UNITED STATES COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE
(HELSINKI COMMISSION) HOLDS BRIEFING: HUMAN RIGHTS IN UZBEKISTAN THREE YEARS
AFTER ANDIJAN EVENTS
MAY 13, 2008
COMMISSIONERS:
REP. ALCEE L. HASTINGS, D-FLA., CHAIRMAN
REP. LOUISE M. SLAUGHTER, D-N.Y.
REP. MIKE MCINTYRE, D-N.C.
REP. HILDA L. SOLIS, D-CALIF.
REP. G.K. BUTTERFIELD, D-N.C.
REP. CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, R-N.J.
REP. ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, R-ALA.
REP. MIKE PENCE, R-IND.
REP. JOSEPH R. PITTS, R-PENN.
SEN. BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, D-MD., CO-CHAIRMAN
SEN. CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, D-CONN.
SEN. RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, D-WIS.
SEN. HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON, D-N.Y.
SEN. JOHN F. KERRY, D-MASS.
SEN. SAM BROWNBACK, R-KAN.
SEN. GORDON H. SMITH, R-ORE.
SEN. SAXBY CHAMBLISS, R-GA.
SEN. RICHARD BURR, R-N.C.
WITNESSES/PANELISTS:
MASHA LISITSYNA,
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH'S EUROPE AND CENTRAL ASIA DIVISION
SHAHIDA TULAGANOVA,
DOCUMENTARY FILM MAKER WHO LAUNCHED THE
UZBEK-LANGUAGE NEWSPAPER SIYOSAT
JULIETTE WILLIAMS,
FOUNDING DIRECTOR,
ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE FOUNDATION
ERIC MCGLINCHEY,
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS,
GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY
[The briefing was held at 10:00 a.m. in Room B-319 of the
Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, D.C., Ron McNamara, international
policy director for the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe,
moderating]
[*]
MCNAMARA: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Ron McNamara. I'm
currently serving as the international policy director for the Commission on
Security and Cooperation in Europe.
We welcome you to today's briefing, which is co-sponsored by the Helsinki
Commission along with the Open Society Institute of the Soros Foundation.
As it happens, Congress does not reconvene until late this afternoon, and
unfortunately Congressman Alcee Hastings, our commission chairman, could not
return from his district in Florida in time to open today's proceedings.
However, he is very much interested in the subject, having been a visitor to
Uzbekistan numerous times. And we will report...
(AUDIO GAP)
... have things gotten worse, or have they largely remained the same?
And we would like to ask our witnesses to discuss various aspects of the
current situation...
(AUDIO GAP)
... apart from the general issues of democratization and human rights
observance, they will also address the problem of child labor in the cotton
industry.
Among our witnesses are experts on that subject, which has recently been
drawing considerable international attention.
Finally, we want our witnesses to talk about the state of U.S.-Uzbek relations
and the possibility for improving those ties.
In the order in which our experts will be speaking this morning, we have Masha
Lisitsyna, Human Rights Watch's Europe and Central Asia Division. She was the
primary author of the just-released Human Rights Watch report on Uzbekistan.
And there are copies available outside of our briefing room today.
Then we'll hear from Shahida Tulaganova, a documentary film maker who launched
the Uzbek-language newspaper Siyosat.
Third, we'll hear from Juliette Williams, founding director of the
Environmental Justice Foundation, a U.K.-based nonprofit, and a principal
author of "White Gold: Uzbekistan, Cotton and the Crushing of a Nation."
She has 16 years experience in field investigations, international advocacy and
capacity-building for grassroots environment and human rights defenders.
And last but not least, we'll hear from Dr. Eric McGlinchey, associate
professor of government and politics at George Mason University and a
specialist on Central Asia. He's testified with us previously, and we are
delighted to have him back this morning.
So at this point, I will turn to Ms. Lisitsyna.
LISITSYNA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Good morning, everybody. I have an honor to present our last report on
Andijan. It's our third report.
And we'd like to start with a remark that when we think about Andijan, we think
about at least three tragedies that affect hundreds of people each, and they
still continue to affect people today.
One is the massacre itself, and I think everybody in the room knows that
hundreds of people there were killed by Uzbek governmental forces.
And still today, Uzbek government did not recognize its responsibility for this
massacre and did not allow the independent international investigation into the
events.
The second is the crackdown, when hundreds of people were tortured after the
events. Hundreds of people continue to perish in Uzbek jails after the unfair
trials, and they want them -- the human rights defenders.
And (inaudible) some progress. It's released eight of the human rights
defenders. But we should remember that at least 12 of other defenders are
still in Uzbek jails today and have no hope for their soon release and
recognition of their rights.
And this whole tragedy -- it's what our report (inaudible) speak about. It's a
tragedy that happens today. It's a repression that continues in Andijan.
The targets among the general population; also very specific groups of people
who are described in this report that you are welcome to help yourself with
outside of the room after the event.
Uzbek government continues to target those who stayed in Andijan and could have
witnessed anything that happened on May 13, 2005. The report that we just
released documents that people continue to be interrogated.
The new criminal cases are started against the witness of the events. People
are still tortured today. All the interviews in the report are 2007, 2008.
It's all new interviews that we conducted outside of Uzbekistan.
And they're threatened of imprisonment, and they're forced to testify against
the others, and most of the confessions are false.
The other group that they've really targeted -- it's relatives of anybody who
fled the country and also of anybody who is in prison. We documented constant
repression against, I would say, all families. All the relatives we
interviewed were summoned to the police. Some were beaten. Some were not.
Mahala committees, which has neighborhood committees but which serves Uzbek
government for its source of local administration, always come to the homes,
deprives the families of the social benefits.
