Independence Day Parade

Music

00:00

Campbell: Independence Day, Uzbekistan, and the State is showing off its military might.

00:09

Music/Singing

Campbell: It’s ten years since the Soviet Union collapsed leaving Uzbekistan on its own in a dangerous region.

00:20

Some feared it would end up like its neighbour Afghanistan, falling into chaos and religious extremism.

00:28

But Uzbekistan’s secular State hasn’t just survived, it’s grown stronger every year.

00:37

It has crushed its Islamic opponents, throwing thousands into jail.

00:44

Its military is now the most powerful in Central Asia, and its commander-in-chief, Islom Karimov, the region’s undisputed strongman.

00:51

Music/Singing

Karimov at podium

Campbell: Ten years ago Karimov was the Communist Party boss. Since independence he’s been Uzbekistan’s first and only president. Many of his 25 million people see him as the nation’s saviour, defending it from fundamentalists and Islamic terror.

01:24

Karimov: We must be watchful in terms of dangers spreading out at the present time, such as terrorism, religious extremism, drug addiction, fundamentalism. In a word we must tirelessly defend our home ourselves.

01:44

Applause

Independence Day Parade

Campbell: But some see a darker side behind the colour and celebration. They believe independence has brought a new kind of repression, unspeakable State crimes dressed up as a war on terrorism.

02:10

Shields.

Super:

Acacia Shields

Human Rights Watch

Shields: I was called late in the night to go to the home of a young man who was the son of an Imam, the son of a religious leader at a mosque. And he had been arrested for possession of a leaflet, possession of literature about religion. And I was called to his home to view his body after he was tortured to death in prison. And that is one of the sobering sights, most sobering sights I’ve ever seen. And unfortunately that story is repeated over and again in Uzbekistan.

02:26

Uzbekistan War museum

Music

Campbell: For more than a century, great powers have seen Uzbekistan as a front line between civilisation and barbarity. Tsarist Russia built a mighty fort on Uzbekistan’s southern border, its guns pointed across the Amur Darya river to Afghanistan.

03:05

The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan from here, to prevent Islamic militancy taking hold on its southern frontier.

03:23

Since independence, Uzbekistan has been fighting its own war, battling raids by Islamic insurgents from the self-styled IMU -- the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. The Government accuses it of widespread terrorism. Now America is offering to join Uzbekistan’s war, linking the IMU to Osama bin Laden.

03:31

US Congress

Bush: This group and its leader, a person named Osama bin Laden, are linked to many other organizations in different countries, including the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.

03:53

Campbell: But not everyone welcomes America’s involvement in Uzbekistan’s campaign. Acacia Shields spent four years in Uzbekistan as a researcher for the international monitoring group, Human Rights Watch.

04:09

Shields

Shields: What Uzbekistan has been engaged in for the past four years has not been a war on terrorism, but rather a very brutal campaign against its own people – peaceful, devout Muslims who practice their faith outside State controls. These are not people who have been accused of possessing arms, or engaging in any violence, so to justify that crackdown in the name of countering terrorism, or to use the tragedy in New York to justify that, really doesn’t wash.

04:22

Uzbekistan Mosques

Campbell: Officially Uzbekistan guarantees religious freedom. Since the Communist ban on religion was lifted, thousands of mosques have been built. Hundreds of Islamic colleges, called madrasses, have been opened. But Islam’s growth has been very much on the government’s terms. Today, registered mosques are required to be absolutely loyal to the State.

05:03

Khamidulloh is the Imam at one of the largest mosques in the capital, Tashkent. He is careful to praise both God and the President.

05:27

Khamidulloh

Khamidulloh: Certainly President Karimov is our Muslim brother, he takes care of us and creates great opportunities for us.

05:38

Khamidulloh in mosque

Campbell: Since 1997, the Government has closed down hundreds of mosques for refusing to toe the Government line. Muslims belonging to unregistered organizations have been imprisoned. Human Rights Watch estimates more than 4,000 devout Muslims are in jail for offences as slight as reading the Koran in their homes.

05:55

Shields

Shields: Thousands and thousands of people have been caught up in these sweeps and it’s not unusual to see entire families decimated by this crackdown.

