Closure of the VOA Uzbek Service 2.27.01   Nasratullah Laheeb, chief, VOA Uzbek Service	U	Z B E K I S T A N
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Since its independence in 1991, following the demise of the Soviet Union, Uzbekistan has struggled with the political and economic demands of a new nation. Although Uzbekistan has a constitution which outlines a parliamentary system with guarantees for basic human rights and political and economic freedoms, the government of President Islam Karimov has maintained strict control over the country's institutions and population. The government has continued to justify its systematic crackdown on any opposition as an effort to ensure stability and progress. Beatings, harassment, jailing, torture and persecution have virtually eliminated public protest in Uzbekistan.
The media have fared no better than political parties. Today there are no legal independent broadcasts or print media in the Republic of Uzbekistan. In the summer of 1993, the process of media registration began. Almost four hundred daily and weekly papers had to state their ownership and the source of funding. The government, President Karimov's People's Democratic Party (former Communist Party) and the parliament were declared to be the official owners of newspapers and periodicals. Print journalists are subjected to direct, institutionalized censorship despite Article Four of the law on mass media, which clearly makes this illegal.

The Uzbek government's public calls for greater press freedom lie in stark contrast to its complete failure to give force that guarantees freedom of expression, as well as to the impunity granted to those who beat and harass journalists. Today there exists a tension between official government policy toward free speech, which allows the principle of free media and the stark reality for journalists and media consumers who cannot enjoy the practice of free media because of government harassment. Specialists like journalist and Internews lawyer, Karim Bahriev, believe that the Uzbek mass media laws are good on paper, but no public debate on freedom-of-speech issues is allowed to exist. Journalists perceived as a threat to the power structure are not only jailed for what they write, but are entrapped by other means, such as having narcotics planted on them.
One such example in the past year was S. Yalgashev, who wrote for the paper funded by and named after puppet political party Adalat (Justice). After publishing critical material against the regional mayor, Yalgashev was arrested for the possession of narcotics. Another journalist, for the state paper Khalq Sozi (The People's Word), Polat Gadaev, was arrested for taking a bribe after publishing critical material against the government. Shadi Mardiev, a journalist who presented the program "The Law and Us" on a regional radio station in Samarkand and which was often critical of the authorities, was sentenced to eleven years in jail and is said to have suffered two strokes. Two Russian journalists from the news agency Panorama were beaten up by a group of strangers as they were leaving the Tashkent home of a human-rights campaigner. A few days earlier, they had gone to the Fergana Valley to meet govt opponents, human-rights activists. As Holly Cartner, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch/Helsinki, wrote: "Censorship coupled with political repression is so much a way of life for journalists, that most of the time they censor their own questions before asking them, and this leads to the insidious practice of self-censorship."

Reporters Sans Frontieres has selected twenty (20) countries, including Uzbekistan, that it regards as enemies of the Internet because they control access totally or partially on the pretext of protecting the public from "subversive ideas" or defending "national security and unity." Last year several U.S. congressmen prepared a draft bill on Central Asia which has been adopted in a sub-committee. They expressed their deep concern about the tendency of Central Asian leader to seek to remain in power indefinitely and their willingness to manipulate constitutions, elections, legislative and judicial systems. They urged the President, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense and other United States officials to raise with Central Asian leaders, at every opportunity, the concern about serious violations of human rights. According to them, the U-S government with the participating states in the region that engage in clear, gross and uncorrected violation of its OSCE commitments on human rights, democracy and the rule of law and they urge the Voice of America and Radio Liberty to expand broadcasting to Central Asia.
State Dept annual report says, " in Uzbekistan, the press operates under such restrictions that there is very limited freedom of speech." Opposition members and human rights activists in Uzbekistan and exile leaders of banned political parties from Uzbekistan recently sent an open letter to VOA saying that they are deeply troubled by the decision of the BBG and respectfully urge them to consider reversing this decision. Because VOA/Uzbek has been the only venue for the voiceless human rights activists, opposition members and the ordinary people who are subject to oppression in Central Asia. As you are well aware of the situation in Uzbekistan and surrounding republics, the freedom of press does NOT exist.

[ VOA claims that the Uzbek service is redundant because it is already provided by Radio Free Europe. However, RFE (operated by Soros) gives the Karimov dictatorship a free pass on human rights violations.
It is very important to keep the Uzbek service going because indigenous language broadcasting is the key element fostering independent thinking in the former Soviet Union. The only indigenous Central Asian VOA language service currently is Uzbek. _{B.Royce * per wm} ]

For all intents and purposes, the government completely controls mass media. VOA-UZBEK is the only voice of the people who have no other means to express their complaints and frustrations.The Service interviews Uzbek human rights activists, opposition leaders, Uzbek government officials on various issues. Our broadcasting also is focused on promoting democracy, freedom, human rights,environmental issues and the American values in these countries where people overwhelmingly get their unbiased information from Voice of America. What is more troubling is that the only Voice of America radio broadcasts into Uzbekistan will be in Russian. The language perceived by local Uzbeks as the language of the occupiers. We at the Uzbek language service are deeply troubled by the decision because we believe thatin order for this service to be useful and effective in Uzbekistan, it is absolutely necessary to communicate to them in Uzbek.
The BBG s decision to eliminate the Uzbek language service contradicts their stated purpose. It also contradicts Congressional Resolution 397 (Oct.20, 2000) which stated that " urge the Voice of America to expand broadcasting to Central Asia, as needed, which focus on assuring that the peoples of the region have access to unbiased news and programs that support human rights and the establishment of democracy and the rule of law. The Bush administration should support independent broadcasting in the emerging states of the former Soviet Union and with the forces of communism and repression gaining ground in various countries, the VOA Uzbek

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Armed forces   In 2000, Uzbekistan bought $34K in military weapons from U.S., $1.6 million in 1998. "Kiev has had significant advances on the CIS markets too. For instance, Malyev says that there has been a significant expansion of contracts with Turkmenistan, in particular 'the air-defence system of Turkmenistan has been repaired with the help of Ukrainian experts, enterprises and institutes; other works on certain air-defence systems are under way'. The military technology cooperation with Uzbekistan is on a similar level. Active work has been started with the Baltic states. Naturally, the military technology cooperation within GUUAM Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and Moldova is developing and Ukraine has been implementing a number of contracts, mostly of repairs and modernization of military hardware, with Georgia and Azerbaijan."

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