And we documented also the repression of the children, who are often called in
schools by teachers the children of the enemies of the state.
And again, this happens today, three years after the massacre. What happens --
it's a little bit less visible. If directly after the massacre people were
called like every day or every week to the police, now it's every two months,
every month, every three months. It depends. But it will happen.
Families reported to us the constant surveillance. They often have like
unidentified cars waiting near to their houses. Some women spoke to us that
they can't visit other families during the public holidays.
All of them or most of them are forced to sign the undertaking not to leave
Andijan, do not travel abroad, do not go abroad to join their families.
And the new pattern that the report documents -- it's extensive pressure on the
families to call the refugees back. As you know, about 500 people fled
Andijan, managed to fled Andijan, in 2005, and most of them were resettled in
western countries, in United States and Europe.
Uzbek government put a lot of effort now to bring refugees back, and refugee
organizations call this return of the refugees unprecedented. All families of
the resettled refugees reported to us that they are asked by the law
enforcement bodies to call their relatives back.
Some of refugees, some of our interviewees, reported the whole schemes, how it
should work, that some of the main defendants at Andijan trial, like important
family, would get a deal with the security forces that one of the resettler
refugees from the family would return, and someone else from this family would
be released from prison or would stop being tortured.
And then the returned refugee would tell to others how great it is to be in
Andijan, that everything is in the past now, and other will come back as well.
We did not manage to speak to any one of the returnees from the United States,
but we spoke to people who returned from Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, and we
spoke to a number of people who knew the returnees.
And they all told us that all the returnees are isolated. Most of them cannot
find work. Employers are prohibited to hire more than one returnee. They
can't -- like two persons can't be hired to the same place. The employer will
have repercussions. And they only can communicate with each other under cover.
The report speaks more about the problems. I have limited time, so I will not
go on into the more repression that Uzbek government still exercise in Andijan.
I would just also mention that people who are released from prison connected to
Andijan events are forced to work as informants for the government.
And in most cases, they're not only forced to report to the security forces,
but also to sign false confessions, identify false people as participants of
the event, report if they see anybody who might have been connected to Andijan,
and also they're forced to ask other refugees to return.
Mr. Chairman spoke about the sanctions that European Union imposed on
Uzbekistan and recently suspended again.
Human Rights Watch thinks that if sanctions are suspended, the most important
is to prolong the sanctions, that, OK, they might be suspended for six months,
but the threat of sanctions should continue. It shouldn't be abolished
altogether.
And there's also legislation on the foreign appropriations bill in United
States that should be considered in June that contains the threat as well of
sanctions on Uzbekistan if considerable progress on human rights is not
achieved.
Human Rights Watch believes that the sanctions do work, but the most important
is to assure the human rights improvement, the progress.
If the government of Uzbekistan is able to demonstrate -- would be able to
demonstrate considerable progress on human rights for sure, we wouldn't need
the sanctions. But unfortunately, to date, it's still not the case.
And we think that international community should not forget Andijan and forget
that Andijan is not only three years ago but, as our report documents, it's
still today. Thank you.
MCNAMARA: Thank you very much.
Before turning to Ms. Tulaganova, I should mention that the format of our
briefing today -- should time permit at the end, we'll be happy to entertain
questions from the audience.
Also, I should mention that within 24 hours we'll have a transcript online at
the commission's Web site, new and improved Web site, which is www.CSCE.gov.
Ms. Tulaganova?
TULAGANOVA: So three years after Andijan tragedy, and we hear the voices
within the European Union and the United States saying that let's forget
Andijan and move on.
But before we consider whether to move on or not, let's concentrate on the
facts on the ground, right, and I would like to compliment the speech of my
colleague, Masha Lisitsyna, on human rights in Uzbekistan, as she brilliantly
did in Andijan.
Now, some human rights statistics. Six or eight human rights defenders which
were released is great.
We have the statistics on civil society activists, which include journalists,
opposition members and simple NGO workers. From the period of from 2005 to
2008, 43 civil society activists were jailed. And at the moment, 27 are still
in jail. Twenty-four were released.
Torture is still endemic in Uzbek penitentiary system. It was stated in the
U.N. report on torture in 2007.
The recent cases -- and probably the most prominent are Mutabarta Jibiava (ph),
the human rights defender who's still in prison and in very bad health.
According to her daughters, she is severely tortured.
And then Uzbek poet Yusuf Juma, who was arrested in December 2007. His house
was attacked by Uzbek security services, and he was jailed for five years. His
only crime, as far as he's concerned, is to voice his opposition and protest
against illegitimate presidential elections in Uzbekistan.
Now, according to the information of his lawyer and his family, he was badly
tortured, he lost weight, and he's in very ill health.
As far as the freedom of speech is concerned, the situation is not better.
There were no improvements in Uzbekistan in this respect. Internet is still
very controlled by the government. There is no access to opposition or any
news (inaudible) as you probably know.
And the highlight of this whole thing was the murder of a Kyrgyz ethnic Uzbek
journalist from Kyrgyzstan, Alisher Saipov, in October 2007 in the southern
Kyrgyz city of Osh.
He was the editor of the Uzbek-language newspaper Siyosat, which proved to be
incredibly popular in the neighboring Uzbekistan. The investigation still goes
on, but we believe that he was killed by the Uzbek security operatives.
Now, the silent victims of this regime are not adults but children. At least
two million schoolchildren from the age of nine to 15 every year are forced to
work in Uzbek cotton fields to pick cotton.
This cotton industry profits only one people, only certain amount of people in
the country -- it's political elite. Nobody else gets anything out of this
cotton.
