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On the Ground in Central Asia

To gauge the probable reaction to an American military mission in Afghanistan, a reporter from the Keston News Service traveled through a particularly volatile region: the Fergana Valley.

By Igor Rotar

Of the entire region of Central Asia, the Fergana Valley has seen the most unrest. In 1989 there were pogroms against Turks here; in 1990 there was armed conflict between the Kyrgyz and the Uzbeks. Then in 1991 Islamic fundamentalists made their appearance.

An additional cause of tension is the fact that in the 1920s the borders between the Central Asian republics were drawn arbitrarily, taking no account of ethnic and political realities. The single ethnic and cultural territory of the Fergana Valley was divided among three republics: Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan.

The Fergana Valley is one of the most densely populated regions of the world. One village merges seamlessly with the next, and so it continues the length of the entire valley. Overcrowding has given rise to serious problems, including a severe shortage of land and mass unemployment. Today the vast majority of the rural population here lives on the brink of starvation. On farms, wages have not been paid for years, while private plots of land are too small to grow enough crops to feed a family.

The population of the Fergana Valley is much more religious than the people in other parts of Central Asia. Even during the Soviet era, a network of underground mosques operated here, impervious to the control of the Communist government. Since the Central Asian countries gained independence, Muslim preachers have been much more active, calling for the formation of an Islamic state in the valley.

A local resident told us:

The people live in dreadful poverty. Today you can buy a prostitute for just two dollars. A shot of heroin costs the same. The corrupt authorities are preoccupied only with their own problems, and care nothing for the problems of the people. We will flourish and have order only when Muslims start to live by the Sharia law.

The first deputy president of the Uzbek government’s committee for religious affairs, Shoazim Minovarov, acknowledges that the growing influence of Islamic fundamentalists may be traced to social and economic problems of the region. He told us: “In my view, the West must understand that the neediest sectors of the population form the main social base for Islamic fundamentalists. Accordingly, if the developed countries want stability in the world, they must give economic aid to needy Muslim countries.”

Directly affected
Residents of the Fergana Valley regard the September 11 attacks as events that affected them directly. People here watch television newscasts constantly, and even before the American air strikes began, they were discussing when the US would start to bomb Afghanistan. Moreover, almost all the local inhabitants were convinced that if there was war in Afghanistan, Central Asia would inevitably be drawn into the conflict.

The overwhelming majority of people felt sympathy for the American victims of the September 11 attacks, but the more religious members of the population were ambivalent. The president of the Islamic Center of Kyrgyzstan, Sadikjan Kamuliddin, condemned the acts of terrorism, but argued that the terrorists’ actions had been provoked by the “anti-Islamic” policies pursued by the United States. “The problem of Palestine still has not been resolved,” Kamuliddin said.

Dilmurat haji Orozov, a mufti in Kyrgyzstan’s section of the Fergana Valley, took a different view, bewailing the loss of innocent life—particularly among what he regarded as the “elite of American society.” But he too placed some blame on the United States:

The United States has tormented the Muslim world. That country inflicts misfortunes on Muslims in different parts of the world: in Iraq, Palestine, and Afghanistan.

The Islamic party Hizb-ut-Tahrir, which exists underground in all the Central Asian republics, is even more openly anti-American. The party aims to achieve the unification of Muslims throughout the world under one caliphate and, according to its manifesto, demands that adherents of non-Islamic religions adopt Islam, since adherents of all other faiths are “infidels.” The party has been active in the Fergana Valley since the mid-1990s. Immediately after the September 11 attacks, Hizb-ut-Tahrir distributed leaflets written in Tajik and Uzbek, charging that American and Israeli special forces had carried out the bombings in order “to launch a war against true Muslims.”

Vulnerable leaders
The offers by Central Asian governments to allow US military planes to use their air bases are likely to cause a sharp increase in the support for Islamic fundamentalists. And radicals who are appalled by the “betrayal of Muslim interests” may go so far as to organize acts of terrorism and large-scale riots.

Uzbekistan is the most vulnerable country in the region. Even before September 11, Hizb-ut-Tahrir was distributing leaflets in which Uzbek President Islam Karimov was called “a Jewish infidel and Muslim-hater.” Now that Tashkent has offered military facilities to US forces, Islamic radicals will have additional grounds for attacking the president. Uzbekistan’s section of the Fergana Valley was the birthplace of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), whose fighters are now on Taliban-controlled Afghan territory and have close links with Osama bin Laden.

In 1991, in the town of Namangan, a movement called Adolat (“Justice”) unexpectedly emerged. Adolat supporters formed a group similar to the Iranian Guardians of the Islamic Revolution. Young men wearing green bands appeared, dealing at their own discretion with those whom they felt had broken Islamic law. The punishment for the thieves and prostitutes they captured was quite bizarre from the point of view of Western jurisprudence: they were seated backwards on a donkey and paraded around the town, or tied to pillars on squares where passersby spat in their faces. The accused were also beaten with whips in mosques. The undisputed leader of this “Islamic police” force was then Tohir Yuldashev. Although the Uzbek authorities stamped out the Adolat movement, arresting activists and handing down lengthy prison sentences, Yuldashev and several of his supporters managed to escape from Uzbekistan, going on to form the IMU in exile.

Central Asia’s secular regimes have not been not strong enough—at least up to now—-to counter the Islamic radicals, who are well organized and seem to have substantial financial resources. For instance:

• Created as a virtual carbon copy of the Russian army, the Kyrgyz army shares many of its deficiencies: soldiers are badly paid, corruption is widespread, discipline is poor, and alcoholism is rife.
• In Uzbekistan, a human-rights worker told us that if IMU fighters appeared in that country’s section of the Fergana Valley, their numbers would quickly be increased twenty-fold. He saw potential IMU supporters not only among the disillusioned unemployed people and the relatives of those who are imprisoned, but also among the criminal groups that have not been allowed to share in President Karimov’s patronage system.
• The ubiquitous corruption among Uzbek officials at all levels also works to the IMU’s advantage. Since the acts of terrorism in the United States, Tashkent has introduced strengthened military patrols throughout the country; more than 10 checkpoints have been set up on the road from the Fergana Valley to Tashkent.

However, the car we drove along that road was not checked once. The driver preferred to hand over a bribe at each checkpoint.

Igor Rotar writes for the Keston News Service.

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