As Taiwan embraces its Indigenous people, it rebuffs China


Women from the Tsou tribe in the village of Tefuye in Alishan on March 1, 2008

Nicky Loh/Reuters/File

By Eric Cheung, CNN
Sat March 18, 2023
Taipei, TaiwanCNN —

Avai Yata’uyungana was just 12 when the soldiers dragged his father away to be executed.

More than 70 years later, he remembers that feeling of helplessness, confusion and fear as if it were yesterday.

“On that day, the military surrounded our family home,” recalled the retired schoolteacher, age 83. “The county magistrate came to our village and told everyone that my father was engaged in corruption. (After they shot him) rumors spread about the allegations against him and my family went into hardship.”

His father Uyongu was a leader of the Tsou, one of Taiwan’s Indigenous tribes, and among the thousands of islanders arrested in the years following the end of the Chinese Civil War and charged with collaborating with Mao Zedong’s Communist Party.

At the time, fears about Communist influence on the island were at their height; Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists had only recently set up a government in exile there after being driven out of the Chinese mainland by Mao’s forces. Paranoia was high and the fledgling administration saw local leaders as a potential threat to their grip on power.

But Uyongu’s real “crime” was not that he had collaborated with the Communists – a charge Taiwan’s government posthumously cleared him of in 2020. His real offense was that he had been lobbying for greater autonomy for the island’s original inhabitants.

After centuries of migration by ethnic Han from China and a 50-year occupation by Japan, the island’s Indigenous tribes had found themselves marginalized in their own native lands and hoped that the new administration would be open to a new approach.

General Chiang Kai-Shek, the leader of the Nationalists or Kuomintang.Bettmann Archive/Getty Images

“My father and other leaders knew that Indigenous peoples were colonized and suppressed,” said Avai. “They hoped that with the arrival of (the new Nationalist government), they would be able to change our fate.”

That hope was to prove fatally misjudged, as the Nationalist or Kuomintang government soon established a reputation for authoritarian rule and a policy of instilling “Chinese-ness” into the local population.

On February 28, 1947 – in what was to become known as the “228 Incident” – the Kuomintang ruthlessly suppressed a popular revolt sparked by anger over official corruption.

It then embarked upon a brutal four-decade crackdown on political dissent under one of the longest periods of martial law the world has ever seen.

Today, Taiwan’s government estimates that between 18,000 and 28,000 people lost their lives in that crackdown, known as the “White Terror”. Uyongu and many other Indigenous leaders were among them.

Uyongu Yata'uyungana with his family members in 1945.Courtesy Avai Yata'uyungana
From persecuted to celebrated

Fast forward seven decades, and the dynamic driving relations between Taiwan’s government and its Indigenous communities has been transformed.

No longer are these communities viewed with suspicion as potential sympathizers with the mainland’s Communist authorities.

If anything, say experts like Tibusungu ‘e Vayayana, a professor in Indigenous studies at National Taiwan Normal University, Taiwan society now views Indigenous communities as a bulwark against Beijing’s territorial ambitions (the Communist Party continues to claim Taiwan as its own, despite never having controlled it, and has repeatedly refused to rule out the use of force in “reunifying” with it).

The idea is relatively simple: What better way to demonstrate to the international community Taiwan’s distinct identity, its separateness to mainland China, than the existence of native populations stretching back thousands of years, they say.

“To highlight the uniqueness of Taiwan from China, the ethnic Han population in Taiwan are now emphasizing Indigenous cultures and are paying more and more attention to it,” Vayayana said.

Ku Heng-chan, a research fellow in Indigenous studies at Taiwan’s Academia Sinica, said a turning point in the mindset of mainstream society came in the 1970s, when large-scale pro-democracy protests broke out.

“The pro-democracy movement was fighting against the Nationalist Chinese regime (in Taipei), and they wanted to look for distinct characteristics that represented the Taiwanese identity,” Ku said.

“Of course, Taiwan’s Indigenous groups gave it the most legitimacy, and so it also gave rise to subsequent Indigenous rights movements in the 1980s.”

Celebrations in central Taipei after the establishment of the Council of Indigenous Peoples on December 10, 1996.Courtesy Yabi/Council of Indigenous Peoples

Alongside this growing recognition of its Indigenous population came increasing efforts at reconciliation by the government, which culminated in in Taipei’s first formal apology to the Indigenous communities in 2016.