Our children are kept in inhumane conditions. They don't have adequate food,
hygiene. They are kept there from two to three months, and they have no right
to education, so potentially we're facing an illiterate generation.
Poverty -- there were no -- the situation of poverty is getting worse. I think
the only reason this country still survives is because we have the huge army of
labor migrants in Kazakhstan and Russia.
And I think the only reason that people are still not dying because of hunger
is because every member of the family has got somebody who is working outside
of Uzbekistan.
Presidential elections in 2007 were absolutely illegitimate. We are very
disappointed as a civil society that no one actually said anything -- no one
meaning not the European Union, not the United States -- said anything
significant condemning these elections.
And the fact is that everyone is dealing with illegitimate president and
illegitimate government.
Now, we think that sanctions work, and we totally support the position of the
Human Rights Watch, because at least the government has something to fear.
In 2006, where the sanctions had its climax, we had nine civil society
activists being released. In 2007, none of them has been released.
So I think in this case, sanctions should be continued, and the pressure should
continue to be put on on the government of Uzbekistan. Many thanks.
MCNAMARA: Thank you. Thank you very much.
Next will be Ms. Williams. And at the end of her formal presentation, there'll
be a brief video presentation which I understand is available through your Web
site.
WILLIAMS: Thank you.
Good morning and thank you, everyone, for this very valuable and timely
opportunity to speak to you today.
I want to again reiterate the comments that my colleague Shahida has made and
make a direct link between severe human rights and environmental abuses and
cotton production in Uzbekistan.
And we'll be showing a short film -- it's six or seven minutes long -- which I
hope will inspire you to take action on this.
Uzbek cotton production is one of the most exploitative enterprises in the
world. It's governed and controlled by the dictatorship led by Islam Karimov.
Uzbekistan is the world's third largest exporter of cotton, and it provides the
regime with around $1 billion U.S. each year.
The government rigidly controls all aspects of the industry. It dictates
cotton production quotas. It compels farmers to sell their cotton to
state-owned export companies at a fraction of its true value. And it motivates
producers with an array of more or less brutal forms of intimidation and
control.
Underpinning the entire industry is the systematical use of forced child labor
and slave wages in order to maximize profits to the state, with little or no
return for laborers or wider society.
What this means is every time we buy a garment that contains Uzbek cotton, we
are directly benefitting a small minority that is exploiting its own people for
its own benefit, suppressing freedoms for the Uzbek people and meeting
opposition with intimidation and violence.
Uzbekistan is, I believe, entirely unique in the world for its use of
state-sponsored forced child labor. Each year, tens of thousands of children
are made to work in the annual cotton harvest, with children as young as seven
being given daily cotton quotas that they must fulfill. This is a Soviet-style
regime.
An estimated 200,000 children are forced to work in the fields in the Ferghana
region alone each year.
And alongside the forced child labor and other well-documented human rights
abuses, cotton production has been characterized by a really devastating
environmental cost. It can take up to 20,000 pints of water to produce just
one pound of Uzbek cotton.
The total failure of the government to reinvest in a crumbling Soviet-era
infrastructure means that 60 percent of the water that's diverted from water
courses and some of the natural rivers never even reaches the cotton fields.
It's lost on the way.
As a direct result, the Aral Sea, which was once the world's fourth largest
inland sea, has been drained to just 15 percent of its former volume. And this
is what the United Nations has described as one of the most staggering
disasters of the 20th century.
Such a system of exploitation has only been possible within the framework of
totalitarian control. Efforts at liberalization, at dialogue, at outside
pressure and engagement must be seen within this context.
Such has been the concern within Europe, where I'm based, that many of the
E.U.'s leading clothing manufacturers, retailers and supermarkets, which
include Tesco, the world's third largest retailer, have joined with us in a
prohibition on selling products containing Uzbek cotton.
And this is a considerable achievement, and it's required the implementation of
supply chain tracking mechanisms, and it's sent an unequivocal message of
concern to the Uzbek government.
Along with this corporate action, European governments have publicly expressed
their disquiet, most recently witnessed by the statement of the Dutch foreign
minister, Maxime Verhagen, at the seventh session of the United Nations Human
Rights Council, where he explicitly highlighted their opposition to the use of
forced child labor in the Uzbek cotton industry.
Before showing the short film, I appeal to the Helsinki Commission and to
people here today to engage in a full examination of the human rights and
environmental abuses connected to cotton production in Uzbekistan.
This process would prove extremely valuable, as Uzbek journalists and civil
society activists are intimidated, detained or are now in exile, and the regime
continues to stifle the flow of accurate information and denies that child
labor or other abuses are endemic in cotton production.
Our concern, EJF's concern, shared, I'm sure with the commission, is to see
rural families relieved of state-enforced poverty, an end to brutal repression
and to secure a better future for the Uzbek people. Thank you.
MCNAMARA: Thank you very much.
Yes, why don't we proceed with Dr. McGlinchey's presentation, and then if
technical difficulties can be overcome, then we'll show the brief video?
MCGLINCHEY: Thank you. And thank you for the opportunity to speak today.
What I'd like to do is address the question that the chairman posed -- namely,
can the United States encourage reform in Uzbekistan?
In the presentation, I'll provide an answer, one answer. I'm not quite sure if
it's the right answer, but I'll try. I'll also provide a caution. Let me just
outline what the answer is.
The answer is that there are several underlying structural conditions which are
changing which are conducive to an opening, a political opening, in Uzbekistan.
The structural conditions that I'd like to cite in particular are three.
The first is the growing realization that Karshi-Khanabad, known here in the
United States as K2, the air base in Uzbekistan, is not critical to U.S.
operations or NATO operations in Afghanistan. In fact, one could call it
relatively unimportant for U.S. and NATO operations in Afghanistan. That would
be the first.
