Communications:
Telephones: main lines in use: 1.793 million (2005); mobile
cellular: 1.1 million (2005). Radio broadcast stations: AM 20,
FM 7, shortwave 10 (1998). Radios: 10.2 million (1997).
Television broadcast stations: 4 (plus two repeater stations
that relay Russian, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, and Tadzhik programs) (1997).
Televisions: 6.4 million (1997). Internet Service Providers
(ISPs): 9,058 (2006). Internet users: 880,000 (2005).
Transportation: Railways: total: 3,950 km
(2002 Highways: total: 81,600 km; paved: 71,237 km; unpaved:
10,363 km (1999 est.). Waterways: 1,100 (1990). Ports and
harbors: Termiz (Amu Darya river). Airports: 61
(2006).
International disputes:
prolonged regional drought creates water-sharing difficulties for
Amu Darya river states; delimitation with Kazakhstan complete with
demarcation underway; serious disputes with Kyrgyzstan around Uzbek
enclaves mar progress on delimitation efforts; talks have begun with
Tajikistan to determine and delimit border.
Uzbekistan is
situated in central Asia between the Amu Darya and Syr Darya Rivers, the
Aral Sea, and the slopes of the Tien Shan Mountains. It is bounded by
Kazakhstan in the north and northwest, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan in the east
and southeast, Turkmenistan in the southwest, and Afghanistan in the south.
The republic also includes the Karakalpakstan Autonomous Republic, with its
capital, Nukus (1992 est. pop., 182,000). The country is about one-tenth
larger in area than the state of California.
Government
Republic; authoritarian presidential
rule.
History
The Uzbekistan
land was once part of the ancient Persian Empire and was later conquered by
Alexander the Great in the 4th century B.C.
During the 8th century, the nomadic Turkic tribes living there were
converted to Islam by invading Arab forces who dominated the area. The
Mongols under Ghengis Khan took over the region from the Seljuk Turks in the
13th century, and it later became part of Tamerlane the Great's empire and
that of his successors until the 16th century. The Uzbeks invaded the
territory in the early 16th century and merged with the other inhabitants in
the area. Their empire broke up into separate Uzbek principalities, the
khanates of Khiva, Bukhara, and Kokand. These city-states resisted Russian
expansion into the area but were conquered by the Russian forces in the
mid-19th century.
The territory was made into the Uzbek Republic in
1924 and became the independent Uzbekistan Soviet Socialist Republic in
1925. Under Soviet rule, Uzbekistan concentrated on growing cotton with the
help of irrigation, mechanization, and chemical fertilizers and pesticides,
causing serious environmental damage.
In June 1990, Uzbekistan was
the first central Asian republic to declare that its own laws had
sovereignty over those of the central Soviet government. Uzbekistan became
fully independent and joined with ten other former Soviet republics on Dec.
21, 1991, in the Commonwealth of Independent States.
Vozrozhdeniye,
an island in the Aral Sea, was a secret test site for biological weapons
during the Soviet era. In 1988, the Soviets attempted to bury the evidence
on the island, a frightening legacy that Uzbekistan inherited upon
independence. U.S. scientists have confirmed that the island contains live
anthrax and other deadly poisons.
President Karimov, a former
Communist Party boss, is an autocrat who has brutally suppressed political
parties and religious freedom and maintained rule with an iron fist. In
1999, after a bus hijacking, he declared, “I am prepared to rip off
the heads of 200 people, to sacrifice their lives, in order to save peace
and calm in the republic.” The country's thousands of political and
religious prisoners are subject to appalling conditions and horrific
torture, including being boiled alive.
In 1999, the country battled
against militant Islamic groups bent on the overthrow of the secular
government. Fighting against the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU)
continued for the next several years.
In 2001, Uzbekistan provided
the U.S. and UK with a base to fight against Taliban and al-Qaeda forces in
neighboring Afghanistan and became the United States' main regional partner
in the war on terror. Karimov linked his own battle against the Islamic
opposition to the global fight on terrorism. He also exploited the real
threat of Islamicism by labeling all of his opponents as Islamic extremists.
As a strategic partner, the U.S. has been reluctant to take a firm stand
regarding Uzbekistan's dismal human rights record. According to a report in
the New York Times in May 2005, the U.S. has sent clandestine
planeloads of accused terrorists to Uzbekistan as part of its controversial
“rendition” program, the delivery of prisoners to countries with
abusive interrogation tactics that are prohibited in the United
States.
On May 13, 2005, unarmed antigovernment demonstrators in the
city of Andijan were killed in a military crackdown; the number of
casualties is still disputed, but it may be as many as 1,000. Earlier, a
number of protesters had stormed a prison and released about 2,000 prisoners
to protest what they saw as the rigged trial of 23 businessmen. The
government claimed the men were Islamic terrorists; the protesters insisted
the 23 were antigovernment civic leaders whom the government saw as a threat
to its authority. In July 2005, President Karimov ordered the U.S. military
to close its air base in Uzbekistan after the U.S. called for an inquiry
into the massacre and supported the airlift of Uzbek refugees escaping the
violence. The base was shut down four months later, with U.S. forces moving
to Kyrgyzstan.
Karimov was reelected in December 2007, taking 88.1% of
the vote. The opposition claimed the vote was rigged.
