http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/3971281.stm

Published: 2004/11/01 11:05:35 GMT

Civil unrest erupts in Uzbek city

By Monica Whitlock
BBC correspondent in Tashkent

There are reports of unprecedented civil disorder in Uzbekistan , where several thousand people have taken to the streets in the city of Kokand .

Eyewitnesses said that protesters threw stones and torched police cars after the government brought in new restrictions on trade.

Thousands filled the main bazaar, shouting angrily against the new laws.

The Uzbek government rules with an iron grip, but ordinary Uzbeks are increasingly challenging its authority.

Protesters set two police cars on fire and stoned the tax office nearby, smashing the windows.

One eyewitness reported that the city's mayor climbed on a market stall to address the crowd but he was drowned out by furious protesters.

A column of marchers then set off towards the government office in the city centre.

Local police confirmed that a large protest was going on. They said their officers were standing by to contain the situation and had not been armed.

The demonstration was sparked by a law that puts new restrictions on trade, already very difficult in Uzbekistan .

From now on it will be illegal for traders to use intermediaries. If traders buy goods abroad, they must sell them personally without going through any other retailer. Each trader must also have a special government licence.

The authorities say these measures will keep prices down, but people here say tens of thousands of businesses will collapse.

It is very hard to judge the numbers involved in the Kokand protest.

Early reports spoke of as many as 20,000, but the hard core seems more likely to be 2-3,000.

Even a conservative figure means this protest is far bigger than any seen in Uzbekistan in recent years.

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Uzbekistan : Furious Traders Riot

Thousands of people in the Fergana valley take to the streets, some attacking the police sent to disperse them.

By Matlyuba Azamatova in Fergana and Hamdam Sulaimonov in Kokand (RCA No. 324, 02-Nov-04)

The Uzbek authorities’ attempts to enforce controversial new trade restrictions have resulted in mass disturbances in the Fergana valley, the country’s most densely populated region.

Around 6,000 furious market workers took to the streets in the city of Kokand on November 1, followed by several smaller disturbances in Fergana city and nearby Margilan.

Such a mass outpouring of discontent is highly unusual in Uzbekistan , where the population is tightly controlled by Soviet-style security forces. The last significant industrial unrest was also in the city of Fergana , when petrochemical workers at two plants staged a strike over unpaid wages in August 2003.

The violence in Kokand broke out after tax inspection officers in charge of implementing a new regulation - requiring every small trader to have a license and sell their goods themselves, not via an intermediary – carried out raids at the wholesale Yangi Bazaar and confiscated goods belonging to those traders who could not prove that they complying with the decree.

Elsewhere in the region, markets were closed down to prevent unlicensed traders from conducting their business.

The riot started when a group of 300 Kokand traders demanded the return of goods confiscated by tax inspectors. After a heated exchange, three tax officers and a policeman were set upon and badly beaten up. All four were hospitalised with various injuries.

Protestors broke down the doors of the building where the goods were being kept. When another police unit arrived to tackle the crowd, people promptly began pelting them with stones.

Before long, one street had been blocked and two cars set on fire. The situation only calmed down after Kokand city mayor Maruf Usmonov addressed the crowd and promised them that the markets would reopen.

He told protestors that while he had no power to suspend the decree, he would put it on hold for a short period to allow traders to become familiar with it and organise the necessary paperwork.

Analysts warn that there is little hope of the decree being rescinded. Regional officials hold little sway in the capital Tashkent , which will expect all of its laws to be followed to the letter.

Kokand deputy mayor Israil Mamajanov told IWPR that the decree, which was issued in August and is only now being implemented, forms part of a government policy designed both to stem an uncontrolled influx of low-quality goods and to increase tax collection by preventing traders from selling their goods through third parties.

The head of the local tax inspection office, Muhiddin Turdikulov, said, “More than 1,200 businessmen working in Kokand are not registered.”

Government regulations mean that for every step of their business, traders have to provide special documents such as licenses to import and trade, a tax declaration for imported goods, and a bank account.

Tashkent has already imposed high import duties, which was a blow to small traders and forced many out of business.

Odina Kakharova, an entrepreneur from Kokand , told IWPR that the government should have taken a good look at the country’s economic problems before introducing the new regulation.

“I encounter a lot of difficulties when I go to Turkey or China to purchase goods. Taking them through [Uzbek] customs costs more than I paid for them.

“Now I find out that under the new law, I have to sell them myself. That’s more than I can take, as it means that neither my husband nor my children will be able to help me to sell them.”

Her colleague Bahodyr said, “If Kokand’s factories and plants were working, I would not have gone into this tortuous business to feed my family. We can barely manage to make ends meet. With the new law we will be left without a penny.”

Fergana human rights activist Rafikjon Ganiev said that the main reason people are unhappy is the lack of jobs and the resulting poverty. “There are more than 60,000 unemployed in Kokand , and government decrees do not take this situation into account. Bazaars are one of the few places where people can find a job.”

In Soviet times, 70 per cent of Kokand ’s population was employed in the many state industrial enterprises which dominated the city. But when Uzbekistan became independent in 1991, the fledgling republic was unable to sustain this level of production, and most factories closed.

