Uzbekistan Country Page

 

   

Uzbekistan Data Uzbekistan Summary Reports: NCSJ report (below) CIA World Factbook U.S. State Dept. - background U.S. State Dept. - Human Rights U.S. State Dept. - Religious Freedom Uzbek Embassy U.S. Embassy Tashkent About NCSJ Country Reports Return to Directory

 

Population: 27.6 million Ethnic Composition:  80% Uzbek, 5.5% Russian, 5% Tajik, 3% Kazakh, 2.5% Karakalpak, 1.5% Tatar, 2.5% other Religion: 88% Sunni Muslim, 9% Eastern Orthodox Christian, 3% other Jewish population: 4,000 2009 Aliyah  (emigration to Israel): 368 1989-2006 Aliyah: 83,643 Size: 447,400 sq km Capital: Tashkent Major cities: Tashkent, Samarkand, Bukhara Freedom House Rating:  Not Free

Currency: 1,537 Soum = $1 GDP: $30.32 billion (2009 est.) GDP per capita: $2,800 (2009 est.) GDP Growth: 6.2% (2009 est.) Head of State: President Islam Karimov Head of Government: Prime Minister Shavkat Mirziyayev Foreign Minister: Vladimir Norov Ambassador to United States: Abdulaziz Kamilov U.S. Ambassador  to Uzbekistan: Richard B. Norland   Chronology of all U.S. envoys to Uzbekistan

SUMMARY

Home to the famed Silk Road cities of Samarkand and Bukhara, and ruled in the past by Persians, Alexandrine Greeks, Arabs, Mongols and Turks, Uzbekistan was conquered by Tsarist Russia in the 19th century and re-conquered by the Red Army during Russia’s Civil War early in the 20th century. During both its Tsarist and Soviet periods, Uzbekistan was largely relegated to extensive cotton monoculture and settlement by Russian-speaking colonists and deportees. Massive Soviet-era irrigation schemes in the region caused the dramatic shrinking of the Aral Sea, shared by Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. Declaring its independence in late 1991, Uzbekistan has been ruled ever since by Islam Karimov, its former Communist Party chief and current President.

Boasting Central Asia’s largest population and military, Uzbekistan has tried to dominate the region and has complicated relationships with Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan in particular due to border, water sharing, and other disputes. Initially cool after independence, relations with Russia are improving quickly, with both countries signing an alliance treaty in 2005; Uzbekistan left the GUAM pro-Western regional grouping the same year. Previously good relations with the United States, which included substantial U.S. aid and strong Uzbek support for U.S. operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, including the use of a strategic air base near the Uzbek-Afghan border, cooled rapidly in 2005. The 2003-2005 overthrow of authoritarian regimes in nearby Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan by pro-Western democratic movements, and especially the expression of concern by the United States over Uzbekistan’s now infamous violent suppression of a mass anti-government demonstration in the city of Andijon in May 2005 are widely believed to be responsible for Uzbekistan’s sudden tilt away from the West and towards Russia and China, who stress their support for the Uzbek leadership and avoid human rights issues.

A large Bukharan Jewish community has existed in Uzbekistan for nearly 2,000 years. A wide variety of local and international Jewish organizations operate freely, and relations with the government are friendly. While overt anti-Semitic incidents are rare, a recent rash of attacks on Uzbek Jews, some fatal, has raised concerns, as have attacks by indigenous Islamic terror groups, who bombed the U.S. and Israeli embassies in 2004, and who continue to operate despite vigorous countermeasures by the government. Jewish emigration to Israel and the United States, steady during the 1980s and 1990s, has subsided somewhat in recent years.


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REPUBLIC OF UZBEKISTAN

INTRODUCTION
POLITICAL SITUATION
    Foreign Policy
ECONOMIC SITUATION
JEWISH COMMUNAL LIFE & ANTI-SEMITISM
U.S. POLICY

Slightly larger than California, Uzbekistan, a country of mostly flat desert, with densely populated and irrigated river valleys, lies at the heart of Central Asia. One of the world’s only two double-landlocked countries (the other is Liechtenstein); it borders Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan and is home to Central Asia’s largest population (estimated at over 27 million in 2006).

