From the Washington Post

ALMOST FIVE months after Uzbekistan’s president, Islam Karimov, ordered his security forces to massacre hundreds of mostly unarmed demonstrators in the city of Andijan, European governments are finally taking steps to punish his regime. On Monday in Brussels, foreign ministers of the European Union agreed on an arms embargo against Uzbekistan as well as visa restrictions for government officials complicit with the slaughter. That was an important and necessary step, especially given Mr. Karimov’s defiance of Western calls for an international investigation and the campaign of repression he now wages against survivors of the massacre. It raises the question of why the Western government that claims to be at the forefront of promoting freedom in the Muslim world — the Bush administration — has not taken similar action.

After Sept. 11, 2001, the United States cultivated Mr. Karimov despite mounting evidence that he was one of Asia’s most brutal rulers. The reason was simple: The Pentagon coveted the Karshi-Khanabad airbase, which Mr. Karimov provided as a staging point for U.S. air and rescue operations in Afghanistan. Under pressure from Congress, the State Department finally suspended several aid programs to Uzbekistan last year. But the action was publicly disavowed by the Defense Department, which quickly supplied Mr. Karimov with alternative funding. After Andijan, the State Department joined in denouncing the violence and helped to organize the evacuation of several hundred refugees from neighboring Kyrgyzstan to asylum in Europe. The security relationship, however, remained intact until the aggrieved dictator himself ended the base deal in July.

Mr. Karimov didn’t stop there. His thugs have beaten some of Andijan’s survivors into confessing that the prison break and anti-government demonstration that preceded the massacre were funded by the U.S. embassy, which supposedly gave its support to an Islamic terrorist group linked to al Qaeda. This allegation would be merely ludicrous if not for the fact that American soldiers have fought and died in neighboring Afghanistan while combating that very extremist movement. As it is, it is a gross insult by a ruler who has benefited extraordinarily from the U.S. intervention.

Far smaller offenses have caused the Bush administration to downgrade cooperation with democratic countries in Europe and Latin America. Yet there seems to be abundant patience for Mr. Karimov. Last week he was visited by a delegation of senior officials, who offered him another chance to rescue relations with Washington. Meanwhile, the Pentagon is insisting on paying $23 million for what it says are services rendered by Uzbekistan at Karshi-Khanabad. It’s hard to believe the payment would be made if the Pentagon did not hope to mend its relationship with the tyrant.

A better approach would be that adopted by the Senate this week, in an amendment to the defense authorization bill: suspend the payment for a year, while waiting to see whether Uzbekistan will demonstrate a willingness to cooperate with the United States. A renewed partnership, the official delegation told Mr. Karimov, must include political liberalization and an end to the malicious propaganda. In the very likely event that neither of those conditions are met, the Bush administration should join European states in siding against a dictator who deserves no more chances.

By Bronwen Maddox writing in the Times Online

IT’S called sending a message. It may not do much, but at least it’s been sent. Yesterday the US Senate voted to block a payment of $23 million (’13 million) to Uzbekistan, for the use of an airbase that the US has now been told to leave.

On Monday the European Union slapped sanctions on the country for refusing to allow an international investigation into the Government’s crackdown on a protest in May, said to have killed hundreds of unarmed people. Next week Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, will visit most of Uzbekistan’s neighbours ‘ but not Uzbekistan itself ‘ to drive home US disapproval.

At last, you might say. Five months after President Karimov’s bloody repression of the uprising in the northeastern city of Andijon, the West has decided to do something.

Its initial hesitation was not surprising although not inspiring. Uzbekistan is perhaps the nastiest regime to which the US turned for help after September 11, 2001. Karimov lent a big airbase to the US for use in the Afghan war, and kept access open after the war ended.

But the brutality of Karimov’s rule exposed the US from the start to charges of hypocrisy in its foreign policy: that it was fighting to establish democracy and freedom in Afghanistan and Iraq, while tolerating an ugly despotism in Uzbekistan.

For four years the US has publicly accepted Karimov’s claim that he was doing no more than fighting Islamic fundamentalism (the same justification President Putin of Russia gives for the suppression of Chechnya).

It pointed to Uzbekistan’s membership of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, and of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and its co-operation agreements with Nato and the EU.

But once the heat of the Afghan war subsided, senior US officials were prepared to say privately that putting up with Karimov was unpleasant.

