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What's News In Uzbekistan?Published: Mon, 01 May 2006 09:01:38 -0400 There’s never real news in Uzbekistan—not officially that is. Precious few—if any, TV channels, radio stations, newspapers and journals dare give a hint of the country’s real news. Similarly to back in the Soviet Era, (which Uzbekistan “thrived” under for many years) everything is always good. No matter if it’s a sweltering 40 degrees Celsius and hasn’t rained in four months, the news will generally proclaim a balmy 28 degrees or so all summer. The cotton industry may have totally crashed this year, but the TV will continually show (probably fabricated) photos of happy young high-schoolers working away in the overflowing fields. Local Radios and TV broadcast little other than traditional dancing and music anyway. Little news of any other countries ever makes it into Uzbekistan, and the government works to keep their own news from spreading too. So the people of Uzbekistan get no real news. They know their “news” is rarely true or un-manipulated. Everyone laughs incredulously at the young children who might believe something the news said. Any real information the people have gets around by hearsay. But be careful what you hear and say; anything against the government or that hints at the country’s real—sad—state will probably land you in jail . . . “Uzbek Court Closes American Bar Association” (Moskow News A Court in Uzbekistan recently closed this NGO (Non-Governmental Organization), the American Bar Association, for allegedly working in violation of Uzbekistan’s charter and for concealing financial documents. Maybe true, maybe not. But the supposedly democratic but truly totalitarian government needs few and hardly legitimate excuses to ban anyone or anything that looks dangerous or just bothers them. This dismissal of the American Bar Association is only one of the Uzbek Government’s countless recent attacks on NGOs, foreign workers, and particularly Americans. The Uzbek officials are determined to get all foreign presence out of their country and are, as usual, attempting to make life as difficult as possible for anyone living there. Uzbekistan expelled the US Military late last year. And this year, in February it stopped the work of Freedom House, a US human rights organization. In March, it expelled the UN Refugee Agency. And these are only the big names. Foreign journalists and reporters were forcibly removed long ago. Multiple other small NGOs are on their way out as well. It doesn’t matter how effective your foreign business is or how greatly you are helping Uzbekistan’s people. The government doesn’t like outsiders, and it especially doesn’t like outsiders that “interfere” in general affairs. This past year, with numerous attacks, harassments, arrests, and expulsions, the situation has only grown worse. “India, Uzbekistan to improve co-operation in pharma and healthcare” (UzReport.com) UzReport quite ironically observes that India and Uzbekistan have great opportunities to develop their cooperation to improve their pharmaceuticals and entrepreneurship. They probably meant the emphasis to land on their collaboration on this project, but the irony comes in when you understand that there are indeed great opportunities—and a lot of things—to improve. Quite honestly, Uzbekistan’s local pharma and healthcare couldn’t get much worse. While surely Uzbekistan’s president Islam Karimov and the Prime Minister of India, Dr. Manmohan Singh, meant the “opportunities for development” to apply to their alliance, it also reflects the horrible state of healthcare in Uzbekistan currently. Apparently the Indian government agreed to provide financial support and currently exports millions of rupees worth of pharmaceutical supplies to Uzbekistan. The two sides also agreed to set up a tele-medicine network between their two countries. It sounds all good. But who can say? The people of Uzbekistan, whose relatives die in filthy hospitals without medicine because its either stolen or priced too high to afford, would probably just laugh cynically. They know reality, and they know that their government generally does little to improve it. One thing is for sure, that Uzbekistan’s health care system has “opportunities for development” is a sickly understatement.
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