The Uzbeks are descended from Turkic tribes that began settling the region in the late Middle Ages after the decline of the Mongol Khanate and the empire of Tamerlane. By the late 16th century, Uzbek Khans controlled much of Central Asia and established close ties to Persia.

Despite prolonged Uzbek resistance, Russia conquered the region by the late 19th century; the Red Army re-conquered the area during the Russian civil war (1918-21). By 1936, Soviet officials had redrawn Central Asia’s borders, establishing Uzbekistan in its modern boundaries. During Soviet rule, central planners relegated Uzbekistan to extensive cotton monoculture and promoted settlement of Russian-speaking colonists and deportees in the area. Although Uzbekistan is now a major global cotton producer, it faces another Soviet legacy in the drying of the Aral Sea, deprived of much of its water by intensive, Soviet-era irrigation schemes. Uzbekistan declared its independence from the Soviet Union on September 1, 1991. Many of its Russian speakers have since emigrated, due to the government’s nativist policies and to ethnic tensions with Uzbeks.

Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin- Gorskii / Library of Congress

The Emir of Bukhara, 1911

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POLITICAL SITUATION

Uzbekistan is a republic with executive, legislative and judicial branches but with real power concentrated with the President, who is the most powerful government official and is elected to a seven-year term by popular vote. The bicameral parliament (Oliy Majlis), divided between a 120-seat Lower House (Legislative Chamber) and a 100-seat Upper House (Senate) as approved in a 2002 referendum, holds elections for its 220 seats every five years. The last parliamentary election was held in January 2005 and the next is scheduled for December 2009. The President appoints the Prime Minister, the cabinet and Supreme Court justices, who are all then approved by parliament. The judiciary is not considered independent.

The leader of Uzbekistan since 1989, when Soviet leader Gorbachev appointed him Uzbekistan’s Communist Party chief, President Islam Karimov was first elected President in 1991. He extended his rule for five more years in a 1995 referendum, and was reelected in the January 2000 presidential election, which he won with a reported 91.9 percent of the vote. Karimov then gained another two years in a January 2002 referendum that extended presidential terms from five to seven years, prolonging his rule to January 2007 (which was extended again until December 23, 2007, thanks to electoral legislation that states, "an election must be held in December of the year in which the president's term expires."). The United States and other foreign observers described the 2000 voting as “neither free nor fair” and “significantly short of international standards for democratic elections.” Opposition parties and candidates were banned or excluded from the 1999, 2000 and 2004/2005 national elections, allowing Karimov easy victories and letting pro-government parties dominate the legislature. The most recent de facto extension of Karimov's term to nearly eight years has been criticized by the opposition.

In practice, the government denies many freedoms that are constitutionally protected. Independent non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and human rights groups are routinely denied registration, and the press is largely self-censored as a result of government repression. Law enforcement and the security services often appear to operate without constraint, and allegations of human rights abuses are common.

Though religious freedom is officially guaranteed by the state, a 1998 law severely restricts the freedoms of “unofficial” religious organizations, especially Islamic and Christian groups perceived as radical or “non-traditional.” The government is especially concerned with monitoring and controlling Islamic worship, given the emergence of homegrown Islamic terror cells in Uzbekistan. Most other religious communities have received government approval and are free to practice. Freedoms such as property rights, emigration, and internal migration are otherwise generally respected.

Increased military operations in Central Asia in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks, together with Uzbekistan’s repression of suspected Islamic extremists, have diminished the strength of radical Islamic groups that had posed a significant threat to the region’s stability. In 1999, 2000 and 2004, local Islamic militants attempted to assassinate President Karimov, staged deadly bombings, clashed with government troops, and attacked government sites and the American and Israeli embassies in Tashkent and Bukhara, resulting in numerous casualties. Despite vigorous government countermeasures, the most prominent local jihadist group – The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU, also known as the Islamic Movement of Turkestan), declared a foreign terrorist group by the United States in 2002 - continues its efforts to overthrow the government and install an Islamic regime, while operating in neighboring Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. The human rights community has criticized the government for detaining suspects without cause and for alleged mistreatment of suspects.

