Can We Call It An Uzbek Spring Yet?

Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s two years as Uzbekistan’s president have provided some welcome surprises. Mirziyoyev took over after the announcement of Islam Karimov’s death on September 2, 2016. Karimov had been the first, and only president of Uzbekistan during its first 25 years of independence, and for the last 13, Mirziyoyev had been prime minister. Expectations were not high that Mirziyoyev would introduce radical changes to the increasingly isolated and economically stagnant country he inherited, but he has. Some call the changes an “Uzbek spring,” but there is a difference between winter loosening its icy grip and the advent of spring.

Key questions remain to be answered. Was Mirziyoyev really a democrat in wolf’s clothing all those years he was a top official in Karimov’s government? Now that he is in power, can Mirziyoyev at last create a better Uzbekistan for the country’s people and reform the country into a reliable partner in the world community? Or are the changes he is now making motivated by need, a means of solidifying his rule over a country that seeks to increasingly assume a role as regional powerhouse?

The Inheritance

When Mirziyoyev took over as Uzbekistan’s leader, he inherited a government with a reputation as a chronic rights abuser, a regional bully, and an unreliable international partner.

Uzbekistan had a stagnant economy, epitomized by a hydrocarbon sector that regularly showed declines in production during the last decade of Karimov’s presidency. Despite the country possessing sufficient reserves of oil and natural gas to not only make Uzbekistan self-sufficient for energy needs but allow exports of these commodities as well, shortages of electricity and heating and long lines at petroleum filling stations had become the norm. The knock-on effect of fuel shortages filtered into other sectors of production, factories, plants, and mechanized farming.

Uzbekistan has by far the largest population in Central Asia, with more than 32 million people. But for many, jobs have been difficult to find. As a result, for more than a decade millions have left Uzbekistan to find work in other countries. As many as 2 million citizens of Uzbekistan, officially, are migrant laborers in Russia; that number may actually be twice as high according to some estimates. If so, and there have been as many as 4 million Uzbeks working in Russia, that is roughly one-third of Uzbekistan’s eligible workforce.

Change Comes

Shortly after being unconstitutionally confirmed as acting president on September 8, 2016, Mirziyoyev stated his priorities would be to improve relations with the country’s neighbors and get Uzbekistan’s economy moving forward after years of stagnation. The two goals are connected.

Mirziyoyev wasted no time in mending relations with Uzbekistan’s Central Asian neighbors. Uzbek forces had been occupying a mountain (called Ungar-Too in Kyrgyz) just over the border in Kyrgyzstan, the location of a television relay station, and holding the station’s employees hostage since late August 2016. There was little Kyrgyzstan, with a population of some 6.2 million and a small military, could do to stop Uzbekistan, which has Central Asia’s largest military. Uzbekistan has temporarily occupied border areas in Kyrgyzstan before, including Ungar-Too in March 2016.

On September 18, Uzbek troops departed Ungar-Too. On September 20, an Uzbek news website reported Kyrgyz and Uzbek delegations had been holding border demarcation talks in the southern Kyrgyz cities of Osh and Jalalabad since September 14.

On September 21-25, Uzbek and Kazakh delegations had talks on border demarcation in Almaty, and on November 14, Uzbekistan’s Foreign Ministry invited Tajikistan’s ambassador to discuss border demarcation.

Mirziyoyev was officially elected Uzbekistan’s president on December 4, 2016. By then, he had already done more to improve ties with Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan than Karimov had done in the previous two decades. Mirziyoyev made his first official visit as Uzbekistan’s elected president to Turkmenistan on March 6-7, 2017.

Mirziyoyev’s good neighbor efforts were not isolated to the country’s fellow former Soviet republics. On October 11, 2016, Mirziyoyev said on Uzbek television, “Representatives of our Foreign Ministry will travel to Afghanistan soon… In the future we should try to contribute to the strengthening of mutual relations as well as to ensuring peace and stability for hard-working Afghan people.” On October 17, Afghanistan’s foreign minister arrived in Tashkent, and on March 27, 2018, Uzbekistan hosted an international conference on Afghanistan that was attended by regional officials and representatives of other countries and international organizations, including Russia, the United States, NATO, and the European Union.

Uzbekistan’s neighbors, who had long before become accustomed to the Uzbek government’s obstinacy and even menace, were obviously pleased with Tashkent’s change in attitude.

The priority of improving relations with Uzbekistan’s neighbors could be seen as connected with the necessity of invigorating the country’s economy. Uzbek officials have pointed out for years that Uzbekistan is a double-landlocked country, meaning there are at least two international borders between Uzbekistan and any open ocean. To be a semi-isolationist state in such a geographical location invites economic problems.