The second thing I'll point to is the political legacy concerns of the Uzbek
leader himself, Islam Karimov. Increasingly, I would argue that Karimov is
looking to his future, and it's one that I believe fills him with fright, if
not outright terror.
And then the third one is what I essentially call a scissors effect, drawing
from Soviet history, but this is the dual pressures of changing commodity
prices or potentially changing commodity prices.
One is increased food prices that the Uzbekistan population itself faces. And
the second, as Ms. Williams noted herself, is the potential for a decrease in
revenues from the cotton industry, the Uzbek cotton industry, which would
result if the international boycott of Uzbek cotton is successful.
The caution which I'll talk about is simple, and that is political openings,
while they present opportunities for reform, for engagement of autocratic
regimes, equally present opportunities for retrenchment.
It depends how a regime is going to react to these different structural
conditions, these pressures. And I would say that it's as equally likely that
facing these pressures the Uzbek government may backslide rather than reform,
and it's incumbent upon the United States and the international community to
encourage the positive outcome rather than the negative outcome.
Now let me just briefly talk about these structural conditions, first beginning
with Karshi-Khanabad. I think the argument -- and this has been presented well
by people like Alexander Khuli (ph) -- is that military bases in autocratic
countries often encourage autocracy. That is, western military bases in
autocratic countries may encourage rather than discourage increased autocracy.
And in the case of Uzbekistan, I think what we've seen here is a very
intelligent coupling of the international war against terrorism with Karimov's
attempt to portray himself as a partner in this war against terrorism.
The trick here, though, is that while the United States and NATO are fighting
real terrorist groups like Al Qaida and the Taliban, Islam Karimov is fighting
people like domestic political reformers, human rights activists and business
men whom he is portraying as militant Islamists.
The departure of the United States from K2, from Karchi-Khanabad, I think has
fundamentally undermined the Karimov government's ability to portray itself as
a partner in this war against terror.
At the same time, it's had no adverse effects, at least as far as I understand
from my conversations with people at the U.S. Central Command, on operations,
NATO operations, in the region.
And here, I would just urge the U.S. Congress as it considers the appointment
of the next central commander after -- you all know that Admiral Fallon has
departed -- to perhaps revisit some of the recent statements that Admiral
Fallon made before Congress when he noted the United States has begun new
security dialogues with Uzbek government.
There is a causality between U.S. bases or military bases writ large in
autocratic regimes and growing authoritarianism, and I would simply urge the
Congress to raise this causality in its confirmation hearings when it considers
the next commander of U.S. Central Command.
The second structural change is what I call political legacies or Islam
Karimov's fear of his own political legacy. And it's interesting for me as a
scholar, essentially, to reflect on what I call the class of 1991, the five
leaders who came to power suddenly after the collapse of the Soviet Union in
Central Asia.
Of these five leaders, only two remain. And I think if you look at what's
happened since Andijan in May 2005, the decreasing positive legacy, the
declining positive legacy, of people like President Akayev in Kyrgyzstan and,
most recently, the literal dismantling of the legacy of Niyazov in Turkmenistan
-- the removing of statues and moving of statues -- the outright rejection of
political legacies of the previous leaders, I think it would be understandable
to reason that people like Karimov, smart leaders like Karimov, are concerned
about what the future holds for his legacy.
And rather go down the path that his neighbors have in Turkmenistan and
Kyrgyzstan, I don't think it would be a stretch to imagine that Karimov is
looking north to Russia, to the Yeltsin-Putin succession, or the Putin-Medvedev
succession.
And here I think there's an opportunity for the west. It's not too hard to
imagine someone like Medvedev beyond his inclination towards Deep Purple and
other western hard rock bands, to also have an inclination for the west more
broadly.
So although this may be a hand-picked successor, although this may be someone
who pays respect to Islam Karimov, should he replace Karimov, nevertheless I
think this is a real opportunity for the west to potentially engage whoever
this might be.
And the engagement has to begin now, because those people are in the government
today. I regularly speak to people within the Uzbek government both here --
I'm not saying the mission here in Washington, but people who travel to
Washington -- and people from the Uzbek government who are traveling throughout
Central Asia.
And it's remarkable to note that although outwardly they may state the Uzbek
government's party line, there's considerable diversity of opinions and a
healthy diversity of opinions within the Uzbek government.
So engaging these people today I think will stand the United States and the
international community well in the future.
The last structural change that I would argue has happened since May 2005 is
this dual pressure in commodity prices. We all know well the pressures that
rising food prices are having on autocratic governments throughout the world --
not just autocratic governments, but just governments, period.
I mean, public frustration with the cost of food leads to increasing demands on
the government, so that's clear. What's, I think, been well outlined by Ms.
Williams is the potential effect a cotton boycott might have on the Uzbek
government.
This is an industry that brings the Uzbek government -- the figures I've seen
-- about $1 billion in U.S. hard currency every year. And absent this easy
ready access to these resources, it would be incredibly difficult for the
Karimov regime to fund the instruments of repression that he has used to
maintain power thus far.
So we have essentially a scissors effect that's going on here that is
undermining the very fragile foundations, the already fragile foundations, of
the Uzbek government.
Just to sum up, and this is the caution, I do fear that these structural
conditions can equally lead to repression as they can lead to reform. We've
already heard about some of the repression that has occurred in recent years.
The sentencing of Umida Niazova in May 2007 to -- initially, it was seven years
in jail. Now it's a three years to seven sentence. Now I guess that's changed
as well -- but still, the publicly shaming a human rights activist.