On the British side, the discomfort came to a head earlier with the charges by Craig Murray, the former British Ambassador to Tashkent. He was recalled last year after he accused Britain and the US of condoning torture in Uzbek prisons.

It was the May uprising which forced the US and the EU to harden their positions. Karimov claimed that 187 people were killed, and that most were Islamic terrorists. Witnesses said that about 700 people were killed, mostly unarmed civilians. Karimov has refused all international requests for outside investigation.

On the contrary, he told the US to leave the airbase, and began courting Russia and China.

Will this week’s measures have much effect? No: they are symbolic. The loss of $23 million from the US ‘ fees for the past two years’ use of the base ‘ is not crippling, although it is designed as an insult and will no doubt be taken that way.

‘Paying our bills is important, but more important is America standing up for itself, avoiding the misimpression that we overlook massacres and avoiding cash transfers to the treasury of a dictator just months after he permanently evicts American soldiers from his country’, the Republican senator John McCain said.

On the European side, the one-year sanctions barring arms sales will make little difference, as Uzbekistan has easy access to Russian equipment. The ban on travel of Uzbek officials may sting more.

It is hard to pretend that either the US or European measures will have much practical impact. However, they do send a clear signal, after four years of careful ambiguity.

That is worth doing. As the past few months of hesitation and indecision have shown, it is easily not done.

From BBC Online

An Uzbek imam has died in prison as a result of torture, his relatives and a rights activist claim. Shavkat Madumarov was serving seven years in jail for alleged ties with Wahhabis, strict Muslims who shun state-controlled mosques.

The Uzbek authorities have said that Madumarov died last month from an HIV infection and anaemia. His family say they were not allowed to see his body.

The UN has described the use of torture in Uzbek jails as “systematic”. Former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, made similar claims, publicising the case of an Uzbek prisoner whom a British pathologist concluded had died from being immersed in boiling liquid.

Rights activist Surat Ikramov told the BBC Uzbek service that Madumarov’s family saw the imam three days before his death, at the final session of his trial. They said he was unable to stand and was brought in on a stretcher.

He complained to the judge that he had been given lots of injections, and that he did not know why, but the judge did not listen, Mr Ikramov said.

His relatives deny that he was HIV-positive, and say he was in good health before his detention in February.

Other cases

The case comes in the wake of several arrests of activists in Uzbekistan.

There are concerns about a human rights worker who is being confined in a psychiatric hospital on the outskirts of Tashkent, and three students from the capital who disappeared two weeks ago after mounting a brief protest outside the American embassy calling for political reforms.

BBC Central Asia correspondent Ian MacWilliam says there has been a wave of arrests of government critics in Uzbekistan since an outbreak of violence in the town of Andijan four months ago.

Witnesses say Uzbek troops opened fire on a popular protest, killing hundreds of civilians.

The Uzbek government says 187 people died, in what it called an uprising to create an Islamic state.

On May 13 over 700 demonstrators for democracy in the town of Andizhan were massacred by President Karimov’s vicious Uzbek regime. Jack Straw had continually hailed Karimov as a valuable ‘Ally’ in the War on Terror. Yesterday the EU finally imposed sanctions on Uzbekistan over the Andizhan massacre. Better late than never.

The symbolism of the measure is probably more important than the practical effect. For historic reasons Uzbekistan’s armed forces are largely equipped with Russian weapons, and Russia will keep supplying ‘ on which more below. But Tashkent was indeed very keen on using Western technology to boost its military capacity. It was receiving this, gratis, from the USA. In 2002 alone the US gave Karimov $120 million in military assistance, and $82 million in security service assistance. That aid will probably now stop, but it is essential that the US follows the EU in embargoing the technology.

The restrictions for visas on officials involved in the Andizhan massacre is of great symbolic importance in confirming Uzbekistan’s status as a pariah state, but the EU appears to have dodged the big question ‘ do these apply to Karimov himself?

They certainly should. Two days before the massacre, Uzbek state propaganda announced that Karimov had personally travelled to Andizhan to take charge of the negotiations with the protestors, who had been massing in the square for a fortnight in ever increasing numbers. I doubt he was in truth genuinely there ‘ personal courage is not his hallmark ‘ but in Uzbekistan’s totalitarian system there is no doubt he was in charge. The decision to open fire on the crowd could not have been taken without reference to him.