Uzbekistan’s current politics remain dominated by the aftermath of the May 2005 massive protest demonstrations in the Ferghana Valley city of Andijon that turned into an armed uprising against the government. Violently suppressed by government troops, who reportedly killed hundreds of civilians, the Andijon incident was followed by a renewed government crackdown against independent media, NGOs, human rights activists, and unregistered or “untraditional” religious groups (especially Muslim, but also including Western groups such as Jehovah’s Witnesses and Baptists). Condemned by the West for its heavy-handed response but supported by Russia and China, Uzbekistan’s government has changed its foreign policy priorities since 2005 in a rapid and dramatic tilt away from the critical West and towards its understanding Eurasian neighbors.


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Foreign Policy

Following its independence, Uzbekistan climbed to regional leadership in Central Asia by emphasizing the establishment of bilateral ties and agreements with its neighbors. In 1999, Uzbekistan joined GUUAM (Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and Moldova), an organization aimed at countering Russian influence in the area. However, after resuming closer ties with Russia, Uzbekistan left the organization in 2005. In 2001, Uzbekistan joined the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), comprised of five countries—The People’s Republic of China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. The SCO, established in 1996, was created to facilitate economic and security-related cooperation and integration among its member states, and is seen by some as evolving into a Eurasian counterweight of sorts to Euro-Atlantic institutions such as NATO and OSCE.

President Karimov established close relations with the United States by offering a strategic military base near the Afghan border to the American military after the 2001 terrorist attacks. For the next four years, the United States provided substantial aid to Uzbekistan, and utilized the Karshi-Kanabad air base for operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. However, in 2005, Karimov drastically downgraded ties with the United States following American criticism of his government’s suppression of an anti-government demonstration in the eastern city of Andijon. Possibly concerned that the United States and the European Union were pushing for change in Uzbekistan on the model of the so-called pro-democratic “color revolutions” in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan, Karimov strengthened relations with Russia and China and ordered the United States to vacate the Karshi-Kanabad base.

In November 2005, President Karimov and Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a mutual security pact known as the “Treaty for Allied Relations.” Observers noted the treaty served the interests of both parties: Karimov gained Russian support against perceived Western pressure against his regime on human rights grounds and against Islamic radicals who represent the single greatest security threat to his regime, and Putin strengthened Russian influence in Central Asia and weakened that of the United States. Moreover, the Russian-Uzbek treaty includes a provision guaranteeing Russian military aid in the event that Uzbekistan is attacked by a third party.

Relations between Russia and Uzbekistan have continued to grow, with Russian businesses and the Russian government showing increased interest in fostering Russian-Uzbek commercial ties.

Uzbekistan’s relations with its neighbors Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan have been complicated. Ongoing water sharing and border demarcation and crossing disputes have been aggravated by the Uzbekistan government’s claims that Uzbek oppositionists have found sanctuary in neighboring states, especially in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. These two states have refused to extradite Uzbek refugees who fled Uzbekistan after the Andijon events of 2005, and have also refused to extradite Uzbek Islamic militants captured on their territory. At the same time, joint operations by Uzbek and Kyrgyz security forces in 2006 reportedly killed and captured Islamic militants in southern Kyrgyzstan. Uzbekistan’s relationship with Kazakhstan, long seen as a rivalry for regional leadership between Karimov and Kazakh president Nazarbayev, warmed considerably in 2006, when the two presidents exchanged state visits, and then met during and after a regional summit in Kazakhstan, where they signed a series of agreements, praised one another, pledged to double trade from previous low levels, and claimed they had achieved a breakthrough in relations.

