Five representatives of Uzbekistan failed to attend the launch of a new peacekeeping project supported by the U.S. Embassy in Bishkek.

The first phase of the project involved a regional conference entitled “Generation of peace: New media technologies for Central Asia”, which took place in Issyk-Kul, Kyrgyzstan, from May 14 to 17 this year. More than 40 leaders and community activists from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan participated in the event. The selection took place among 230 candidates.

Organizers have suffered great financial loss and significant moral costs due to the absence of Uzbek participants, who could have shown the development of Uzbekistan, home for 30 million people.

The project’s manager Samagan Aytymbetov did not explain the reason for such mass rejection to participate in the peace conference. “Jarayon” investigated the case and found interesting facts. It turns out that the many Uzbeks expressed their strong desire to participate in the conference and sent applications.

Those Uzbekistanis, who selected to participate in the event, were sent invitations before April 15. Their candidacy, in fact, was solely selected and approved by the volunteer of the Fulbrighters Association in Tashkent, who also did not attend the conference.

The delegation from Uzbekistan included representatives of news and business publications, and youth organizations. A member of the online newspaper, who was also selected, said he “had things to do at work.” Other participants remain silent.

“They were just ordered, this is not the first time,” says journalist from Tashkent, who requested anonymity when comment on the situation. “The heads of organizations were strongly recommended by the curators from the National Security Service to ban employees to travel to the conference. This move is in line with the unpublicized trend of anti-Americanism. Numerous visits by overseas delegations to Tashkent do not indicate a strengthening of Uzbek-American relations.”

According to the consolidated opinion of observers, the organizers made a mistake when sending in open mailing list the information about the participants and their place of work.

“Fulbrighters did not consider difficult peculiarities of working with the Uzbek, the audience in a country with an authoritarian regime”, noted the journalist.

It is not known how many applications from Uzbekistan have been sent to the competition of the project. Surely, in a timely manner Uzbek participants could be replaced by others. However, organizers found out about the refusal of Uzbeks to participate in the conference only when the expected delegation did not arrive from Tashkent.

During the conference, employee of the Democracy Commission of the U.S. Embassy told off the record that they “would not invite Uzbeks anymore.” Such disappointment can be explained by the fact that without the participation of Uzbeks the regional peace project looks defective.

Unbalanced regional representation, in fact, does not provide a development perspective, especially when the information warfare periodically covers the region.

Uzbekistan has about 10 million Internet users, most of who are active users of new media and social networks. These people are an important target group of the project.

Samagan Aytymbetov argues that “the rapid development of digital technology in Central Asia populated by 65 million has a huge impact on the dissemination of information about conflicts, border disputes, water and other resources. Therefore, today’s leaders need to do more to master new media technologies in working with people from different strata of the population, ethnic and religious backgrounds.”

The Uzbek authorities have repeatedly disrupted the travel of representatives of various professional communities in the country. In March of this year, only less than half the Uzbek delegation could participate at the conference entitled “Modern perspectives of political and economic integration of the countries of Central Asia.” Uzbek experts were also forbidden to take part in it.

A year ago, during the third annual Forum “Development of Internet-sphere in Central Asia InternetCA-2012” independent journalists were not afraid to give an objective evaluation of online sphere in Uzbekistan.

The ban on participation in international events earlier touched doctors and teachers in Uzbekistan. They were prohibited to present their reports and presentations at international symposiums and conferences even during their official leaves from work.