Weekly news wrap

This week in Central Asia was marked by a number of visits by senior officials of international organisations, demonstrating the global community's interest and commitment to the region. On Monday, US Assistant Secretary of State Elizabeth Jones defended Washington's controversial military alliance with Uzbekistan, a staunch ally in its war against terror, and promised to bring pressure to bear the Uzbek government to engage more vigorously in efforts to bring about greater human rights reform. "There are still a number of threats in the region, but we have a good partner in Uzbekistan," she said. Her colleague, Lorne Craner, the US assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labour, on Monday called on the Uzbek leadership to grant amnesty to Ruslan Sharipov, an openly gay journalist convicted earlier for sodomy. "We do believe... that he should be amnestied," she said. Critics have accused Washington of turning a blind eye to abuses in Uzbekistan ever since its government agreed in 2001 to host at its Khanabad military base US forces fighting in neighbouring Afghanistan. As many as 6,500 people are thought to be imprisoned on political or religious grounds under President Islam Karimov's hardline leadership, while a UN human rights rapporteur has charged that the security forces use torture systematically. Staying in Uzbekistan, a 23-year-old man had reportedly been tortured to death by border guards while attempting to smuggle cotton out of the country, which is the world's fifth-largest cotton producer, a local human rights group, Ezgulik, said on Monday. Kuandyk Syrlybayev had been among four people beaten by guards while they were trying to sneak 100 kg of cotton from Uzbekistan's eastern Dzhizak Province into neighbouring Kazakhstan, Vasilia Inoyatova, the head of Ezgulik, said. Mounted police and border guards continue to patrol the country's borders under the protectionist Uzbek authorities' order to prevent cotton smuggling into the neighbouring state, where its price is dozens of times higher. Meanwhile, the World Bank's vice-president for Europe and Central Asia, Shigeo Katsu, visited Uzbekistan as part of his Central Asian tour from 11 to 15 November. Katsu held a number of meetings with senior state officials on Thursday to discuss the Bank's activities, a portfolio of its projects, the current economic situation, and the prospects for the country's development, and also engaged in an exchange of views on regional issues. He also took part in the Second Ministerial Conference on Central Asia Economic Cooperation, which took place recently in the Uzbek capital, Tashkent. This week, Tajikistan also hosted a number of senior officials of international organisations. The Tajik media reported on Monday the arrival of the president of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), Tadao Chino, to attend a ceremony marking the inauguration of the ADB's permanent mission in the capital, Dushanbe. Chino reportedly said that the ADB would support the government's efforts to alleviate poverty. Tajik President Emomali Rahmonov and Chino met to discuss the current state of and prospects for bilateral cooperation. According to the Tajik government, the ADB has implemented 10 investment projects worth some US $173 million in the country, and allotted 20 grants of technical aid worth $29 million over the last five years. US military engineers had begun preliminary work on building a $12 million road bridge to link the Afghan and Tajik banks of the Pyandzh river that separates the two countries, the US embassy in Dushanbe said on Monday. The bridge was expected to become a major contribution to the development of economic ties between Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Iran, the Tajik transport ministry said, adding that it would help expedite post-war reconstruction in Afghanistan by permitting faster travel of humanitarian convoys from Tajikistan. The managing director of the IMF, Horst Köhler, arrived in Tajikistan on Tuesday, as part of his tour of the region. During his visit, he met Rahmonov and senior government officials to discuss the implementation of the poverty alleviation programme. Köhler hailed Tajikistan's strong economic performance, including sustained growth, but said the country needed to make more efforts. Tajikistan's economy should grow by 6 percent this year, according to IMF estimates; however, over 80 percent of Tajikistan's population still lives below the poverty line. Köhler next went to Kyrgyzstan, where he urged the government to cut its fiscal deficit, caused in particular by a spiralling power-sector debt. With a fiscal deficit of almost $1.7 billion or around 5 percent of gross domestic product, the country had no choice other than further trimming its budget deficit, he reportedly said. A UN expert group led by a UN adviser on landmine issues, Peter Isaacs, arrived in Tajikistan on Wednesday to identify mined areas bordering Uzbekistan. Tajikistan's Centre for Mine Issues said that another object of the group's visit was to probe the circumstances of an incident which took place on the Tajik-Uzbek border in [northern] Soghd region's Isfara District last week, in which two people died and three were injured. Over 100 Tajik citizens have suffered from mine explosions since Uzbekistan started laying mines on the border in August 2000 to deter militants of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan from infiltrating its territory. Some 60 Tajiks living in areas bordering on Uzbekistan had since died and over 50 had been injured, reports indicated. Staying in that country, the first HIV/AIDS cases were reported from the southwestern city of Kulob on Wednesday. According to the Kulob regional centre for fighting HIV/AIDS, six cases have been identified in the city, all of whom were drug addicts serving prison terms or former convicts; they are now being cared for by medical workers. In Kazakhstan, the government hopes to assume the rotating chairmanship of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in 2009. A press release issued on Wednesday by the Kazakh presidential press centre said that during talks between OSCE representatives and Bulat Utemuratov, the secretary of the Kazakh Security Council, who attended an OSCE Permanent Council session in Vienna between 10 and 12 November, the possibility of taking over the organisation's chairmanship by Kazakhstan was discussed. However, Anton Rupnik, the head of the OSCE office in the Kazakh commercial capital, Almaty, said on Tuesday that he had been surprised that Kazakhstan, which had declared its ambition to take over the OSCE chairmanship, had participated in criticising the organisation. "Kazakhstan as a country wishing to take over the OSCE chairmanship on the one hand, on the other hand has joined a rather sharp criticism against the organisation's working system," Rupnik said. What is at issue is a document disseminated by Kazakh, Russian, Kyrgyz and Belarussian delegations from OSCE offices in the countries two months ago. The document also contained some criticism of the way the OSCE conducted its activities.