Rights Group Assails Western Willingness to Abet Central Asia's Authoritarians
Human Rights Watch, in its 2008 World Report, lambasted authoritarian regimes for using the trappings of democracy to hide flaws in governance. The report also took a swipe at the world's established democracies, saying that their approval of sham democratization practices for reasons of political expedience had undermined global human rights standards.
Despite a few bright spots, HRW's analysis of rights conditions in Central Asia and the Caucasus offered prime examples of the compromises made by both rights-abusing regimes and their enablers.
Uzbekistan had the dubious distinction of being the first country from any region mentioned in the report. Despite imprisoning some 7,000 people on political or religious grounds, massacring hundreds during a 2005 protest in the city of Andijan, and brooking no dissent, President Islam Karimov's government "finds utility in holding electoral charades to legitimize his reign," wrote Executive Director Kenneth Roth in the report's introduction.
The group criticized international actors for wavering on Uzbekistan, noting that the UN's Human Rights Council closed an investigation of the Uzbek rights record in March 2007, even though the government obstructed this and other UN inquiries. Meanwhile, the report added, "the European Union continued to use every opportunity to chip away at its already modest sanctions policy towards Uzbekistan, first introduced post-Andijan."
Kazakhstan also received prominent billing in the 2008 report. Western democracies eventually approved the country's bid to chair the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), in the face of flawed parliamentary elections, use of the justice system for political ends, and the passage of constitutional amendments that abolished term limits for President Nursultan Nazarbayev. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].
Roth suggested that this "evidence-be-damned" approach by the OSCE providing a major concession in exchange for hollow commitments to the group's core principles exemplified the triumph of geopolitical and energy concerns over democratic values. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].
Such "wishful thinking" by the developed democracies on Kazakhstan extended to nearby Georgia, according to the report, which was issued on January 31 International actors, it said, "mostly gave the benefit of the doubt to a government that had come to power on the reform promise of the Rose Revolution, and that had a strong stated commitment to human rights and the rule of law."
But a violent crackdown on opposition protests in the capital appeared to shake the international community. Responding to an alleged coup attempt on November 7, riot police tore into a crowd of demonstrators, injuring over 550, the report said. A month-long suspension of the main independent television station, Imedi, began immediately thereafter, creating a temporary lack of alternative news in the run-up to snap presidential elections in January. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].
Human Rights Watch said that realpolitik specifically the need for reliable sources of energy ensured that international criticism of neighboring Azerbaijan's rights record would not be followed by action. The 2008 report recounted several cases of intimidation and legal persecution of opposition groups and independent media outlets. HRW highlighted the libel and tax evasion convictions of popular opposition editor Eynulla Fatullayev. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].
HRW also reported pressure on Armenia's independent journalists and noted the persistence of torture by police and other law enforcement bodies. In a rare bright spot, though, the parliamentary elections in May "largely met international standards," it said, citing international observers.
Whereas Western countries may have been complicit in downplaying Kazakh, Georgian, and Azeri rights violations, Kyrgyzstan's government seems to have needed no help. Former opposition politician Kurmanbek Bakiyev promised greater democracy after taking power during the 2005 Tulip Revolution, but the report outlined a tumultuous constitutional amendment process that eventually worked to the president's advantage, as well as cases of persecution of civic activists and the dispersal of political protests. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. The still-unsolved murder of independent journalist Alisher Saipov, whose penetrating coverage of neighboring Uzbekistan had angered authorities across the border, led some to question whether Kyrgyzstan's comparatively freer media environment was deteriorating.
Human Rights Watch noted that torture and ill treatment in detention centers continued to plague Tajikistan, to Kyrgyzstan's south. A new law permitting broad oversight of non-governmental groups and requiring their re-registration may have been designed to rein in independent voices.
As Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan continued to falter, the December 2006 death of longtime dictator Saparmurat Niyazov made it seem as if Turkmenistan had nowhere to go but up. New President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov sparked hopes of a thaw by restoring pensions, allowing greater freedom of movement, and promising to reverse Niyazov's damaging education policies. But core aspects of Niyazov's police state such as the suppression and persecution of independent thought and action remained intact. The international religious freedom monitoring group Forum 18 actually registered a rise in persecution of religious minorities in 2007, according to Human Rights Watch.
Berdymukhamedov stated his willingness to re-engage with the world after years of isolation under Niyazov. "This greater openness," the HRW report said, "presented a significant opportunity to press specific reform, such as the release of all political prisoners an opportunity the many foreign diplomatic visitors to Turkmenistan during 2007 have largely squandered."
Ultimately, Roth wrote in the introduction, true democracies would need to commit themselves anew to defending their core values, rather than assenting to a "feel-good, empty alternative." As with beauty, he wrote, "the meaning of democracy lies too much in the eye of the beholder."
Daniel Sershen is a freelance journalist who specializes in Central Asia and the Caucasus.
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