Tony Blair's New Friend

The British and US governments gave three reasons for going to war with Iraq. The first was to extend thewar on terrorism. The second was to destroy its weapons of mass destruction before they could be deployed. Thethird was to remove a brutal regime, which had tortured and murdered its people.

If the purpose of the war was to defeat terrorism, it has failed. Before the invasion, there was nodemonstrable link between Al Qaeda and Iraq. Today, Al Qaeda appears to have moved into that country, toexploit a new range of accessible western targets. If the purpose of the war was to destroy Saddam Hussein'sweapons of mass destruction before he deployed them, then, as no such weapons appear to have existed, it was awar without moral or strategic justification.

So just one excuse remains, and it is a powerful one. Saddam Hussein was a brutal tyrant. While there wasno legal argument for forcibly deposing him on the grounds of his abuse of human rights, there was a moralargument. It is one which our prime minister made repeatedly and forcefully. "The moral case against warhas a moral answer: it is the moral case for removing Saddam", Tony Blair told the Labour Party's springconference in February. "Ridding the world of Saddam would be an act of humanity. It is leaving him therethat is in truth inhumane."[1]

Had millions of British people not accepted this argument, Tony Blair might not have been prime ministertoday. There were many, especially in the Labour Party, who disagreed with his decision, but who did not doubtthe sincerity of his belief in the primacy of human rights.

There is just one test of this sincerity, and it is the consistency with which his concern for human rightsguides his foreign policy. If he cares so much about the welfare of foreigners that he is prepared to go towar on their behalf, we should expect to see this concern reflected in all his relations with the governmentsof other countries. We should expect him, for example, to do all he could to help the people of Uzbekistan.

There are over 6,000 political and religious prisoners in Uzbekistan. [2] Every year, some of them aretortured to death. Sometimes the policemen or intelligence agents simply break their fingers, their ribs andthen their skulls with hammers, or stab them with screwdrivers, or rip off bits of skin and flesh with pliers,or drive needles under their fingernails, or leave them standing for a fortnight, up to their knees infreezing water.[3] Sometimes they are a little more inventive. The body of one prisoner was delivered to hisrelatives last year, with a curious red tidemark around the middle of his torso. He had been boiled to death.[4]

His crime, like that of many of the country's prisoners, was practising his religion. Islam Karimov, thepresident of Uzbekistan, learnt his politics from the Soviet Union. He was appointed under the old system, andits collapse in 1991 did not interrupt his rule. An Islamic terrorist network has been operating there, butKarimov makes no distinction between peaceful Muslims and terrorists: anyone who worships privately, who doesnot praise the president during his prayers or who joins an organisation which has not been approved by thestate can be imprisoned. [5] Political dissidents, human rights activists and homosexuals receive the sametreatment. Some of them, like dissidents in the old Soviet Union, are sent to psychiatric hospitals. [6]

But Uzbekistan, as Saddam Hussein's Iraq once was, is seen by the US government as a key western asset.Since 1999, US special forces have been training Karimov's soldiers.[7] In October 2001, he gave the UnitedStates permission to use Uzbekistan as an airbase for its war against the Taliban. [8] The Taliban have nowbeen overthrown, but the US has no intention of moving out. Uzbekistan is in the middle of central Asia'smassive gas and oil fields. It is a nation for whose favours both Russia and China have been competing. LikeSaddam Hussein's Iraq, it is a secular state fending off the forces of Islam.

So, far from seeking to isolate his regime, the US government has tripled its aid to Islam Karimov. Lastyear, he received $500 million, of which $79 million went to the police and intelligence services, who areresponsible for most of the torture. [9] While the US claims that its engagement with Karimov will encouragehim to respect human rights, like Saddam Hussein he recognises that the protection of the world's mostpowerful government permits him to do whatever he wants. Indeed, the US State Department now plays a majorrole in excusing his crimes. In May, for example, it announced that Uzbekistan had made "substantial andcontinuing progress" in improving its human rights record.[10] The progress? "Averagesentencing" for members of peaceful religious organisations is now just "7-12 years", while twoyears ago they were "usually sentenced to 12-19 years." [11]

There is little question that the power and longevity of Karimov's government has been enhanced by hisspecial relationship with the United States. There is also little question that supporting him is a dangerousgame. All the principal enemies of the US today were fostered by the US or its allies in the past: the Talibanin Afghanistan, the Wahhabi zealots in Saudi Arabia, Saddam Hussein and his people in Iraq. Dictators do nothave friends, only sources of power. They will shift their allegiances as their requirement for power demands.The US supported Islamic extremists in Afghanistan in order to undermine the Soviet Union, and created amonster. Now it is supporting a Soviet-era leader to undermine Islamic extremists, and building up anotherone.