Uzbekistan’s relations with Israel have consistently been warm since their establishment in 1992, and the nations have reciprocal embassies. Several cooperation agreements have been signed on investment, science, culture, education and trade, which is limited but growing: Several dozen Uzbek-Israeli joint ventures do business in Uzbekistan, and, in early 2000, the Uzbek state gas company signed a $160 million contract with an Israeli firm. Direct flights connect Tel Aviv and Tashkent. President Karimov visited Israel in 1998 and, in September 2000, appealed to Israel for counterterrorism equipment and training in combating the rise of Islamic militants in the region. Then-Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu visited Uzbekistan in 1998. In June 2008, Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Whbee returned from an official visit to Uzbekistan, where he discussed recent developments in the Middle East, Iranian issues, and the possibility of promoting bilateral cooperation relating to the war on terror and agriculture.

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ECONOMIC SITUATION

Among the poorest of Soviet republics, Uzbekistan did not experience as drastic an economic downturn after 1991 as most of the other successor states experienced, due to its postponement of macroeconomic and structural reforms and its continued reliance on subsidies, price controls and export earnings. After a poor economic performance in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Uzbekistan has staged a partial economic recovery after 2003, fueled largely by rising global prices for its chief export commodities, including gold, cotton and natural gas. As a result, the Uzbek economy is currently running a surplus, and foreign exchange reserves have doubled.

Uzbekistan is the world’s second-largest cotton exporter (behind the United States) as well as a major exporter of gold and natural gas. However, the government’s failure to attract foreign investment due to a poor investment climate, its gradualist approach to reform, and its interventionist, Soviet-style economic policies continue to limit opportunities for its large, young, and growing population, which suffers from high under-employment and a poverty rate estimated at close to 30 percent. Due to stagnant employment and wage growth at home, many Uzbeks have gone to work abroad, particularly in Kazakhstan and Russia. Foreign direct investment in Uzbekistan, around $200 million, is one of the lowest in the former Soviet Union relative to the size of the Uzbek economy.

Privatization has been mainly limited to small enterprises, and large firms and agriculture remain dominated by the state. Heavy regulation discourages foreign investment, and inflation was over 30 percent in 2002, though it has since dropped to an estimated 13.5 percent in 2008. While official unemployment is 0.9 percent, the underemployment rate is estimated around 20 percent, with an estimated 28 percent of the population living below the poverty line.

Uzbekistan’s main trading partner is Russia, followed by South Korea, various European Union (EU) states, Kazakhstan, China and Turkey.

Due to its high debt and poverty rates, Uzbekistan joined a CIS-7 initiative created in 2001 by international lending organizations to reform the financial structure of new loans. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) suspended aid to Uzbekistan in 1996, citing insufficient economic reform. In 2003, the government accepted IMF requirements to make its currency fully convertible, although the effects of this reform have been limited by continuing strict currency controls and Central Bank restrictions. In 2003, The European Bank for Reconstruction & Development (EBRD) warned that Uzbekistan’s human rights record and alleged corruption could put funding in jeopardy, and in March 2004, the Bank suspended "business as usual" with the Uzbek government. The Asian Development Bank anticipated assistance of approximately $150 million annually from 2003-2005, but has also expressed concern at the Uzbek government’s ability to achieve needed reforms.

In March 2002, the U.S. Export-Import bank signed a $50 million credit guarantee to support U.S. exports and the Uzbekistan National Bank for Foreign Economic Activity goods as well as mitigate U.S. exporter risk.

After Uzbekistan and Russia signed an alliance treaty in 2005, Russian businesses have demonstrated an increased interest in Uzbekistan’s oil and gas resources, and in the local telecom sector. In December 2005, the countries created a “Trade House” to expand Russian-Uzbek economic ties.

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JEWISH  COMMUNAL LIFE & ANTI-SEMITISM

A large Bukharan Jewish community has existed in Uzbekistan for many centuries. The arrival of Jewish caravan merchants moving along the Silk Road firmly established the community during the Roman, Persian and Arab eras. The city of Bukhara hosted the region’s primary Jewish community during Antiquity and the Middle Ages. This community benefited from the region’s commercial, cultural and scientific progress under its early Muslim rulers. Although it fell into isolation and poverty along with the rest of the region after the destructive conquests by the Mongols and then the Uzbek Turks, the Bukharan Jewish community remained largely intact into the modern era, and even grew when many Ashkenazi, Mountain, Georgian and other Jews arrived to escape the German advance in World War II (or were deported by the Soviet authorities). Today’s Bukharan Jewish community is estimated at around 2,000 members, with most other Uzbek Jews of Ashkenazic heritage.

Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii / Library of Congress

Jewish children with teacher in Samarkand, 1911

In the late 1980s, there were approximately 120,000 Jews in Uzbekistan. Following the breakup of the Soviet Union, mass emigration – mostly to Israel but also to the United States and Germany – largely depleted Uzbekistan’s Jewish population, many of whom left out of concern over rising Uzbek nationalism and the rapid revival of Islam in the region. Today, most Jews live in Tashkent, with smaller communities in Samarkand, Bukhara, Ferghana, Namangan, Kokand and Andijon. Much smaller communities are scattered throughout rural areas. The Jewish community in Tashkent claim good relations with the Uzbek government. Relations with other groups are generally good, and Jewish musicians participate in Uzbek popular culture.

The Federation of Jewish Communities (FJC) of Uzbekistan was founded in April 2000 as an umbrella group for the separate organizations maintained by the Ashkenazi and Bukharan communities. There are five synagogues in Tashkent and two each in Samarkand and Bukhara. Prominent businessman Lev Leviev, president of the parent organization called the FJC of the CIS, also serves as president of the international Bukharan Jewish Congress.

The Tashkent Jewish Cultural Community Center (TJCCC) offers Hebrew, Yiddish and English language classes, youth clubs, summer camps and current affairs lectures. The TJCCC’s Children and Youth Orchestra, created in 2000, became a 2001 laureate of the International Jewish Arts Festival in Moscow. The Chief Rabbi of Central Asia continues to sponsor the Center’s activities while the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC/ “Joint”) distributes aid to the Jewish community through Hesed. The Tashkent Bukharan Cultural Center, established in 1992, operates a museum of Jewish life.

An Israeli Center in Tashkent administers a Hebrew-language ulpan, youth clubs, social and cultural programs, an orchestra and other activities. Jewish schools are located throughout Uzbekistan including a yeshiva and a Jewish girls’ college. There are day schools in Tashkent, Samarkand and Bukhara. Two Jewish heritage centers operate in Samarkand and Bukhara. The JDC is active in supporting community events and services. The Jewish Agency for Israel (JAFI/ “Sochnut”) office in Tashkent serves the entire Central Asia region, and runs a variety of programs in Uzbekistan as well.

The Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs Center for International Cooperation recently organized five medical and agricultural instructions courses in Uzbekistan.

In recent years, an increasing number of Jews have left Uzbekistan in the face of both rising nationalism and economic hardship. The Uzbek government does not hinder such emigration, but a byproduct of the ongoing aliyah has been the burglary of homes and workplaces of Jews who are known to be emigrating soon. Anti-Semitic incidents are uncommon, although Hizb ut-Tahrir, a fundamentalist Islamic political organization, continues to circulate strongly anti-Semitic leaflets. Following the government’s now-infamous heavy-handed suppression of anti-government protests in the city of Andijon in May 2005, anti-Semitic leaflets were spread by Islamic opposition groups that blamed Jews for the actions of the authorities, accused President Karimov of being a Jew himself and claimed that Israeli troops carried out the killings of the Andijon demonstrators.

A flurry of suspicious recent incidents has raised concerns in Uzbekistan’s Jewish community. In February 2006, Avraam Yagadayev, a prominent leader in the Tashkent Bukharan Jewish community, died of his injuries after what authorities said was a hit-and-run traffic accident, although this was disputed by some members of the community, who suspected anti-Semitism and even official involvement. Also in February 2006, Grigoriy Akilov, the son of a Bukharan Jewish leader, who taught at a local Jewish cultural center, was beaten and robbed in

In 2008, the Uzbek Justice Ministry refused an accreditation request by the country's chief rabbi, Abe Dovid Gurevich. The ministry says Gurevich failed to provide proper documentation, while others say the move represents an attack on religious freedom.

