I was British Ambassador in Tashkent from August 2002 until October 2004. It was my job to represent the British government to the government of Uzbekistan, to report on developments in the country for the information of British government departments back home, and to promote British interests in Uzbekistan; notably
British exports and the consular interests of British nationals living on the country.
What is life like for people living in Tashkent?
Society in Uzbekistan has effectively been perverted by 60 years of Soviet rule, followed by really an extremely pervasive and effective totalitarian dictatorship. And really, because of this, government permeates all aspects of society. Theres very little enterprise allowed in the country. Two years ago in 2002 the market traders were closed down. The borders were closed to trade. And private enterprises were restricted to carrying out all transactions through state banks which is actually much harder than it sounds. If you put your money into a state bank you only have a very limited chance that theyll ever give it back to you they dont view it as your money any more. Very little has been privatised. What has been privatised has been given, really , exclusively to members of the ruling clique: much of it to the Presidents own daughter. And well over 80% of the economy I would estimate remains in the state sector.
Theres an extremely pervasive network of spies. There is a positive climate of fear. Tashkent is a city of about 2 million people. It has 40,000 uniformed policemen just in the city, and approximately the same number again, about 40,000 non-uniformed secret police; the SMB. On top of which the Ministry of Interior has 25,000 paramilitaries in Tashkent. So thats 105,000 people, or one in 20 of the population, actively engaged in controlling the rest of the population. When you consider that the population of 2 million includes children and retired people, it probably means that of the workforce, about 1 in 8 is actively involved in the security services and keeping an eye on the other 7. Which gives you some idea of the kind of paranoid society it is. And its very far reaching.
The media is completely censored. There is 100% censorship of the Uzbek media, so you never see any criticism of the government and opposition to the government in the newspapers on the television, on the radio nothing ever appears criticising the government. The place is always portrayed as a workers paradise in effect, so its a very surreal existence.
In all levels of education and in every subject the books of President Karimov are a core part of the curriculum. In schools and universities one day in every five has now to be completely devoted to what they call National Education. That includes a version of history known as Uzbek history which is extremely tendentious. And it includes Uzbek national dance and singing. But the major element is the study of the works of President Karimov.
I knew one girl who was an ethnic Russian of Uzbek nationality, an extremely brilliant mathematician, she was taking a PhD in mathematics. And she was quite worried that she wouldnt get her PhD because she wasnt sufficiently acquainted with the works of President Karimov in which you have to sit an exam in order to get your PhD in mathematics gives you some idea of the absurdities of this kind of totalitarian system.
They banned billiards. Billiards was perhaps the most popular social recreation for young men, in effect. Yet billiards was banned overnight in 2002. Nobody ever really knew why. I think the madness of it all is summed up if you go to Independence Square in Tashkent, theres a huge monument of a great golden globe of the Earth which lights up at night. And theres a map of Uzbekistan superimposed on the globe. And Uzbekistan also lights up at night. But Uzbekistan appears to start in Dublin and end somewhere in China. Really, the kind of monumental preposterousness of the whole system and the lack of any humour, no government with any understanding or sense of humour or perspective its really an extraordinary society.
How does Uzbekistan work?
I think to understand Uzbekistan you have to understand the events that led up to its independence. If you recall the attempted coup against Gorbachev when there were tanks outside the White House and Yeltsin stood on a tank, the hardliners who led that coup had the strong backing of the leaders of Central Asian republics who were themselves at that time politburo members as the leaders of, in Karimovs case, Karimov was the leader, the President of the Soviet Socialist Republic of Uzbekistan; and as such had a place on the central Soviet politburo. Now, he supported the attempt by the hard-line Communists to get rid of Gorbachev. That failed: though it rather broke Gorbachevs credibility. And Yeltsin from that time was the key player. And Yeltsin of course went on to take over from Gorbachev as President. With Yeltsin and his much more liberal policies about to move into the White House, the Central Asian dictators became aware that this would mean the dissolution of the communist power structures that were the foundations of the own power and the foundation of their own personal wealth. So Karimov opted for independence for Uzbekistan not in order to leave the Soviet Union, but in order to maintain the Soviet system within Uzbekistan which was going to be broken up in Russia. And its absolutely vital to understand this in order to understand (how) Uzbekistan got where it is. And crucially this is a distinction that the current American administration seem unable to make.
ONeill, when he was Bushs treasury secretary visited Uzbekistan and like all the other senior American visitors to Uzbekistan recently (Condoleeza Rice, Coln Powell,Donald Rumsfeld) they all praise Karimov. And I recall ONeill in November 2002 said
that Karimov was one of the people who had brought down the evil empire of the Soviet Union and had fought for his nation like Havel, and like Walesa. And that is such a fundamental misunderstanding. Its such a tremendous mistake that really only a purblind neo-conservative American could make that kind of error. No. What Karimov has done is hes maintained the Soviet system, hes kept it all in place. Hes tightened up further on the security apparatus, ratcheted up the levels of violence against the people. Uzbeks will tell you that now its obviously worse than Gorbachevs time in terms of repression, theyll tell you its worse than Brezhnevs time, but its a bit better than under Stalin, and thats the kind of measure. But on the economic side, really virtually nothing has changed at all and the system is starting, just as the Soviet Union did, to collapse under the weight of its own inefficiencies. Theyve replaced Communism as the founding ideology, with nationalism and a nationalism based on a rather false reading of history, with Timur the great Tamerlane as we know him in the west as their founding father. And many of the statues of Lenin have been replaced by statues of Timur. In several cases the statues of Lenin were literally melted down and recast into Timur who of course was one of the few people in history to kill as many people as Stalin. But now you have a totalitarian state, with a nationalist ideology and I think its fair to characterise that as fascist.
What kind of political relationship does the West have with the Uzbek regimen?