06:18

Campbell: The Government calls the jailed Muslims “Wahabbists” -- followers of Saudi Arabia’s strict Islamic sect.

06:31

It’s code for fundamentalist, and the official mosques wholeheartedly support the Government’s campaign.

Khamidulloh

Khamidulloh: Certainly our State must take action against fundamentalism. Otherwise various kinds of troubles, bloodshed or wars like in Afghanistan or its neighbours might occur.

06:57

Footage of terrorist attacks

Music

Campbell: And bloodshed blamed on fundamentalists has given the Government every excuse to continue the crackdown. On February 16, 1999, a series of terrorist bombings in Tashkent killed sixteen people and seriously wounded 128. The explosions had targeted Government offices, including the Cabinet meeting room. But as this Government video repeatedly stressed, the victims were innocent civilians.

07:12

Woman: Why? Why did they kill my husband, my father, my son, my daughter? Why them? Who did this? Why?

07:40

Stock footage: terrorist attack sites

Video v/o: In the midst of danger, President Islom Karimov visited the explosion sites.

08:05

He expressed condolences to the families of the deceased and called upon the population to keep unity and tranquillity.

Music

Campbell: While no group claimed responsibility, the Government was quick to use the carnage to intensify a crackdown on alleged Islamic militants. Hundreds were rounded up. Suspects were shown confessing to organising the bombings for the IMU as a prelude to an armed uprising.

08:31

Alleged terrorists

Man: We have prepared two types of explosives. The main goal was to blow up the president. The new purpose of those present was to create condition of jihad ideology.

08:50

Music

Campbell: There’s no doubt the Government had to respond forcefully to such a devastating crime.

09:09

But there’s also little doubt the President has used the spectre of Wahabbists to crack down on any opposition -- real, potential, or imagined. He has brought traditional Islam under tight state control. His KGB has harassed, kidnapped, imprisoned, some say even murdered his democratic opponents.

Mikhail

Mikhail: In August 1992 the KGB blew up my front door, put a bomb under it. The door was blown to pieces.

09:38

Campbell: Mikhail Ardzinov has been a target of the secret police ever since Karimov came to power.

09:50

Campbell: Why did the KGB do this?

Mikhail: Obviously they wanted to scare me in the first place because we wrote a lot and criticised the authorities a lot.

10:02

Campbell: Ardzinov runs an Uzbek human rights foundation, stubbornly persevering against constant harassment.

Despite being a pacifist and an atheist, he too was arrested and bashed in the crackdown that followed the bombings.

10:20

Mikhail: They are threatening us again now.

Campbell: It’s so dangerous. Why do you continue?

10:32

Mikhail: We were doing it a long time ago. These are our principles. We see that people suffer, freedom suffers. We fight for democracy, for human rights and for freedom as they have in civilised countries, in accordance with our principles.

10:36

Mikhail & Professor Taradan Aripov

Campbell: Most of his colleagues have spent long stretches in jail. Professor Taradan Aripov was sentenced to ten years after criticising Karimov. Machmuba Kasymova was imprisoned for 18 months after a 15-minute trial. She was released after appeals from the then US Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright. Another of their colleagues died in police custody two months ago.

10:56

Mikhail

Mikhail: The outlook for us is dark, as long as Karimov’s authoritarian regime is in power. But we will continue to fight till freedom and democracy comes here.

11:21

Campbell: Ardzinov and his friends are virtually all that’s left of an opposition.

Uzbek Parliament meeting

As well as banning Islamic parties, Karimov has banned all democratic groups opposed to his rule. Now, when he enters Parliament he’s assured of universal applause, just like in the old days when the Communist Party ruled all. But the regime insists it is moving toward democracy. In the last presidential elections, President Karimov even organized a candidate to run against him. His choice was the head of his old Communist Party, now renamed the National Democratic Party.

11:50

Abdulhafiz Jalalov

Abdulhafiz Jalalov took to his assigned role with gusto, travelling the country in a vigorous election campaign in which he urged people to vote for Karimov.

12:22

Campbell: Who did you vote for?