Under Mirziyoyev, Uzbekistan has reopened border crossings with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan, facilitating border trade, and trade farther afield. Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan agreed in January 2017 to reopen the M-39 highway that connects the two countries after the road was closed in 2006. It also happens to be a road that connects and shortens the distance between Tashkent and Samarkand, an old hub of the famous Silk Road in Uzbekistan. Astana has offered to connect Uzbekistan by railway to Kazakhstan’s Caspian ports at Aktau and Kuryk and Turkmenistan offered Uzbekistan the possibility of shipping its goods across the Caspian Sea from Turkmenistan’s port at Turkmenbashi during Mirziyoyev’s visits in March and May 2017. The long-planned railway to link China, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan is finally moving forward, and the highway linking those three countries has already opened. Uzbekistan has repaired the Galaba-Amuzang railway that runs through the southern part of the country. A mysterious explosion along that line in 2011 cut the railway, which had connected Tajikistan to Iran. Iran is the supplier, by rail, of many of the construction materials used for building Tajikistan’s massive Rogun dam, a project Karimov’s government had vehemently opposed. And Uzbek officials are working with Afghanistan to extend the railway line running from Uzbekistan to the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif westward through Herat and on to Iran.

The opening, or reopening, of all these road and rail links facilitates Uzbekistan’s ability to export its goods, or import items needed at home. It also brings Uzbekistan’s depleted state coffers revenue in the form of transit fees. A January 2018 deal with Tajikistan lowered transit fees for railway goods crossing Uzbekistan by 30 to 50 percent, but that will likely be recovered by increases in volume, as railway traffic out of Tajikistan had dwindled in the latter years of Karimov’s presidency.

Friendlier ties with neighboring countries have also led to the renewal of transborder energy supplies, which fell into disuse after Uzbekistan unilaterally withdrew from the Soviet-era Central Asian unified energy grid in 2009. Kyrgyzstan started supplying electricity to areas in eastern Uzbekistan in December 2017 and Tajikistan signaled in July 2017 it was ready to send electricity to Uzbekistan. The addition of these energy supplies to Uzbekistan’s populous eastern regions in the Ferghana valley alleviates Tashkent’s existing problems supplying energy to these areas.

Additionally, Uzbekistan resumed gas exports to Tajikistan in April 2018, six years after those supplies were cut. The two countries had long argued over the price of gas and payment of Tajikistan’s chronic debt for the gas to Uzbekistan. There is also the possibility that Uzbek gas supplies could start flowing again to southern Kyrgyzstan after deliveries stopped in 2014. Though Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan were both continually behind in payments for gas, Tashkent’s decisions to suspend gas supplies had often appeared timed to express dissatisfaction with Bishkek or Dushanbe’s political moves rather than being due to nonpayment of bills. The first time Uzbekistan cut gas supplies to Kyrgyzstan was in 1993, shortly after Kyrgyzstan became the first Central Asian state to introduce its own currency. Karimov warned the move would flood Uzbekistan with Russian rubles, the currency all the Central Asian states had been using since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Mirziyoyev’s visits to Turkmenistan in 2017, besides improving Turkmen-Uzbek ties generally, resulted in an agreement to supply Turkmen gas condensate to the refinery in Bukhara, which had been operating at about 60 percent capacity due to declining production in Uzbekistan.

Uzbekistan has sufficient oil reserves (some 600 million barrels) and natural gas (1.1 trillion cubic meters), according to the BP annual energy survey, to meet its domestic needs, but production of both energy resources has declined, oil production by nearly half and gas production by some 10 percent, since 2007. The rationing of electricity and heat in many of Uzbekistan’s regions during the winter, and long lines at filling stations, were the areas of greatest complaint from the population during the last years of Karimov’s life.

Mirziyoyev’s visits to Kazakhstan in March 2017 paved the way for an agreement to import up to 1 million tons of Kazakh oil per year. More importantly, the two countries pledged to repair and expand the Omsk-Pavlodar-Shymkent oil pipeline so that Uzbekistan could import up to 10 million tons of Russian oil annually via Kazakhstan’s territory.

Much has been made of Mirziyoyev’s policy toward Russia. Karimov limited Russian influence in Uzbekistan as much as possible, but Mirziyoyev’s third official trip as president was to Moscow in early April 2017, where he convinced Russian President Vladimir Putin to sell oil to Uzbekistan. Mirziyoyev’s government has courted better relations with Russia but the immediate goal seems to be directed at helping improve Uzbekistan’s economic situation.

One of the first major trade agreements Mirziyoyev’s government made was to significantly increase exports of fruits and vegetables to Russia, which combined with fruit and vegetable exports to other countries such as Kazakhstan and China, helped Uzbekistan take in more than $700 million in 2017, a 15 percent increase over 2016.

Meanwhile, Russia is not only selling oil to Uzbekistan. Russian company Enter Engineering, a Gazprom subsidiary, is the general contractor for the new oil refinery with a capacity of some 5 million tons per year in Mirziyoyev’s native Jizzakh province. Russia’s Rosatom has been contracted to build a nuclear power plant (NPP) in Uzbekistan, the first NPP in Central Asia. The $11 billion project will be financed largely through Russian loans.

