Even before the Tulip revolution took place next door in Kyrgyzstan, the Uzbek government has started to audit international organizations operating in country. If the auditors knew what they were doing, it would be one thing, but a two week audit of one organization has turned into a month of confusion. And with renewed pressure and paranoia from above, the process will take much, much longer – or much, much faster with more negative outcomes. In the mean time, accreditation for each organization to operate here are withheld until after audits are over, leaving everyone in limbo with expired visas – well, because visas don’t get renewed unless you are accredited, of course.
Peace Corps is feeling the pain, too, surprise, surprise. I’m not sure if we are being audited or not, but I do know that our accreditation for this year is five to six months over due. Moreover, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has provided only a two month visa for the new volunteers, and most likely nothing more until we are accredited. Don’t worry, friends and family, Peace Corps is working with the highest level at the American Embassy to resolve the visa issue, and like last year, it may just take another sit-in at the MFA office by the Ambassador and the Country Director to get…ummm…maybe a three month extension.
So the ripples from the Rose, Orange, and Tulip revolutions and any other progress towards democracy throughout the world, continue to expand here. They leave many of us spinning ‘round and ‘round in their wake, and the work that we’re here to do stuck in the doldrums…
Personally, I find that a lot of what I’m here to do – developing NGO’s – is necessary. However, working with an already highly developed NGO, I feel very ineffective at helping them to overcome obstacles which are beyond our control. They already have a lot of capacity, and a lot of potential. I can help them win as many grants and contracts as I can, but it is pointless if their activities get blocked through the banking system, other official measures, or scare tactics. As a result, I am focusing more on the individual level – starting English conversation clubs with youth and young professionals, and possibly organizing some rural school repair projects if funding comes through…
…all the while humming my daily mantra…“Big dreams, small miracles!”
Copyright 2005 Associated Press
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Associated Press Worldstream
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April 20, 2005 Wednesday
SECTION: INTERNATIONAL NEWS
DISTRIBUTION: Europe; Britian; Scandinavia; Middle East; Africa; India; Asia; England
LENGTH: 778 words
HEADLINE: Uzbek authorities fear ancient Fergana Valley is potential trouble spot
BYLINE: KATHY GANNON; Associated Press Writer
DATELINE: MARGALLAN, Uzbekistan
BODY:
Twenty-six police checkpoints dot the road connecting the Uzbek capital, Tashkent, with the Fergana Valley barely 300 kilometers (180 miles) away. They're a sign of the government's fear of the impoverished, ethnic patchwork of a region that could become a fulcrum of discontent and rebellion in formerly Soviet Central Asia.
The boundaries of the valley crisscross three countries - Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. On its southeast border is a fourth restless territory: China's Xinjiang province, where Uighur militants are demanding greater autonomy or outright independence from Beijing.
So interwoven is the relationship between the people of the Fergana Valley, regardless of their citizenship, that a 1999 bank bombing in the Kyrgyz city of Osh resulted in the arrest and subsequent execution of two brothers from Andijan in Uzbekistan, a few hours' drive away.
It's no surprise that stirrings of unrest in any nook of the valley cause deep concern in all three countries, and that Kyrgyzstan's neighbors have watched with alarm the uprising that toppled longtime Kyrgyz leader Askar Akayev last month. The protests that sparked that uprising began in Osh.
None of the neighbors is more worried than Uzbekistan, already fighting what authorities claim is an embryonic Islamic insurgency and now nervously watching economic frustration building in a region of the country where unemployment is running at 40 percent.
Uzbek settlements in the valley have been seeing small but frequent public protests in recent months, fueled by what the government's critics say is unremitting repression of observant Muslims and abuses of farmers and merchants' rights by local authorities.
"We are more religious in the valley, but it isn't just the religious side that frightens the government," said Akhmed Modmarov, a human rights worker in the silk-growing center of Margallan who has three sons and two nephews in jail on religiously motivated charges.
"The government is afraid because it is the most heavily populated area of Uzbekistan. People are educated and there are no jobs for our young people, and the more frustrated they become, the more ready they are to revolt."
The Fergana Valley was once the ancient trading center of Central Asia, straddling the Silk Road that joined China to the Mediterranean. Arabs introduced Islam to the valley in the 8th century. Since then it has been occupied by Persians, Turks and Mongols under Genghis Khan.
In the 20th century, it fell under Soviet control. Dictator Josef Stalin sought to divide and conquer Central Asia's many ethnic groups by chopping up the valley's boundaries. As a result there are some places where Uzbek nationals have to cross small patches of Kyrgyzstan to get back into Uzbekistan, sometimes two and three times. When Uzbekistan shuts its borders, trade in both Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan suffers.
Instead of weakening identity, many in the valley say the Soviet-era redrawing of borders strengthened it and caused ethnic strife. In June 1990, hundreds were killed in a spasm of fighting between ethnic Kyrgyz and Uzbeks.
Yet the valley's recent history suggests Islamic extremism has managed to bridge the divides, drawing followers into groups that transcend national affiliation. It's the birthplace of the al-Qaida-affiliated Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, which the United States has labeled a terrorist organization and which embraces several Central Asian nationalities.
"The Fergana Valley is certainly going to be the crucible one day," said Allison Gill, of the U.S.-based Human Rights Watch office in Uzbekistan. "There is a broad perception in the government that the Fergana Valley is dangerous to them, the borders are permeable and they are more religious."
Several smaller radical religious organizations have emerged in the valley in recent years, including the Justice Society, the Long Beard, and Repentance, and there is growing support for the outlawed Hizb ut-Tahrir, founded in 1952 in Jordan to press for the overthrow of secular governments and their replacement by with a single caliphate, or Islamic rule.
The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) fought in Tajikistan's 1992-97 civil war and sparked a cross-border conflict between Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan in the late 1990s. Its members eventually settled in Afghanistan.
IMU co-founder Jumaboi Khojiev, who took the nom de guerre Juma Namangani after his hometown of Namangan, was reportedly killed in northern Afghanistan during the U.S. ouster of the Taliban regime after the Sept. 11 attacks. However, reports have recently begun to surface in the valley that he might be alive.
Posted by: shawn | 04/26/2005 at 11:22 AM