Presented to the EU – Uzbekistan meeting, Brussels, 14 March 2014.

The EU is preparing for the next series of discussions of the situation in Uzbekistan. International Association Human Rights“Fiery Hearts Club” takes this opportunity to analyze in this paper the current trends and development in the human rights situation of Uzbekistan, its relations with the European Union as well as draws the bloc’s attention to the major human rights problems and their solutions.

While focusing on the perspectives of human rights situation in Uzbekistan probably it will make a good entry point to mention that today human rights issue is perceived by the Uzbek authorities first of all as a political issue, the flow of which can have significant influence on the Uzbekistani internal and external politics.

This perception is related to any kind of human rights issue in Uzbekistan, be it merely an individual’s right to freely move along the country, or a right of the members of a new political party which is trying to get a state registration at the Ministry of Justice. And this perception – that rights and freedoms can’t be absolute, the state has the authority to restrict them at any time to the needed level if deemed necessary – is more or less shared by every government official.

Another inherent part of such understanding is made up of a strong belief that rights and freedoms are granted to humans by the government but not acquired at birth. Still another part of the official perception of human rights which is unfortunately shared by a relevantly huge number of citizens, is the belief that more rights and freedoms will eventually bring to anarchy, lack of rule of law (maybe so called “want for a strong hand”) and moral degradation of the society. Such concepts of human rights result in the common sense that those who are in power can apply a proper dose of human rights, freedoms for the society and also a proper dose of violence against the society, and there is no need for public scrutiny. It is essential to mention those concepts of human rights idea in the minds of today’s Uzbek authorities in order to understand the common sense of impunity and “I-can’t–change-anything” attitude of the government officials and ordinary citizens.

It is worth to note that such perception of human rights idea mentioned above is cemented by catastrophically low salaries of the government officials in Uzbekistan and the unavoidable incentive that a government official should have for extorting money or bribes from his / her constituencies to the detriment of human rights and public interests. According to independent observers the average salary in Uzbekistan is around $ 200-250 USD, while the government statistics claims it is around $ 500 USD. The minimal consumer’s basket in Uzbekistan, although not regulated anywhere in the laws or the government programs, according to independent estimates makes somewhere around $ 200 per person a month. A judge of a district court or investigator of the Public prosecutor’s body at the district level receives barely $ 300 USD salary a month. As one of the investigators of the Public prosecutor’s body interviewed by us recently put it: “As almost all government officials are “unclean” and involved in corruption chain, they can’t work independently and fulfill their obligations. If they do they will be accused of corruption and might be dismissed and even criminally charged”.

Uzbek government can learn fast if that is in its own interests. The Uzbek authorities have always applied strong control over issues and activities concerning human rights. But this arm of the government has got much stronger after the tragic events in Andijan city in May 2005. This event has served as a turning point in the government’s policy on civil society and NGO activity. The Uzbek government has made a wrong conclusion out of it – the ruling political elite needs stability in order to stay in the power; in that sense stability means the safety of the ruling elite; independent civil society endangers such stability by openly pointing out to the problems of the country; therefore, the government should neutralize independent civil society institutions and should itself establish fully controllable civil society sector. Coming from that the people of Uzbekistan are allowed to realize their rights and freedoms only to that extent where it doesn’t pose a threat to the position of the ruling elite. The civil society institutions are also allowed to operate accordingly and raise only those issues which do not directly or indirectly endanger the positions of the ruling elite.

In attempt to apply more control over the society the authorities have undertaken several measures in the course of last 4-5 years which imply very important consequences for the perspectives of human rights situation in the country:

– First, with government’s gross interference the local civil society sector has been reformatted at large. Many NGOs with independent agenda have been closed down, the remaining were forced to join the government created national umbrella NGO coalitions like the National Association of NGOs of Uzbekistan one of the main functions of which is to guide the Uzbek NGOs through the path desirable by the government. With the same goal the government liquidated the former National Bar Association, a more or less independent public association of the lawyers of the country, and established in its place the Chamber of Lawyers of Uzbekistan the leadership of which is appointed by the Ministry of Justice (different from that of the Chamber, the leadership of the former Bar Association was subject to election by the members). Making the journalists working for international or foreign media leave the country in 2005-2006 the government at the same time has introduced strict rules of accreditation of all journalists with the Uzbek Ministry of Foreign Affairs (for journalists representing international or foreign mass media) or the key government bodies (for journalists who want to cover the activities of those government bodies);

