I was discussing the events in Andijan with a friend today, and he had a very interesting take when we got to the topic of the US reaction to this crisis. Let's imagine for a moment that members of the opposition in Belarus were able to mount an uprising and break out of jail some of their (likely unlawfully) imprisoned colleagues.
Or, to get closer to what I think was the case in Andijan, people who were not really inclined to armed opposition but became sufficiently fed up with the authorities' tyranny to rebel in a similar fashion - again, imagine this taking place in Belarus. Would the Bush administration be "concerned" that people unjustly imprisoned were out of jail? Would they urge restraint on the part of the opposition, as they have done in the case of the Andijan uprising? I doubt it.
Does this mean the Uzbek opposition is somehow less of a "democratic opposition" than the movements in Belarus because the Uzbeks happen to be Muslims and the Belarussians are not?
I am just thinking out loud here, does anyone else have any thoughts on this apparent double standard? Or maybe you want to tell me why you think I'm wrong - that's OK, too.
Saturday, May 14, 2005
Interesting comparison
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9 comments:
I am definitly going to agree with you on that.
Eric
I'm still trying to catch up on these events, so it's not clear to me why you're so heavily inclined to assume that the US would not respond similarly in Belarus, or if it did not, that the difference would derive strictly from the fact that the Uzbeks are Muslim. Indeed your inclination is so strong that you describe a hypothetical situation as an "apparent double standard", as if there were any appearance at all, rather than a definition of your choice. That aside, and confessing again my ignorance of what's going on here, breaking people out of jail is pretty serious stuff, and I would hope the US govt would counsel caution in both circumstances. Something in the mistake of tacitly condoning the coup against Chavez in Venezuela seems relevant--political clumsiness. There's nothing contradictory about cautioning people for whom you feel sympathy, while it's only intelligent not to offend an ally.
Clay, agreed, the situation in Belarus is totally hypothetical. However, I think that given the rather aggressive statements that have been made (and rightfully so) by US officials about Belarusian President Lukashenko being the "last dictator in Europe," many people who follow the post-Soviet region would expect a different response from the US than the one we gave the the events in Uzbekistan if similar events were to occur in Belarus. Plus, the US has no military bases in Belarus, so it's easier to criticize Lukashenko.
Consider this fact - the US eventually endorsed the Kyrgyz "Tulip Revolution," one of the leaders of which, Felix Kulov, was himself sprung from jail. To be fair, I don't know what the US was saying at the very beginning of the unrest in Kyrgyzstan, but at the end of the day if the US wants "regime change" - or see that it's inevitable and don't want to alienate the new leaders - a jailbreak is pretty low on the scale of things that are considered excusable (I'm talking about a scale that would work its way up from regime change by jailbreak to, say, regime change by invading a country with your army).
But back to Uzbekistan - I agree that there was nothing inherently contradictory about the US' statement, taken in a vaccum, but in the context of the situation the mention of "terrorists" was interpreted (certainly by Uzbek authorities, it's safe to say) as giving carte blanche to Uzbek troops to put down the uprising by any means necessary. And I guess while you think it's intelligent not to offend an ally (again, something I agree with in the abstract), I find it a bit offensive that Uzbekistan IS our ally. So, I guess we have to agree to disagree on this one. Thanks for your comment.
Just to agree and let you know that your weblog is being read in the UK of GB.
http://davidp1.blogspot.com/2005/05/korasuv.html ---
David, thanks very much for your comment - if I didn't know people were actually interested in and reading the content I'm putting up, I would not be posting as much, so thanks for keeping me going in that respect. I had found your blog earlier and filed away the link in a draft post I'm working on (and hope to have up this evening, finally) about some of the blog coverage/comments about the situation in Uzbekistan. So stay tuned, and thanks again for the comment.
Or, to get closer to what I think was the case in Andijan, people who were not really inclined to armed opposition but became sufficiently fed up with the authorities' tyranny to rebel in a similar fashion - again, imagine this taking place in Belarus. Would the Bush administration be "concerned" that people unjustly imprisoned were out of jail? Would they urge restraint on the part of the opposition, as they have done in te case of the Andijan uprising? I doubt it.
The US would restrain restraint, yes, because peaceful revolutions are preferrable to violent ones, and a violent revolution may escalate into a full-blown civil war. As far as a jailbreak is concerned, that is unlikely to be much of a concern- it is a small thing in the greater scheme of things, but the details of the jailbreak would influence the US's assessment of the escapees.
From what I'm hearing, the jailbreak was particularly brutal, and sounds like it was carried out by an organized group of armed men, not a spontaneous 'storm the bastille' sort of thing, or a breakout from the inside.
Does this mean the Uzbek opposition is somehow less of a "democratic opposition" than the movements in Belarus because the Uzbeks happen to be Muslims and the Belarussians are not?
The US has very good cause to be wary in situations involving muslims with guns. Please keep that in mind.
ug. "restrain restraint"? Please make that 'urge restraint'. thanks.
OK, I agree that you have a point that the US would "urge restraint" in such a situation in Belarus as well, but I don't think they would use the word "terrorists" - which telegraphs to the government that it's OK to take extreme measures to put down the uprising - to describe the rebels at any point in the statement. It doesn't really seem fair to me that it's so much easier for Muslims to be branded terrorists, although I know "fairness" is a concept better suited to the sandbox than to geopolitics.
"The US has very good cause to be wary in situations involving muslims with guns. Please keep that in mind.
Why should we be any more wary of Muslims than of Christians with guns? I agree that we should be wary in situations involving organized Islamist/fundamentalist (as opposed to Muslim) groups, but I reject the assertion that someone (or a group of people) carrying a gun(s) should be considered more or less dangerous based solely on their religion or nationality.
How do we reliably determine if someone is a 'moderate' muslim or one of the jihadis? With christians, it's relatively easy to figure out if they're moderate or extremist, and the extremists are rare enough that we can assume moderation without getting burned too often. With muslims, the proportions seem to be reversed, and assuming moderation has gotten the US burned, badly, in the relatively recent past. For example, Jimmy Carter sent someone to interview Ruhollah Khomeini while he was exiled in Paris, and he came back to tell the President that the guy was a moderate... look how that turned out.
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