Well Western governments in general tend to take their lead in Uzbekistan from the United States. The United States has a major airbase in Uzbekistan where there are 2 squadrons of US air force stationed and theres more stuff there as well that theyre not so open about. And there are several thousand troops protecting that base. And the American attitude has been very much that Karimov is a bastion in the war against terror; against Islam. Because certainly its true that the majority of Karimovs opponents have an Islamic perspective. Its not true that they are terrorists, in the vast majority of cases. Karimov tries to sell the West the idea that he is surrounded by terrorists that all his opponents are actively linked to Al-Qaida, to Osama bin Laden. And by and large it suites the United States to buy into that line because they want stability in Uzbekistan, they want to continue in power, to continue to give them the airbase and Western governments fairly explicitly have decided simply to follow the United States on this. When I first became Ambassador, one of the things you do as the new Ambassador is to call on your fellow Ambassadors as a courtesy call in the early stages. When I called on the French and the American Ambassadors, after Id been in Uzbekistan for a couple of weeks, I said to them you know, the Human Rights situation here is dreadful. There seem to be I dont know about 10,000 political or religious prisoners, torture seems very prevalent, disappearances, political murders. What is the European Union doing on it? What do we do about it? And they both quite explicitly said to me, Well we play all that down, we dont want to rock the boat because Uzbekistan is a very important ally of the United States. And I think that is very much the Wests view.
What kinds of freedoms do the Uzbek people enjoy?
Uzbekistan hasnt removed many of the Soviet restrictions that have gone in other former Soviet Union countries. For example, you still need an exit visa to leave the country and theyre not easy to get at all. So Uzbekistan kind of keeps its own people prisoner within the own country. But not only that, they still have the Propursk system of internal visas. So youre not allowed to move internally from one town to another or from the village to the town. Now then, over 60% of the population live on state farms state owned farms kolkhozes. And if youre born on a state farm youre stuck there for life. There is no way that you will ever get permission which has to be a formal stamp from OVIR the which is a bureau of the secret police. Theres no way that a state farm labourer will ever get permission to move to the town. They are effectively stuck on the state farms, they are bonded to them in effect and its a kind of serfdom. The salary on the state farms, generally is 2000 sum a month which is about 2 dollars a month.
I visited a state farm in Kitab which was about 12,000 hectares and had 16,000 employees of whom over 15,000 of them were on the basic state salary of two dollars a month. And these people live at an extremely low level of subsistence and in many cases on these state farms in the villages living standards are below standards that I have encountered when I was working in Africa for example. So you really are talking about quite extreme levels of poverty.
How important is cotton production to the Uzbek state?
Cotton accounts for about 25% of Uzbek GDP. Its the major product in the State farm and Uzbekistan is the second largest exporter of cotton in the world. The cotton is grown by the state. And the monopoly purchaser of the cotton is the state. There are two Uzbek state owned trading companies which buy the cotton and then they sell it to the international market.
Now, the price which the state trading company pays the state farm for the cotton is 3% of the price at the farm gate of cotton in neighbouring Kazakhstan . So its approximately one thirtieth of what would be a reasonable market price. And that of course if because the state farm effectively works with slave labour so their costs are very low. But the state trading company which has bought the cotton for 3% of the market price then sells it to Western companies for the full market price. So the profits of the state trading companies are enormous. All of this is hidden because the figures are all secret. The budget of the Uzbek government is not open. You cant find out what the budget is. Even the IMF cant find out what the budget is. You dont know how much revenue they got for the cotton. You dont know how much they paid for it. All of which of course leaves a wonderful margin for the elite to steal and the amount of corruption involved in the cotton industry is really extremely high. Also of course, some of the profit from the state trading company does find its way into the state budget and is in fact the major source of revenue of the state budget.
But exactly how much nobody ever knows. And I think its important to add that the corruption doesnt only subsist within the state trading companies. When the state trading companies sell on the cotton in the world market, theres a huge amount of corruption at that stage involving the Western companies who buy the cotton. Its a mistake to pretend that Uzbekistan is terribly corrupt and that the Western companies are pure as driven snow. And a western company couldnt get, a western company couldnt get a contract to buy substantial amounts of Uzbek cotton without paying large bribes to members of the Uzbek elite. For that reason some companies, for example Cargill, the worlds largest cotton trader, have declined to do business in Uzbekistan. But other companies, particularly Swiss trading companies are very very heavily involved in the corrupt dealings that go on.
How do Western companies procure cotton from the Uzbek trading companies?
In order for Western companies to be able to purchase Uzbek cotton, they need to get approvals from the Agency for External Economic Relations. In order to get those approvals they need to pay bribes in effect usually a percentage of the value of the contract. And those bribes need to go to 2 people. The main man who has controlled the cotton industry for many many years is Mr Jurabekov of the Presidents cabinet. As it happens in the last few months he has fallen from grace. And precisely who is going to take over his role as the major controller of the corrupt end of the deals on behalf of members of the regimen is as yet uncertain. Well probably know more by the time of the next cotton harvest.
The other person is the head of the Agency for External Economic Relations who again until recently was Mr Ganiev. But those individuals were the people with whom a deal had to be struck to the side of any official and open payments for the cotton. They themselves of course had their own patrons and their clients to fix. So really its quite a complex web of corruption and any Western company that tells you they were dealing with Uzbekistan, but never got involved in that kind of thing is simply lying.
What is life like for the cotton farmers?
Life is extremely hard on the state farms. The houses they live in are very sparsely furnished and a World Bank study showed that their ownership of household goods has been declining because they have not only no ability to replace things which break, but theyve physically been selling off things in order to eat. So really youre talking about people living at a very, very low level of subsistence in an economy which has become largely subsistence. Usually will have a small patch by which I mean a few square metres not a few hectares a few square metres on which they grow vegetables and try to subsist in that way. They may have a few animals; goats, conceivably a cow, but their life is very harsh indeed and they have to work very, very long hours.
To what extent are Uzbek farmers rewarded for their work?
Really the man who works on the farm sees little benefit at all for his labour. They seldom get paid. Their pay theoretically is extremely low and in practice it doesnt turn up very often. And its all they can do to prevent their family from starving, that really is the limit of their ambition.