Alisher Saipov, a colleague which many of us have worked closely with in
Kyrgyzstan -- his murder in 2007 -- who security services have told me through
intermediaries was carried out by Uzbek agents.
This would indicate that a vulnerable Karimov regime, a threatened Karimov
regime, may turn toward repression rather than reform. So it's incumbent upon
the United States to perhaps learn from best practices from the past.
We've learned from what's happened with Karshi-Khanabad and the challenges that
go along with military engagement. What I would urge, rather than a military
engagement or new security relationships, is a concerted focus on political
engagement.
I know this is incredibly messy. Conditionality and sanctions don't always
work. But I think if you look at past political engagement, particularly of
the political activist community, the human rights community, U.S. engagement
in essence served as a lifeline to these people.
And I would urge that we maintain this engagement even at the cost of perhaps
lessening sanctions, just so that we can maintain this lifeline to people like
Umi Vinyazeveh (ph), who have done such critical work in promoting political
reform in this incredibly promising yet politically troubling country. Thank
you.
MCNAMARA: I would ask, before opening up to questions, if Ms. Williams could
just pitch her Web site, where the video can be viewed online.
WILLIAMS: Apologies. Sorry. The technical hitch continues. I have some
copies of the short film if people want to get one from me. I'll put them on
the table at back, and/or our Web site, which is on the back of the report,
which (inaudible).
MCNAMARA: Thank you.
For questions from the audience, we ask that you would use -- Josh will
activate one of the microphones on the dais here. And if you could just
identify yourself, any affiliation that you have, and if the question is being
posed to a specific panelist, please do so.
A couple of thoughts that did come to mind was sort of of the infamous class of
'91, if you will, certainly in the OSCE context, Kazakhstan and President
Nazarbayev are slated to take over as the political leadership through the
chairmanship of OSCE in 2010, so it will be very interesting to see how they
handle crises should they arise, including those potentially in the region,
including in Uzbekistan, as has been outlined.
The other issue that the commission has looked into, to some extent, is the
whole question of sort of other actors and the whole question of the Shanghai
Cooperation Organization.
And we apparently do have the video, so before we lose it, let's go to that.
(VIDEO IS PLAYED)
MCNAMARA: One final point is you were -- there was some reference to a
lifeline, and certainly the OSCE does maintain a mission on the ground in
Uzbekistan.
But not surprisingly, it has been increasingly difficult for them to undertake
meaningful activities that they were prior to Andijan, in the aftermath,
especially as it pertains to questions of human rights, or the human dimension,
as we call it.
So that's another point that I wanted to make as well...
(AUDIO GAP)
... anyone from the audience with questions or if there's any response to any
of the points, especially on the SCO and the relations between Kazakhstan and
Uzbekistan. If you want to allude to those at some point, that would be great.
So the microphone is open for anyone who would like to pose a question. And
again, please identify yourself and any affiliation.
DAVID SANDS: Yes, David Sands of the Washington Times. Thank you.
You mentioned the Fallon visit, and also I understand the Karimov -- was it the
NATO -- something in Bucharest? Do you think in some sense Karimov thinks he
has won, that he's waited things out and that the world has basically given him
a pass, and he's come back into the community of nations?
MCGLINCHEY: I'm sure our colleagues on the panel will have a lot to offer.
My sense is Karimov -- I mean, recent government reports have rejected the
rumor of flights, U.S. flights, into Uzbekistan. There is some discussion of
U.S. personnel going through Kirmez (ph).
But the rumor which followed on Fallon's comments certainly has been rejected,
and actually vociferously rejected, by the Uzbek government.
So in that sense, it indicates to me that Karimov's attention is not directed
so much toward the United States and waiting the United States out as it is in
maintaining good relationships with more proximate powers -- namely, Russia and
China -- although the China-U.S. link is not certainly as replete with tension
as the Russia-U.S. link is today.
So in that sense, I don't think that's the calculus that Karimov is using. I
do think that he probably is fairly happy that people have begun to forget
about Andijan. And in that sense, broadly, I think, he has successfully waited
out.
And that's where, again, I would point to some of the challenges with
sanctions. And we see in the case of Cuba, I think also in the case of
Uzbekistan, that sanctions, if not done carefully, can in actuality produce the
outcome that we least desire rather than the outcome we most desire. So it has
to be done very carefully.
MCNAMARA: Yes, Masha?
LISITSYNA: Yes, a quick comment. I just would like to stress for those who
might not know, the sanctions on Uzbekistan are like arms embargo and visa ban
for travel officials, so they're not the kind -- because they don't touch the
population.
And I would like just to say that it's different messages that the (inaudible)
government sends to Uzbekistan.
European Union imposed sanctions six months after the massacre, and then
Germany just gives a visa on the humanitarian grounds to the number one
official on the visa ban for medical treatment in Germany.
When we say that sanction work, it just means that they should be taken
seriously and like implemented seriously by all the actors. And it's hard with
E.U. because it's a lot of also bilateral relationships.
So our fear is that it's not unified messages from Uzbekistan partners, just
allow (inaudible) think that it can get away with it and just close the
(inaudible) of Andijan.
WILLIAMS: Yes, I think that absolutely Karimov thinks that he's won. I think
the sanctions regime imposed by the E.U. was so weak it's rather like telling a
child that it can -- you know, you're not allowed to do something, but you
didn't really want to do it in the first place. So it was just not really out
there.
I think that what's interesting now is that the message you are hearing from
the corporate sector is way ahead of governmental action, and I think that they
-- I hope the U.S. will start to put this issue onto the agenda.
