It is the underlying claim of the recent protests, bloodily repressed by the Uzbek authorities. The region would have the potential to be economically independent. The case of Karakalpakistan could be repeated in Russia.
Moscow () – The riots of recent days in Nukus against the amendments to the Constitution of Uzbekistan, left 18 demonstrators dead and 243 injured. Following the incidents, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev has decided not to insist on revoking Karakalpakistan’s right to independence. People’s rights activists from the autonomous region, who have fled or been expelled to other countries, addressed the president supporting the presidential decision, but asking for a genuine political dialogue with the representatives of the Karakalpaka community.
The signatories of the appeal demand a real investigation into the repression of the protesters in Nukus and ask for the release of the detainees and the disclosure of the list of victims. They believe that it is necessary to form a new government in the autonomous republic, opening the register of new political parties and social movements, allowing everyone to participate in the management of public affairs in the region.
The main author of the letter is Aman Sagidullaev, leader of the Democratic Progressive Party of Karakalpakistan and currently a political refugee in Norway. In statements to Associated Press, said he is convinced that the Uzbek bureaucrats are hiding the real number of victims, injured and detained in the protests. Along with the other activists, 30 people have been identified so far, based on information received from relatives, friends and acquaintances of the deceased.
According to Sagidullaev, “this bloodshed could have been avoided, we have always said that we are open to dialogue, knowing the totalitarian legacy of Uzbekistan, which in the last 20 years has turned our soil into a prison.” According to his complaint, all the borders of Karakalpakistan are controlled by tanks and military forces in large numbers, many Uzbek policemen guard the streets of the cities, and activists are persecuted and detained.
For 30 years, during the summer, Uzbekistan has suspended the supply of drinking water in the region. In addition, activists accuse Tashkent authorities of sterilizing Karakalpak women, preventing the use of the local language in schools and book publishing, and preventing locals from gaining leadership positions. In the parliament of Karakalpakistan there is not a single deputy from a local party”, explains Sagidullaev. And he says, bluntly: “the 1993 agreement was a trap, they never gave us any autonomy”.
Activists believe that the republic is ready for independence, including economic independence, and that the poverty in the region is actually a fact spread by the propaganda of the Tashkent regime, which also controls the media. In the provinces of Mujnak, Karausak and at the bottom of the Aral Sea there are more than 2,000 oil and gas wells, and the republic is full of extensive mines, but the Uzbeks monopolize all the benefits.
The Uzbek political scientist Ališer Ilkhamov believes that the repression of the Nukus protests will have very serious consequences: “They have gotten into a dead end, in an autocratic state like ours it is not the Constitution that makes the difference.” The historian Damir Iskhakov notes that there are many unresolved issues for too long, and recalls that the Karakalpaks, immediately after the end of the USSR, moved as migrants. In search of work, they went mainly to Russia, but later many of the exit routes were closed, reducing the family income.
According to various commentators, the case of Karakalpakistan is reminiscent of many other situations in former Soviet regions that aspire to independence. And they refer especially to Tatarstan: the situation created by the war in Ukraine is likely to explode the autonomy impulses even within Russia itself.
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