Tell us how farming is organised
Although the state farms have these very large tied workforces, at harvest time they need more labour because cotton picking by hand is very labour intensive. So people who are not normally connected farming at all are conscripted to go into the fields and work for often 3 months without pay as forced labour to get in the cotton harvest. And this can happen to public sector workers: employees in the civil service, for example. It happens chiefly to students. All students at Uzbek universities spend the autumn term harvesting cotton in the cotton fields for no pay. And also there are forced levies of school children. By and large the school children, unlike the university students, arent in the fields for three months each: they may only be in the fields for 3 or 4 weeks, though there are instances where they also can spend the entire autumn term in the cotton fields. But school children as young as 7 or 8 are sent into the cotton fields to harvest cotton for 12 hours a day. And really this is precisely analogous to slave labour in the United States in the 19th century using the same kind of labour for precisely the same tasks. And in very much the same conditions. People sent to the fields have to sleep in barracks if theyre lucky. Otherwise they may be sleeping rough in the open fields. Food and drink are very meagre. They subsist on a gruel. Often theres no safe drinking water available. And theres very fierce discipline including beatings.
They have to pick 80 kilos of cotton each person per day. Now then, its hard to describe 80 kilos of raw cotton, because obviously cotton is an extremely light substance. Now then, not many people will have seen raw cotton as its immediately picked off the plant. Its very similar to cotton wool, but less dense and thus less heavy. But if you can imagine 80 kilos of cotton wool, what sort of size that would be, then imagine it being a third less dense, that gives you some idea of how difficult it is to pick 80 kilos a day . It would take you 12 hours solid labour and the labour shreds your fingers; makes them bleed. It would take you 12 hours of solid labour if you were in a very dense good crop of cotton. Where the cotton is sparser and less productive as it is in much of Uzbekistan it would probably take you more than 12 hours. So this is a Herculean task that this slave labour is put to.
How are people rewarded for their work?
Let me put it this way. At harvest time each individual has to pick 80 kilos of cotton a day. 80 kilos on the world market would is worth approximately 80 dollars, the price fluctuates rather, but about 80 dollars. The Uzbek state farm will receive about 2 dollars fifty for the 80 kilos of cotton. And the person who picked it would receive nothing whatsoever, except perhaps a little gruel as food. Which gives you some idea of the crazy economics of the Uzbek cotton industry.
The system depends entirely upon slave labour. There is no cotton produced anywhere in Uzbekistan in even the most basic ethical manner. Really the entire rotten system runs on misery and slavery.
Is there any ethical cotton production in Uzbekistan?
There are no cotton farms in Uzbekistan producing by other methods without the use of child labour producing without the use of serf labour. The Uzbek government likes to claim that large percentages of land have been privatised and that land has been leased to private farmers. Theoretically some land, a much smaller percentage than the Uzbek government claims, but some land has been leased to private farmers. But they are told exactly what they must grow, how much of it they must grow, precisely what to plant on which bits of land, who they must sell it to, and a price which they will get for it. So in fact its not private farming in any sense we would understand. Its simply a slightly different method of administration of the state system and it hasnt really impacted on cotton farming.
And what happens to Uzbek farmers who complain?
I visited a farm in the south of the country where 3 brothers had leased from the state farm approximately 12 hectares of land in order privately to farm apples. However, they wished to sell their apples on the open market as opposed to selling them to the kolkhoz for next to nothing. As a result of this one of the brothers was murdered. One of them was imprisoned for 3 years and is still I believe in jail. The third went into hiding. Their 83 year old grandmother was severely beaten by employees of the kolkhoz. And the kolkhoz came in and cut down their 12 hectares of apple trees. And there was something about seeing that destruction that brought home to me the stupid viciousness of the system of Uzbekistan. And shows what happens to people who try to go against it and to show some initiative in farming and to do some private enterprise.
Are there countries in the region where cotton farming is organised more fairly?
In Kazakhstan they have now privatised cotton farming genuinely privatised it so farmers can own their land. They can decide what to grow and they can sell it for what price they can get. The result of this has been a tremendous boom in cotton farming in Kazakhstan. Production there has actually tripled there in the last 4 years. And also there has been a tremendous increase in the lifestyle, the livelihood of the farmers: their standard of living has gone up a great deal. And interestingly, at the same time, although production has increased, usage of fertiliser has decreased because private farms dont go in for the completely massive overkill on chemicals which has been the mainstay of state farming in the region. On top of which, swell, of course, theres been a diversification of crops of the kind youd expect as people found local markets for other things. So really Kazakhstan although not perfect gives a very good example to help us conclude that the situation is not hopeless and that if the state were able to relax its control, agriculture in Central Asia could have a reasonably bright future. But the trouble is of course that if the state were to relax its control those people who are stealing hundreds of millions of dollars out of the system would no longer be able to do so.
Can you tell us about the use of pesticides and other agricultural inputs?
I think its important to realise that in Uzbekistan youve had this monocrop culture where theyve just been growing cotton for year on year on year. And you have whole swathes of the country where nothing has been grown except cotton for 40 years, literally, so the soil is totally exhausted. Its an incredibly wasteful form of agriculture. So the system is only sustained by the use of extraordinary amounts of fertiliser. And we’re talking of usages that would be 10 times the legal limit within the European Union for fertilizer use. Much of this fertilizer is imported chiefly from Kazakhstan in fact. And as well of course you have diseases on the cotton because in the situation where literally millions and millions of hectares have been under cotton continuously for decades, diseases that prey on cotton obviously are going to be extremely happy. So again you have this completely disproportionate expenditure on pesticides and fungicides.
