Washington Post - 10.09.2001

 

Washington Post

Uzbekistan Bets Role in Region, Internal Security On U.S. Alliance

Collaboration Against Taliban Is 'Chance' Leader 'Can't Lose'

By Susan B. Glasser

TASHKENT, Uzbekistan, Oct. 8 -- There's never been much ambiguity about President Islam Karimov's position on Islamic terrorists in Uzbekistan. "Such people should be shot in the head," the dictatorial leader, who is America's newest ally, once declared in an address to parliament. "If necessary, I'll shoot them myself."

Karimov has used many weapons, from torture alleged to have occurred in his jails, to military checkpoints on key roads, to U.S.-trained special forces. He has mined Uzbekistan's 85-mile border with Afghanistan and declared war against the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, a homegrown terrorist group fighting inside Afghanistan at the side of the ruling Taliban militia.

Now, the former Communist Party boss has made an unprecedented alliance against Afghanistan with the United States by allowing the U.S. military to use a base here to station ground troops, planes and helicopters. The abrupt shift -- "it's absolutely colossal," said one former Karimov adviser -- reflects a feeling that the president has launched a battle against terrorists he cannot win without outside help.

The deal with Washington also represents Uzbekistan's bid to become the regional power it has long aspired to be. "For Karimov, teaming up with the United States against Afghanistan is a chance he can't lose," said Georgy Sitnyansky, a Central Asia expert in Moscow. "If the Taliban are not defeated, he will always have the threat hanging over Uzbekistan from the south."

But even with Central Asia's largest standing army and a strong hold on power in this volatile region, Karimov has been hampered by lack of money and political will to strike beyond Uzbekistan's borders.

Instead, he has quarreled with his neighbors, blaming Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan for also harboring the Islamic Movement, squabbling with Kazakhstan over borders drawn by the Soviet Union, and warning that Russia still harbors imperialist designs on its former Central Asian territories.

Uzbekistan is hardly able to navigate its own post-Soviet economic crisis. Weapons are outdated, military facilities rusting. Money that could have been spent on reforming Soviet-era collective farms or cleaning up environmental disasters has gone instead to maintaining the standing army of 200,000. And such spending has increased since 1998, when the Taliban won control over the portion of Afghanistan that borders Uzbekistan.

"Uzbekistan is a small country that has its own massive problems, primarily economic ones," said the former Karimov adviser. "We cannot play a role like a superpower would play."

In joining the anti-Afghanistan alliance, Uzbekistan's immediate goal is not only to wipe out the Taliban, but also to crush the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), which aims to oust Karimov and install a fundamentalist religious government here. Uzbekistan's chief target is Juma Namangani, the leader of the IMU who reportedly has emerged as a top lieutenant to suspected terrorist Osama bin Laden in recent months.

The Uzbek government has sentenced Namangani, in absentia, to death, accusing him of plotting explosions here in the capital, Tashkent, two years ago that killed 18 people, as well as leading armed forays into Uzbekistan in 1999 and 2000. But until now, the Uzbeks have not been able to take their fight with Namangani to his Afghan haven.

Reports about how many fighters Namangani commands range widely, from a Western diplomat's estimate of about 1,000 to claims by the Northern Alliance, the main opposition to the Taliban, of up to 5,000, to Uzbek government figures of up to 9,000.

But all accounts agree that the IMU has grown from a small, national group aimed at ousting Karimov to a broader movement focused on Central Asia and drawing recruits from Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and even China.

For now, however, the Islamic Movement is helping the Taliban, with its fighters currently battling the Northern Alliance in northern Afghanistan. "It's clear from many sources that the IMU is on the front lines in Afghanistan," said one Western observer who has closely followed the group.

Beyond crushing the IMU, Uzbekistan has other goals it may hope to achieve by offering support to Washington. In addition to the prospect of more investment from the West, Uzbekistan is one of two doubly landlocked countries in the world, meaning it has no easy access to a seaport to export its products.

Cotton, which is the country's chief product, is among the goods that must travel a long and circuitous route from Uzbekistan to Turkmenistan and then to ports in Georgia. Other Uzbek products travel all the way to the Baltic Sea for export. What Tashkent covets is a more direct route through Afghanistan directly to the Pakistani port of Karachi, on the Arabian Sea.

At home, Karimov has been effective at imposing his will. Despite human rights concerns, Western observers here have taken a pragmatic attitude toward Karimov's heavy-handed campaign. "The Uzbeks have gone to great lengths to ensure there are no Islamic extremists out walking the streets," said one observer. "We have strong philosophical differences with how they've gone about it, but there's no doubt it's been effective."

Karimov has also effectively waged the information war inside Uzbekistan, aided by a state-controlled media fanning fears of terrorism. A recent visit to the dusty desert town of Karshi, about 100 miles north of Afghanistan, made clear just how effective that part of the campaign has been.

"Terrorism is the major enemy of our national independence," declared Anvar Chareyev, a philosophy professor at Karshi State University, brandishing a copy of Karimov's book on the subject.

At Karshi's central market, just a few minutes down the road from the Khanabad military base, where about 1,000 U.S. troops have landed, the reasoning was less erudite but the arguments were similar.

Nurse Faragat Zyotova, surrounded by a crowd of approving shoppers, said the IMU "want to take power for themselves. This is why we all support President Karimov; he will make sure there's no war here."