No other country has stepped forward to engage in such projects in Uzbekistan since Mirziyoyev came to power and likely no other country will. China has already invested billions of dollars in Uzbekistan, but all the large projects China needs in Uzbekistan have now been built or are nearing completion. Uzbekistan needs foreign investment and thus far in Mirziyoyev’s tenure as president, Russia is the only country that has demonstrated its willingness to fund and construct major projects.

While Uzbek troops have started participating in training exercises with Russian forces again since Mirziyoyev came to power, Uzbek officials have said several times the country is not seeking to rejoin the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), or to join the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). In any case, closer military cooperation with Russia would seem prudent given that the United States and its allies operating in Afghanistan have been signaling their desire to exit that country after more than 17 years of trying to prop up the Afghan government in its battle with Taliban forces, and more recently those of the so-called Islamic State militant group that have appeared in parts of Afghanistan.

A Kinder, Gentler Uzbek Leader?

Among the reforms that have resonated the loudest with the international community are new policies toward people previously viewed as enemies of the state. Since Mirziyoyev became Uzbekistan’s leader, dozens of political prisoners have been freed and thousands of people have been removed from the blacklist of potential religious extremists.

These gestures have promoted the image of Mirziyoyev’s Uzbekistan as a kinder and gentler nation. Western governments and international financial organizations have shown an interest in Uzbekistan not seen for more than 13 years, since the Uzbek government ordered troops to use deadly force to restore order in Uzbekistan’s eastern city of Andijan. The violence resulted in the deaths, according to the Uzbek government, of 179 people, but others place the figure at several times that number. International criticism over the disproportionate use of deadly force, mainly from Western governments and organizations, led to Uzbek authorities ordering most Western organizations out of the country. This was accompanied by a wane in the activity of international financial organizations in Uzbekistan.

However, most of the high-profile political prisoners who were released from Uzbekistan’s prisons after Mirziyoyev came to power were elderly, in their 60s and 70s. They had already endured a decade or more of humiliation and often torture while incarcerated. They no longer represent any real threat to the government. These individuals were usually tried and convicted on spurious charges, backed by confessions made under duress, at trials held behind closed doors, and without the benefit of adequate legal representation. In the end, almost all them left prison simply because they completed their sentences, not due to an amnesty or pardon.

Similarly, Uzbek authorities’ announcement in September 2017 of the removal of 16,000 of the 17,000 names on the state’s blacklist of potential Muslim extremists was widely hailed. Many were no more than pious Muslims but the paranoia of the Karimov government tended to view deeply religious Muslims as likely terrorist sympathizers, and possibly actual members of radical groups.

Mirziyoyev also came out against the decades-long practice of forcing people into the cotton fields to pick Uzbekistan’s “white gold” during harvest time. Ever since the Soviet period, people were conscripted to pick cotton. Usually it was women and children who did the work but following international campaigns to boycott purchasing Uzbekistan’s cotton, Karimov eventually banned the use of child labor in the fields. Women and children were replaced by state employees, medical workers, students, soldiers, and others. Every year, handfuls of elderly people died working under the intense sun, and younger people fell prey to accidents, including being hit by tractors or cars during the harvest. Some even committed suicide after being berated by local officials for failing to meet their quotas.

Mirziyoyev vowed to end the practice and introduce more mechanization for harvesting cotton, hardly an original idea in Uzbekistan but one that had never come close to being fulfilled.

Mirziyoyev has ordered officials not to use conscripted labor in the cotton fields and the government has significantly increased wages for those who do go to pick cotton. State television has broadcasted warnings against the use of forced labor and there are even billboard signs in some areas urging those who have been conscripted into the fields to report the violation to authorities.

These acts of mercy, or simply better judgment, on the part of Mirziyoyev’s government are helping lure back governments and international organizations that abandoned or were forced out of Uzbekistan when Karimov was president. For example, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) reopened an office in Tashkent in November 2017 after halting work the country in 2007. In May 2018, Mirziyoyev made an official visit to Washington, D.C. the first Uzbek president to do so since May 2002. While in the U.S. capital, he received wide praise for bringing long overdue reforms to Uzbekistan and Uzbek business delegations signed contracts worth several billion dollars.

A Man of the People

At home in Uzbekistan, Mirziyoyev has made other changes that are welcomed by Uzbekistan’s people. Mirziyoyev has publicly criticized officials, but his criticisms are targeted at officials and agencies that Uzbekistan’s citizens came to distrust and dislike when Karimov was president. Among the government bodies singled out by Mirziyoyev are the feared National Security Service (SNB), the prosecutor’s office, the tax agency, and the police.