– Second, the government guided and controlled the participation of the political parties in the political life of the country. The general trend in this sector was centered around the issue of expanding the rights of the political parties as one of the main actors of the political processes. From election to election the Uzbek authorities have decreased the number of the actors who enjoy the right of participating in elections (i.e. nominating candidates) and with the parliamentary elections of December 2009 limited it just to the political parties. It can’t be denied that the political parties are becoming more active in law-making issues although it could hardly be said that they are able yet to effectively implement their important function of the parliamentary control or scrutiny over the executive branch of the government or declare themselves in opposition to the ruling political elite;

– Third, pulling the whole responsibility of legal, judicial, political and economic reforms on its own shoulders after kicking out the bulk of the international aid and development programs in 2005-2006 and simultaneously feeling the internal and international pressure for the reforms the government of Uzbekistan has been forced to take some initial steps forward on a range of problematic issues such as introduction of habeas corpus institute and pre-trial detention; abolition of death penalty; a law and national action plan on combating human trafficking; a series of legislative changes and amendments, and ratification of subsequent ILO Conventions targeted to prevent forced child labor; ratification of the UN Convention against Corruption; etc. With no doubt the steps outlined above are far from perfect and they are just first necessary steps forward.

Apart from that, the Uzbek government has adopted a bad habit of inflating good ideas with short-term, populist-oriented national action plans, when the government identifies a problematic issue which has been in the center of attention of the international community for many years, after several years of discussions, then the government adopts either a national law or ratifies an international treaty targeted on the identified problematic issue, after that the government develops a national action plan on the selected issue and announces about the implementation of such national action plan. The national action plans are very short term, usually cover one and rarely two or three years. The measures secured in the national action plans are in most cases of symbolic character, not directly targeting the problem in focus, but rather focusing on such measures as education, studying foreign experience, seminars, conferences, and training. Upon completion of the terms of the national action plans the government announces that the problem has been solved. As a matter of fact the scheme of national action plans are doing a very good service for the government of Uzbekistan in diverting the attention of the Uzbek public and international community from the existing problems per se.

The consequences of the above described measures have contradictory character: they have undoubtedly increased the government control over the whole society, including the implementation of rights and freedoms, and civil society institutions; but at the same time the increasing of burden on the Uzbek civil society with toughened responsibility and control measures might hopefully affect the quality, capacity and potential of the Uzbekistani civil society and result in its improvement. Both the independent wing of the Uzbekistani civil society and international aid and development programs will have to take into account the renewed and reformatted government approach to the civil society activity and the role of the human rights and public interest NGO groups.

Speaking about independent wing of the Uzbekistani civil society groups we keep in mind those few remaining committed human rights defenders, independent advocacy and research groups which are trying to develop their own human rights and public policy agenda among the government orchestrated policy in the country. To our estimate to date there are up to 30 committed human rights and public policy advocacy activists throughout Uzbekistan who remain in the field and keep up their work under difficult times. Regardless of their small number they sustain their reputation of critical and alternative watchdogs and advocacy groups who effectively challenge the policies of the Uzbek government through their email list-serves, publications on independent Internet based media, in foreign and international media outlets covering Uzbekistan and the Central Asian region.

Our own experience, interviews with other Uzbek counterparts show that the Uzbek government takes their reports, publications and recommendations quite serious and study them even though most of the Uzbek human rights activists are not officially registered and thus lack legal status in their interaction with the government institutes. Even if the government bodies are afraid of directly referring to or reacting to the reports and publications of the Uzbek human rights activists, they try to pay attention to the problems identified by independent activists and take at least some measures to save the face of the government. We have recently been told by a reliable source that the central government in Tashkent has ordered the Institute for Civil Society Study, a governmental organization which has been created to work on the development of civil society in Uzbekistan, to start closely following reports and publications by independent Uzbek human rights groups in order to study the problems and issues highlighted in their reports.