Even if you accept the possibility that shooting started spontaneously, it is inconceivable that Karimov was not consulted by the next day. That morning soldiers went through the square shooting the wounded ‘ scores of whom had lain without help all night – in the head.

If the travel ban does not include Karimov and his rapacious daughters, it will be meaningless.

Russia and China are eager to fill the vacuum of US withdrawal. Russian foreign minister Lavarov has already announced they will continue to supply arms to Uzbekistan. Russia immediately reacted to Andizhan with full support for Karimov and ludicrous claims of Chechen involvement. Putin is yet again displaying his antipathy to democracy throughout the former Soviet Union ‘ and that includes Russia. Under Putin more than 100 independent journalists have been murdered, independent television has been quashed and any oligarch suspected of nurturing democratic views has been persecuted.

The UK is tomorrow conducting EU talks with Putin, and it is time we stopped pretending the man is a democrat. His murderous policy in Chechnya is as misguided an attempt to fight terrorism as Bush’s invasion of Iraq ‘ and in neither case is terrorism the real motive.

The trial continues in Uzbekistan of the 15 people accused of fomenting the uprising in Andizhan. Like all of Stalin’s show trials, they have conveniently pleaded guilty. In Karimov’s torture chambers, everyone confesses. The show is being conducted for the benefit of the domestic audience. I am not making up what follows ‘ it is the Uzbek government case, presented at the trial.

The prosecution claims that the rebels consisted of the Islamic militant group Hizb-ut-Tehrir, supported by the Taliban, and by Chechen rebels. Finance was provided by the US Embassy in Tashkent, and both CNN and the BBC were involved in the plot from the outset, conspiring to present the rebels as peaceful protestors who wanted democracy.

Obvious, isn’t it? The US were secretly on the Taliban side all along, and CNN are well known for their Chechen links, while the whole thing was masterminded from the BBC by the Teletubbies.

If it were not so serious ‘ and fifteen democrats face the death penalty ‘ it would be laughable. But what should seriously worry us is that the Russians purport to believe this rubbish too. Will Blair have the guts to confront Putin with this nonsense? Of course not.

The absurd love affair between the UK and Karimov is thankfully over. We kissed him, and he’s still a frog. The intelligence co-operation with his obnoxious torturers, which I complained so strongly against, is now finished ‘ by the Uzbeks. They have served notice to quit on the US base. The frog jilted us.

It was blindingly, staringly obvious three years ago that Karimov would never reform. His obnoxious regime is based on slave workers bonded to state farms and state mines. Our government insisted, against all the evidence, that he was moving towards democracy and capitalism. In my last meeting with an FCO minister, in May 2004, I was carpeted for not welcoming the reforms of our ally. The reforms existed only in Karimov’s propaganda and in the incredibly thick heads of New Labour ministers. The next month I wrote a strong telegram to Jack Straw saying we should no longer accept duff Uzbek intelligence, obtained by torture. I was removed as Ambassador because it was impossible for me to maintain friendly working relationships with the Karimov regime.

In truth, it was wrong to try. Finally, I think they see that. It is of no comfort to say ‘I told you so’ when your career is ruined.

Another question gives me still less comfort. The demonstrations in Andizhan had been building for weeks before the massacre. State propaganda had, two days before, announced that President Karimov had gone there in person to take charge of the emergency. Why was the British Embassy not there watching? I have no doubt, and nobody who knew me in Uzbekistan could doubt, that had I still been Ambassador I would have been in that square. I had previously overturned official barriers and driven through the guns to get to an opposition meeting in that Valley.

It was, of course, this penchant for actually doing things that made the FCO want rid of me. Much better for Jack Straw’s FCO to refuse to enter New Orleans to help British nationals until all the right forms have been signed. They left stranded Brits in the Superdome without help for four days. The FCO had told grieving tsunami relatives that if they couldn’t afford to ship the body home, better a quick local cremation. Overturning official roadblocks to help democrats fight dictatorship? Not on the agenda, old boy.

Could a Western Ambassador in the square have stopped the massacre? I don’t know, but it haunts me every time I think of the dead men, women and children of Andizhan.