The E.U. is starting to do that. I know the Dutch, as I alluded to in my
presentation, have raised the issue, and it's starting to be on the agenda.
Uzbekistan has been completely off the public and political radar for too long.
And I think what we should be saying is that Uzbekistan is something akin to
Burma and Zimbabwe, and why isn't it on the front page of our newspapers. I
think that we need to have government action now and political action that will
secure a greater future for the Uzbek people.
We've sat by and ignored the situation for far too long.
JEFF GOLDSTEIN: Good morning. Jeff Goldstein from Freedom House. I have a
question for Ms. Lisitsyna, and one for you, Eric.
I understand that Human Rights Watch has dispatched an expatriate staffer to
Tashkent recently, and I'd be very interested in knowing how that's working
out, what kind of access does he have.
The broader question, when you spoke about supporting people who think
differently, as opposed to, say, Azerbaijan and the first president Aliyev,
Karimov seems to be doing everything possible not to groom a successor.
The people you speak with within the power structure in Uzbekistan -- what are
they telling you about what they expect to happen after Karimov departs the
picture one way or another? And what is the likely role and how best can be
supportive people who might want to change things after he goes?
LISITSYNA: Thank you for the question. Yes, we have a new country director
who was allowed to enter Tashkent and went at the end of January -- in
February, I think, and he still doesn't have accreditation.
He applied for accreditation. All delays are passed by now. And we have no
answer from the Uzbek government. So it's (inaudible) he can be in the
country. He's legal in the country. He can travel. But he can't really work
the full extent, because he needs to be accredited. The person has to be
accredited by Uzbek government, and he still hasn't.
MCGLINCHEY: Of course, I'm going to be oblique in answering some of this,
because if one's too direct then it can be problematic for our colleague in
Uzbekistan.
The thing that I would stress is people who may outwardly parrot, echo, the
Karimov line in public, in private conversations actually express nuanced,
sophisticated -- I would even go so far to say liberal views about polities and
governance in Uzbekistan.
And there is an amazing potential -- not even potential, real -- I mean, it
could be readily realized -- resource among the bureaucratic elite in
Uzbekistan -- well educated, certainly well aware of alternative forms of
governments, well aware of what's going on in Kyrgyzstan, the failures that
have happened there, well aware of transitions elsewhere -- who have the
knowledge that can be implemented should the Karimov government, for whatever
reason, disappear.
That said, I mean, I think the overall tenor of what I'm hearing from people in
Uzbekistan is this sense of continued decentralization of power. I think
that's already occurring under the Karimov government.
I think if you go to the regions, it's painfully apparent, and I know Human
Rights Watch has done a lot of work in the regions. And I think you guys -- on
a regular basis, when you deal with people in the security services, no one
really knows who's telling whom what to do.
So I think there is this sense that continued decentralization would -- that
path would also be the path that would follow the departure of a Karimov
government. You know, privately I'd be happy to say more. Just publicly, I'd
refrain from actually getting into much detail.
DANIEL WAGGONER: Hi. Daniel Waggoner with the Center for International
Private Enterprise.
My question is for Ms. Williams. Have there been any efforts to educate
clothing producers or retailers about the human rights violations associated
with the cultivation of cotton in Uzbekistan?
WILLIAMS: Thank you. Yes, we definitely -- and we're London based, so we've
been talking very much. We've had outreach to predominantly E.U. retailers,
some of which are Tesco, the world's third largest retailer, and Marks &
Spencer, which is a large U.K. retailer -- CNA, which has about 1,200 stores in
16 countries across Europe.
We've had very much focus on the E.U. I think that when they see the film,
they see we have a report, "White Gold," they see that and they are shocked.
We've been in to meetings with people who have been badgered about sweatshops
over the years, who have been badgered about human rights violations within
clothing manufacture, and they see the footage of children out in the field and
they're truly shocked.
So the responses that we're now getting back from companies is how can we avoid
Uzbek cotton. They don't want to be associated with something that has been
linked to such profound human rights abuses, and not just the direct abuses of
children being sent out, the state-sponsored forced child labor, which is, as I
mentioned in m presentation, unique.
But the environmental costs where you have the Aral Sea being drained, and
where you have a regime that is directly benefitting from the procurement of --
by western companies procuring the cotton. So we're getting a good response
now.
When I mentioned a few minutes ago that I think the corporate -- the voluntary
actions are happening. We do have companies that are saying, "We do not want
to be associated with this regime."
And yet we have the political, the public forum, which is doing nothing, is
doing very little, has these -- a few sanctions here and there, but they're not
actually getting to the root and branch that -- we're not getting any kind of
systemic change within the regime.
Karimov has won, unless we have some much stronger action. And I think
governments do need to run and catch up with where the corporates are going on
this situation and try and have measured time band (ph) responses that will
secure some -- a positive future for the Uzbek people.
MCNAMARA: Sure.
JOSH KUCERA: I'd like to follow up on that. I'm Josh Kucera, freelance
journalist.
Could you talk about the -- whatever efforts you've made in the U.S. to
convince U.S. retailers or clothing manufacturers or anybody like that do the
same thing that the Europeans are doing?
Oh, and another question. You said this is unique in the world. My
understanding is Turkmenistan also forces school kids to pick cotton. Can you
explain what the differences in those two countries are?
WILLIAMS: In the U.S. we're just starting to outreach a lot of the -- I guess
the big name brands, the Levis, the Nikes, the Gaps we've been talking to in
Europe and are starting to talk to in terms of the U.S. headquarters now, so
looking at getting an overall -- a global policy.
What offices in the U.K. might say in response to our meetings, our
information, and so on might be different to what the H.Q. are doing. So it's
been a slower process.