“For 400 years, every regime that has come to Taiwan has brutally violated the rights of Indigenous peoples through armed invasion and land seizure,” said President Tsai Ing-wen in a public address. “For this, I apologize to the Indigenous peoples on behalf of the government.”

Tibusungu 'e Vayayana, also known as Wang Ming-huey, teaches indigenous studies at National Taiwan Normal University.Eric Cheung/CNN

Since then Taiwan has moved to officially recognize Indigenous languages, allowing community members to register their names with Roman characters (as opposed to Chinese characters) on official documents. It has set aside seats in the legislature for Indigenous representatives and offered preferential treatment in university entrance exams. August 1 is now celebrated as Indigenous Peoples’ Day.

Last year Taipei doubled its offer of compensation to the families of people killed during the authoritarian era to $390,000 (NT$12 million).

Avai Yata'uyungana.Courtesy Avai Yata'uyungana

Such developments have brought hope to people like Avai, who last month made the 200 kilometer (124 mile) trip to Taipei from his home in Chiayi county to claim the money.

Still, most experts say true equality remains far off.
Wounds of centuries

The government currently recognizes 16 Indigenous groups with a combined population of about 580,000, or about 2.5% of Taiwan’s population of 23.5 million.

Anthropologists say these groups have linguistic and genetic ties to Austronesian peoples, who are scattered across Southeast Asian countries including the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia.

Their conflicts with the ethnic Han, who originate in China, date back to the first waves of Han migration in the 17th century.

Over a period of hundreds of years the Indigenous groups lost control over swaths of land and gradually retreated to more remote areas, said Professor Vayayana, whose Tsou tribe established themselves near central Taiwan’s Alishan Mountain, an area that today is popular with tourists.

But the conflicts were not only with the Han. The Tsou and other tribes also suffered under the Japanese, who took control of Taiwan in 1895 and ruled the island for five decades before relinquishing it in the aftermath of World War II.

Indeed, it was during this period, in 1908, that Uyongu was born.

A top student, Uyongu was among the few in his people to receive a tertiary education. Proficient in Japanese, he became a leader in his tribe and was elected township chief after Japan handed Taiwan to the Nationalists in 1945.

Uyongu Yata'uyungana graduates from primary school.Courtesy Avai Yata'uyungana

It was that high profile that had both emboldened Uyongu to speak out – and marked him out as a target for the Kuomintang.

“When the Nationalist government first came over, they wanted to get rid of Indigenous people with the sharpest minds. Its regime had failed in mainland China, and they were worried about resistance in Taiwan,” Avai said.

While in prison, Uyongu began writing letters to his family – words that would be collected and published by his son decades later. His last letter, written to his wife just months before he was executed in 1954, included this line: “The truth of my wrongful offense will be revealed in the future.”
A prophecy, fulfilled

As Uyongu had foresaw, things would not always be so bleak for Taiwan’s Indigenous people peoples, though the suppression of local identities at the hands of the Kuomintang was to endure for decades yet.

Among its various measures were a policy that banned the use of any language other than Mandarin Chinese in schools and another requiring all Indigenous people to adopt a Chinese name – Uyongu’s Chinese name was Kao Yi-sheng, while Vayayana’s was Wang Ming-huey.

Authorities even secretly placed radioactive waste on Lanyu, an outlying island inhabited by a local tribe, without their knowledge for decades – a move that Tsai also apologized for on behalf of the government.

It was not until the Nationalist government lifted martial law in 1987 and the island transitioned to democracy, after decades of efforts by civil rights campaigners, that things really began to change.

With the advent of free elections – the island’s first direct presidential vote came in 1992, an Indigenous rights movement inspired in part by Uyongu and others like him became emboldened enough once again to call for greater freedoms.

Icyang Parod (first from right) takes part in a protest for indigenous rights.Courtesy Yaby/Council of Indigenous Peoples

Among those leading the charge was Icyang Parod, a politician and member of the Amis tribe who now serves as the minister of Taiwan’s Council of Indigenous Peoples.

In the late 1980s, Icyang led protests aimed at “freeing the Indigenous peoples from oppression” – actions for which he would later serve eight months in jail.

Among his demands was to have the derogatory term “shan pao” (“mountain compatriots”) struck from the constitution and replaced with “Indigenous peoples.”

