the Disillusioned kid: Waving a straight banana in the general direction of Islam Karimov
| Email | Home | Linkage | Profile |

Saturday, October 01, 2005

Waving a straight banana in the general direction of Islam Karimov

Seeing as Nosemonkey's suggested people come here to find out more about the proposed EU sanctions against Uzbekistan I guess I'm duty bound to say something about it.

The proposals include an embargo on "arms, military and other equipment that might be used for internal repression," a cut in aid and visa bans on Uzbek officials implicated in events in Andijan (although a list of targets has yet to be drawn up). Although the move will not be approved by Foreign Ministers until Monday, the Commission has already prepared the neccesary legislation.

Clearly it's a good thing that something is finally being done about Karimov's human rights abuses, but as the Telegraph notes it's taken a while for the EU to get around to implementing these measures. The parallels with diplomatic sanctions levied against Mugabe don't exactly fill me with confidence. Perhaps the Uzbekistan solidarity movement (for want of a better term) should start looking for it's own Peter Tatchell? Further, as Nosemonkey points out, Karimov can still get weapons from Russia (or for that matter China), rendering the excercise primarily symbolic.

The EU's proposal comes shortly after the US dispatched a high-level delegation to Uzbekistan to have strong words with Karimov and criticised the regime at an OSCE human rights conference in Warsaw. The contemporaneity of these events has fuelled suggestions that western "retaliation" against Uzbekistan has begun in earnest. Whether this is the case or not remains to be seen, but it does seem that the US is going to leave Karshi-Khanabad airbase, formerly the linchpin in the US-Uzbekistan strategic relationship (I for one had wondered if this would actually happen).

Something's finally being done about Uzbekistan. This is a good thing. Whether the measures taken serve to improve the situation there only time will tell.

Side Projects

Carnival of Anarchy
The Peace Pipe
UK Watch Blog

Acquaintances

Against the Current
Atopian.org
Culture hits and gendered bits
Daniel Randall
In The Water
Mike Wood
On The Barricades
Pizarro's Sword
Space Cat Rocket Ship
Surveillant Assemblage
TashCamUK FotoPage
The Naked Lunch
The Peace Pipe
The World of the Dynamite Lady

Strangers

Anarchoblogs
Antiwar.com Blog
Arte & Lingua
Barker in Valencia
Blairwatch
Bloggerheads
Blood & Treasure
Bombs and Shields
Boomablog
Born at the Crest of the Empire
Chase me ladies...
Chicken Yoghurt
Craig Murray
Dead Men Left
Direland
Disreputable Lazy Aliens
Empire Notes
Europhobia
Friends of Al Jazeera
Global Guerillas
Guerillas in the Midst
I Blame the Patriachy
Informed Comment
Insultadarity
Janine Booth
Lenin's Tomb
Life of Riley Blog
Media Watch Watch
Neil Shakespeare
NO2ID NewsBlog
One Hump or Two?
Otto's Random Thoughts
Perfect.co.uk
Pitch In For Uzbekistan
Registan.net
Run over by the truth
Solidarity With Iraqi Workers
Shut Up You Fat Whiner!
Sudan: Passion of the Present
Talk Politics
The Anthropik Network
The Daily (Maybe)
The Devil's Kitchen
The Disillusioned
The f-word
The Head Heeb
The Killing Train
The Revenge of Winston Smith
The Socialist Unity Blog
The Wicked Truth
Theory of Power
Things I Don't Have Time For
This (Fresh) Gringo
This Is My Truth
Thumping the Tub
Time The Dreaded Enemy
UK Watch Blog
UK Poli Blogs
underbrella
Under The Same Sun
Uzbekistan.neweurasia.net
What Fresh Hell Is This?
Where is Raed? (RIP)
Who Are You to Accuse Me?
Words and Rocks
Zeropointnine
Z-Net Blog

Neighbours

Asbo Community Space
Defy-ID
Eastside Climate Action
Faslane 365
Freecycle
Indymedia
No Borders
Nottingham Student Peace Movement
Refugee Forum
Stop the War
Sumac Centre
The Demo Project

Ivory Towers

Anarchist Studies Network
Centre for the Study of Social and Global Justice
Postanarchism Clearinghouse

Miscellania

Anarchist FAQ
Antiwar.com
Chagos Discussion List
Chagos Support Forums
Electronic Intifada
Future of Iraq Portal
Index of Political Blogs
Indymedia UK
Infoshop
Iraq Occupation Focus
Pledgebank
Refuser Solidarity Network
SchNEWS
Socialist Unity Network
The New Standard
UK Chagos Support Association
UK Watch
Weekly Worker
Wikipedia
WriteToThem.com
Z-Net

The Progressive Blog Alliance

Register here to join the PBA.