I, a member of the Birdamlik PDP, Clara Juraeva cannot understand the purpose of the government of Uzbekistan. The fact that instead of leaving good things for the future generations, the actions of the government rather have signs of aggravation of actions for zombifying the population, cause nothing but concern in everybody. During ruling of former president Islam Karimov the Uzbek people had to leave in fear in its direct meaning. Therefore, we can clearly say that the future generation inherited from Karimov the slavery feeling and living by bowing down their heads. The sad thing is that during presidency of the new leader Shavkat Mirziyoyev when they are making loud declarations that “A new era has started, an era of radical reforms has started in Uzbekistan now,” our people cannot get rid of the dirty habits, are unable to throw away the fear, inherited from Karimov. Even if they are crying for a piece of dry bread, even when their children are dying from hunger and cold due to lack of natural gas supplies, getting burnt live to ash in foreign countries, even while innumerable coffins are regularly delivered from Russia, our people continue living in silence. To be more exact, the 27 years continuous violence from the law enforcement authorities, governments despotism are still making our people behaving like this.
The most unfortunate thing is that during presidency of Islam Karimov, the economy of Uzbekistan went deep into crisis, the life style of people went totally miserable, the number of poor people rose, while the Government and state owned television channels continued making a lot of noise telling people: “Uzbekistan is a rich country, its population are living a beautiful life, the country is flourishing.” While, during Karimov’s presidency, even not a single post of traffic lights was installed along central motor ways and the highway Tashkent-Samarqand, which I know very well. This caused almost daily car crashes, thousands of people were killed in vein.
When four people from one family of one of our communities died at a car crash in Uzbekistan, I addressed official bodies on this issue, I found out that the authorities did not even know that there was a problem of lack of traffic lights at locations, and moreover had never given a thought to it. Another painful thing is that after I had visited the families who had to bury their family members after car crashes, and told them that it was necessary to write an application to the authorities on impossibility of adhering to the traffic rules due to lack of traffic lights, which in turn was causing human life losses, they denied the reality telling me that “Why do have to talk about traffic lights? Let others talk about them.”
I visited Uzbekistan recently. The issues related to traffic lights are still unaddressed. Traffic lights are installed very rarely. To my mind, the fact that no traffic lights are installed at necessary points gives evidence to poor economic conditions of the country.
Why have Uzbek people come to such miserable state? Our first president was so strong cunning politician. During his initial years of presidency, he took oaths and managed to show himself as a person who loved ordinary people. Soon after that, he turned to ruling the country by the methods of threatening people and violence. Our television channels were busy with singing praises to this despotic president for 24 hours a day. Personally, I never saw Karimov receiving anybody on that citizen’s personal complaints. He limited himself by showing himself to people very rarely, and kept telling them lies by saying nice words like “good people,” god bless you” giving them fake nice smiles etc. Unfortunately, ordinary people met the executioner’s fake smiles with overwhelming applause and inspired him do worse wildest things. Inspired by people’s support, Karimov started sending intelligentsia to exile, killing scholars and knowledgeable people. Today, Karimov’s family members are living wonderful lives in Uzbekistan and abroad using the wealth, acquired at the cost of our blood, lives. While ordinary people are living simple lives in silence.
In this article, I am addressing to Karimov’s policy not without a reason. I want to draw people’s attention to the fact that actions and methods of ruling of current president Shavkat Mirziyoev’s are similar to the Karimov’s. It is getting clearer by the day that like his mentor he is trying to show his love of people, and in practice, he does think about the care and concerns of the people at all. When I visited Uzbekistan, I was convinced that those television channels who praised Karimov for 27 long years are now singing praises to Mirziyoev taking him to the skies and they are managing with it successfully. In my opinion, the pupil will outmatch his Mentor. Like his Teacher he will continue to govern the poor Uzbeks, by way of deceit, scaring, violence and threatening.
Clara Juraeva,
Member of Council Board Party of the Birdamlik People’s Democratic Party