He also campaigned for the establishment of a ministry-level body that represents Indigenous rights – a council he now serves on as minister.

“We advocated that the rights of Indigenous peoples should be written into our constitution,” Icyang said. “After more than a decade of campaigning, we were able to push for constitutional amendments, and now there is a clearer protection for our language, education and land rights.”
Breaking the glass ceiling

Today, Avai feels “relief” that his father’s legacy is gaining recognition.

“When Indigenous peoples began fighting for the return of our ancestral homelands and greater autonomy, they realized that those ideals had been advocated for by my father,” he said. “Our family was finally able to hold our heads up.”

Kolas Yotaka, a 48-year-old politician from the Amis tribe whose great-grandfather was also jailed during the White Terror, is among those who were inspired by Uyongu.

Kolas Yotaka, left, in her role as a government spokesperson, with Administrative councilor Kung Ming-hsin in Taipei on February 2, 2020.Walid Berrazeg/SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty Images

In 2015, Kolas became a member of the Democratic Progressive Party, and took on various governmental roles following the party’s victory over the Kuomintang in the following year’s general election. In 2020, she became the first Indigenous person to be appointed as presidential spokeswoman – a moment she hopes will inspire others.

“I treat myself as a continuation of the Indigenous movement. Every job title that I have held, I hope they let people know that Indigenous peoples have unlimited potential, and that nobody can restrain us by a glass ceiling,” Kolas told CNN.

Still, like many others, she believes much work remains to be done. While running for mayor in eastern Hualien county last year, some people told her they wouldn’t vote for an Indigenous person.

“I think Indigenous communities still have their own fears and anxiety,” Kolas added. “My parents used to tell me not to speak our native language in urban areas to avoid being looked down upon. Many of us may feel we can’t achieve certain things in life simply because of our identity.”

Icyang, meanwhile, still receives reports of discrimination in the labor market. Among his main focuses now is trying to preserve the 42 Indigenous languages – 10 of which are considered “endangered” – by lobbying for them to be taught from kindergarten and encouraging families to speak them at home.

“I hope that more and more people from the Indigenous community will realize that self-identity is important, and they will feel proud of being an Indigenous Taiwanese,” Icyang said.

 

Bananas: A Powerful Geopolitical Weapon – Analysis

 March 29, 2023  Eurasia Review  

By Matija Šerić

Bananas are one of the most popular food products in the world that can be found in every supermarket today. Many consumers consume them as a tasty foodstuff and because they have numerous health benefits. Bananas were often considered a symbol of a good life (a certain luxury) and during the 20th century numerous countries wanted to provide them to their population.

However, when you look below the surface, you can see that bananas are not a harmless food product, but an important resource and a powerful geopolitical weapon for the possession of which wars and coups were fought. Even today, the banana industry is an important component of the trade war between different countries, it was and remains the source of the oppression of underpaid labor.

Researcher Rebecca Cohen brilliantly described the importance of bananas: “Although bananas look like just a fruit, they represent a wide range of environmental, economic, social and political problems. The banana trade symbolizes economic imperialism, injustices in the global trade market and the globalization of the agricultural economy.”

Popular Chiquita

Although you can find different brands of bananas in most supermarkets, the most popular brand that many people associate with bananas is the Chiquita brand. More precisely, the company Chiquita Brands International Sarl, formerly known as the United Fruit Company (UFCO), had a tragic role in history. That company brought economic destruction, corrupt military dictatorships and slave exploitation to some Latin American countries.

The United Fruit Company of America was the largest and most notorious producer of bananas in Latin America for most of the 20th century. The company was often compared to an octopus (“el pulpo”), because it had its tentacles spread all over Latin America, trying to gain as much influence as possible and secure access to land.

The rapid rise of the banana industry

It all started back in the 19th century. Mass production of bananas as we know them today began precisely in 1834 and exploded in the late 1880s. It had political consequences from the beginning. Before the 1870s, most of the land on which bananas were grown in the Caribbean had previously been used to grow sugar, and at that time bananas were almost unknown in the US.

This quickly changed, and by the beginning of the 20th century, Americans (then a total of 70 million people) were consuming more than 16 million bunches of bananas per year. All the rapid expansions bring enormous profits, and the population that worked on the plantations paid the price.

