Uzbekistan. New constitution and protests
04.07.2022 09:01
Uzbekistan. New constitution and protests
"Distracting from the main reform"
Before the meetings and forums were over, where high-ranking leaders discussed the future of the Caspian Sea, Uzbekistan began to embrace a protest wave. The formal reason for it was the draft of the new Constitution of Uzbekistan. The press of the "liberal direction" came out with headlines like the following: "Life sentence, disenfranchised Karakalpakstan and the ghost of the Gulag", "Uzbek Donbas" and so on. So, no more, no less, but immediately the ghost of the Gulag, immediately Donbass.
Uzbekistan is by far the most populated state in Central Asia, and it is no secret that in Russia it is working at different intervals and depending on estimates: official - 3,4 million people, or not very official - over 5 million. If you take even official estimates, which the author, by the way, trusts more, it still turns out that the Uzbek diaspora in Russia is the largest. Therefore, despite the absence of a common border, it is advisable to carefully monitor the situation in the region.
If you look at what is written in the news, three main themes will be displayed. The first is the extension of the terms of office of the President of the Republic. The second is the revision of the status of the Republic of Karakalpakstan. The third is the strengthening of state control.
It should be noted that, most likely, within the next week, in one form or another, we will see approximately the same agenda in our domestic media, simply because NGOs and NGOs operating in Central Asia conduct a rather aggressive promotion of their theses. Interestingly, in Ukraine, the public has already picked up this news with might and main. What is the use of Kyiv from the protests in Karakalpakstan? Nothing, just the customer of the agenda is the same.
A good illustration of this is the following quote from one of the resources:
"Meanwhile, the list of amendments to the Constitution contains more than two hundred items ... But they only distract from the main reform."
Oh how! There are more than two hundred amendments, and literally all of them distract from the main thing - changing the terms of presidential powers. This is the point of application of the media resource, and the situation in the region of Uzbekistan is a tool. Moreover, the time for its application is chosen quite accurately.
Of interest to us is not only how serious the real prerequisites for changes in the basic law and ongoing protests are, but also the very schemes by which such protests are charged and swayed. The fact is that the steps taken recently by the countries of the region are aimed at laying the foundations for a future and fairly wide-ranging trading system. For the first time, the parties are moving on to a substantive consideration of a new system of currency settlements, and such a discussion itself was previously strictly tabooed by the Anglo-Saxon political and financial circles.
What can I say, if M. Gaddafi wrote off a lot for a long time, but the promotion of the idea of an African monetary union and the gold dinar turned out to be fatal for the Libyan leader. Unfortunately, with the connivance of our country.
Today the situation for our former partners is much more serious than the ideas and projects of the leader of the Jamahiriya. Objectively, Central Asia, Central Asia, and Russia together are not ready to form a common bloc built on principles similar to the European project. However, the very idea of creating an alternative system of settlements and trade turned out to be close to all countries without exception.
For our neighbors (and the St. Petersburg Forum convincingly showed this), the EAEU is not a structure within which they are ready to go as a single block into broader new formats of work with India, China, Iran - each participant goes there separately. But, going separately, the parties are forced to discuss and bring their positions closer, and for this purpose the “Caspian Conference” was held in Ashgabat the other day.
For the “Western bloc”, in this particular case, the failure to build the EAEU as a single bloc structure does not bring any special benefits against the background of the fact that the vast majority of participants in the region are ready to participate in the development of new payment and trading systems, outside of traditional emission centers. The very substantive discussion of such issues, and even in practice, is the worst-case scenario for a "global financial project." Is it surprising that now all the "bottlenecks" in the domestic policy of our neighbors will be tested for strength, especially since there are more than enough such places?
Weak link
The internal regional policy has been and remains the weak link of the states of Central Asia. The reasons are obvious and historical: ruggedness and length of borders, along the perimeter of which there is a continuous national "striped strip", the uneven distribution of the main natural resources, the main of which is water. The weak transport network is built in such a way that almost any transit route passes through several borders (often twice) and local "power centers", many of which have their own separate relations not only with their national political center, but also with a neighboring state - essentially related.
The Karakalpak Republic is an example of such a regional problem. A huge territory between Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan in the Aral Sea basin (or what is left of it), deserts and semi-deserts with a sparse population. Despite the fact that the republic occupies almost a third of the territory of Uzbekistan, less than 1% of the country's population lives in it. In cultural and linguistic terms, the population is closer to the Kazakhs, although it is not historically related to them. Nevertheless, many events in the history of the XVI-XIX centuries. these peoples had to endure together, which, naturally, was reflected in the perception of each other.
