US, Britain Back Uzbek “Boiler” Karimov

Well, it goes back to before George Bush became President. In 1997 or 1998, George Bush, as Governor of Texas, had a meeting with the Uzbek ambassador to the United States, Ambassador Safayev, which was actually organized and set up by Kenneth Lay of Enron. And if you go to my website, you can find a facsimile of Kenneth Lay's letter to George Bush, telling him to meet Ambassador Safayev in order to conclude a billion-dollar gas deal between Uzbekistan and Enron. And that was the start of the Bush relationship with the Karimov regime.

Karimov is one of the most vicious dictators in the world, a man who is responsible for the death of thousands of people. Prisoners are boiled to death in Uzbek jails. And he was a guest in the White House in 2002. It's very easy to find photos of George Bush shaking Karimov's hand.

Craig Murray, fmr. British ambassador to Uzbekistan.

“Ex-British Ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray on Why He Defied UK Foreign Office by Posting Classified Memos Blasting U.S., British Support of Torture by Uzbek Regime,” Democracy Now, 1/19/06.

Let me put it to you bluntly. If someone took my brother and boiled him to death, I know what I’d do. We are creating terrorism ourselves by our foolish refusal to face up to what kind of man Karimov is, and the fact that this is not a government with which you can do business in the normal way.

… though Karimov has been killing people for years – he’s had lots of practice – he hasn’t generally killed 700 people at once. Today he’ll be thinking that even if you kill 700 opponents at once, nothing bad happens to you, because nothing has. Why do we treat Lukashenko and Mugabe as pariahs, subject to personal travel restrictions, to a range of targeted sanctions, but not Karimov? The answer to this, of course, is an obsession with the Karshi-Khanabad airbase, as one of the most important of Rumsfeld’s ‘lily-pads’ - bases which can be rapidly expanded, and from which massive military force can be quickly projected into any area of what they call the Wider Middle East in the Pentagon - which means the Middle East, the Caucasus and Central Asia, which is of course the great band of oil and gas reserves.

… public opinion had never been a factor that needed to be considered in Uzbekistan.

Craig Murray, “A Bastard but Our Bastard: British Policy in Central Asia,” speech at the Policy Exchange, London, 6/28/05.

The Uzbek government must clarify the fate of an Uzbek human rights defender who was arrested after speaking out about the massacre of hundreds of unarmed protesters on May 13 in Andijan, Human Rights Watch said today. Saidjahon Zainabitdinov, chairman of the Andijan human rights group Appeliatsia (Appeal), has been in custody for almost eight months and is believed to have gone on trial two weeks ago.

“Uzbekistan: Reveal Fate of Jailed Activist,” Human Rights Watch Press Release, 1/20/06