So what of Tony Blair, the man who claims that human rights are so important that they justify going towar? Well, at the beginning of this year, he granted Uzbekistan an open licence to import whatever weaponsfrom the United Kingdom Mr Karimov fancies.[12] But his support goes far beyond that. The British ambassadorto Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, has repeatedly criticised Karimov's crushing of democracy movements and his useof torture to silence his opponents.[13] Like Roger Casement, the foreign office envoy who exposed theatrocities in the Congo a century ago, Murray has been sending home dossiers which could scarcely fail to moveanyone who cares about human rights.

Blair has been moved all right: moved to do everything he could to silence our ambassador. Mr Murray hasbeen threatened with the sack, investigated for a series of plainly trumped-up charges and persecuted sorelentlessly by his superiors that he had to spend some time, like many of Karimov's critics, in a psychiatricward, though in this case for sound clinical reasons.[14] This pressure, according to a senior governmentsource, was partly "exercised on the orders of No 10".[15]

In April, Blair told us that he had decided that "to leave Iraq in its brutalised state under Saddamwas wrong."[16] How much credibility does this statement now command, when the same man believes that tohelp Uzbekistan remain in its brutalised state is right?

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References:

1. Tony Blair, 15 February 2003. Speech to Labour's local government, women's and youth conferences,Glasgow.

2. The Guardian (26 May 2003) reports estimates of 6,500, citing independent human rights groups andthe Sunday Times (26 October 2003) estimates of 7-10,000, citing Ambassador Craig Murray.

3. See for example, Human Rights Watch, World Report 2003; Amnesty International, Annual Report 2003; HumanRights Watch, 4 April 2003. Deaths in Custody in Uzbekistan. Briefing Paper

4. Human Rights Watch, 4 April 2003, ibid.

5. Human Rights Watch, 25 March 2003. Inthe Name of Counter-Terrorism: Human Rights Abuses Worldwide. Briefing Paper for the 59th Session of theUnited Nations Commission ; Human Rights Watch, 10 August 2001. Memorandum to the U.S. Government RegardingReligious Persecution in Uzbekistan.

6. Amnesty International, 2003, ibid; Human Rights Watch, World Report 2003, ibid.

7. CJ Chivers, 25 October 2001. Long Before War, Green Berets Built Military Ties to Uzbekistan. NewYork Times.

8. United States Department of Defense, 5 October 2001. SecretaryRumsfeld Press Conference with President of Uzbekistan.

9. Nick Paton Walsh, 26 May 2003. US looks away as new ally tortures Islamists. The Guardian

10. Human Rights Watch, 3 June 2003. Uzbekistan: Progress on Paper Only. Analysis of the U.S. StateDepartment's Certification of Uzbekistan.

11. ibid.

12. Richard Norton-Taylor, 27 February 2003. Export of arms criticised. The Guardian.

13. See for eg Craig Murray 17 October 2002 - Speechto Freedom House, Tashkent. The British Embassy.

14. David Leigh, Nick Paton Walsh and Ewen MacAskill, 18 October 2003. Ambassador accused after criticisingUS. The Guardian; Jonathan Ungoed-Thomas and Mark Franchetti, 26 October 2003. The British ambassador says hishosts are boiling people to death. The Sunday Times; Martin Bright, 19 October 2003. Short backs envoy whocriticised US. The Observer.

15. David Leigh, Nick Paton Walsh and Ewen MacAskill, ibid.

16. Tony Blair, 14 April 2003, 3.30 pm. Statementon Iraq to the House of Commons.