Now then, other thing is that the cotton is irrigated by the waters from the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya in an extraordinarily wasteful way by open irrigation. And the view is that 80 percent of the water isnt used at all: it simply evaporates in the irrigation system. But it is essential for people to understand that it is this use of water by the Uzbek cotton industry which is the direct cause of the disappearance of the Aral Sea. The Uzbek cotton industry is causing the biggest single environmental disaster in the world at the moment. On top of which all that pesticide and fungicide washes in to the Aral Sea, so not only is the Aral Sea shrinking, but you have this incredible toxic soup which is causing dreadful diseases and deformity to people in Hereza and Nukus in the area of the Aral Sea itself which very often emits a yellow sulphuric mist that you cant see through. Its hard to explain to people who havent seen it just how dense the pollution of the area is. Its like something out of a science fiction film its quite an incredible thing to see. And of course, as the waters of the rivers no longer reach the Aral Sea, the pollution is now ending up further inland as used to be, and poisoning greater and greater areas. So this whole thing is a disaster in every way . Its an economic disaster, its a disaster in terms of human misery, and its an environmental disaster on a scale that would cause total outrage if it happened anywhere else in the world. But its all happening in Central Asia which sadly gets very very little media in the west.
How important is cotton to the Uzbek regimen?
Well I think the cotton industry is essential to supporting the dictatorship in Uzbekistan. And I think the cotton industry does nothing whatsoever for 99% of the people who work in it in Uzbekistan. They would actually be much better off if they could just grow some crops to eat on the land instead of all this cotton the proceeds from which just go to the very rich and already corrupt people who run the country. So I have no hesitation whatsoever in saying that we should simply boycott Uzbek cotton. The Western suppliers should have nothing to do with it. Sadly its extremely difficult to organise a consumer boycott because none of us know where the fibres in our shirt come from ((holds his shirt collar)) it doesnt say. Itll tell you where the shirt was made but where they were bought on the international market people dont know. But it seems to me that anyone working in the cotton industry with any kind of conscience should have nothing to do with the Uzbek cotton industry and should make it plain they will have nothing to do with the Uzbek cotton industry until it reforms itself. And there are models of reform in the region. Ive quoted Kazakhstan which could be a very good model of reform for Uzbekistan. So its not impossible but it will take a lot of money out of the pockets of extremely corrupt people so its not going to be easy. But no one involved in the purchase of Uzbek cotton should be able to sleep soundly at night.
Should big corporations declare whether they are trading Uzbek cotton?
No, I think that would be a useful first step to persuade people to say whether or not they deal with Uzbekistan. But again the difficulty is that that doesnt really filter through to the consumer. Its difficult for consumers, by choice, to punish those who continue to deal with Uzbekistan, and thats the difficulty here. But I certainly think that those companies, there are, there are some, those companies who refuse to deal with Uzbekistan should realise that they can make a virtue of saying so, and attract support for that stance.
How do you account for your departure from the FCO?
Id made plain really from within a couple of weeks of my arrival in Uzbekistan, Id made plain to the British government that I wasnt at all happy with what was happening there. That it seemed to me that Western support for an extremely vicious dictatorship wasnt something that could be sustained and made no sense as a policy. Because the Karimov dictatorship tortures people in its thousands, it allows no freedom of religion, no freedom of assembly, no freedom of the media, no freedom of speech, no freedoms of every kind. Its people are getting poorer and poorer while the corrupt elite get richer and richer and its extremely unpopular. And by propping up and supporting the Karimov dictatorship, the west is causing the people of Central Asia to hate them. Really, this extremely short sighted policy that identifies us with Karimov just cant be sustained. But the basic problem was that London were concerned that in the context of the War on Terror we continue to stand shoulder to shoulder with the United States. And the tension between Londons view that we must support the United States, and my view, that what the United States is doing in Uzbekistan is unforgivable, that tension was bound I think sooner or later to lead to my departure.
Who is left in Tashkent who can support the Uzbek people?
I think that theres been a major, major blow to those trying to work for freedom in Uzbekistan. The British Governments pulled me out, and I was trying to do my bit, but in addition the Uzbek government kicked out the Open Society Institute, they kicked out the International Crisis Group, they kicked out the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, theyve placed extremely heavy restrictions on other groups which still remain. Human Rights Watch, for example, still have an office there, but they have to inform the Ministry of the Interior several weeks in advance before they hold a meeting with anyone, and as subject to such monitoring, their effectiveness has been reduced. And sadly theres been no real protest from the west for any of these developments. So it seems to me increasingly likely that the Government of Uzbekistan in the short term will be able to get away with continuing to torture and imprison its people with very little scrutiny now.
What would your message be to Jack Straw?
One thing which especially worried me was that we are willing to cooperate with the Uzbek security services and in particular that we accept intelligence material from them which was obtained under torture. And I know directly, Ive been told directly, Ive seen in writing directly that Jack Straw himself agreed that we should continue to obtain intelligence even if its obtained under torture. And mostly its nonsense anyway. Its just untrue. This is material that Karimov want us to believe to say that such and such an opposition group are friends of Al-Qaida and so and so visited Osama bin Laden twice in Afghanistan; this kind of information designed to link in any opponent of Karimov to terrorism. Why on earth we want to receive this nonsense I dont know, because we know for sure that most of it is not true. But its as though we are trying to construct our own demons to justify what were doing backing the Karimov regime. What I cant understand is that we say weve gone to war in Iraq in order to remove a dictator, and yet in Uzbekistan were backing a dictator. And the United States is providing them with hundreds of millions of dollars every year in support to his regime. Including hundreds of millions of dollars a year in military support and what they call security service support this is untenable. And backing a dictator is never a smart move in the long run. Who knows what Karimov will get up to in the future? And on thing is for sure, that we are breeding a whole generation of people in Uzbekistan who hate us. We dont have any difficulty at all with making Mugabe or Lukashenko a pariah, with enforcing personal sanctions against them, sanctions against their regimes. And actually neither Mugabe nor Lukashenko heads a regime as vicious as that of Karimov. Neither Mugabe nor Lukashenko has as many political prisoners as Karimov. Neither of them tortures as many people as Karimov. Neither of them kills as many people as Karimov. And yet were happy to condemn them, treat them as pariahs, put sanctions on them. But Karimov gets invited for tea in the White House and is feted by western leaders. This is plainly a nonsense.
Craig Murray is standing against Jack Straw in his Blackburn constituency. Please visit his website and support his campaign.
