbekistan for many centuries, involved in crafts and local and international trade. 

Beginning in the late 19th century, when the region fell under the Russian influence, Ashkenazi Jews from the European sections of Russia settled in the region as well. Many were engineers, doctors or lawyers, and they provided the area's first generation of local intelligentsia. 

After the advent of communism and its war on religion, Jews in Uzbekistan, like those in the other remote parts of the Soviet Union, found it easier to keep their traditions alive than did Jews in the European part of the Bolshevik empire. There, Jewish religion and traditions were subject to persecution. 

Many religiously observant Jewish families took advantage of the area's relative religious freedom, living Jewish lives and educating their children in Judaism. That was particularly true of the Lubavitch Chasidim who came to the area both before and after World War II, either because they had been sent into exile or because they had fled there to avoid Communist repression. 

The community grew substantially during World War II with the arrival of thousands of Ashkenazi Jewish refugees and evacuees from Nazi-occupied parts of the Soviet Union. The two communities, Bukharan and Ashkenazi, still retain their distinctive features, and they rarely intermarry. 

Most Bukharan Jews, who value the tradition of living as extended families, emigrated to Israel or the United States in the 1970s and in the years following the collapse of communism in 1991.

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 Jerusalem Post - 05.16.2005

Jerusalem Post



Uzbek Jews asked God to stop this war


SAM SER AND AP

A human rights advocacy group in Uzbekistan said on Monday that government troops' violence against protesters is "sheer genocide against the people." 

Saidjahon Zaynabitdinov, head of the local human rights group, told Associated Press Television News: "The people now are more afraid of government troops than of any so-called militants." 

Zaynabitdinov reiterated the protesters' contention that they were not aiming to overthrow the government, but simply wanted to air their grievances. 

"The demonstrators did not have any claims to power. It was just an outpouring of people's feelings. People were driven out into the streets," he said. 

The bloody uprising in Uzbekistan over the weekend provided a scare for the area's Jews but they are out of danger, several members of the local Jewish community told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday. 

"Our home is near the area of the fighting," said Vitalik Brook, son of Andijan's rabbi, Slavik Brook. "We heard the shooting all night [into Friday morning]; we couldn't sleep," he said. 

Brook described how masses punched through a wall of the local prison, setting free thousands of people before the gunfire started. The death toll was reported to have been as high as 500. 

The people of Andijan were unable to move freely through the town from Friday night through Saturday afternoon, but a few Jews succeeded in making their way to the synagogue for Shabbat morning prayers. 

"They wanted to ask God to stop this war," said Brook. 

Immediately after Shabbat ended, Uzbekistan's Chief Rabbi Abba David Gurevich called all the synagogues in the area for updates. "It was pretty sameach [happy] apparently," he said, laughing off the tension, "but fortunately, the rioters don't care about Jews. It's an internal thing." 

Uzbek President Islam Karimov blamed terrorists aligned with Hizb ut-Tahrir, an underground Central Asian group seeking to create a worldwide Islamic state. 

Approximately 90 percent of Uzbeks are Muslim. 

Although thousands of Uzbeks were reported fleeing across the border into Kyrgyzstan, several sources said Jews were not among them.
Still, Gurevich felt the need to calm the area's Jews after the bloodshed in Andijan, coupled with the killing of an assailant at the Israeli Embassy in Tashkent on Friday. 

The Chabad emissary sent letters to all the Jewish communities, including advice from the deceased Rebbe Menachem Schneerson to remain steadfast and God-fearing, and Gurevich's own request that they all recite psalms. 

Whether it was the prayer of the brave handful of Andijan Jews, the rebbe's caution, or the general populace's fear of automatic gunfire, Jews across Uzbekistan were confident that calm had taken hold by Sunday afternoon. 

In Fergana, the volatile valley dominated by Muslim terrorists where the weekend uprising took place, one worker at the Jewish community center told the Post in broken Hebrew: "It was bad, but now it is good. It's OK. Don't worry."