Craig Murray

From WebIndia123.com

A woman arrested in Uzbekistan for distributing an anti-corruption cartoon says authorities want her to say she is mentally ill.

The BBC reports that Yelena Urlayeva is being held in Republican Psychiatric Hospital No. 2, a prison-like Stalinist relic outside Tashkent. A reporter was able to talk to her briefly through a barred window and she said she had been beaten in an effort to get her to admit illness, the news agency said.

Growing dissent in Uzbekistan has led to a wave of arrests. Urlayeva was picked up in August while she was handing out copies of a cartoon that depicted the country as a cow with bureaucrats sucking its milk.

She was examined immediately afterwards by a psychiatrist who declared that she was not mentally ill.

My letter to SOAS about Shirin Akiner has generated a good deal of heat across the blogs, with a few colleagues rushing to her defence. What follows is a previous deconstruction of her Andijan report I have lifted from Registan

“1. Agree with Nathan and David that there’s a lot to take issue with here, and that anyone with any Central Asian knowledge and/or critical thinking skills who has the patience to read Akiner’s entire report could pick it apart logically and factually if s/he wanted to dedicate the time.

One thing that is immediately clear to any reader is that Akiner had a very busy day. In fact, on closer inspection of the report, she had a nearly impossibly busy day. In any event, looking closer at how she spent her time can give readers an idea of how careful her research was likely to have been.

She says she was there for 12 hours (this was almost two weeks after the end of the events, by the way) and interviewed 40 people. That’s an average of 18 minutes per interviewee without even factoring out travel time in the city, meals, waiting for interviewees to show up. She says she also ‘walked around the city’, inspected the jail and the school, and paced out the entire square in front of the Hokimiyat in order to get a rough measurement ‘ this would have all taken time too. Akiner, however, claims to spend 20 ‘ 45 minutes with each witness ‘ a mathematical impossibility.

She notes that she spoke with a classroom of about 15 madrassah students ‘ and while it is somewhat disingenuous to pad the number of ‘witnesses’ you had by counting all the participants of a class discussion, assuming that she included these 15 as witnesses make her account of her day a little more palpable, though still unlikely. Without the 15 madrassah students from the class discussion, it is actually 25 witnesses, that gives an average of about 28 minutes per interview (again, if Akiner spent every second interviewing people, which she clearly did not).

Akiner indicates that she spoke with 12 categories of witness (Akiner calls anyone she talked to a ‘witness’) besides madrassah students: madrassah teachers, imams, mahalla committee members, cemetery keepers/ gravediggers, doctors, prisoners, prison staff, bazaar traders, government officials, law enforcement officers, independent human rights activists, one hostage. So her remaining 25 interviewees were presumably divided among these categories (mostly official appointees or state employees with something to lose’notice the absence of anyone who was actually in the square, except for the hostage and perhaps law enforcement officials).

It also appears that at least several of these remaining witnesses were mahalla leaders, as Akiner relies on them for death estimates, citing a range of 3-10 deaths per mahalla (one would hope that she didn’t just ask two mahalla leaders to get this range) this eats into the remaining 25 witnesses with people whose testimony, as just neighborhood leaders, would not be particularly useful.

So really we’re talking about 20-odd interviews that probably lasted 15-20 minutes each after factoring in all of Akiner’s class discussions, inspecting of buildings, measuring public squares and walking around town. This is still an extremely tight interview schedule, which implies that someone was bending over backwards to get her all this face time (and presumably, most interviewees would be going through those who organized the interview and, thus, could be briefed or intimidated beforehand). Additionally, most of these interviews were of people who were either direct state appointees or de facto appointees (mahalla heads and official imams) who have to more or less tow the official line.

So the real question is how did this report get so much attention? For God sakes, an entire lecture tour?!! Akiner herself even admits she is not writing as an academic, but as a layperson.

Oh, and Starr’s assertion in the introduction that HRW was hiding dead bodies in Tashkent is just plain ridiculous. It’s a shame that someone so detatched from reality is allowed to continue to teach. He should be sued for libel.