Please introduce yourself
I was British Ambassador in Tashkent from August 2002 until October 2004. It was my job to represent the British government to the government of Uzbekistan, to report on developments in the country for the information of British government departments back home, and to promote British interests in Uzbekistan; notably
British exports and the consular interests of British nationals living on the country.
What is life like for people living in Tashkent?
Society in Uzbekistan has effectively been perverted by 60 years of Soviet rule, followed by really an extremely pervasive and effective totalitarian dictatorship. And really, because of this, government permeates all aspects of society. Theres very little enterprise allowed in the country. Two years ago in 2002 the market traders were closed down. The borders were closed to trade. And private enterprises were restricted to carrying out all transactions through state banks which is actually much harder than it sounds. If you put your money into a state bank you only have a very limited chance that theyll ever give it back to you they dont view it as your money any more. Very little has been privatised. What has been privatised has been given, really , exclusively to members of the ruling clique: much of it to the Presidents own daughter. And well over 80% of the economy I would estimate remains in the state sector.
Theres an extremely pervasive network of spies. There is a positive climate of fear. Tashkent is a city of about 2 million people. It has 40,000 uniformed policemen just in the city, and approximately the same number again, about 40,000 non-uniformed secret police; the SMB. On top of which the Ministry of Interior has 25,000 paramilitaries in Tashkent. So thats 105,000 people, or one in 20 of the population, actively engaged in controlling the rest of the population. When you consider that the population of 2 million includes children and retired people, it probably means that of the workforce, about 1 in 8 is actively involved in the security services and keeping an eye on the other 7. Which gives you some idea of the kind of paranoid society it is. And its very far reaching.
The media is completely censored. There is 100% censorship of the Uzbek media, so you never see any criticism of the government and opposition to the government in the newspapers on the television, on the radio nothing ever appears criticising the government. The place is always portrayed as a workers paradise in effect, so its a very surreal existence.
In all levels of education and in every subject the books of President Karimov are a core part of the curriculum. In schools and universities one day in every five has now to be completely devoted to what they call National Education. That includes a version of history known as Uzbek history which is extremely tendentious. And it includes Uzbek national dance and singing. But the major element is the study of the works of President Karimov.
I knew one girl who was an ethnic Russian of Uzbek nationality, an extremely brilliant mathematician, she was taking a PhD in mathematics. And she was quite worried that she wouldnt get her PhD because she wasnt sufficiently acquainted with the works of President Karimov in which you have to sit an exam in order to get your PhD in mathematics gives you some idea of the absurdities of this kind of totalitarian system.
They banned billiards. Billiards was perhaps the most popular social recreation for young men, in effect. Yet billiards was banned overnight in 2002. Nobody ever really knew why. I think the madness of it all is summed up if you go to Independence Square in Tashkent, theres a huge monument of a great golden globe of the Earth which lights up at night. And theres a map of Uzbekistan superimposed on the globe. And Uzbekistan also lights up at night. But Uzbekistan appears to start in Dublin and end somewhere in China. Really, the kind of monumental preposterousness of the whole system and the lack of any humour, no government with any understanding or sense of humour or perspective its really an extraordinary society.
How does Uzbekistan work?
I think to understand Uzbekistan you have to understand the events that led up to its independence. If you recall the attempted coup against Gorbachev when there were tanks outside the White House and Yeltsin stood on a tank, the hardliners who led that coup had the strong backing of the leaders of Central Asian republics who were themselves at that time politburo members as the leaders of, in Karimovs case, Karimov was the leader, the President of the Soviet Socialist Republic of Uzbekistan; and as such had a place on the central Soviet politburo. Now, he supported the attempt by the hard-line Communists to get rid of Gorbachev. That failed: though it rather broke Gorbachevs credibility. And Yeltsin from that time was the key player. And Yeltsin of course went on to take over from Gorbachev as President. With Yeltsin and his much more liberal policies about to move into the White House, the Central Asian dictators became aware that this would mean the dissolution of the communist power structures that were the foundations of the own power and the foundation of their own personal wealth. So Karimov opted for independence for Uzbekistan not in order to leave the Soviet Union, but in order to maintain the Soviet system within Uzbekistan which was going to be broken up in Russia. And its absolutely vital to understand this in order to understand (how) Uzbekistan got where it is. And crucially this is a distinction that the current American administration seem unable to make.
ONeill, when he was Bushs treasury secretary visited Uzbekistan and like all the other senior American visitors to Uzbekistan recently (Condoleeza Rice, Coln Powell,Donald Rumsfeld) they all praise Karimov. And I recall ONeill in November 2002 said
that Karimov was one of the people who had brought down the evil empire of the Soviet Union and had fought for his nation like Havel, and like Walesa. And that is such a fundamental misunderstanding. Its such a tremendous mistake that really only a purblind neo-conservative American could make that kind of error. No. What Karimov has done is hes maintained the Soviet system, hes kept it all in place. Hes tightened up further on the security apparatus, ratcheted up the levels of violence against the people. Uzbeks will tell you that now its obviously worse than Gorbachevs time in terms of repression, theyll tell you its worse than Brezhnevs time, but its a bit better than under Stalin, and thats the kind of measure. But on the economic side, really virtually nothing has changed at all and the system is starting, just as the Soviet Union did, to collapse under the weight of its own inefficiencies. Theyve replaced Communism as the founding ideology, with nationalism and a nationalism based on a rather false reading of history, with Timur the great Tamerlane as we know him in the west as their founding father. And many of the statues of Lenin have been replaced by statues of Timur. In several cases the statues of Lenin were literally melted down and recast into Timur who of course was one of the few people in history to kill as many people as Stalin. But now you have a totalitarian state, with a nationalist ideology and I think its fair to characterise that as fascist.
What kind of political relationship does the West have with the Uzbek regimen?
