The unexpected escalation of the situation in the Autonomous Republic of Karakalpakstan in Uzbekistan highlighted the sensitivity of the issues of national self-determination in the Central Asian countries and the lack of dialogue between the authorities and the population.
Over the past six months, a wave of bloody protests and conflicts between the authorities and the population swept through the Central Asian countries. All these events are probably unrelated but they demonstrated how sensitive and delicate the questions of national self-determination and unresolved social problems remain.
On July 1, the situation in the Autonomous Republic of Karakalpakstan within Uzbekistan escalated sharply due to the authorities’ decision to amend the Constitution and eliminate articles on Karakalpakstan’s autonomy.
On June 20, during a meeting with the Constitutional Commission, President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev proposed a number of amendments to the country’s Constitution, including articles on changing the status of the Autonomous Republic.
The Republic of Karakalpakstan is the largest region in Uzbekistan; it occupies 40% of the country’s territory in the northwest. It is located between Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan and has a population of approximately 2 million people. The official languages there are Karakalpak (a member of the Kypchak branch of Turkic languages; slightly differs from Uzbek) and Uzbek.
On July 1 and 2, the protests in Nukus, the centre of the Autonomous Republic, quickly escalated into clashes with security forces of the National Guard deployed in this city. As a result, according to the General Prosecutor’s Office, 18 people died, four of whom were law enforcement officers. 243 more people, including 38 law enforcement officers, were injured.
Authorities arrested activist and blogger Dauletmurat Tazhimuratov accusing him of organising illegal protests.
The General Prosecutor’s Office of Uzbekistan opened a criminal case against him under Article 159 Part 4 of the Criminal Code (a conspiracy with the purpose of assumption of power or overthrowing of the constitutional order of the Republic of Uzbekistan shall be punished with imprisonment from 10 to 20 years) and other articles. The prosecutor from the Prosecutor General’s Office Abror Mamatov announced this at a briefing at the Agency of Information and Mass Communications on Monday, July 4.
According to the head of the press service of the National Guard Davron Zhumanazarov, 516 people were detained in Nukus on July 1-2. Their cases are being investigated. Some of them were subjected to administrative punishment and released.
President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev visited Nukus twice, on July 2 and 3. Having met with the members of the Jokargy Kenes [the Parliament of the Autonomous Republic], activists, and senior citizens, the President reproached them for initiating these amendments but keeping silent about citizens’ dissatisfaction due to the abolition of Karakalpakstan’s autonomy. He decided not to change the articles of the Constitution concerning the status of the republic.
A month-long state of emergency was declared on the region’s territory, a curfew is in force, mobile Internet is cut off, and mobile communications are intermittent.
On July 2, speaking to the Jokargy Kenes members, the President announced that the draft law on amendments to the Constitution of Uzbekistan would be finalised after a nationwide discussion, and only after that, it would be put to a referendum.
Currently, the authorities control the situation in the region; it is reported that internal troops have been withdrawn and all organisations, markets, shops, and transport operate normally.
Analysts and observers from Central Asia interviewed by CABAR.asia believe that the lack of dialogue between the authorities and the population causes such a sharp population response and the escalation of the situation.
“Our government faced the consequences of ignoring the importance of communication with society. Especially about extremely sensitive issues. Especially when it comes to ethnic territorial entities within the state. They saw and had to understand that it is impossible to always rely on faith that their decisions will be responded to with tacit approval or disapproval,” a political analyst from Uzbekistan Yuriy Sarukhanyan wrote in his blog.
“When some processes undermining societal stability begin, any government, from the most democratic to the most totalitarian, should not try to remain silent hoping that they will somehow resolve. They will not. If you do not deal with it yourself, the situation will escalate, and someone else will deal with the problem, both from inside and outside,” Sarukhanyan writes.
Farkhad Tolipov, another political expert from Uzbekistan, also believes that the lack of critical discussion about the amendments among the population has caused the problems. He believes that the authorities’ intent to complete the reform process as soon as possible and approve the amendments, regardless of time and place, led to such sad consequences.
Another civic activist, a journalist from Uzbekistan Nikita Makarenko published a post on his Facebook page highlighting the idea that “the reason for the tragedy is that feedback from the population has been completely lost”.
“The survey by Ijtimoiy Fikr [Republican Centre for Public Opinion Research] showing that 83% of the population supports the amendments to the Constitution is fake news… What is really happening, what people really think – that is what you do not know. There are no analytical institutions. No think tanks. Their receptions and the “portal” have not been working for a long time and are covered with dust. No one listens to the media and is not allowed to speak out. The connection is completely lost. That is it, the disaster strikes. It will not be the last one if you continue to believe in the fairy tales of Ahborot [a news program on state TV], which you invented yourself,” Makarenko writes.
Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan. Who Is Next and What Lies Behind the Wave of Protests in Central Asia?
Meanwhile, over the past year, this is already the third of the five Central Asian countries where the authorities use force to suppress the protests of the population.
In early January, the protests against an increase in gas prices in Kazakhstan led to armed clashes and deaths in large cities of the country. In May, in the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region of Tajikistan, the authorities severely suppressed the protests of the population against the police lawlessness in the region. More than 20 people died there, many were injured and arrested. Now, the protests with casualties took place in Uzbekistan.
Although all these events had different causes and backgrounds, such a chain of events raises questions. What do these events have in common? Could they be orchestrated by external players?
Yuriy Sarukhanyan believes that, despite the similarity of the problems of political and socio-economic development of the countries of the region, it is impossible to assess the events in Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan in 2022 from a single perspective. Each of the crises had its own background and causes.
“This is not an analogue of the 2011 Arab Spring,” Sarukhanyan said in a CABAR.asia interview.
However, the expert draws attention to similar features.
“Despite our region’s residents being used to blame external forces for everything, all events had internal causes and were the result of authorities’ mistakes. For example, destabilisation in Kazakhstan at the beginning of the year was the result of a clash of elites. The events in Karakalpakstan were the result of an inefficient system of decision-making and communication with society. The intervention of an external factor (it was observed) took place during the escalation of the situation as a result of the ineffective response of the authorities,” he says.
Political analyst Farkhad Tolipov also believes that these events have no connections. However, the fact that they all happened during the same year is striking.
“Each of these events has its own reasons. Since these unpleasant events happened in a row during one year, it seems that there is a single force among them. However, to draw such a conclusion, serious analysis is required; there must be serious grounds. In any case, one can only guess if there was an external influence in each of them,” Tolipov said.
“This is an internal natural process. There may be external forces trying to take advantage of this unpleasant disorder. Since it was observed in many regions when such events occurred, the influence of an external force cannot be excluded. However, each of them had its own internal causes,” notes Tolipov.
Even though each of the cases of destabilisation is not related to the others, all countries of the region should draw conclusions paying attention to long-standing problems of inefficient public administration, a difficult socio-economic situation, the observed gap between authorities and societies, as well as unresolved disputes between the states of the region, Sarukhanyan believes.
“The lack of preventive problem solving will lead to new ‘explosions’ in one or another country of the region,” he said.