The banana industry in Latin America seriously began in 1871 with the construction of a railway in Costa Rica, which was carried out by the Americans. In that megaproject, hundreds of workers lost their lives, but that did not sway the American builders, who came up with the idea that they could plant banana fields on both sides of the railway. The cultivation of bananas experienced a boom after the construction of the railroad because they could be easily transported to the American market.

Americans simply went crazy for this new exotic fruit. During the 1880s, several companies emerged in the banana industry. In 1899, the Boston Fruit Company merged into the newly formed United Fruit Company (UFCO) which became the largest banana producing/growing company in the world, with plantations throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, including Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Panama and Santo Domingo. The company owned 180 km of railway that connected plantations and seaports.

The case of Guatemala

As bananas became more and more popular around the world, the company bought large amounts of land in several countries. The land is often stolen from the local population. While many countries have suffered from UFCO practices, the two most important cases are Guatemala and Colombia.

In 1901, Guatemalan dictator Manuel Estrada Cabrera granted the company the exclusive right to transport mail between Guatemala and the United States. This is how UFCO entered Guatemala for the first time, after which the country will be under its supervision. Dictator Cabrera was a puppet of UFCO, whose management assessed it as an “ideal climate for investment”. The Americans founded the Guatemalan Railroad Company (Guatemalan Railroad Company) as a subsidiary of UFCO and invested capital worth 40 million dollars.

In Guatemala, the UFCO has taken control of almost all means of transport and communication. The company charged a tax for every cargo that entered and left the country through the port of Puerto Barrios. As if that wasn’t enough, the company managed to exempt itself from almost all taxes in Guatemala for a period of 99 years. When the democratically elected president of Guatemala, Jacobo Arbenz, came to power in 1951, he tried to limit the power of the company.

Until then, 2.2% of the population owned more than 70% of the land. Only 10% of the land was available to 90% of the population, most of whom were natives. Most of the land owned by the big landowners was unused. Arbenz proposed redistributing part of the unused land and making available 90% of the land for the cultivation of agricultural crops. This greatly upset the United Fruit Company, which was one of the large landowners of the unused land. UFCO officials appealed to the US government for help. They contacted President Eisenhower and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles (whose former New York law firm, Sullivan and Cromwell, represented the UFCO), saying that Guatemala had become communist and under Soviet influence.

So with great fervor the State Department and the United Fruit Company embarked on a massive PR campaign to convince the American public that Guatemala was a “Soviet satellite state” whose government needed to be overthrown. The US government and the CIA staged a coup d’état in 1954 and overthrew Arbenz and brought right-wing dictator Carlos Castillo Armas to power. It was the beginning of military dictatorships where the leaders changed several times, and they lasted more than 30 years. The result is the death of around 200 thousand civilians in the civil war.

The case of Colombia

In the winter of 1928, plantation workers in the Colombian city of Ciénaga went on strike demanding better working conditions and higher wages. This demand was nothing new, as it was known that the working conditions of the employees on the banana plantations were appalling.

On December 6, when the strikers gathered to listen to speeches, the Colombian army, on the orders of the United Fruit Company, massacred about two thousand protesters. The exact number of deaths is still unknown. In 2018, during the peace process in Colombia between the government and the FARC, the Chiquita brand was accused of funding paramilitary death squads back in 2004, showing that illegal practices were not reserved for the last century. These examples show how powerful the United Fruit Company was and how much influence it had in many policy decisions of the US government.

African market

The African banana market presents a special paradox. In the lowlands of the Congo basin, farmers grow the most diverse varieties of bananas in the world. Crops are mainly used for domestic consumption, but at the same time West African countries make up almost all of Africa’s exports.

Production in this region has grown rapidly in the last 20 years and accounts for about 5% of the world’s banana trade. The vast majority of these bananas are sold in Europe, mainly in France and Great Britain. Since 1975, African and Caribbean countries can export as many bananas as they want to the EU market. The official explanation for this was that the European Union (then the European Community) hoped that it would enable the economies of such developing countries to grow independently, without dependence on foreign aid. Some economists, however, question the logic behind it.

First, if the EU really cared about Africa’s economic development, it would remove barriers to the import of a wide range of agricultural products. Currently, only bananas can be sold on the EU market without entry restrictions, while at the same time there are measures to discourage the import of some African products: a duty of 30% on unprocessed coffee and 60% on processed coffee.

