Neu Leonstein
03-08-2006, 01:19
Haha, you thought I was going to talk about the Nazis!
Many of you will remember the Andijan massacre in Uzbekistan last year. Hundreds of people were killed for daring to protest against Karimov.
As a result, Uzbekistan was widely criticised, and shunned by the West.
The whole West?
Not quite:
http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spiegel/0,1518,429712,00.html
Germany's Favorite Despot
By Christian Neef
While many Westerners have been forced out of Uzbekistan, the German army continues to operate a base in the border city of Termez. Oppenents of President Karimov's despotic regime are now accusing the Germans of looking the other way.
...
Of course, neither the German government nor the country's military are as naïve as they seem. German military officials are fully aware of what has happened to their former Uzbeki contacts who were too liberal-minded for Karimov's taste.
Kadyr Gulyamov, the former defense minister and a man Western partners valued as intelligent and a person of integrity, and who was on good terms with his German counterpart, Peter Struck, was replaced last November, placed under house arrest and sentenced to five years' probation in mid-July for "revealing classified information to a foreign state." A letter of appreciation from US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld apparently led to Gulyamov's downfall.
Erkin Mussayev, Tashkent's NATO liaison officer in Brussels for two years and later the government's liaison to Western military attachés in Tashkent, was sentenced to 15 years in prison on charges of revealing classified information on the Uzbek and Russian armies to the Pentagon and undermining the "defense capabilities of the Commonwealth of Independent States."
Tolkin Jumayev, a highly respected, multilingual troop commander in the country's southern Surchandarya province, liaison to the Germany military in Termez and holder of the German order of merit, and later the Uzbeki military's chief of staff, was suddenly ousted by Karimov and disappeared. He was recently seen driving a taxi in Tashkent.
Anwar Kanyeyev, a former liaison officer in Paris and later Mussayev's deputy at the defense ministry, has fled Uzbekistan and is now living in Russia.
It doesn't take a trip to Tashkent to get a sense of the mood of intimidation and persecution that has taken hold in Uzbekistan. In fact, it's even more palpable in smaller cities than in the capital and has settled on Termez, home of the German military's air base, like a fine layer of dust.
I don't see how this is excusable. Now, I know that logistics is complicated, and the base might be a good way to supply the troops, but the others managed to find a better way.
But what do you think? How far should a country go in cases like this?
Many of you will remember the Andijan massacre in Uzbekistan last year. Hundreds of people were killed for daring to protest against Karimov.
As a result, Uzbekistan was widely criticised, and shunned by the West.
The whole West?
Not quite:
http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spiegel/0,1518,429712,00.html
Germany's Favorite Despot
By Christian Neef
While many Westerners have been forced out of Uzbekistan, the German army continues to operate a base in the border city of Termez. Oppenents of President Karimov's despotic regime are now accusing the Germans of looking the other way.
...
Of course, neither the German government nor the country's military are as naïve as they seem. German military officials are fully aware of what has happened to their former Uzbeki contacts who were too liberal-minded for Karimov's taste.
Kadyr Gulyamov, the former defense minister and a man Western partners valued as intelligent and a person of integrity, and who was on good terms with his German counterpart, Peter Struck, was replaced last November, placed under house arrest and sentenced to five years' probation in mid-July for "revealing classified information to a foreign state." A letter of appreciation from US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld apparently led to Gulyamov's downfall.
Erkin Mussayev, Tashkent's NATO liaison officer in Brussels for two years and later the government's liaison to Western military attachés in Tashkent, was sentenced to 15 years in prison on charges of revealing classified information on the Uzbek and Russian armies to the Pentagon and undermining the "defense capabilities of the Commonwealth of Independent States."
Tolkin Jumayev, a highly respected, multilingual troop commander in the country's southern Surchandarya province, liaison to the Germany military in Termez and holder of the German order of merit, and later the Uzbeki military's chief of staff, was suddenly ousted by Karimov and disappeared. He was recently seen driving a taxi in Tashkent.
Anwar Kanyeyev, a former liaison officer in Paris and later Mussayev's deputy at the defense ministry, has fled Uzbekistan and is now living in Russia.
It doesn't take a trip to Tashkent to get a sense of the mood of intimidation and persecution that has taken hold in Uzbekistan. In fact, it's even more palpable in smaller cities than in the capital and has settled on Termez, home of the German military's air base, like a fine layer of dust.
I don't see how this is excusable. Now, I know that logistics is complicated, and the base might be a good way to supply the troops, but the others managed to find a better way.
But what do you think? How far should a country go in cases like this?