…in the human rights sense?
The Pentagon’s concerns are quite clear in regards to its desire for the use of Uzbek territory for the transportation of materiel to NATO forces and the various support operations in Afghanistan. And this, in my opinion is an important variable in determining the level of concern exhibited for human rights in Uzbekistan.
President Karimov and General Petraeus on February 17.
At the height of American-Uzbek cooperation (2002-2005) there was much public consternation over the plight of the citizens of Uzbekistan, as exhibited across many different media platforms (mostly the op-ed pages). But after Andijon and the resulting departure of American forces from the K2 base in southern Uzbekistan, the amount of public concern dropped noticeably. And this was despite Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the US State Department continuing to issue reports on human rights in Uzbekistan. So what did happen to all of this sincere humanitarian concern?
In my argument, the obvious important variable that determines the levels of non-governmental public concern in the West for human rights in Uzbekistan is US government involvement with Uzbekistan (considering the Uzbek government’s poor human rights’ practices are mostly static).
This is the latest news (h/t Registan newswire):
Uzbekistan is allowing the transit of non-military goods bound for US troops in Afghanistan. President Islam Karimov confirmed February 25 that a train full of cargo was rattling its way across the domestic rail network. Earlier, a spokesman for Kazakhstan Ministry of Emergency Situations said the train, which left Latvia on February 19 laden with US-owned supplies, had exited Kazakhstan “without problems” and was now in Uzbekistan.
“Uzbekistan has agreed to allow the transit of non-military, I stress, non-military goods through the territory of Uzbekistan to Afghanistan in accordance with existing Uzbek laws,” the Russian news agency Interfax quoted Karimov as saying.
Aside from the vagaries of what is “military” and what is “non-military” (because the parties involved have not qualified that), will any neutral third party be looking inside each shipping container? I doubt it.
So this is a significant engagement, no doubt about that. But it’s not exactly like the old days when there was a US military presence at K2 and engagement with Uzbek security organs. It is still to be seen what level of cooperation will be reached between the governments of the United States and Uzbekistan. But I will posit the following relationship:
To sum up, I argue that the higher the level of US government engagement with the Uzbek government, the more the western public (especially in the blogs and the op-ed pages) will express their sincere humanitarian concerns for the citizens of Uzbekistan. I am speaking of the people whose rhetoric seems to be focused on the plight of Uzbek(istani)s. But of course their target is the US government. The Uzbek people are a distant secondary consideration and can (and have in the recent past been) quite easily be forgotten by those in the West who claim to be in solidarity with them.
It’s the graph that makes this unassailable science.
How would one measure this though? Like I wrote recently, I don’t think there is really such thing as public opinion on Uzbekistan. Concern in the human rights community is fairly static if one corrects for extraordinary events like demonstrations against the Burmese government or wars in the Caucasus. Concern on opinion pages might be more a measure of editorial staff concern than public concern. (After all, if Mansur Maqsudi is still in Rep. Chris Smith’s district, I’m sure the Congressman will always be willing to write an op-ed about the plight of the Uzbeks.)
But, what I’m getting at is that I think concern and rhetoric might be fairly static. One could still find people saying fairly unhinged things about US support for Uzbekistan from mid-2005 through 2008. I think what might change is media interest and perhaps the number of mentions of Uzbekistan in consistently anti-US publications.
That said, if there is a way to measure changes in concern, I propose it be John McCain. He’s easily observable and has a track record of courageously speaking out on international issues after a handful of other folks have developed a handful of arguments for him.
By: Nathan on March 3, 2009
at 3:29 am
The graph is of course a visual representation of my argument rather than a scientific measurement of anything. I suppose one could spend a week in lexis/google/worldcat/interwebz and actually measure it scientifically…
And I also saw many of those “unhinged” 2005-2008 comments. So in that sense the rhetoric was static. I guess I should have qualified it as rhetoric in the op-eds of larger circulation papers and some of the more respectable anti-war blogs.
As for McCain, I have noticed his comments over the last few years about Karimov. I await his newest evaluation of the US-Uzbek relationship, assuming that the White House hasn’t asked him to “please be nice.”
By: Christian on March 3, 2009
at 4:05 am
Don’t get me wrong. I love the graph. In my day job, that is the kind of thing that proves a point beyond all doubt.
I think that I would measure it the same way. And even if all you can be sure you’re capturing is editorial or journalistic interest, you’ve got something important. When we see a lot of editorials on Uzbekistan over a long period, then we start seeing follow-on effects like John McCain agitating for policy changes. I wonder if someone out there who does media studies hasn’t come up with a decent model for a similar subject.
Oh, and the really interesting thing to figure out would be how long concern would have to be sustained at “a lot” before Megoran and Heathershaw start publishing articles about human rights stereotypes in western media representations of Uzbekistan.
By: Nathan on March 3, 2009
at 2:09 pm
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at 6:30 pm