By Burt Herman
Associated Press
TASHKENT, Uzbekistan – With U.S. soldiers on their way to Uzbekistan, a base for the war on terrorism, Uzbeks are wary of what will happen when the Americans depart and they are left alone to deal with what remains in neighboring Afghanistan.
Trying to convince a wary public, the government launched a media campaign Friday to persuade the country’s 24 million people that offering an air base is the right thing to do.
The main evening news led with President Islam Karimov’s Friday meeting with U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, airing the president’s comments at length. And in a commentary, the head of a government-run polling institute also claimed that a majority of Uzbeks supported playing host to U.S. soldiers.
“We should help America because our country is near the center of international terrorism,” said Oman Otamirzayev, who runs the Center for the Study of Public Opinion.
Still, getting an accurate indication of public opinion is no easy task in a country where opposition parties are virtually nonexistent after years of crackdowns and intimidation.
Even the sole candidate running against Karimov in national elections in 1999 admitted he didn’t vote for himself – but instead for Karimov, who has run Uzbekistan with Soviet-style heavy-handedness since even before its 1991 independence.
Signs of U.S. cultural influence aren’t hard to spot in Tashkent, where the main pedestrian drag is called “Broadway” and restaurants boast of “real American flavor.” But U.S. soldiers are an entirely different thing – and many people are wary of getting drawn into a conflict they’ve been trying desperately to avoid.
“I’m afraid for my family, but I understand that they need us,” said army Maj. Ruslan Tadjebayev, 35, strolling down Broadway to buy videotapes with his wife Oxana and 8-year-old daughter Alina.
“We have very bad neighbors,” he said. “If we had Sweden, Switzerland and France as neighbors, then I wouldn’t be afraid.”
Uzbekistan shares a 85-mile border to the south with Afghanistan, which it has kept tightly closed since 1997, after the Taliban took power just across the frontier.
Nonetheless, the country has also been fighting its own terrorist group, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan – which also has bases in Afghanistan and is connected to Osama bin Laden. A series of bombings in February 1999 in the capital that killed 13 and injured about 120 were blamed on the group.
“If America doesn’t destroy the bandits’ bases in Afghanistan, all of Central Asia will burst into flame,” said Sergei Yezhkov, a political analyst for the state-run newspaper Pravda Vostok.
Ruling out the possibility of all-out war, Yezhkov said the narrowly focused U.S. campaign against terrorism wouldn’t leave Uzbekistan with a lingering conflict.
“The American operation won’t change the political situation in Uzbekistan,” he said. “It’s not a war against all of Afghanistan, it’s only the liquidation of bases and bandits.”
Even before Karimov’s announcement Friday, another state-run newspaper, Narodnoe Slovo, wrote that the “government will do everything necessary for the stability and tranquility of the people.”
The rhetoric still wasn’t convincing to people on Broadway. Selling an assortment of sunglasses, batteries and film, Yelena Shishkina, 23, said she’d prefer that her country not put up the U.S. soldiers – even for humanitarian missions.
“American troops will go back to their homeland and the Uzbek people will remain face-to-face with the Afghan problem,” she said.
Copyright ©2001 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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