Current stage of the Uzbekistan – EU relations: what the EU could focus on?

The EU and Central Asia: Strategy for a New Partnership” (July 2007) has put the EU before the dilemma as most of priority issues inevitably depend on political reforms in Uzbekistan. This may be the main focus of Brussels, but seems in contradiction with “realpolitik”. Even improvements on distribution and utilization of water resources, cross-border human and drugtrafficking or environmental degradation and continuing salivation in the Aral Sea basin cannotbe achieved without some degree of political opening, regional cooperation among the governments and subsequent reforms. However, there are no indications that the Uzbek authorities would allow opening up the closed borders.

It is obvious that Tashkent wants to focus on the “common threats and challenges” as one of the seven priority areas of cooperation indicated by the strategy. This is in line with “realpolitik”. Talking about Uzbekistan the common threats and challenges are associated with combating terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism. The EU could accept some activities of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, al-Qaida networks and the Hizb ut-Tahrir, however unless the EU does not give any criteria on how these common challenges and threats are identified that gives chance to Tashkent to downplay other important phases of the strategy. It will want to focus on this one mainly.

But the EU has a strong dimension to offer to the Uzbek regime before transition: the goal ofdemocracy, good governance, respect for human rights and rule of law, the declared priority inthe EU strategy, should play this role. It is too obvious, what the EU should make crystal clear,that Uzbekistan – and any future transition – suffers greatly from political reluctance to embracereform, unabatedly ruling autocratic political regime, gross human rights violations, corruption and a lack of social perspective in many areas. It is also too obvious that Tashkent considers this as too dangerous and is trying to put the goal of security and stability in the top of the agenda with the EU. The remaining unclear US – Western interest toward Afghanistan will only strengthen this effort in a short run.

Perhaps, the process of the development of the strategy, stemming from the sanctions against Uzbekistan imposed by the EU, was too much dragged to different ends by the various views among the EU member-states. This trend will continuously affect the implementation of the strategy along the lack of precise set of benchmarks which makes independent monitoring / evaluation difficult. Moreover, the whole process of development, discussion, incorporation into the national systems (in early 2008 the EU developed bilateral priority papers with each of the Central Asian states) and implementation of the strategy was an “insiders’ game” and elite driven, neither the EU nor the Uzbek government have consulted members of the civil society organizations (CSOs) or intelligentsia in Uzbekistan.

Lack of public information over the EU strategy and relations with Uzbekistan logically leads into a virtually non-existent public awareness of it in Uzbekistan. Until very recently, the strategy paper was not publicly available in Russian language and has yet to be translated into Uzbek. Information on the implementation of the strategy is kept behind closed doors meetings. Much of the stakeholders in Central Asia rely on detailed and reliable information on how the strategy is applied in practice – from the European Union. All these factors if continue will further limit the EU in a mere observer role in the power struggling over the incumbent president’s follower – one of the key development factors in current Uzbekistan.

While pointing to human rights, democracy, good governance and rule of law as one of the first priority issues, senior EU officials (e.g. the EUSR and his staff) are at the same time careful in avoiding “double standards” by singling out less criticism on human rights record in the region. This, however, from local viewpoint means that in terms of democracy and human rights even longer patience is needed as the strategy does neither pressure the Uzbek regime nor advises to ease the social tension by adopting new practices. Such an attitude merely allows Tashkent choosing among priorities what fits to their own policy path, Thus Tashkent can continue playing its own regular role in a new framework as well: each time a UN human rights treaty monitoring body adopts a set of specific recommendations, the authorities respond by adopting a National Action Plan on the implementation of the recommendations. No practice changes in the end.

The EU sanctions (imposed on 14 November 2005 under the Common Position 2005/792/CFSP by the Council of the EU) meant a lot for Uzbek people – as were the first major policy action from Europe up to date. Moreover, it was a principled stand toward the regime from the single biggest economic power in the world. The sanctions also brought limited, conditional but somewhat positive changes and progress in the field of human rights: release of imprisoned human rights activists, introduction of judicial and legislative reforms, and bringing the issue of human rights, democratization and rule of law at least to the table in the EU – Uzbekistan relations.