In November 2005, Alexei Volosevich, a Jewish journalist who had written about the government’s actions in Andijon, was beaten up in Tashkent near his home, and anti-Semitic slogans were found scrawled nearby. Volosevich later said that he suspected official involvement in his attack, given his investigative work and the unlikelihood of a random anti-Semitic attack in a tightly-policed country with only several thousand Jews out of a population of 27 million. In June 2006, a young Jewish woman who worked as secretary to the Chief Rabbi of Central Asia was found murdered in her Tashkent home, along with her mother. Authorities investigated the incident as a simple robbery-homicide, and allegedly warned the Jewish community against “politicizing” the crime.

In March 2007, the Uzbek government and Israel’s embassy in Uzbekistan celebrated the 15th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two states with a gala concert in Tashkent. Uzbekistan’s Deputy Foreign Minister noted the long and peaceful coexistence of the Jewish and Uzbek peoples as well as good bilateral relations between Uzbekistan and Israel. The Israeli ambassador praised the development of bilateral cooperation between the two countries.

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U.S. POLICY

NATO photo

(l.-r.) U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell conferring with Uzbek Foreign Minister Abdulaziz Kamilov (now Ambassador to the United States) at Foreign Ministers' Meeting in Reykjavik, Iceland, May 2002

As the most prominent nation in Central Asia in population and military strength, Uzbekistan is of significant strategic interest to the United States. The United States opened its embassy in early 1992, after which Uzbek-U.S. relations grew rapidly, especially after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001, when the U.S. provided significant new amounts of aid and was offered the use of a key military base for its operations in Afghanistan. Use of the Karshi-Khanabad (K-2) airbase outside Tashkent allowed the United States to help run the air war in northern Afghanistan and coordinate Special Forces operations throughout Afghanistan. In 2002 and 2003, President Karimov expressed full support for the United States position on Iraq, and Uzbekistan emerged as a strong supporter of the United States at the U.N. While Uzbekistan planned to participate in the postwar reconstruction of Iraq, but not in military efforts, the country agreed to host American troops at an Uzbek air base.

Despite persistent Congressional concern over U.S. aid to Uzbekistan because of its human rights record, U.S. troops continued to operate in Uzbekistan for four years after 2001. President Karimov met with President Bush in Washington in 2002, where both leaders signed a Declaration of Strategic Partnership, and Uzbekistan hosted numerous high-level U.S. delegations after 2001.

However, in May 2005, Uzbek security forces suppressed a violent anti-government protest in the Uzbek city of Andijon, reportedly killing hundreds. When the United States and the European Union demanded a formal investigation of the events in Andijon, President Karimov rejected their demands and U.S.-Uzbek relations quickly deteriorated. In July 2005, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization called for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from military bases in Central Asia. All U.S. troops withdrew from Uzbekistan by November 21, 2005. U.S.-Uzbek relations remain strained over the legacy of the Andijon events and their aftermath, and President Karimov appears to have decided to replace the United States with Russia as his country’s chief strategic partner.

Trade between the two nations is limited, due in large part to official and unofficial Uzbek barriers to business activity. A U.S.-Uzbek “memorandum of understanding” on trade, signed in December 2001, has brought U.S. Trade Development Agency grants totaling $6 million to Uzbekistan in 2002. NGOs and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) provide humanitarian assistance in a variety of areas. By the end of 2002 the

United States had provided roughly $160 million in aid. Peace Corps operations have been suspended indefinitely in the wake of the 2005 near-break in relations.

Overall U.S. assistance to Uzbekistan in FY2006 was estimated at $20.02 million. However, due to U.S.-Uzbek tensions, none of the assistance funds provide direct financial support to the government of Uzbekistan. The budget sponsors democracy programs, market reform programs, security, law enforcement and nonproliferation assistance. Since 1993, the U.S. government has funded the travel of over 3,476 Uzbek citizens to the United States on academic and professional exchange programs.

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