Well Western governments in general tend to take their lead in Uzbekistan from the United States. The United States has a major airbase in Uzbekistan where there are 2 squadrons of US air force stationed and theres more stuff there as well that theyre not so open about. And there are several thousand troops protecting that base. And the American attitude has been very much that Karimov is a bastion in the war against terror; against Islam. Because certainly its true that the majority of Karimovs opponents have an Islamic perspective. Its not true that they are terrorists, in the vast majority of cases. Karimov tries to sell the West the idea that he is surrounded by terrorists that all his opponents are actively linked to Al-Qaida, to Osama bin Laden. And by and large it suites the United States to buy into that line because they want stability in Uzbekistan, they want to continue in power, to continue to give them the airbase and Western governments fairly explicitly have decided simply to follow the United States on this. When I first became Ambassador, one of the things you do as the new Ambassador is to call on your fellow Ambassadors as a courtesy call in the early stages. When I called on the French and the American Ambassadors, after Id been in Uzbekistan for a couple of weeks, I said to them you know, the Human Rights situation here is dreadful. There seem to be I dont know about 10,000 political or religious prisoners, torture seems very prevalent, disappearances, political murders. What is the European Union doing on it? What do we do about it? And they both quite explicitly said to me, Well we play all that down, we dont want to rock the boat because Uzbekistan is a very important ally of the United States. And I think that is very much the Wests view.
What kinds of freedoms do the Uzbek people enjoy?
Uzbekistan hasnt removed many of the Soviet restrictions that have gone in other former Soviet Union countries. For example, you still need an exit visa to leave the country and theyre not easy to get at all. So Uzbekistan kind of keeps its own people prisoner within the own country. But not only that, they still have the Propursk system of internal visas. So youre not allowed to move internally from one town to another or from the village to the town. Now then, over 60% of the population live on state farms state owned farms kolkhozes. And if youre born on a state farm youre stuck there for life. There is no way that you will ever get permission which has to be a formal stamp from OVIR the which is a bureau of the secret police. Theres no way that a state farm labourer will ever get permission to move to the town. They are effectively stuck on the state farms, they are bonded to them in effect and its a kind of serfdom. The salary on the state farms, generally is 2000 sum a month which is about 2 dollars a month.
I visited a state farm in Kitab which was about 12,000 hectares and had 16,000 employees of whom over 15,000 of them were on the basic state salary of two dollars a month. And these people live at an extremely low level of subsistence and in many cases on these state farms in the villages living standards are below standards that I have encountered when I was working in Africa for example. So you really are talking about quite extreme levels of poverty.
How important is cotton production to the Uzbek state?
Cotton accounts for about 25% of Uzbek GDP. Its the major product in the State farm and Uzbekistan is the second largest exporter of cotton in the world. The cotton is grown by the state. And the monopoly purchaser of the cotton is the state. There are two Uzbek state owned trading companies which buy the cotton and then they sell it to the international market.
Now, the price which the state trading company pays the state farm for the cotton is 3% of the price at the farm gate of cotton in neighbouring Kazakhstan . So its approximately one thirtieth of what would be a reasonable market price. And that of course if because the state farm effectively works with slave labour so their costs are very low. But the state trading company which has bought the cotton for 3% of the market price then sells it to Western companies for the full market price. So the profits of the state trading companies are enormous. All of this is hidden because the figures are all secret. The budget of the Uzbek government is not open. You cant find out what the budget is. Even the IMF cant find out what the budget is. You dont know how much revenue they got for the cotton. You dont know how much they paid for it. All of which of course leaves a wonderful margin for the elite to steal and the amount of corruption involved in the cotton industry is really extremely high. Also of course, some of the profit from the state trading company does find its way into the state budget and is in fact the major source of revenue of the state budget.
But exactly how much nobody ever knows. And I think its important to add that the corruption doesnt only subsist within the state trading companies. When the state trading companies sell on the cotton in the world market, theres a huge amount of corruption at that stage involving the Western companies who buy the cotton. Its a mistake to pretend that Uzbekistan is terribly corrupt and that the Western companies are pure as driven snow. And a western company couldnt get, a western company couldnt get a contract to buy substantial amounts of Uzbek cotton without paying large bribes to members of the Uzbek elite. For that reason some companies, for example Cargill, the worlds largest cotton trader, have declined to do business in Uzbekistan. But other companies, particularly Swiss trading companies are very very heavily involved in the corrupt dealings that go on.
How do Western companies procure cotton from the Uzbek trading companies?
In order for Western companies to be able to purchase Uzbek cotton, they need to get approvals from the Agency for External Economic Relations. In order to get those approvals they need to pay bribes in effect usually a percentage of the value of the contract. And those bribes need to go to 2 people. The main man who has controlled the cotton industry for many many years is Mr Jurabekov of the Presidents cabinet. As it happens in the last few months he has fallen from grace. And precisely who is going to take over his role as the major controller of the corrupt end of the deals on behalf of members of the regimen is as yet uncertain. Well probably know more by the time of the next cotton harvest.
The other person is the head of the Agency for External Economic Relations who again until recently was Mr Ganiev. But those individuals were the people with whom a deal had to be struck to the side of any official and open payments for the cotton. They themselves of course had their own patrons and their clients to fix. So really its quite a complex web of corruption and any Western company that tells you they were dealing with Uzbekistan, but never got involved in that kind of thing is simply lying.
What is life like for the cotton farmers?
Life is extremely hard on the state farms. The houses they live in are very sparsely furnished and a World Bank study showed that their ownership of household goods has been declining because they have not only no ability to replace things which break, but theyve physically been selling off things in order to eat. So really youre talking about people living at a very, very low level of subsistence in an economy which has become largely subsistence. Usually will have a small patch by which I mean a few square metres not a few hectares a few square metres on which they grow vegetables and try to subsist in that way. They may have a few animals; goats, conceivably a cow, but their life is very harsh indeed and they have to work very, very long hours.
To what extent are Uzbek farmers rewarded for their work?
Really the man who works on the farm sees little benefit at all for his labour. They seldom get paid. Their pay theoretically is extremely low and in practice it doesnt turn up very often. And its all they can do to prevent their family from starving, that really is the limit of their ambition.