A number of nationalist circles have been putting the thesis that the Karakalpaks and Kazakhs are one people, with one language, into the information and educational agenda for a long time. This is historically not the case. The languages are close, but close because they came from the same language family. Ethnogenesis and even anthropology are different. However, the latter can be seen with the naked eye, having been in the region. In Kazakhstan itself, they may answer you that this is a subject of special discussions, and the zone of the Aral Sea and the Amudarya delta, they say, has always been in the sphere of Kazakh clans.
The reason for such a high territorial disproportion is quite banal - in the USSR several times a huge piece of deserted and extremely difficult land was divided between the republics. On the one hand, there was a constant outflow of water from the Aral Sea to the agriculture of the southern regions, on the other hand, projects for the regeneration of the Aral Sea were constantly put forward. In both cases, a certain proportion between neighbors was required. Currently, the Aral Sea is on the verge of complete extinction. Moisture runoff is minimal. As an illustration, the reader can be referred to the footage of the famous film "The Needle", which was filmed in those places, only from the Kazakh side. Today, such a spectacle is presented by almost the entire water area of the former Aral Sea.
As a result, the Karakalpak Republic was in the times of the USSR in different state structures: the Kazakh SSR, the Uzbek SSR, even the RSFSR. On the one hand, its geography and conditions created a burden on the economy, on the other hand, they served as a kind of political counterbalance in management. With a weak economic base, it was a kind of cultural and political enclave. With a separate republican education system, among other things. With the collapse of the USSR, the Karakalpak Republic entered Uzbekistan as a "sovereign republic with the right to secede." The constitution was adopted in 1993.
The status of a sovereign republic within Uzbekistan was in many ways reminiscent of the parade of sovereignties in Russia in the early 90s. But where are the limits of state sovereignty? On the one hand, Article 74 of the Constitution of Uzbekistan does indeed state that the republic has the right to withdraw based on the results of a nationwide referendum. On the other hand, the constitution of the most sovereign republic of Karakalpakstan does not contain, for example, a norm according to which the issue of a referendum is included in the list of exclusive powers of the republican parliament - the highest legislative body (Jokargy Kenes), art. 70. At the same time, all the main positions and personalities (except for the judiciary), according to the Karakalpak constitution, are occupied by persons “on presentation” in Tashkent.
This is a very important nuance, because in this case a nationwide referendum is the most important procedure in terms of state building, the basis of sovereignty itself, and there is no legislative basis for it. And in this regard, history strongly resembles a collision with a referendum in Iraqi Kurdistan in 2017.
In two days, the author counted about 42 articles online about how the Karakalpaks are deprived of the right to self-determination, removing the words about a national referendum from the Constitution of Uzbekistan, while in this part it is the amendments to the Uzbek constitution that fix the provisions of the constitution of Karakalpakstan itself. For example, a verbatim transfer from the Karakalpak constitution of the provision: "The highest official of the Republic of Karakalpakstan is the Chairman of the Jokargy Kenes of the Republic of Karakalpakstan."
In fact, if we follow the norms of the UN Charter, then the right to self-determination does not depend on the legislation of a particular country, since it belongs to the category of “basic rights”. Another thing is that the side that seriously considers such a referendum as a possible prospect is preparing for this in advance and is preparing such a legal framework in advance. In this case, no one prepared the database, but we read articles one after another, the leitmotif of which: two hundred amendments to the constitution are called upon to retouch the two main ones.
What are these two hundred amendments that are designed to “blur the main thing”? Well, for example, the recognition of Uzbekistan as a secular state, the abolition of the death penalty, for a moment, the consolidation of the norm that representatives of Karakalpakstan have their representatives in the highest legislative, executive and judicial bodies of Uzbekistan, the right of legislative initiative from 100 thousand citizens of Uzbekistan, the management of municipal property , a ban on interference in the practice of law.
Isn't it true that we are clearly facing the "ghost of the Gulag"? Particularly reminiscent of the GULAG is the norm in the constitution on ensuring the rights of pregnant women. Maybe the "ghost of the Gulag" is that the constitution introduces norms regulating the activities of the Anti-Corruption Agency?
It is nothing but a great sin that many mass media have declared the extension of the presidential term to 7 years. Allegedly, in this way the incumbent president provides himself with “automatic” rule for a 14-year period. The authors of such texts do not even bother to think that such a statement is an automatic non-recognition of any elections of government bodies in principle. Up to 6 years - a 12-year reign, reduce from five to three - there will be a 6-year reign. Leave five - ten years. Interestingly, in Germany, Mrs. A. Merkel had what kind of government for 15 years? Changeable or not? The trend to increase the terms of government is now almost universal due to the fact that the agreements are for long periods and on systemic issues. The Central Asian countries here simply go in the wake of the logic of long-term agreements, of course, taking into account the national historical flavor.