Some people left the country in search of work, while others became “shuttle traders”, bringing in consignments of goods and selling them on.

One 50-year-old trader in Kokand , who spoke on condition of anonymity, said, “Why are the people at the top not listening to the difficulties of ordinary people? Our children are hungry. The factories and plants aren’t working. The market is the only place where we can earn some money to buy bread.”

Another female trader, who did not want to give her name, told IWPR that she had been doing this work since she lost her job as an engineer in 1995, and continues to ply the route to buy goods in the Karasu market in neighbouring Kyrgyzstan to pay back debts she occurred when two 3,000 dollar shipments were confiscated by the authorities.

The disturbances in Kokand were followed by protests in the city of Fergana , some 100 kilometres to the east, after the authorities closed down the Juidam market.

Around a hundred women blocked a road near the market, with two dousing themselves in petrol and threatening to set themselves on fire if it was not reopened. Others attacked plain-clothes security men who were openly filming the protests.

One protestor, a 28-year-old single mother called Rahila who supports her mother and five-year-old child with the money she makes at Juidam, told IWPR that as she makes less than 100 dollars a month, she simply cannot afford to buy a 68 dollar license.

“People are suffering, just barely surviving,” she said sadly. “Instead of helping, the government is coming up with new decrees which only have one purpose – to take our last pennies from us.”

Matlyuba Azamatova is an IWPR correspondent in Fergana . Hamdam Sulaimonov is an independent journalist in Kokand .

04 Nov 2004 12:30:38 GMT
Cracks in Uzbek stability widen as traders protest

By Shamil Baigin

KOKAND, Uzbekistan, Nov 4 (Reuters) - Thousands of angry Uzbek market traders shattered more than just glass this week when they smashed their way into a warehouse, set fire to police cars and marched on their mayor's office.

The demonstration in the heavily policed country, where protests are frowned on, widened cracks in Uzbekistan 's fragile social stability, opposition politicians say.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union , President Islam Karimov has justified autocratic governance in the mostly Muslim Central Asian state by citing a threat of Islamic militancy. Economic reform has also taken a back seat for fear of a collapse in living standards.

Violence and poverty were kept at bay for some years. But this spring militants held street shoot-outs with police and detonated suicide bombs. And on Monday, the country saw its first mass demonstration in many years.

The unrest was prompted by poverty. Most Uzbeks live on a dollar a day, while neighbours in Kazakhstan enjoy an average wage of $220 a month, largely because Kazakhstan 's leader, another ex-Communist, has thrown open the economy and attracted massive oil and gas investment.

Monday's protest erupted in the bazaar at Kokand , 160 km (100 miles) east of the capital Tashkent , in the fertile and densely populated Ferghana Valley .

A crowd of 2,000 later grew to around 10,000 outside the mayor's office, protesting about new trading laws and a lack of domestic gas for heating, witnesses said.

"People are unhappy," said Bakhtier, a 45-year-old who sells Chinese-made carpets, a day after the protest. The $2-3 he takes home per day are just enough to feed his four children, he said.

"They want 70 percent customs duties. If you pay all the taxes, the goods get expensive and no one will buy them."

REVOLT

The new laws oblige traders of foreign goods to obtain government permits, cash registers and bank accounts -- effectively outlawing small traders at Uzbekistan 's many markets.

Although the government says its moves to get rid of bazaars and encourage the growth of supermarkets are part of an effort to cut the size of the black economy, millions of Uzbeks rely on such trading for their livelihoods.

A potentially explosive situation outside the mayor's, or Hokim's, office on Monday was calmed when police held back and he promised to try to solve the traders' problems.

"The Hokim said we won't be touched until next spring," said Bakhtier.

"The people revolted and they were right," said 61-year-old Iskander, a taxi driver. "The whole of Kokand feeds itself thanks to the bazaar, there isn't any other kind of work here."

Although Uzbekistan's tightly controlled state media did not report the protest, echoing the cautious line taken during the shoot-outs and suicide bombings that killed more than 50 people this year, some fear it could have a knock-on effect.

"People have reached the limit," said Atkham Mukhitdinov, a local member of the secular Birlik party, which like other opposition parties is banned from running in Uzbek elections.

"They stood up for their rights. If they rise up again it will be a bad example for other towns," he said.

According to Marat Zakhidov, chairman of the opposition Party of Agrarians and Entrepreneurs, similar but smaller protests broke out in the nearby cities of Ferghana and Margilan on Tuesday.

One opposition Web site (www.erkinyurt.org) reported that 100 women blocked a road in Ferghana and threatened to set themselves on fire unless officials re-opened a local market.

Neither report could be independently confirmed and local police could not be reached for comment.

"It's no accident that this started in the Ferghana Valley because that's where there is the toughest economic situation," said Zakhidov. "The simple fact is people cannot earn their crust there. They don't sit in the bazaar because life is good."

Although calm returned to Kokand 's bazaar after the protest, two young men in black followed a Reuters correspondent around and local officials said the trading laws would be enforced.

"The Hokim cannot ignore the government's decision," said Salomat Abdullayeva, Kokand 's deputy mayor. "The traders have to acquire cash registers and pick up the culture of trading."