These highly publicized attacks on unpopular state agencies, punctuated by the occasional firings of unpopular officials, boost Mirziyoyev’s support among Uzbekistan’s people, a boost he no doubt believed he needed.

When Karimov died, Mirziyoyev was one of three people seen as having the best chance of taking power. The others were the then-SNB chief Rustam Inoyatov and then-Finance Minister Rustam Azimov.

Barely six months after being elected president, Mirziyoyev had successfully undercut the reputation of the Finance Ministry and chased Azimov from any significant public office. Inoyatov was next. By January 2018, the once-feared SNB head, whose history working in the intelligence service stretched back to the KGB of the 1970s, was also moved out and his supporters similarly ousted from their positions, much to the approval of the majority of Uzbekistan’s citizens. In February 2018, Mirziyoyev called the SNB “mad dogs,” stripped the SNB of some of its powers, and ordered the organization to relocate from the center of Tashkent to another building. In March 2018, Mirziyoyev ordered the service to be reorganized and reformed under a new name: the State Security Service.

Mirziyoyev had rid himself of his chief rivals, and other powerful officials from the Karimov era, replacing them with his own supporters, and strengthening his position as head of the country. At the same time, Mirziyoyev was projecting an image as a champion of those who suffered during his predecessor’s rule, someone who was holding devious officials to account for their long abuse of the country’s population.

Some have taken notice of Uzbek media outlets such a Kun.uz reporting on corruption and abusive officials. However, this relatively greater freedom in reporting coincides with Mirziyoyev’s calls to root out corruption and for officials to change habits that developed under Karimov. Local officials have been exposed for illegal or unethical behavior, but top officials appointed by Mirziyoyev remain immune from such reports.

The case of former Deputy Prime Minister Zoir Mirzayev is illustrative. Mirzayev was appointed deputy prime minister on December 15, 2016, right after Mirziyoyev was elected president. Mirzayev had been the governor of Samarkand province, a position Mirziyoyev held from September 2001 until December 2003.

Mirzayev was sacked from his position on October 29, 2018 after photos surfaced of men forced to stand knee-high in a canal filled with water on Mirzayev’s orders as punishment for failing to properly irrigate agricultural fields. Mirzayev’s dismissal was hailed as proof that officials were no longer above the law, but barely one week later, Mirzayev was appointed head of the Sharof Rashidov district in Jizzakh. He had undergone a demotion but not exactly strong punishment.

In the meantime, there are aspects of Uzbekistan’s domestic policies and politics that have not changed since Mirziyoyev took over as the country’s leader.

What About Politics?

Mirziyoyev has never mentioned allowing new political parties to register or even independent candidates to run for office (the latter possibility was annulled in 2007 when an opposition candidate attempted to run for president as an independent). The same four pro-government registered political parties – the Liberal Democratic Party of Uzbekistan, Milli Tiklanish, Adolat, and the People’s Democratic Party – will compete for 150 seats in Uzbekistan‘s 2019 elections to the Oliy Majlis, or lower house of parliament. Even Karimov had criticized the four parties, saying they were so similar he had difficulties telling them apart.

There has also been no talk of electing deputies to the upper house of parliament, the Senate, and it appears those 100 seats will continue to be filled by an internal selection process among Oliy Majlis MPs and government ministries.

Uzbekistan has given accreditation to one journalist from the U.S.-media outlet Voice of America, but the BBC and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, both expelled from Uzbekistan after the Andijan violence in 2005, are still waiting to hear if their requests to again be given accreditation will be granted.

Similarly, Human Rights Watch, which was ordered to shut its office in the country in 2011, is waiting to learn if its request to restart activities in Uzbekistan will be approved.

Mirziyoyev has certainly changed Uzbekistan. The motives for these changes could be ascribed to a genuine desire to reform Uzbekistan; further reforms could come to support the idea of Mirziyoyev as a true reformer.

But the changes to date can equally be explained by the need to get Uzbekistan’s economy moving in the right direction, and for Mirziyoyev to cement his position as Uzbekistan’s leader.

Professor Luca Anceschi of Glasgow University has described the processes underway in Uzbekistan as “authoritarian modernization.” Anceschi wrote that “Shavkat Mirziyoyev is trying to modernize, rather than liberalize, Uzbek authoritarianism. His agenda of authoritarian modernization is oriented towards the achievement of rapid economic growth, to be pursued through sustained attempts to globalize the Uzbek economy…”

In the mid-1990s, Karimov’s mantra was “economic reform, then political reform.”

Mirziyoyev has not even gone that far in his promises.

In the end, it might be enough for Uzbekistan’s people if economic reforms bring a better standard of living, and officials are restrained from preying upon the population as they did when Karimov was in power.

But that might not, however, quite qualify as an “Uzbek spring” nor may it meet the criteria to call Mirziyoyev a reformer.