Well, let's leave the topic of the Gulag, because often the problems lie in the economic plane, especially since that part of the Ustyurt plateau, which is part of Karakalpakstan, not only has natural gas reserves, but also has quite decent processing capacities. Gas goes to the domestic market and for processing, and quite with a good added value - a full-fledged polymer production. However, if you start to understand it in detail, then the potential on paper is radically different from the actual one, there are not enough volumes for the export infrastructure, and those that are available need to be transported and mixed in the system of our country. Investments were discussed, Gazprom participates in projects, but real figures do not allow calling them strategic.
Some “smuggling routes” are often pointed out as a regional factor. The author can answer this with the following, a "normal" smuggler will not go through these places, because, if something happens, the cost of pulling transport and cargo out of this lunar desert will exceed the cost of most cargo.
Imagine for a moment that the referendum took place, and Karakalpakstan cheerfully asked to be part of its neighbor - Kazakhstan.
Firstly, what will Nur-Sultan do, taking into account the fact that investors invested in shares with the government and under the guarantees of Tashkent?
Secondly, Kazakhstan already has a similar region and its own Mangyshlak with investments in hydrocarbons, and the Caspian coast, where already made investments are stalling. From such castling, the Amudarya delta will not become more full-flowing, the drying of the Aral Sea will not stop, but the entire infrastructure around this man-made disaster will become a good expenditure item for the Kazakhstani budget.
Does this mean that everything in the region is "cloudless"? Of course not! This is a climatically extremely difficult, relatively depressive territory, with a population, 2/3 of which do not ethnically associate themselves with Uzbeks. However, the buildup of the “Kazakh factor”, no matter what the subject matter, does not solve a single real problem.
In the same way, apparently, they originally argued in Tashkent. When the people began to gather in Nukus (the capital of the republic), the authorities announced that it was time to stop unauthorized actions, and law enforcement agencies were sent out. Then they said that the text of the amendments was understood “incorrectly”, and after clarification everything will return to normal. Later, the Uzbek leader arrived in Nukus personally and spoke on the topic that the text of the amendments would not change. Then - that the amendments can be discussed for a long time and no one is removed from this process. However, a couple of hours later, it was reported that the text would remain unchanged, in the old version, and a state of emergency was introduced in the region until August 3.
What is the difference and what is the similarity of the situation with neighboring Kazakhstan five months earlier?
In Kazakhstan, there was a transition of power, and Russia, choosing a side, supported K.-Zh. Tokaev, speaking from the position of "national priority - a friendly neighbor." Yes, without deep further integration into the EAEU, without the support of the Russian Federation on the foreign policy track, etc. But this is still a neutral and formally friendly status. But if opponents were in his place, it remains to be seen how many problems would have to be solved in this direction, given that the West was preparing for an open offensive in the Donbass. Another thing is that non-governmental organizations and the ultra-opposition represented by Ablyazov in this case did not act in front of the process, but accompanied it, adding fuel to the fire.
In Uzbekistan, the design is of a different nature. Here, NGOs are already ahead of the process, at the same time playing off the nationalist-minded part of Kazakhstani society, which believes that in January Nur-Sultan made unacceptable concessions to Moscow, and the rhetoric of K.-Zh. Tokayev is not enough, those forces in Kazakhstan that found themselves floating freely after January, and the elite in Tashkent. That is, a knot of problems is being created in the center of the region, which is now going to agree on a new system of trade and settlements. It would seem that Kazakhstan has passed the January crisis and can safely do its usual work. Maybe only the situation in neighboring Uzbekistan will inevitably launch very plentiful discussions on the topic of supporting “brothers-neighbors”, and the big question is in what vein and who will direct them in place and time.
While the author was writing this text, 18 more articles on the topic “Karakalpakstan rose for independence” appeared in the news feeds. And once again you are convinced that the state, which loses sight of the information agenda, begins to lose, even taking quite adequate and rational steps. If this process is combined with the lack of control over the regional elites, then, in the current situation of a new cold war, there is every chance of getting very serious problems. Tashkent will be able to manage the situation at the cost of significant concessions, which might not have been available if it were to clean up the space from NGOs and other paid “hotbeds of democracy”. But what about multi-vector?
This very multi-vector approach in today's world will hang like a sword of Damocles over every state of Central Asia in the region, because politicians have yet to understand that the new currency system a priori does not allow political ambiguity: both ours and yours. For the Western economy, a new trading system, a discussion of new currencies and a settlement system is the collapse of the hegemony pillar, and for a multi-vector approach, you will have to pay for a whole bunch of big and small problems more than once.