Lesson to Learn
Uzbekistan and its leader Islam Karimov will not suffer too much from the European Union's sanctions. The ban on weapons supply from European could be easily overcome by plentiful shipments of the Russian arms. Moscow, most likely, will be supporting well its new strategic ally. The economic aid from the West was never large enough to make a difference. Also, putting Islam Karimov and his close associates into the “no entry” list to Europe, will doubtfully change the lives of Uzbek President and his surrounding. Recently, they stopped to take too many trips to the West.
However, it is too early to celebrate for Karimov. The main price that Uzbek government would have to pay would be political one. And this price would be high enough…
The imposed by the European Union (and right after by the United States) sanctions on Uzbekistan sounded like a political sentence to Karimov. It is only matter of time when the sentence will start being enforced.
It looks like, Karimov is afraid most of all to repeat the fate of his former colleagues – Georgian ex-President Eduard Shevardnadze, Ukrainian – Leonid Kuchma, and Kyrgyz - Askar Akaev. However, Karimov will not follow their steps. He does not have this privilege anymore after he crossed Rubicon of Andijan bloodshed. Karimov might just repeat the fate of former Balkan dictator Slobodan Milosevich.
As strange as it sounds, the fates of ex-President of Yugoslavia and current Uzbek President have a lot in common. From the beginning both of them were not known for their democratic attitude. Until certain point both leaders had dissent relationship with the West. Milosevich was able to appoint himself as a guarantor of peace in Bosnia, according to the Dayton agreement. Karimov for many years was presenting himself as a main fighter with Islamic terrorism. Finally, both of them broke up with the West and started to flirt with Moscow, hoping that Kremlin will support them in critical moment.
Everyone knows how Milosevich finished: in October of 2000, Serbian people swept away his regime during the “velvet revolution.” And no other than Igor Ivanov, Russian Foreign Minister, flew to Belgrade to persuade Milosevic to resign. (By the way, later on the same recipe was successfully used toward Eduard Shevardnadze and head of Adjaria Aslan Abashidze.) Today Milosevic is facing tribunal in Hague and possible life in prison.
His story should be a lesson for Islam Karimov. However, as the experience shows, the authoritarian rulers do not like to learn lessons. For that matter, the price they pay is getting higher every time.
Gennady Sysoev, columnist
All the Article in Russian as of Oct. 05, 2005
|