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 Ha'aretz - 05.13.2005

Ha'aretz

Man with fake bomb killed at embassy in Tashkent

By Yoav Stern, Haaretz Correspondent, Haaretz Service and News Agencies 

A suspected bomber was shot and killed Friday morning outside the Israeli embassy in the Uzbek capital of Tashkent as unrest racked the eastern part of the country, according to the U.S. embassy and Israel's Foreign Ministry.

The Israeli ambassador, in a conversation with Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, confirmed a report by an Uzbek police official who said the suspect was carrying wooden objects that only appeared to be explosives, Israel Radio reported.

The clothing of the suspected bomber, who was wearing an overcoat, aroused the suspicion of the guards outside the embassy, who called for him to halt. When he continued approaching the building, they shot him in the leg.

The suspect continued moving toward the embassy, and was shot and killed by the guards.

The five Israeli staff members at the embassy were inside the building at the time of the incident and there were no injuries.

The incident is being investigated.

A mission of Israeli businesspeople that was slated to head for Uzbekistan on Sunday postponed its trip in the wake of the Tashkent incident.

Shalom said he ordered security measures boosted at Israeli diplomatic missions around the world. He also told the radio that the Tashkent Jewish community went on alert following the Friday morning incident. 

Shalom said the high alert - entailing stepped up patrols at each embassy - was in place until further notice. "There are many groups always trying to attack Israeli missions ... We have to always be prepared," Shalom said. "The alert will be continued as long 
as the situation warrants it."

In July 2004, three suicide bombings in the Tashkent targeted the embassies of Israel and the United States, and the general prosecutor's office. Three people, all locals, lost their lives in the attacks and eight were injured.

Hours after the 2004 bombings, the Islamic Jihad Group in Uzbekistan, which has links to Al-Qaida, claimed responsibility for the attacks in a message on an Islamic Web site.

"A group of young Muslims carried out martyrdom operations which confused the apostate government and its infidel allies of Americans and Jews," said the message. An Uzbek police anti-terror official said then that the bombings were the work of the same extremist group behind similar strikes in Uzbekistan earlier last year.

Meanwhile, armed protesters freed inmates from a prison and security forces fired into the air as thousands of activists rallied in the eastern Uzbek city of Andijan to protest the trial of 23 Muslim businessmen on extremism charges, witnesses said.

Nine people were reported killed and 34 wounded in armed clashes.

Some 80 percent of Uzbekis are Muslim, mostly Sunni. 

The chief rabbi of Uzbekistan told Israel Radio he feared for the fate of the Jewish community in Andijan following the outbreak of violence. The rabbi said he had not been able to contact community representatives via telephone.

Armed crowds in Andijan surrounded police in two city districts on Friday and talks were underway to free them, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported, citing President Islam Karimov's office.

Karimov and other leaders were flying to Andijan, while the Defense Ministry held an urgent meeting on the unrest, police and government officials said on condition of anonymity.

The city's administrative buildings remained under government control, the officials said.

"The people have risen," said Valijon Atakhonjonov, the brother of one of defendants in the trial.

Atakhonjonov, reached by telephone from Tashkent, described chaos in the streets of Andijan, with shots being fired into the air by security forces and thousands of people massing in front of the local administration building.

However, a government spokesman in Andijan, also reached by telephone, said city and regional administrative buildings remained under government control.

Armed demonstrators went to a prison to free inmates overnight, Atakhonjonov said, but he could not confirm reports that the crowd had attacked an army garrison as well.

The 23 defendants are charged with anti-constitutional activity and forming a criminal and extremist organization, but rights activists say the case is part of a broad government crackdown on religious dissent. All of the defendants pleaded not guilty at their trial, which opened February 10.

Several thousand joined a protest on Wednesday, demanding that the 23 men be freed in one of the largest recent public shows of mounting anger over alleged rights abuses by the ex-Soviet republic's government.

Activists who joined the Wednesday protest were not responsible for the overnight attack on the prison, Atakhonjonov said.

The men, arrested in June, are accused of being members of the Akramia religious group and having contacts with the outlawed radical Islamic party Hizb-ut-Tahrir. Authorities accuse Hizb-ut-Tahrir of inspiring terror attacks in Uzbekistan last year that killed more than 50. The group, which claims to eschew violence, denied responsibility.

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