2. Comment by brian

9/19/2005 @ 10:57 pm

Great deconstruction of events in the report Matt. And as far as having offical/well-connected help to arrange the interviews, I agree something’s amiss. Something I’ve commented on a couple times before is her interview for Uzbek TV, but read the paragraph where she discusses this:

‘My companions on the journey to Andijan were themselves surprised by how greatly the situation there seemed to differ from what they had learnt through the press (these were mainly individuals who had access to foreign media reports). One of them suggested that I give a television interview about my impressions. I thought about this for a while and then agreed to do it, since I strongly believe that important issues such as these need to be debated in an independent, open manner.’

My questions are: Who were her companions? Considering they were ‘mainly individuals with access to foreign media reports’ and were quick to suggest discussing it on Uzbek TV, this makes me suspect that they were Uzbek nationals and perhaps connected to the government or national media. This goes back to what Matt suggested.

Then the obvious question is why would she think interviewing on Uzbek TV would be discussing it in an ‘indpendent, open manner’?

3. Comment by squid123

9/20/2005 @ 12:27 am

Matt W., impressive deconstruction. But an even more damning criticism of her methodology is that she admittedly did her interviews while walking around with government minders. I quote:

‘We stopped where I wanted to stop, talked to whom I wanted to. I asked Uzbek friends to help me. They were present, but not on top of me.’ She added that she felt she had some leeway because she was considered a ‘sympathetic outsider.’ She admitted that she had government cooperation, but distinguished that from sponsorship’

OK, so this lady is walking around with ‘Uzbek friends’ asking strangers, many of whom have had relatives killed or injured, about what happened. Has anyone ever conducted an interview? In Uzbekistan? OK, I’ll tell you. You can’t just walk up to people on the street and expect them to tell you the truth. Much less with a group of (possibly) government goons (or that people would preceive as such). Much less when people are paranoid because their friends were shot and made to disappear last week!!!

Plus, and kudos to Matt for pointing this out, she relies on mahalla leaders for her statistics. Not only unverified, like HRW eyewitness reports, but as government employees, they are the absolute worst type of source imaginable to get accurate information. Those are the people to ask if you want to hear government propaganda’or maybe that IS what she wanted? Plus, she uncritically accepts the government’s explanation of who the insurgents were and their motives.

In short, a farce’a specious piece of spin that the Uzbek government would have paid a lot of money for if it had hired a PR firm.

Peace

4. Comment by David

9/20/2005 @ 3:35 am

Wonderful mathematics, and that’s without even taking into account the key to interviewing in Uzbekistan: the plov factor. Nobody who doesn’t know you is really going to tell you anything close to the truth unless you’ve eaten plov with them, so for proper research you have to factor in large amounts of time eating and admiring your host’s rice and meat dishes. When I was young and naive i also thought I could do 8 interviews in a day in the Fergana valley. If I got two that was a good result, and that presumes that you’re with the non-drinking variety of plov eater.

On Akiner’s friends: she says she went to Andijan with Ravshan Alimov. He is a nice guy and has a reputation as relatively independent. But he’s still a government official. He used to be head of the Institute for Strategic Studies, the govt ‘think’tank, and a member of the security council. But last I heard he was apparently lecturing at the SNB academy. So you turn up with a Tashkent official with SNB connections, and expect people to talk freely with you? Its just not serious.”

In fact we now know she was also accompanied by the regional governor ‘ the hokkim of Andijan. Nowhere has anybody taken issue with my assertion that it is ludicrous to conduct interviews about an alleged government massacre, in a situation where local people are obviously going to be traumatised, accompanied by government heavies.

Craig Murray

From The Telegraph

It has taken the European Union four and a half months to decide on sanctions against Uzbekistan for the Andijan massacre. These are due to be approved by foreign ministers of the 25 member states in Brussels on Monday. They are expected to ban exports of arms, military equipment and material that could be used for internal repression. Other measures include refusing visas to those thought to have been involved in the massacre, and cuts in aid disbursed under a 1996 partnership and co-operation agreement.

The EU argues that it had to wait for the report of its special representative, the Slovak diplomat Jan Kubis, before taking action. In so doing, it ignored its own deadline, of June 30, for Uzbek compliance with a demand that the May 13 massacre, in which hundreds of people were killed, be subject to an international inquiry. To add insult to injury, it did not even bother to place Andijan on the agenda of this month’s foreign ministers’ meeting in Newport.

