Radio Liberty/Radio Liberty has a video of Amb. Krol dancing at Novrouz festival. It appears to be DCM Philip Kosnett clapping behind him.
Should you dance with the dictator -- literally? That was the question some people had in mind when they saw the video clip discovered by Radio Ozodlik, the Uzbek language service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, showing our own American envoy to Tashkent, Ambassador George Krol, dancing in the stadium audience at the official Novrouz celebration.
George -- who used to describe Central Asia as "his parish" when he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs before his current assighment -- looks for all the world like Snoopy dancing with the bunnies in Charlie Brown's Easter Beagle.
The ambassador is highly experienced and smart, speaks Russian and Polish and has served extensively in the former Soviet Union so he "gets it" about these countries. So most likely he danced merely because it was an official festival to open spring and that's what you do to express good will -- and simply have a good time.
Even so, the question I'd ask is this: when you dance at these official mass events that have people rehearsing for hours and performing before the tyrant like this, is it gushing? Is it the sort of gushing you shouldn't really do even if you really badly need Uzbekistan as a transit route for NATO troops and equipment because the route through Pakistan is blocked?
As I've said before, the exigency of our situation is obvious, and it's not as if you say "don't deal with this tyrant because he tortures thousands of people in prison who don't belong there" or "don't get our troops and equipment out of Afghanistan or supplies to them while they remain". It's not either or, but the latter taking up the priority. Even so, quiet diplomacy on human rights is used, and there is a certain decorum -- "not gushing" that you can exhibit so as not provide easy fodder to critical NGOs.
See, this is where I think you could safely draw the line -- go to the official event -- you have to, when they invite the entire diplomatic corps and the president is there -- but just stand tactfully, without excessive kicking up of your heels.
The real story for Uzbeks was, of course, that President Islam Karimov is shown dancing -- stiffly, and like your old uncle at your wedding when you're blasting the rock music -- but still, dancing and twisting his hands in the Central Asian style.
What's a bigger story, though, for the attentive eye is that Karimov looks awful. Usually he's made up for the cameras and close-ups in official press releases and TV shows, but this is outdoors, in the glaring spring sun, and he looks pale, weak, and sick. You wonder how long he will last!
And if you read the usually pro-Karimov uzmetronom.com, the answer is -- perhaps not even another three years in power!
As was widely reported the next day after this Novrouz celebration held March 22, the Uzbek parliament ruled to extend Karimov's term by several months, i.e. the parliamentary elections are moved to December 2014, then the presidential elections are moved to 90 days after them, i.e. March 2014 or thereabouts, ostensibly to give a chance for these democratic parties in the parliament *cough* a chance to find their candidate for the head of state.
Karimov has been president since 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed, and head of state since 1989.
There was some effort to portray a "move to democracy" when Karimov shortened the term of president for the next president from 7 to 5 years and changed some things about how the head of state is elected. And it seems as if the parliament was working on making Uzbekistan the first parliamentary state in the CIS, says uzmetronom.com. The pattern had been to replace the general secretary of the Communist era with strong presidents.
But here's a reason why some people may be dancing: Karimov may not run again (and that's been rumoured many times before, and he is supposedly picking his successor.)
Sergei Ezhkov, the editor of saidscandalous uzmetronom.com -- which often serves as a leaking device for the Interior Ministry or intelligence services -- has an editorial March 25 declaring that the Karimov era's end is coming in 2015 -- and you can tell it's a serious one because he is shown with a cigarette in a rueful pose.
Writes Ezhkov:
Now as to the most likely prospects for the development of the situation. Let us recall that according to this law, elections in the Oliy Majlis will take place in December 2014. That means, analysts believe, that Uzbekistan intends to demonstrate the active participation of political parties in the presidential election campaign. The goal is clear and obvious -- prove to the international community that the country is taking broad steps toward the high road of democracy. If these suppositions are correct, then in 2012-2013, we should expect changes in the leadership of one of the political parties.
Most likely, a new leader will appear in the Liberal Democratic Party of Uzbekistan (UzLiDeP) [the ruling party with Karimov as its head]. In principle, our experts have named the proposed leader, however we don't want to personify their conclusions. Let us say only that whoever leads the party on the ascent to the parliamentary elections, in the opinion of experts, should be regarded as the next president of Uzbekistan. That will definitely not be Islam Karimov, and most likely not in the spring of 2015, but in December of that year. The law passed by the Senate the other day is no barrier. The parliament is tame, and it can find the grounds for its need to change the constitution once again.
I hope everyone has by now thrown out the idea that Gulnara Karimova, the daughter of the president, is being groomed as a presidential successor -- that was always stupid, and the fact that she lost power with the disintegration of Zeromax, which was seized and put into bankruptcy, is proof enough of that.
Carnegie Central Asian expert Alexander Malashenko has speculated about the succession scene without naming anyone, and like Ezhkov, he talks in terms of Uzbekistan wanting to become more democratic to somehow impress the West. That doesn't track for me -- while the "Inspector General" phenomenon and the foreigner in that role is a meme for the post-Soviet space, I don't think they really look over their shoulders that much to see what the West wants of them. I think they simply want to play the different great powers off against each other and are preoccupied with their own immediate pursuit of Maslov's hierarchy of needs.
Shivkat Mirziyoyev, the prime minister, is sometimes rumoured to be a potential successor, and always described as being about to be overthrown, or losing power, or kicking out other people who didn't remain loyal, or losing his people because his enemies overcame him or -- whatever. Speculation.
The Senate chair Ilgizar Sobirov, said to be formerly in intelligence, is one figure said to be considered as a successor, and certainly he would now have ample "administrative resources" to use the parliament to take over the party and then the presidency.
Of course the dancing dictator's immediate preoccupation is how to secure a safe passage for his own family's wealth and to keep immunity from prosecution. So whomever he annoints will have to display willingness to do this.
Meanwhile, my bet is that Karimov is not going to last. He does not look good. Meanwhile, the American ambassador is capering (perhaps he knows something we don't!), and the camera didn't even pan on the Russian or Chinese diplomats.
