AMERICA'S UZBEK CONNECTION MAY INFLAME ALL OF CENTRAL ASIA

EDITOR'S NOTE: The White House has touted the cooperation of Uzbekistan -- to be a staging ground for certain U.S. missions into Afghanistan -- as an example of international support for its war against Osama bin Laden's forces. But the U.S.-Uzbekistan connection may spark hostilities that could consume the region. PNS contributor William O. Beeman teaches anthropology and Middle East studies at Brown University. He has more than 30 years experience in the region, including work in Central Asia during the past four years.

BY WILLIAM O. BEEMAN, PACIFIC NEWS SERVICE

PROVIDENCE, R.I.--The Central Asian country of Uzbekistan will figure strongly in the Bush administration's war against Osama bin Laden in coming days, as bombs fly over Afghan cities. But the U.S.-Uzbekistan connection may prove deadly for the Uzbek government, and may spark a fire that could consume the region.

Uzbekistan was secured as a staging area for the U.S. war against Osama bin Laden despite the reluctance of Uzbek President Islam Karimov. The Uzbekistan president has tentatively offered a former Soviet air base at Khanabad, near the border city of Termez -- a city with the only bridge from Central Asia into Afghanistan, over the formidable Amudarya River. Karimov has been careful to publicly claim that American forces will be using the base only for humanitarian and rescue missions, not for incursions or attacks on Afghanistan.

His caution is justified. Despite his first name, Islam, Karimov is no friend of the Islamic religion. He has repressed religious and political movements opposing his regime strenuously since 1991. He has gone so far as to close and defend with land mines the border between his nation and neighboring Tajikistan, where a strong Islamic opposition waged a three-year civil war in the mid 1990s.

Bin Laden has framed his anti-colonialist movement as a defense of Islam.

He styles himself as a modern-day Saladin, protecting holy territories from the infidel crusaders from the West. Orthodox Muslim leaders throughout the world have denounced his terrorist war against America and other opponents of Islamic peoples in Kashmir, Chechnya, Bosnia, the Philippines and China. Nevertheless, his message has strong emotional appeal throughout the Islamic world.

Bin Laden's popularity frightens Karimov. Three broadly based groups that Karimov repressed in 1991 are likely to use the occasion of Uzbekistan's cooperation with the United States as an opportunity to reorganize and challenge his rule. These are the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (formerly Adolat, or "Justice"), The Unity Popular Movement, and the Freedom Party.

Of these three, the Unity Popular Movement has the strongest organization. Though not specifically Islamic, it supports the efforts of Islamic forces to overthrow the current government. The most dangerous to the current regime is the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, an Islamist party with strong support in the fertile and remote Ferghana Valley in the eastern part of the country. Led by Tahir Yoldash, Adolat was suppressed in 1992. Its leaders fled to Iran and Afghanistan, and most members were supposedly jailed. It still has strongholds within Uzbekistan, however, and has already caused civil disturbances in the country as a precursor to civil war.

The Freedom Party was also repressed and its founder, intellectual leader Muhammad Salih, exiled. It, too, still operates within Uzbekistan.

These movements have deep historical roots originating with the Jadidist (jadid means "new") movement, a movement that spread from Russian Tataristan starting in the 19th century. The Jadidists were both pan-Islamic and nationalist. They supported "liberation" of the Islamic Turkic peoples of the region from Russia and from European colonialism.

For the neo-Jadidist movements in Uzbekistan, president Karimov represents a continuation of the Soviet period, and thus a continuation of oppressive anti-Islamic European colonialism.

Similar neo-Jadidists exist in every former Soviet Republic in Central Asia. All are looking for an opening to topple the current rulers of their nations, whom they view as a continuation of Soviet-style rule.

America's agreement to use Uzbekistan in the current conflict only reconfirms the worst suspicions of these opposition groups. No one really believes that the United States is going to carry out only humanitarian and rescue missions from Uzbekistan. Full-fledged attacks are suspected to come from the Termez air base. The Taliban have threatened to attack Uzbekistan directly if such operations occur. If internal and external opposition forces join in an attack against the Uzbek government, it might be in serious danger.

Finally, the Uzbekistan connection continues a pattern of behavior that Osama bin Laden and his supporters have already condemned. The establishment of military operations on Saudi Arabian soil during the Gulf War touched off the current conflict between bin Laden and the United States. A similar establishment of military forces in Uzbekistan only confirms America's bad intentions in the region to its enemies, and poisons the credentials of all who associate themselves with Washington, including President Karimov.