Jalalov: Without going to the booth, I voted for the incumbent president. Because I thought that my vote was not of influence. Very modestly, according to the Eastern mentality. Especially that the President and I are not personal rivals.

12:40

Campbell: But you were an opponent.

Jalalov: I was the alternative candidate. I was the rival, but not the personal rival.

13:06

Music

Streets of Uzbekistan

Campbell: It is a sham democracy in which Karimov wins every time. The system simply doesn’t allow any credible alternative. The President’s face smiles down from billboards across the country. A tightly controlled media gives him unstinting praise. But such is the fear of Islamic extremism, many are prepared to trade democracy for stability.

13:15

Vahob, Dilya and Ziyoda

Vahob, Dilya and Ziyoda are students at Tashkent’s foreign language university:

Ziyoda : We should have, like some strict rules here, to stop those things.

13:46

Campbell: To stop terrorism?

Ziyoda: Yeah, and among youth.

Vahob: Saving Uzbekistan will need some more years to achieve the level of democracy like some well-developed countries.

13:58

Campbell: Does that worry you here, that if you had perhaps more freedom it may result in more fundamentalism?

Dilya: I want it to be separate – for example I don’t want religion to disturb the civilisation. I don’t want it to happen.

14:12

Music

Ferghana Valley

Campbell: But outside Tashkent, discontent with the regime is growing. The Ferghana Valley is Uzbekistan’s rural heartland. Once a centre of the Soviet Union’s cotton industry, it is now a place of desperate poverty. The collapse of the USSR wrecked the system of collective farms that at least guaranteed peoples’ livelihood. The Government has long seen the valley as a breeding ground for fundamentalism. But while the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan has its roots here, Human Rights Watch doubts it has strong support.

14:27

Shields

Shields: I know that there are people based outside of Uzbekistan who call themselves the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, who have stated that their goal is to overthrow the Karimov Government. That has not been the stated goal of religious Muslims inside Uzbekistan.

15:03

Ferghana Valley

Campbell: But the Ferghana Valley has been a major target of the Government’s crackdown. People have been arrested and jailed for praying in small groups or in unregistered mosques, or simply for being denounced as Wahabbists.

15:22

Khamidullah Moindino

Khamidullah Moindino is coming to terms with the loss of almost his entire family. Police arrested his wife, his three sons, his wife’s brother and his nephew. All have been sentenced to long prison terms; his wife won’t be released for another 12 years. His grandson Bilud won’t see his father for another 10 years.

15:39

Khamidullah

Khamidullah: My sons don’t even know any prayers. They can’t read prayer books, but they were charged with Wahabbism. My sons don’t even know what a Wahabbist is.

16:03

Hakim

Campbell: Khamidulla’s friend Hakim is similarly perplexed. One night, 20 police arrived at this house and dragged away his two sons after a business rival claimed they were Wahabbists. One was given a lengthy prison term, but his son Nozun was eventually released after police beatings left him brain-damaged.

16:26

Nozun

Nozun: They took me from here and beat me up. There were three of four of them. And then I fell down. I fell down. And there was concrete there I must have hit my head on it and it split. After I was hit I couldn’t move the next day. I was hit all over.

16:48

Ferghana Valley

Campbell: The arrests have spread fear throughout the Ferghana Valley, driving Islamic worship underground. With no avenue for protest or redress, the crackdowns have fuelled resentment against Karimov’s regime.

17:17

Critics ask whether the repression has crushed revolutionary Islam or created it.

Mikhail

Mikhail: They are put in prison, killed, but the number grows. The people here are very flexible. They’re not rigid like in Iran or in other places. Very flexible people and so is the religion. It’s calm if it isn’t touched. But if it is repressed it cases dissatisfaction and the threat remains.

17:39

Fireworks/Music

Karimov at Independence Day parade

Campbell: President Karimov can look back in satisfaction at ten years of independence. He has survived the collapse of the Soviet superpower to become master of his own domain. All around him praise him. World leaders court him. And a grand coalition is joining his war.

18:17

Credits:

Uzbekistan:

Reporter: Eric Campbell

Camera: Sebastian Phua

Sound: Rex Chen

Editor: Stuart Miller

18:49