Inner City Press -- Investigative Reporting From the Inner City to Wall Street to the United Nations

Ban and UNICEF Quiet on Uzbek Human Rights, Popov, as Karimov Closes Border

UNITED NATIONS, June 15, updated -- As UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon says he's trying to get assistance to Uzbekistan leader Islam Karimov, who has closed his border to the ethnic Uzbeks fleeing violence in Kyrgyzstan, it has emerged that Ban never pushed Karimov on human rights, the incarceration of AIDS education activist Maxim Popov, much less on border closing.

  Only last week, the chief of UNAIDS told Inner City Press that Ban had been slated to raise to Karimov, during his trip through Central Asia, the incarceration of Popov based on his UN system funded AIDS education pamphlet. [Note: UNICEF says it was not the funder, but has apparently not sought corrections from AFP, CPJ or IFEX; there are indications that UNDP was the funder.]

  Inner City Press asked Ban's Associate spokesman Farhan Haq if Ban had, in fact, ever raised this issue to Karimov. Haq did not say then, nor since.

  On June 14, Inner City Press asked Ban's top political adviser Lynn Pascoe, who has asked Uzbekistan to open its border? Our focus is on getting humanitarian supplies into Kyrgyzstan, said Pascoe, on his way to Sri Lanka, viewed as another low point in the Ban Ki-moon human rights regime.

UN's Ban dines with Karimovs, Popov and fleeing Uzbeks not invited

  Inner City Press asked UNICEF what it has done for Popov, and to respond to reports that it has let itself be intimidated by Karimov's move to problematic its Tashkent location(s). Days later, UNICEF provided these terse responses:

"'UNICEF's office in Tashkent is being relocated due to a major urban redevelopment. Another site has been identified and UNICEF is finalizing the move with representatives of the Government of Uzbekistan.'

'Here is the answer we received from the UN Country Team on Popov:

"The UN has approached the government to seek clarification about the Popov case. The United Nations Human Rights Council – through its Special Rapporteurs – has engaged with the Government of Uzbekistan in this matter. With a view to ongoing proceedings, the United Nations will refrain from providing any further comments.'"

But Popov's AIDS education brochure was funded by UNICEF. And on the office "relocation," it has been reported that

UNICEF executives, mainly foreigners, will temporarily relocate to other UN offices in Tashkent, but local personnel who were already said to be crowded into inadequate quarters before the order are apparently being sent on a forced vacation for an undetermined period....

Last month during a visit to Central Asia, Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon visited the UNICEF building together with Uzbek Prime Minister Shavkat Mirziyoyev, but only for five minutes, and the staff was unable to alert him to the issue of the move... independent observers in Tashkent are concerned that the UN agency could be under some pressure, as other international organizations have been in the past, as they operate in some sensitive areas of human rights and humanitarian affairs.

UNICEF and the World Health Organization (WHO) are in the midst of a massive innoculation campaign of some 3 million children against polio, and the Uzbek government has closed the border to Tajikistan as 32 polio cases have been confirmed by WHO there. UNICEF has been careful to avoid critical statements of the government, and the state-controlled Uzbek media is not mentioning the campaign.

When a UNICEF grant recipient, HIV/AIDS campaigner Maxim Popov, was sentenced last year in part on allegations of mismanaging donor funds and "corrupting youth" with a sex education book, UNICEF remained silent about his case, despite repeated pleas by human rights groups to speak out. UNICEF, together with PSI (Population Services International) Central Asia, had supported a book Popov distributed on prevention of sexually transmitted diseases and the use of birth control.

To be sure, Tashkent has been undergoing a general reconstruction which has sparked public controversy with the removal of century-old sycamore trees from the center of Tashkent and the creation of parks and walkways that some activists have seen as deliberately designed to prevent the gathering of large demonstrations in the public squares. The current UNICEF office building is slated to be replaced by a park

Inner City Press specifically asked UNICEF to respond to the report above, but received in return only two platitudes. Meanwhile, Ban Ki-moon has yet to offer anything but "help" to Islam Karimov, even after he closed the borders to ethnic Uzbeks fleeing Kyrgyz violence.

  Again, why would Uzbekistan's Islam Karimov close "his" country's border to fleeing ethnic Uzbeks? Well, some of the Uzbeks in and around Osh fled there after Karimov's crackdown on protesters in Andijon. To ensure that none of them return to Uzbekistan, Karimov is willing to block tens of thousands of ethnic Uzbeks and leave them in harm's way. And the UN says... nothing. Watch this site.