Indeed, most of those changes are oriented to the short-term and do not stand for the systemic reforms and most of them are still far from the international standards. Indeed, those several political prisoners released can be imprisoned the other day. Still, such interactions and movements bring at least some hope for ordinary Uzbeks as this is something leaning on in terms of demands of more opening and liberalization from the Uzbek authorities.

Thus the EU sanctions imposed on Uzbekistan did the job well at the time. Improvement of the relations of the EU with Tashkent started in mid 2007 when the EU started rolling back the bulk of the sanctions against Uzbekistan. None should have the feeling that the EU is in a difficult position. Uzbekistan remains to be a hardcore partner to deal with for all international actors, China, the EU, Russia and the United States. Tashkent is a partner which cooperates only on its own terms with countries it chooses to its own approach – this is its multi-vector foreign policy. Importantly, even within this framework the EU could be the best partner for Uzbekistan in terms of its inclusiveness.

The EU has long-term interests in Uzbekistan because it is directly affected by the developments in this region. Better than the other main international powers – Russia, China and the US – the EU can offer resources which can help on the development challenges Uzbekistan is facing and assist in transformation of Uzbekistan and the Central Asian region into a more secure place through development. Brussels should not forget though that interest may kill. It was the interest of some EU member-states putting the region into the political map of the EU, but it was again “the realpolitik” of some member states subsequently killing the block’s HR approach.

There is an obvious fear among the European policymakers that putting too much emphasis on human rights, democratization and rule of law could drive Uzbekistan into the orbit of Russia and China, e.g. distance it further from Europe. Moreover, some observers called the EU’s position too moralistic, thus counterproductive to the EU’s diversification of its energy imports. Brussels is well aware that the current elite has built its “multi-vector foreign policy” as a strategy to get as much as possible for very little in exchange. The EU should also be well aware about a possible system failure in Tashkent.

The current trends are suggesting an even stronger pro-government obsession of Uzbekistan, while the growing impact of the global economic crisis (e.g. less resource from the cotton industry) as well as food shortages in the country could lead into even riots. The Uzbek law enforcement agencies seem loyal and strong enough to ensure a transition, however there is very little (if any) sign of transition at this moment. Brussels must be engaged at the maximum capacity to explain to the Uzbek authorities that it is in own interest to start with reforms and prepare for transformation and ease social tension.

The Uzbek public is comparing the EU mainly to Russia, the main “policy model” the local officials as well as population have been engaged with the most. The EU cannot and should not“compete” with Russia as in terms of political and economic weight it is more underrepresentedin Uzbekistan. However, it can show a different policy model – the policy mainstreaming. It can show to the Uzbek public a different development path based on engagement with all possiblestakeholders not only with the existing and absurdly corrupt political elite. The EU should pay a special attention to public awareness raising projects in order to raise the Europe’s image among the public and orient it towards European values and culture.

Through a local mirror the EU, compared to the US, has more chances to be perceived as an honest broker in Uzbekistan, thus it has the credibility to press for reforms, for the enhancement of the political space and greater political pluralism. If such engagement is applied consistently, with proper incentives and constant explanation of threats of the current policies/practices, the Uzbek authorities may open the door wider. However the EU should not look for or be satisfied with formal achievements.

Structured human rights dialogue which has already been launched, could be used as one of such values, if the intentions are to engage the embattled human rights community. The EU should put a greater effort to promote human rights and democratization and ensure active involvement of local civil society, human rights groups, parliaments, local authorities and other actors in the monitoring and implementation of its strategy. Engaging with various stakeholders, not only with the central authorities along with a subsequent communication of the strategy would give a larger impetus of the EU efforts and would bring closer what the EU intends to achieve – development.

To make this happen the EU should make sure that the strategy should not turn into a rigid paper, but should be maintained as a living and flexible document appropriating safeguards against splits inside the EU. As another tool for stakeholder engagement clear and precise benchmarks would make independent monitoring and evaluation possible. The implementation of the strategy should be not become an insiders’ game but should be brought in, all related information and papers should be made public and translated into Uzbek. The EU should give up closed door meetings and conferences.

