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RUEHHE/AMEMBASSY HELSINKI IMMEDIATE 0104 C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 TASHKENT 001599 
 
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E.O. 12958: DECL: 2019/11/30 
TAGS:        
SUBJECT: Uzbekistan and Human Rights: The Lessons of Sanjar Umarov's 
Release 
 
REF: TASHKENT 1571 
 
CLASSIFIED BY: Nicholas Berliner, Pol-Econ Chief; REASON: 1.4(B), (D) 
 
 1. (C) Summary:  The release from prison on November 7 of jailed 
businessman and opposition figure Sanjar Umarov was the most 
important step the GOU has taken on human rights this year. 
Umarov's release came about as the result of principled engagement 
and quiet, behind-the-scenes diplomacy. It was not the result of 
efforts to shame the GOU or to isolate the regime, tactics which 
have proven to be counterproductive in the past. Although it would 
be wishful thinking to believe that Umarov's release portends some 
new "enlightenment" on the part of the GOU, it does offer a useful 
lesson in how to approach these sensitive issues with the Uzbeks. 
Our challenge now is to develop this dialogue further in the 
context of the upcoming Annual Bilateral Consultations (ABC). End 
Summary. 
 
 
 
 2. (C) Sanjar Umarov returned to the United States on November 21 
to rejoin his family after four years in Uzbek prisons.  Umarov was 
arrested in the fall of 2005 as he and his political party, the 
Sunshine Coalition, spoke up about the need for economic and 
political reform in Uzbekistan. Coming as it did in the aftermath 
of the Andijon events and the "color revolutions" in Kyrgyzstan, 
Ukraine and Georgia, Umarov was seen by the Uzbek security services 
as a threat to the Karimov regime. He was charged with white collar 
economic crimes and sentenced to ten years in prison. 
 
 
 
 3. (C) Conditions in Uzbek prisons are notoriously bad, but Umarov 
seems to have earned the particular animus of the regime. In a 
conversation the day after his release, he said that he was held in 
solitary confinement in an eight cubic meter cell for eighteen 
months from 2006 through mid 2007.  He had no contact with other 
people or with the outside world; there was no television, no radio 
and no newspapers or books. When his term in solitary confinement 
ended, he worked in a labor camp in a prison in Navoi province. 
Umarov said that the International Committee for the Red Cross 
(ICRC) never saw him during its prison visits in Uzbekistan. Each 
time the ICRC came, Umarov would be moved to a different location 
the day before. Once, he said, the vehicle he was in even passed 
the ICRC vehicles entering through the prison gate.  According to 
Umarov, the conditions of his imprisonment improved in early 2009 
(this coincides with the Embassy's sustained engagement with the 
GOU on his case).  Four months before his release, he was brought 
to the Tashkent prison hospital, where he was able to go for walks, 
watch television, read newspapers and receive visits from family 
members. 
 
 
 
 4. (C) Of the approximately twelve political prisoners in 
Uzbekistan identified by Human Rights Watch, Umarov was the most 
high-profile.  The GOU jails those whom it believes pose a threat 
to regime stability, and Umarov would have been at the top of that 
list. Although there is debate about the degree of political 
influence Umarov and his Sunshine Coalition wielded before his 2005 
arrest, Umarov would certainly have been more of a "threat to the 
regime" than any of the other activists, journalists and dissidents 
currently languishing in Uzbekistan's prisons.  By this measure, 
Umarov would have been the most difficult case to resolve and the 
fact that he was freed would seem to indicate that the GOU can be 
persuaded to take more "risks" on human rights cases than we 
otherwise might assume. 
 
 
 
US Engagement 
 
------------- 
 
 5. (C) Umarov's release came about after a year of 
behind-the-scenes high-level engagement with the GOU.  Initial GOU 
reactions when Umarov's case was raised were that it was an 
internal matter - effectively none of our business. However, as we 
heard from his family of the precarious nature of his health in 
October 2008 (his wife described him to the Ambassador as being in 
a nearly catatonic state) and asked the GOU to look into the matter 
in a letter from the Ambassador to President Karimov, the GOU 
convened a medical commission to examine Umarov. Although the 
commission reported back that his health did not justify his 
 
TASHKENT 00001599  002 OF 002 
 
 
release, Umarov's own account indicates that the GOU realized it 
needed to address his case in some fashion and his treatment 
improved. The next major push on Umarov came in July 2009 after his 
son visited him in a prison near Tashkent and reported that he was 
incontinent and non-communicative. Another letter from the 
Ambassador to Karimov, and Under Secretary Burns raising the issue 
with Karimov during his July visit to Tashkent, resulted in 
Karimov's promise of Umarov's amnesty. Foreign Minister Norov 
convoked the Ambassador on Nov. 5 to confirm that Umarov would be 
released imminently, and Umarov did, in fact, step out of prison on 
Nov. 7. 
 
 
 
 6. (C) The Uzbeks have a hard time believing that we sought 
Umarov's release on purely humanitarian grounds and came to assume 
that he was "our guy." They made clear in releasing Umarov that 
they expected the U.S. not to "politicize" him, i.e. anoint him as 
an opposition figure, but they know that we cannot and will not 
"muzzle" him in exile.  In this context, they could have made the 
calculation that releasing Umarov would be a down payment of sorts 
on better relations with the U.S.  However, previous discussions 
with Karimov and FM Norov gave every indication that the GOU 
already viewed its agreement to allow non-lethal transit to 
Afghanistan through Uzbekistan (which is seen here as risky in that 
it could draw retribution against Uzbekistan from extremist groups) 
as a significant gesture in favor of closer relations. The GOU no 
doubt realized that releasing Umarov would kill two birds with one 
stone by appeasing the EU as well, which lifted sanctions on 
Uzbekistan on Oct. 27 (releasing him beforehand could have 
represented a loss of face, but doing so afterwards was a 
"freebie").  We may never know exactly why Karimov decided to 
release Umarov. It could have been a gesture; it could also have 
been a cold calculation that the consequences of Umarov's death in 
an Uzbek prison would be far worse than any "threat" he could pose 
from his exile in the United States. 
 
 
 
The Way Forward 
 
--------------- 
 
 7. (C) The most important aspect of Umarov's release is what it 
tells us about how to approach human rights issues with the Uzbeks 
more broadly, and here the evidence could not be clearer. Umarov 
was released not as a result of public campaigns to "name and 
shame" the regime. He was not released as a result of "prisoners of 
conscience events" that even some in his own family had proposed 
organizing recently. He was not released because of pressure 
activists brought to bear on the regime from inside or outside 
Uzbekistan. Umarov was released as a result of quiet, 
behind-the-scenes diplomacy that finally convinced the GOU that it 
was in their interest to get this case behind them. 
 
 
 
 8. (C) Human rights and the related issues of religious freedom and 
child labor remain the most vexing in our relationship with 
Uzbekistan. As we look ahead to the ABC process and FM Norov's Dec. 
17-18 visit to Washington, we should keep the Umarov lesson in 
mind. Change does not come easily in this society, with its premium 
on social control, stability and "saving face."  We need to take 
these issues up constructively, without trying to isolate or 
criticize the Uzbeks openly. Done right, this is an opportunity to 
show that small steps can effect significant changes in relations 
with the United States, such as removing the obstacles to increased 
military and security cooperation. The Karimov regime is not going 
to change its spots; we should be under no illusions. However, 
quiet diplomacy can help us move the GOU in a more positive 
direction and hopefully enable us to secure the eventual release of 
other political prisoners. As experience has shown, there simply is 
no alternative to principled engagement on these issues, but it 
will require patience and managing our own expectations. 
NORLAND