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Uzbekistan
Internal Security
Uzbekistan defines its most important security concerns not only
in terms of the potential for military conflict, but also in terms
of domestic threats. Primary among those threats are the destabilizing
effects of trafficking in narcotics and weapons into and across
Uzbekistani territory. Although the government has recognized
the dangers of such activities to society, enforcement often is
stymied by corruption in law enforcement agencies.
Narcotics
With an estimated 2,000 to 3,000 hectares of domestic opium poppy
grown annually, Uzbekistan's society long has been exposed to
the availability of domestic narcotics as well as to the influx
of drugs across the border from Afghanistan (often by way of Tajikistan).
Since independence, border security with Afghanistan and among
the former Soviet Central Asian republics has become more lax,
intensifying the external source problem. Uzbekistan is centrally
located in its region, and the transportation systems through
Tashkent make that city an attractive hub for narcotics movement
from the Central Asian fields to destinations in Western Europe
and elsewhere in the CIS.
In 1992 and 1993, shipments of thirteen and fourteen tons of
hashish were intercepted in Uzbekistan on their way to the Netherlands.
Increasingly in the 1990s, drug sales have been linked to arms
sales and the funding of armed groups in neighboring Afghanistan
and Tajikistan. Drug-related crime has risen significantly in
Uzbekistan during this period. Uzbekistani authorities have identified
syndicates from Georgia, Azerbaijan, and other countries active
in the Tashkent drug trade.
Domestic drug use has risen sharply in the 1990s as well. In
1994 the Ministry of Health listed 12,000 registered addicts,
estimating that the actual number of addicts was likely about
44,000. Opium poppy cultivation is concentrated in Samarqand and
along the border with Tajikistan, mainly confined to small plots
and raised for domestic consumption. Cannabis, which grows wild,
is also increasingly in use. In 1995 government authorities recognized
domestic narcotics processing as a problem for the first time
when they seized several kilograms of locally made heroin.
To deal with this threat, three agencies--the National Security
Service, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the State Customs
Committee--share jurisdiction, although in practice their respective
roles often are ill-defined. The international community has sought
to provide technical and other assistance to Uzbekistan in this
matter. In 1995 Uzbekistan established a National Commission on
Drug Control to improve coordination and public awareness. A new
criminal code includes tougher penalties for drug-related crimes,
including a possible death penalty for drug dealers. The government's
eradication program, which targeted only small areas of cultivation
in the early 1990s, expanded significantly in 1995, and drug-related
arrests more than doubled over 1994. In 1992 the United States
government, recognizing Central Asia as a potential route for
large-scale narcotics transport, began urging all five Central
Asian nations to make drug control a priority of national policy.
The United States has channeled most of its narcotics aid to Central
Asia through the UN Drug Control Program, whose programs for drug-control
intelligence centers and canine narcotics detection squads were
being adopted in Uzbekistan in 1996. In 1995 Uzbekistan signed
a bilateral counternarcotics cooperation agreement with Turkey
and acceded to the 1988 UN Convention Against Illicit Traffic
in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances.
Law Enforcement and Crime
The Uzbekistani police force is estimated to number about 25,000
individuals trained according to Soviet standards. The United
States Department of Justice has begun a program to train the
force in Western techniques. Interaction also has been expanded
with the National Security Service, the chief intelligence agency,
which still is mainly staffed by former KGB personnel. About 8,000
paramilitary troops are believed available to the National Security
Service.
But these efforts are expected to have little impact on the widespread
and deeply entrenched organized crime and corruption throughout
Uzbekistan, especially in the law enforcement community itself.
According to experts, the government corruption scandals that
attracted international attention in the 1980s were symptomatic
of a high degree of corruption endemic in the system. In a society
of tremendous economic shortage and tight political control from
the top down, the government and criminal world become intertwined.
Citizens routinely have been required to pay bribes for all common
services. More than two-thirds of respondents in a recent survey
of Uzbekistan's citizens stated that bribes are absolutely necessary
to receive services that nominally are available to all. These
bribes often involve enormous sums of money: in 1993 admission
to a prestigious institution of higher learning, while technically
free, commonly cost nearly 1 million Russian rubles, or more than
twice the average annual salary in Uzbekistan in 1993.
Narcotics and weapons trafficking are only an extension of this
system, widely viewed as sustained and supported by law enforcement
and government officials themselves. In the same survey, a majority
of Uzbekistanis stated that bribery occurs routinely in the police
department, in the courts, and in the office of the state procurator,
the chief prosecutor in the national judicial system. About 25
percent of police surveyed agreed that other officers were involved
in the sale of drugs or taking bribes.
The condition of the internal security system is an indicator
that progress remains to be made in Uzbekistan's journey out of
Soviet-style governance. In the first five years of independence,
efforts to establish profitable relations with the rest of the
world (and especially the West) have been hindered by a preoccupation
with maintaining the political status quo. However, by the mid-1990s
Uzbekistan began to take advantage of its considerable assets.
Uzbekistan does not suffer from poor natural resources or hostile
neighboring countries; its mineral resources are bountiful, and
Russia continues to watch over its former provinces in Central
Asia. According to government rhetoric, market reforms and expanding
international trade will make the nation prosperous--beginning
in 1995, an improved human rights record and more favorable investment
conditions supplemented the country's political stability in attracting
foreign trade and fostering at least the beginning of democratic
institutions.
* * *
For historical background on Uzbekistan, three books are especially
useful: Elizabeth E. Bacon's Central Asians under Russian
Rule , Edward Allworth's Central Asia: 120 Years of Russian
Rule , and Vasilii V. Bartol'd's Turkestan Down to the
Mongol Invasion . James Critchlow's Nationalism in Uzbekistan
provides useful background on the development of nationalism among
the elites of Uzbekistan during the Soviet period, and William
Fierman's Soviet Central Asia: The Failed Transformation
covers social issues and the development of Islam. For information
on environmental issues in Uzbekistan, Murray Feshbach and Alfred
Friendly, Jr.'s Ecocide in the USSR and Philip R. Pryde's
Environmental Resources and Constraints in the Former Soviet
Republics are useful sources.
For a discussion of economic issues, the World Bank country studies
and the weekly Business Eastern Europe , published by
the Economist Intelligence Unit, provide the most current information.
Nancy Lubin's Labour and Nationality in Soviet Central Asia
provides a detailed description of the background to the development
of corruption and organized crime. The quarterly journal Central
Asian Monitor and the daily reports of the Open Media Research
Institute (OMRI) provide the most current information regarding
events in Central Asia. (For further information and complete
citations, see Bibliography.)
Data as of March 1996
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