What the EU mostly lacks in Uzbekistan are diverse natural partners. The regime could easily point around that they are the only one left to talk to. Indeed, today Uzbekistan practically doesn’t have a structured civil society to ensure public scrutiny of the government and providing a system of checks and balances on the implementation of the EU policies. There is only a hope in engaging those thousands of talented young Uzbek people, who have studied abroad on various Western scholarships and returned home. The EU should invest into development of strong(er) and independent civil society groups by engaging young professionals.

Tashkent should be also not reluctant to the question how to channel the energy and knowledge of the next generation – into professional development or into riots (such as recently in Kyrgyzstan) given the discrimination against youth at every aspect of life in Uzbekistan. To top its regional strategy with such a development approach the EU needs to put more emphasize on the assistance aspects of the strategy for Central Asia and focus on quality of implementation.

To sum up, the EU should not let Tashkent take the driver’s seat, although it will have to listen to the Uzbek government in terms of understanding where to go. An advanced plan with concrete achievements would help to maintain the momentum the EU strategy was able to create in bilateral relations with Tashkent. It is also obvious that the EU sanctions as such, although did serve the purpose immediately after the Andijan events, did not serve as a leverage for bringing necessary policy changes further, and later on even started blocking any form of engagement. The EU could hardly pursue a realistic regional strategy with keeping the most populous country of that region in isolation, while engaging with similar regimes (e.g. Turkmenistan).

However, once the EU is on the path of rapprochement that should at least be taken seriously and pursued in a European way. Bilateral discussions and pieces of dialogue have demonstrated the expectations of both parties differ substantially. Thus, there is a need for continuous attention to each other’s positions, formation of critical though constructive recommendations along the priority issues identified in the EU strategy.

Foreigners are an easy target in the Central Asia bazaars as they are neither aware of local habits nor what exactly they want. Thus, importantly, to establish itself as an influential regional player the EU should put the largest accent on the development dimension by clearly communicating it, showing a different policy models based on mainstreaming, e.g. engaging with as many stakeholders in Uzbekistan as possible, investing into the generation next and bringing young professionals into every possible aspects of policy life. Brussels should also learn a strong lesson from the US engagement in Central Asia, especially how the short term political goals (e.g. Afghanistan) managed to crash the long term development dimension.

Uzbekistan is not an easy and predictable partner, on the contrary with full sense of (self-) importance. Brussels should make clear that what it wants is a politically stable, socially developed and economically market oriented Uzbekistan. Only through intensive cooperation with various layers of society the EU will be able to support and influence the difficult process of progressing reforms, what includes critical dialogue on problematic issues.

The Uzbek government itself could demonstrate interest in promoting rule of law and democratic reforms only in combination of stability and prosperity of the country (and to the advantage of the ruling elite as well). From this aspect, the issues of human rights, democracy, good governance and rule of law should stand at equal significance and fully interconnected as they are in reality with security or energy in the EU policies. Any other position will make the EU not soft, but weak in the eyes of the Uzbek society.

Conclusion

We believe that the tendencies outlined above are intrinsic to most of the post-Soviet nations in Central Asia and could be characterized as relatively expectable trends. The ruling political elites of those nations cling to the power gained by them on the eve of the collapse of the former Soviet Union and do not want to pass power to their successors in a democratic way. At the same time more and more of them are accepting the view that their countries can’t remain isolated from the outside world especially from democratic nations.

That is why it wouldn’t be groundless to hope that maybe not in two or five years, but in ten, 15 or even 20 years we could see new democratic nations in Uzbekistan and other ‘- stans’ of Central Asia provided each country would have some distinct characteristics of oriental faces of democratic governance (if democracy could be divided into “western” and “oriental” ones) to different extent. That implies there is a great field out there for the civil society activists, human rights defenders, independent journalists, lawyers, and other professional groups who want to see real changes.

Studying, analyzing and understanding the ongoing changes in Uzbekistan part of which have been highlighted in this paper are crucial for success in our work in the future. Another inherent component of success for independent civil society activists in this sector would be being able to reconsider our strategies in accordance with changing circumstances and keeping our independent work, at the same time trying to find partners, allies among those civil society institutions, international discussion formats which are closer to the government of Uzbekistan.

Mutabar Tadjibayeva,

Head of international human rights

organization “Fiery Hearts Club”

Paris, France