Uzbekistan's Growing Instability

I'm on the Missions Committee at my church, and we help support a missionary in Uzbekistan whose status is in peril right now. This missionary helps with orphanages, where most of the children aren't orphans at all but were given away by their parents because of birth defects, some as minor as a Gorbachev-like birthmark.

Today, this person alerted the people on the mission's email distribution of some of the latest news out of Uzbekistan. With Afghanistan in the news lately, because they had a man on trial for his Christian faith, this news is timely.

EurasiaNet reported Sunday about the destabilizing effect Uzbekistan is having on the region, which borders Afghanistan (the article has a map of the region on the right side).

Another RIIA analyst, Yury Federov, says Uzbekistan appears to be a pivotal point for events in the whole region. "Internal developments in Uzbekistan are really worrisome; the ruling regime keeps itself in power through repression, and many people in Uzbekistan believe that repression in the final end cannot save the current regime from the crash, which may lead, in turn, to a general destabilization of the situation in the country and in the neighboring region," he says.

Federov says that in the event of any trouble, the densely populated Ferghana Valley, which runs through Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan, could be the "epicenter" of instability.

Fellow RIIA specialist James Nixey agrees that trouble could rapidly spread across the loosely controlled frontiers of the valley. "Where the Ferghana Valley is concerned, the borders are much more porous there, they are not well protected, they are not well guarded, and therefore the movement of extremists is much easier than through official border channels," he says.

As Uzbekistan destabilizes, and as Uzbek refugees spill into neighboring countries, particularly Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, that are ill-equipped to handle them, the instability will spread.

If news reports are to be believed, Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai may face some fallout over his real or perceived efforts to have Abdul Rahman's blasphemy trial dropped on a technicality. The people of Afghanistan are angry, and Karzai is seen by many as a stooge for the US. Couple that with increasing instability on its northern borders, and Afghanistan may be facing a new round of trouble.