We believe that there will be a number of very, very large names coming out in
the next few weeks to basically stand alongside the CNA, the Tescos, the Marks
and Spencers and other major retailers in Europe, and they will have the same
message, which is, "We do not want to be associated with Uzbek cotton."
You're right, Turkmenistan until recently had forced child labor on a smaller
scale, but certainly it was state-sponsored.
There was a similar situation with production quotas. So if the orders come
down that you've got to fulfill these quotas, and the only way to do it, if the
adults don't want to work, and you have got (inaudible) mechanization, is to
get the kids out.
It's been on the wane. And I understand all the colleagues here today might be
able to correct me on this. It's been something that certainly in the
post-Niyazov time has been -- the general kind of liberalization has meant that
children may still be out in the cotton fields, but it's not in the same rigid
state-controlled situation.
It's not something where the order is unwritten, that they might be coming down
from on high, this is what needs to happen, where stores are closed, on the
same scale.
So yes, I would say in a historical context it was unique, but I think now
today -- and I think this coming autumn we'll see that Uzbekistan still remains
as the one and only, unique in the world for its use of state-sponsored forced
child labor.
LISITSYNA: It's a bit off topic, but very quickly, in Turkmenistan, I wouldn't
speak about the general liberalization in Turkmenistan now.
Really, what Turkmenistan is doing is taking some very, again, visual actions
(inaudible) is a cult of personality, so yes, the statue is taken down; yes,
the names of the months are changed.
And yes, there is a decree that children should not be employed into the child
labor and into the cotton field. The research in Turkmenistan is still almost
impossible. None of the human rights organizations got like real access to the
country.
Activists are still suppressed in Turkmenistan. It's still very hard to
communicate, still problems with Internet access, et cetera. So I wouldn't say
from our perspective of Human Rights Watch -- yes, there is this decree. Yes,
there is less child labor.
But maybe they don't know of -- because it's still very hard to do the research
in Turkmenistan, and it's one of the countries I work on. And on the ground,
it's almost the same as it was under Niyazov.
TULAGANOVA: When we talk about Central Asia and forced child labor,
Turkmenistan and Tajikistan both produce cotton, but on a smaller scale, much
smaller scale, than Uzbekistan. Uzbekistan is one of the leading cotton
producers in the world, number one.
Number two, by formally abolishing child labor even during (inaudible), at
least the government of Turkmenistan acknowledged that they had child labor.
In Uzbekistan, we see the total denial from the authorities of this fact.
And we had several statements from the Uzbek official ministry saying that
child labor doesn't exist in Uzbekistan, so at least, you know, in Turkmenistan
they had the courage to formally recognize it.
As far as Tajikistan is concerned, yes, we know that child labor, forced child
labor, is happening there, in a much smaller scale, again, because of the small
cotton production.
And B, because it's happening in tiny little regions, and obviously this is not
a state-sponsored thing but more related to the decision of the regional
authorities.
MIKE AMITAY: I'm Mike Amitay at OSI.
For Dr. McGlinchey and Ms. Tulaganova, if this $1 billion windfall, let's say,
for the Uzbek regime was somehow diminished by an international boycott or
other types of sanction, can you speculate on what would happen to the regime
and to the society?
TULAGANOVA: Well, if the Uzbek government won't liberalize the cotton sector
-- obviously, the cotton sector is so tied up with the liberalization of the
whole economy, which I don't think they're willing to do now and not in
foreseeable future.
I think we will face a situation when we have more people migrating to the
neighboring countries to earn some money, if the Uzbek government will decide
to introduce severe dictation of these honest people. So I think we will see
(inaudible) in the space of not Tashkent but regional centers.
My colleagues already mentioned the food prices going up. We have seen reports
in Buhara region and Jizak region of sporadic protests of the local population
protesting against increasing food prices.
So I expect that if there's going to be no $1 billion industry, so we'll cut in
a way the bloodline for the Uzbek elite earning money, and we'll probably
expect some sporadic protests across the country.
I think Eric is in a better position to answer that question.
MCGLINCHEY: I'm in large agreement. I mean, in think really you're posing two
questions, and it's actually one that I would pose to Ms. Williams as well as a
co-traveler rather than as someone who questions the strategy.
The first question is would the boycott work. And my fear is although it might
work in the west, I wonder about how it would be implemented in places like
Russia or China, places where we know simply from our own experience with toy
manufacturing in the United States it's very hard to police the supply chain.
So because cotton is a fungible good, like oil is -- and we have experience
with oil sanctions regimes -- it's going to be hard to do. It doesn't mean
that we shouldn't do it. Ethically, it's incumbent upon us to do it. But it
begs the question will it work in the first place. I hope it does.
The second question -- what would happen if it were to work -- Central Asian
governments are little changed from their Soviet predecessors. These are
patronage politics regimes.
If you look at the countries that have survived relatively unscathed --
Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan -- that's because they have easy access to readily
exploitable rents.
Kazakhstan, of course, has oil. Uzbekistan, it's gold, gas and cotton. If you
remove the cotton factor, you still have gold and gas, but it's not as readily
exploitable as cotton is.
So I mean, I think what we would see is a very -- a considerable erosion of
patronage politics. And in Uzbekistan, I think we're already seeing an erosion
of patronage politics in Uzbekistan.
The system's not working. You see these desperate attempts by the Karimov
government to build other networks of patronage. This Kamolot youth
organization, for example, is just like the Komsomol, its predecessor. It's a
desperate attempt to create a loyal youth, which isn't really working.
But I think you'd see an acceleration of this collapse of patronage politics
and then a further fragmentation of the Uzbek state.
