sure786
01-10-2001, 21:13
'Launch-pad' states where repression rules
By Marcus Tanner
01 October 2001
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia_china/story.jsp?story=96934
As the West musters its armada for strikes against the Taliban, the international spotlight has descended on the former Soviet republics in Central Asia, which will be used as a launch pad.
Western journalists, Russian generals * including the Chief of Staff of the Russian armed forces, General Anatoly Kvashnin * and American and British military experts, have flooded into Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan recently.
Virtually ignored and increasingly impoverished since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the republics have suddenly emerged as key frontline states. The only people who know almost nothing about the crucial role they are about to play are the local inhabitants. The Central Asian states are all authoritarian regimes of varying intensities and in that lies their strategic advantage to the West.
While the war is too unpopular among Muslims in Pakistan to make Islamabad a reliable ally, the West has been forced to turn to countries with shocking human rights records, run by dictators trained in the Kremlin school of repression.
Saule Mukhametrakhimova, a central Asia specialist for the London-based Institute of War and Peace Reporting, has just returned from Uzbekistan. She said: "The fact that they are police states makes it much easier for the US to use them.
"No one in Tashkent knows what's going on," she said. "The media is controlled and reports nothing. The officials know but don't say anything, and only 1 per cent of the population has any access to the internet. Ordinary people know about the New York bombing but have no idea the US plans to use Uzbekistan for a counter-attack."
Of the five, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan will shoulder the biggest roles. Tajikistan has the longest border with Afghanistan (900 miles) and is the natural exit for Afghan refugees. It has several airports and is the main staging point for funnelling aid to the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, a role it shares with its northern neighbour, Kyrgyzstan.
Uzbekistan is expected to follow suit, after a visit by a US Undersecretary of State, John Bolton. The most populous state of the five, Uzbekistan, acted as the Soviet launching pad for the ill-fated invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and has all the military infrastructure the West needs for strategic strikes. The southern border town of Termez could play a crucial role in any ground invasion, because it has the only bridge over the Amudar'ya river to Afghanistan.
The Uzbek leader, Islam Karimov, has good reasons for acting out the role the West wants. His police regime, the most oppressive in the region, faces a serious Islamic insurgency, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, headed by Juma Namangani, who is based over the border in Kandahar and is an ally of Osama Bin Laden.
The movement numbers only a few thousand, but they are the crack troops in the Taliban's foreign legion.
The Russian President, Vladimir Putin, has said he does not object to the US using the Central Asian air bases as staging posts for strikes.
But for all five states, a new role as a theatre of war poses a distinct threat to their regimes, which must be balanced against the hope of receiving more Western aid. As secular governments ruling Sunni Muslim populations (except for Shia Tajikistan), they all run the risk of resurgent pan-Islamic feeling if they join an attack on Afghanistan.
Tajikistan experienced such a conflict from 1992-97. The Russians helped crush the Islamist revolt but left a ruined state with a population that is increasingly dependent on the drugs trade.
By Marcus Tanner
01 October 2001
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia_china/story.jsp?story=96934
As the West musters its armada for strikes against the Taliban, the international spotlight has descended on the former Soviet republics in Central Asia, which will be used as a launch pad.
Western journalists, Russian generals * including the Chief of Staff of the Russian armed forces, General Anatoly Kvashnin * and American and British military experts, have flooded into Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan recently.
Virtually ignored and increasingly impoverished since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the republics have suddenly emerged as key frontline states. The only people who know almost nothing about the crucial role they are about to play are the local inhabitants. The Central Asian states are all authoritarian regimes of varying intensities and in that lies their strategic advantage to the West.
While the war is too unpopular among Muslims in Pakistan to make Islamabad a reliable ally, the West has been forced to turn to countries with shocking human rights records, run by dictators trained in the Kremlin school of repression.
Saule Mukhametrakhimova, a central Asia specialist for the London-based Institute of War and Peace Reporting, has just returned from Uzbekistan. She said: "The fact that they are police states makes it much easier for the US to use them.
"No one in Tashkent knows what's going on," she said. "The media is controlled and reports nothing. The officials know but don't say anything, and only 1 per cent of the population has any access to the internet. Ordinary people know about the New York bombing but have no idea the US plans to use Uzbekistan for a counter-attack."
Of the five, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan will shoulder the biggest roles. Tajikistan has the longest border with Afghanistan (900 miles) and is the natural exit for Afghan refugees. It has several airports and is the main staging point for funnelling aid to the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, a role it shares with its northern neighbour, Kyrgyzstan.
Uzbekistan is expected to follow suit, after a visit by a US Undersecretary of State, John Bolton. The most populous state of the five, Uzbekistan, acted as the Soviet launching pad for the ill-fated invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and has all the military infrastructure the West needs for strategic strikes. The southern border town of Termez could play a crucial role in any ground invasion, because it has the only bridge over the Amudar'ya river to Afghanistan.
The Uzbek leader, Islam Karimov, has good reasons for acting out the role the West wants. His police regime, the most oppressive in the region, faces a serious Islamic insurgency, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, headed by Juma Namangani, who is based over the border in Kandahar and is an ally of Osama Bin Laden.
The movement numbers only a few thousand, but they are the crack troops in the Taliban's foreign legion.
The Russian President, Vladimir Putin, has said he does not object to the US using the Central Asian air bases as staging posts for strikes.
But for all five states, a new role as a theatre of war poses a distinct threat to their regimes, which must be balanced against the hope of receiving more Western aid. As secular governments ruling Sunni Muslim populations (except for Shia Tajikistan), they all run the risk of resurgent pan-Islamic feeling if they join an attack on Afghanistan.
Tajikistan experienced such a conflict from 1992-97. The Russians helped crush the Islamist revolt but left a ruined state with a population that is increasingly dependent on the drugs trade.