Tell us how farming is organised
Although the state farms have these very large tied workforces, at harvest time they need more labour because cotton picking by hand is very labour intensive. So people who are not normally connected farming at all are conscripted to go into the fields and work for often 3 months without pay as forced labour to get in the cotton harvest. And this can happen to public sector workers: employees in the civil service, for example. It happens chiefly to students. All students at Uzbek universities spend the autumn term harvesting cotton in the cotton fields for no pay. And also there are forced levies of school children. By and large the school children, unlike the university students, arent in the fields for three months each: they may only be in the fields for 3 or 4 weeks, though there are instances where they also can spend the entire autumn term in the cotton fields. But school children as young as 7 or 8 are sent into the cotton fields to harvest cotton for 12 hours a day. And really this is precisely analogous to slave labour in the United States in the 19th century using the same kind of labour for precisely the same tasks. And in very much the same conditions. People sent to the fields have to sleep in barracks if theyre lucky. Otherwise they may be sleeping rough in the open fields. Food and drink are very meagre. They subsist on a gruel. Often theres no safe drinking water available. And theres very fierce discipline including beatings.
They have to pick 80 kilos of cotton each person per day. Now then, its hard to describe 80 kilos of raw cotton, because obviously cotton is an extremely light substance. Now then, not many people will have seen raw cotton as its immediately picked off the plant. Its very similar to cotton wool, but less dense and thus less heavy. But if you can imagine 80 kilos of cotton wool, what sort of size that would be, then imagine it being a third less dense, that gives you some idea of how difficult it is to pick 80 kilos a day . It would take you 12 hours solid labour and the labour shreds your fingers; makes them bleed. It would take you 12 hours of solid labour if you were in a very dense good crop of cotton. Where the cotton is sparser and less productive as it is in much of Uzbekistan it would probably take you more than 12 hours. So this is a Herculean task that this slave labour is put to.
How are people rewarded for their work?
Let me put it this way. At harvest time each individual has to pick 80 kilos of cotton a day. 80 kilos on the world market would is worth approximately 80 dollars, the price fluctuates rather, but about 80 dollars. The Uzbek state farm will receive about 2 dollars fifty for the 80 kilos of cotton. And the person who picked it would receive nothing whatsoever, except perhaps a little gruel as food. Which gives you some idea of the crazy economics of the Uzbek cotton industry.
The system depends entirely upon slave labour. There is no cotton produced anywhere in Uzbekistan in even the most basic ethical manner. Really the entire rotten system runs on misery and slavery.
Is there any ethical cotton production in Uzbekistan?
There are no cotton farms in Uzbekistan producing by other methods without the use of child labour producing without the use of serf labour. The Uzbek government likes to claim that large percentages of land have been privatised and that land has been leased to private farmers. Theoretically some land, a much smaller percentage than the Uzbek government claims, but some land has been leased to private farmers. But they are told exactly what they must grow, how much of it they must grow, precisely what to plant on which bits of land, who they must sell it to, and a price which they will get for it. So in fact its not private farming in any sense we would understand. Its simply a slightly different method of administration of the state system and it hasnt really impacted on cotton farming.
And what happens to Uzbek farmers who complain?
I visited a farm in the south of the country where 3 brothers had leased from the state farm approximately 12 hectares of land in order privately to farm apples. However, they wished to sell their apples on the open market as opposed to selling them to the kolkhoz for next to nothing. As a result of this one of the brothers was murdered. One of them was imprisoned for 3 years and is still I believe in jail. The third went into hiding. Their 83 year old grandmother was severely beaten by employees of the kolkhoz. And the kolkhoz came in and cut down their 12 hectares of apple trees. And there was something about seeing that destruction that brought home to me the stupid viciousness of the system of Uzbekistan. And shows what happens to people who try to go against it and to show some initiative in farming and to do some private enterprise.
Are there countries in the region where cotton farming is organised more fairly?
In Kazakhstan they have now privatised cotton farming genuinely privatised it so farmers can own their land. They can decide what to grow and they can sell it for what price they can get. The result of this has been a tremendous boom in cotton farming in Kazakhstan. Production there has actually tripled there in the last 4 years. And also there has been a tremendous increase in the lifestyle, the livelihood of the farmers: their standard of living has gone up a great deal. And interestingly, at the same time, although production has increased, usage of fertiliser has decreased because private farms dont go in for the completely massive overkill on chemicals which has been the mainstay of state farming in the region. On top of which, swell, of course, theres been a diversification of crops of the kind youd expect as people found local markets for other things. So really Kazakhstan although not perfect gives a very good example to help us conclude that the situation is not hopeless and that if the state were able to relax its control, agriculture in Central Asia could have a reasonably bright future. But the trouble is of course that if the state were to relax its control those people who are stealing hundreds of millions of dollars out of the system would no longer be able to do so.
Can you tell us about the use of pesticides and other agricultural inputs?
I think its important to realise that in Uzbekistan youve had this monocrop culture where theyve just been growing cotton for year on year on year. And you have whole swathes of the country where nothing has been grown except cotton for 40 years, literally, so the soil is totally exhausted. Its an incredibly wasteful form of agriculture. So the system is only sustained by the use of extraordinary amounts of fertiliser. And we’re talking of usages that would be 10 times the legal limit within the European Union for fertilizer use. Much of this fertilizer is imported chiefly from Kazakhstan in fact. And as well of course you have diseases on the cotton because in the situation where literally millions and millions of hectares have been under cotton continuously for decades, diseases that prey on cotton obviously are going to be extremely happy. So again you have this completely disproportionate expenditure on pesticides and fungicides.