WILLIAMS: How do we trace -- OK, the answer to the boycott. We have been in
dialogue with European companies for -- we launched our report, "White Gold,"
back in early 2006.
It's taken almost two years for most of those big companies that have a huge
number of clothing factories around the world to be able to be in a position
where they say, "We now know where this commodity is coming from."
Previously, there was an incredibly opaque supply chain. The way cotton is
produced on the field, the various ginning and the process as it goes through,
the way it's sold, the way it's traded, is incredibly complex and very opaque.
It's quite a tricky one to actually take the trail back, but we've been able to
do that. We've worked very closely with companies. We basically said, "You
can do this if you try hard enough, if you have the will to do it," and it
comes down to paperwork.
It comes down to some due diligence, and that's why the companies were so
impressed by the problems that they were being presented with and the message
that we were presenting to them from grassroots civil society activists in
Uzbekistan that they wanted to do this.
And so it's taken them two years to trace the supply chain backwards. It's
doable. Most of the cotton -- Uzbekistan has very little in terms of clothing
manufacturing within the country. Most of the cotton is exported.
It goes to places like Latvia. It goes to Russia, China. Bangladesh is a huge
one in terms of the clothing, the retail sector, that ultimately ends up in
European high streets.
So the process for those companies and for us working with them, and with
experts in supply chain and sort of commodity tracing has been to just track it
back to the people that they're procuring from and take it each step of the way
back.
And that's what we've been able to do. Hence, Tesco and Marks and Spencer
being able to say categorically that they will no longer have any Uzbek cotton
within their products by -- actually, by July as well they're giving sort of
the 100 percent guarantee and assurance.
I think that there are other things that can take place. CNA, which is this
big European clothing retailer, told us recently that when they made their
announcement, the public announcement, that they would no longer buy Uzbek
cotton, it really meant a lot, because they were buying directly from
Uzbekistan.
They were one of the few big companies that were buying from apparel
manufacturers within the Tashkent region. So we know that there are clear
messages getting back to the government, and that's what we want.
We're not saying that Uzbek cotton is any worse than any other cotton. We're
saying there just need to be changes within the way it's produced and traded,
and we to get a bigger benefit to the Uzbek people and get rid of the abuses
that are associated with it.
So that's where we're up to now. I hope the boycott is a way of raising public
awareness, political awareness and of corporates being able to publicly say,
"We're taking a stance on this issue," and we want to see action.
LAUREN SMITH: Hi. I'm Lauren Smith. I'm with (inaudible) State Department.
And I'm just wondering -- a follow-up on the boycott question. Do you see
potential in other industries in Uzbekistan that may be less destructive, are,
you know (inaudible) better places to work, or if this boycott went into
effect, what would be a good industry to stimulate?
WILLIAMS: What we want to happen is liberalization within the cotton sector.
We're not trying to replace it. Uzbekistan gets 60 percent of its hard
currency from cotton. It's a huge -- it's a major commodity. It's a major
source of income for the regime.
What we're saying is that there can be some straightforward liberalization that
means that people can make a decent livelihood and a living.
As we saw from the film, you have people who are saying, "I want to be on that
side of the border," but they're not. They're working in Kyrgyzstan or
Kazakhstan because they cannot make a livelihood in their homeland.
If Uzbek cotton farmers are compelled to sell their cotton produced -- they're
told how to produce this thing. They're given all of the input. They're told
how to grow it, when to grow it, when to produce it. They're told which kids
to pull out of school to harvest it.
They are compelled by the government to sell to one of three state-owned export
companies which have a complete monopoly on the export. It's so tightly --
it's so rigid.
If you were able to liberalize that end to get rid of the -- this top-down
mechanism and processing where farmers are able to decide how they grow their
cotton and whom they sell it to, an extra liberalization, then you have a
cotton sector that is like its neighboring cotton sectors.
To the north, you have cotton farmers who are making a good living out of this.
You have cotton farmers who are now looking at organic cotton, who are fair --
getting fair trade prices for their cotton. That's not happening in Uzbekistan
simply because you still have a Soviet style quota production system.
And so there are policies that can be changed that will improve the sector, and
that's what we're saying. We're not trying to encourage diversity or
(inaudible).
We're saying the basis is there for sustainable livelihoods. You need to have
some improvements in the way that this is overseen and in the way the
production takes place.
MCGLINCHEY: Something quickly. I'd like to just slightly -- I'd like to
present an alternative view on this, and that is I'd like to basically flat out
say that cotton in Uzbekistan and cotton in Central Asia writ large is not
sustainable. It's an unsustainable industry.
So even if one changes the way cotton is -- the pricing structure, the state
boards that buy the cotton, like the state boards in Africa used to buy the
coffee beans -- in contrast to Africa, where coffee is sustainable, cotton in
Uzbekistan or in Central Asia just flat out is not sustainable.
If one travels to the water basins in the mountains in Central Asia, it becomes
painfully visible that this just can't go on.
You know, one of my alternative pursuits when I'm not being depressed about
human rights abuses in Central Asia is to go up into the mountains, and every
time I go up there, you see the glaciers retreating, and it's only a matter of
time.
This is not a renewable resource. Water's not, unfortunately, a renewable
resource in Central Asia, and the Aral Sea is almost tapped, and now the
glacier stores are going to be tapped, and in the long run something else
besides cotton has to be promoted.
It doesn't mean in the short run that there can't be improvements in the
industry. It's just in the long run. And I think the long run might not be as
long as we think. It just can't go on.
MCNAMARA: Thank you very much.
And again, please do visit the commission's Web site, www.CSCE.gov. Thank you
very much.
[Whereupon the briefing ended at 11:15 a.m.]
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