Mr Kubis, who visited Tashkent and Andijan three weeks ago, has duly relayed President Islam Karimov’s refusal to accede to EU demands. Instead, the government has put on trial 15 defendants charged with what it terms an uprising by Islamic extremists. Investigations by human rights organisations have, by contrast, found that the authorities applied excessive lethal force to a largely peaceful protest against poverty and repression.

The EU has the chance to compensate for procrastination at its summit with Vladimir Putin in London next Tuesday. The Russian president has moved swiftly to strengthen relations with Mr Karimov following the latter’s decision to withdraw basing rights from the Americans at Karshi-Khanabad; enhancing Russian influence in the “near abroad” tops the Kremlin’s foreign policy agenda. EU leaders should tell Mr Putin that support for the Uzbek tyrant threatens stability in a region of mutual strategic concern, and can only damage Moscow’s relations with the West. The question is: will they have the guts to do so? Dilatoriness over the Andijan massacre does not encourage optimism.

Dear Professor Bundy,

It is with a heavy heart that I write to you about the activities of Shirin Akiner in acting as a propagandist for the Karimov regime of Uzbekistan. I am very reluctant to do so because I am a passionate believer in academic freedom and the right to express even the most unorthodox of views. However I feel that in her activities in attempting to justify the Andizhan massacre, Ms Akiner has entered the realm of deliberate dishonesty, and demonstrably departed from standards of academic method in a way that SOAS cannot ignore.

Ms Akiner has lied about the origin of her visit to Andizhan as a guest of the Uzbek government. She claims she was in Tashkent anyway, and accepted an unexpected invitation issued on the spot. In fact the Uzbek Ambassador to London, Mr Riskiev, had told a British businessman in London many days before this that the Uzbek government was countering the possible imposition of sanctions by sending Shirin Akiner to produce a report to give credibility to the Uzbek government’s version of the massacre. The businessman immediately told me, so I knew of her visit to Andizhan before Akiner alleges that she did.

On the question of academic method, Akiner operated under the direct supervision of Uzbek government officials. She only spoke to alleged witnesses in the presence of government officials, and indeed I believe it was almost always the regional governor himself, the Hokkim of Andizhan, who was with her. The idea that in a totalitarian state evidence of an alleged government atrocity can be gained by allowing the government to produce the witnesses, and interviewing them in the presence of government officials, is ludicrous, as any decent academic would recognise. It seems to me that on this particular point there is evidence for SOAS to speak to Ms Akiner.

Her account of what happened agrees perfectly with the Uzbek government’s account, which is unsurprising in the circumstances. Her account contrasts sharply with the excellent report by Human Rights Watch, compiled after decent individual interviews with twenty times as many individuals as Akiner interviewed individually, and in the case of HRW, interviewed without the presence of government officials. Akiner’s account also differs from those of journalistic eyewitnesses, including that of Galima Burkabaeva, a reporter for CNN I have known well for three years who was present throughout the events in Andizhan. Galima is now a postgraduate student at Columbia University, and I discussed these matters with her last week.

Burkabaeva says that Akiner’s account is completely incompatible with the truth. In both Washington and New York I found that my audiences ‘ including Columbia University, the American Bar Association and the Brookings Institute ‘ were simply astonished at the propaganda tour of the United States Akiner recently undertook. With the exception of a tiny number of the most extreme neo-conservatives, everyone asked me ‘ literally scores of people ‘ why SOAS was working for the government of Uzbekistan. I do not believe you are aware of the damage Akiner is doing to the reputation of your institution.

Let me be quite plain. I am not seeking to stop Akiner supporting the Uzbek government. Her political views are her own business. I am accusing her of deliberate abandonment of academic method in her Andizhan investigation, in order to produce a desired propaganda result. I presume that she preaches the resulting falsehoods not only in the States, not only on Channel 4 News last night, but also to your students.

I should be most grateful if you would refer this email to the SOAS ethics committee.

One final question. In Uzbekistan everybody, no matter what subject they are studying and at what level, is required to study the works of President Karimov. This starts at elementary school and extends up to PhD. I met one brilliant mathematician who had just submitted their mathematics PhD, but was very worried about the compulsory examination where they had to reproduce and praise passages of Karimov’s books.

I was recently told that Akiner curried favour with Karimov some years ago by securing SOAS funds and other resources for translating Karimov’s execrable books into English. I should like to know if that is true.

Craig Murray

UK Ambassador to Uzbekistan 2002-4