Now then, other thing is that the cotton is irrigated by the waters from the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya in an extraordinarily wasteful way by open irrigation. And the view is that 80 percent of the water isnt used at all: it simply evaporates in the irrigation system. But it is essential for people to understand that it is this use of water by the Uzbek cotton industry which is the direct cause of the disappearance of the Aral Sea. The Uzbek cotton industry is causing the biggest single environmental disaster in the world at the moment. On top of which all that pesticide and fungicide washes in to the Aral Sea, so not only is the Aral Sea shrinking, but you have this incredible toxic soup which is causing dreadful diseases and deformity to people in Hereza and Nukus in the area of the Aral Sea itself which very often emits a yellow sulphuric mist that you cant see through. Its hard to explain to people who havent seen it just how dense the pollution of the area is. Its like something out of a science fiction film its quite an incredible thing to see. And of course, as the waters of the rivers no longer reach the Aral Sea, the pollution is now ending up further inland as used to be, and poisoning greater and greater areas. So this whole thing is a disaster in every way . Its an economic disaster, its a disaster in terms of human misery, and its an environmental disaster on a scale that would cause total outrage if it happened anywhere else in the world. But its all happening in Central Asia which sadly gets very very little media in the west.
How important is cotton to the Uzbek regimen?
Well I think the cotton industry is essential to supporting the dictatorship in Uzbekistan. And I think the cotton industry does nothing whatsoever for 99% of the people who work in it in Uzbekistan. They would actually be much better off if they could just grow some crops to eat on the land instead of all this cotton the proceeds from which just go to the very rich and already corrupt people who run the country. So I have no hesitation whatsoever in saying that we should simply boycott Uzbek cotton. The Western suppliers should have nothing to do with it. Sadly its extremely difficult to organise a consumer boycott because none of us know where the fibres in our shirt come from ((holds his shirt collar)) it doesnt say. Itll tell you where the shirt was made but where they were bought on the international market people dont know. But it seems to me that anyone working in the cotton industry with any kind of conscience should have nothing to do with the Uzbek cotton industry and should make it plain they will have nothing to do with the Uzbek cotton industry until it reforms itself. And there are models of reform in the region. Ive quoted Kazakhstan which could be a very good model of reform for Uzbekistan. So its not impossible but it will take a lot of money out of the pockets of extremely corrupt people so its not going to be easy. But no one involved in the purchase of Uzbek cotton should be able to sleep soundly at night.
Should big corporations declare whether they are trading Uzbek cotton?
No, I think that would be a useful first step to persuade people to say whether or not they deal with Uzbekistan. But again the difficulty is that that doesnt really filter through to the consumer. Its difficult for consumers, by choice, to punish those who continue to deal with Uzbekistan, and thats the difficulty here. But I certainly think that those companies, there are, there are some, those companies who refuse to deal with Uzbekistan should realise that they can make a virtue of saying so, and attract support for that stance.
How do you account for your departure from the FCO?
Id made plain really from within a couple of weeks of my arrival in Uzbekistan, Id made plain to the British government that I wasnt at all happy with what was happening there. That it seemed to me that Western support for an extremely vicious dictatorship wasnt something that could be sustained and made no sense as a policy. Because the Karimov dictatorship tortures people in its thousands, it allows no freedom of religion, no freedom of assembly, no freedom of the media, no freedom of speech, no freedoms of every kind. Its people are getting poorer and poorer while the corrupt elite get richer and richer and its extremely unpopular. And by propping up and supporting the Karimov dictatorship, the west is causing the people of Central Asia to hate them. Really, this extremely short sighted policy that identifies us with Karimov just cant be sustained. But the basic problem was that London were concerned that in the context of the War on Terror we continue to stand shoulder to shoulder with the United States. And the tension between Londons view that we must support the United States, and my view, that what the United States is doing in Uzbekistan is unforgivable, that tension was bound I think sooner or later to lead to my departure.
Who is left in Tashkent who can support the Uzbek people?
I think that theres been a major, major blow to those trying to work for freedom in Uzbekistan. The British Governments pulled me out, and I was trying to do my bit, but in addition the Uzbek government kicked out the Open Society Institute, they kicked out the International Crisis Group, they kicked out the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, theyve placed extremely heavy restrictions on other groups which still remain. Human Rights Watch, for example, still have an office there, but they have to inform the Ministry of the Interior several weeks in advance before they hold a meeting with anyone, and as subject to such monitoring, their effectiveness has been reduced. And sadly theres been no real protest from the west for any of these developments. So it seems to me increasingly likely that the Government of Uzbekistan in the short term will be able to get away with continuing to torture and imprison its people with very little scrutiny now.
What would your message be to Jack Straw?
One thing which especially worried me was that we are willing to cooperate with the Uzbek security services and in particular that we accept intelligence material from them which was obtained under torture. And I know directly, Ive been told directly, Ive seen in writing directly that Jack Straw himself agreed that we should continue to obtain intelligence even if its obtained under torture. And mostly its nonsense anyway. Its just untrue. This is material that Karimov want us to believe to say that such and such an opposition group are friends of Al-Qaida and so and so visited Osama bin Laden twice in Afghanistan; this kind of information designed to link in any opponent of Karimov to terrorism. Why on earth we want to receive this nonsense I dont know, because we know for sure that most of it is not true. But its as though we are trying to construct our own demons to justify what were doing backing the Karimov regime. What I cant understand is that we say weve gone to war in Iraq in order to remove a dictator, and yet in Uzbekistan were backing a dictator. And the United States is providing them with hundreds of millions of dollars every year in support to his regime. Including hundreds of millions of dollars a year in military support and what they call security service support this is untenable. And backing a dictator is never a smart move in the long run. Who knows what Karimov will get up to in the future? And on thing is for sure, that we are breeding a whole generation of people in Uzbekistan who hate us. We dont have any difficulty at all with making Mugabe or Lukashenko a pariah, with enforcing personal sanctions against them, sanctions against their regimes. And actually neither Mugabe nor Lukashenko heads a regime as vicious as that of Karimov. Neither Mugabe nor Lukashenko has as many political prisoners as Karimov. Neither of them tortures as many people as Karimov. Neither of them kills as many people as Karimov. And yet were happy to condemn them, treat them as pariahs, put sanctions on them. But Karimov gets invited for tea in the White House and is feted by western leaders. This is plainly a nonsense.
Craig Murray is standing against Jack Straw in his Blackburn constituency. Please visit his website and support his campaign.
http://www.craigmurray.co.uk