Second, the production of bananas and pineapples in Africa is dominated by American multinational companies. In any case, US companies that control Latin American banana crops hold 67% of the EU market, even though the US itself does not export bananas to Europe. This perhaps shows the extent to which the removal of barriers to access is motivated by the US-EU alliance rather than Africa’s development problems.

Banana war between the EU and the USA

The Caribbean is a special story (former European colonies) because small domestic producers predominate there and they export bananas to Europe with privileges. Despite Europe’s subservience to the US, Washington filed a lawsuit against the EU at the World Trade Organization (WTO) and won in 1997.

The EU was instructed by the WTO to change its rules that favored Caribbean producers at the expense of competition from Latin America, whose bananas are cheaper because they are grown on large, mechanized plantations run by giant US corporations.

After the WTO ruling, the US government continued to claim that free trade in bananas had not been restored, while the EU claimed that it had changed its rules. The US then imposed 100% import tariffs on European products, “covering everything from Scottish cashmere to French cheese”.

The US government was under pressure from its powerful multinational companies that dominate the banana industry in Latin America. The Bill Clinton administration launched the “banana wars” at the WTO within a day of Chiquita Brands, a former Republican supporter, donating $500,000 to the Democratic Party.

The banana wars ended only in December 2009 with an agreement between the EU and the countries of Latin America. With this agreement, the EU maintained duty-free trade with former colonies in the Caribbean, but reduced its tariffs on bananas from Latin America by 35% from 176 to 114 euros per ton.

Top 10 banana producing countries

The top 10 countries for banana cultivation in 2021 were: India (33 million tons), China (11.7 million tons), Indonesia (8.7 million tons), Brazil (6.8 million tons), Ecuador (6 .6 million tons), the Philippines (5.9 million tons), Angola (4.3 million tons), Guatemala (4.2 million tons), Tanzania (3.5 million tons) and Costa Rica (2 .5 million tons). India is the leading country in the cultivation of bananas, which are grown on 800,000 hectares in the states of Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Assam.

However, in many of the mentioned countries, bananas are intended for the domestic market. The leading banana exporting countries are: Ecuador (24% market share), Costa Rica (12.9%), Philippines (7.8%), Colombia (7%) and Guatemala (6.5%). Just five companies – Dole, Del Monte, Chiquita, Fyffes and Noboa – control about 80% of the international banana trade.

The war in Ukraine, the banana market and inflation

Certain geopolitical scenarios strongly influence the banana market. A good example can be taken of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, which consequently resulted in the introduction of Western sanctions on Russian oil and gas, which led to an increase in global energy and food prices.

Rising oil and gas prices have spilled over into food supply chains, including banana supply chains. For consumers in North America and Europe, bananas have a long journey from the plantation to their table because they can only be grown in tropical environments, such as those in Asia, Central and South America.

The banana is a temperature-sensitive fruit that goes through three stages of development: 1st stage of “green life” (when bananas are the most unripe); 2nd stage of ripening and 3rd stage of “ripeness for consumption”. This process is controlled by artificial ripening to ensure that the highly perishable fruit can reach its far-flung destinations within the stipulated period. As a result, banana supply chains are one of the most resource-intensive chains compared to other food products: refrigeration, ripening centers, and sophisticated modes of transportation and distribution.

The journey of bananas begins at the plantation, where they are picked at the right ripeness. For long-distance transport, bananas must be kept in the “green life” stage by refrigeration so that they can be artificially ripened later. Bananas are washed, labeled and packed in local processing facilities. Then the distributors haul them into trucks and finally into refrigerated containers where they will be for several weeks during sea transport.

When the bananas are close to their final destination, they are stored in forced ripening centers at temperatures between 13 and 18 degrees Celsius for up to a week before being transported by truck to supermarkets. Ships, trucks and refrigeration equipment consume significant amounts of energy (oil, gas or electricity).

Every link in the supply chain is vulnerable to events such as the war in Ukraine. However, it is not entirely clear how energy price increases affect the price of bananas, because traders keep the price of the fruit relatively low. Given that bananas have a short shelf life, traders are reluctant to raise prices. Globally, the price of bananas is estimated to have increased by only 5% in 2022 compared to 2020. T

raders often pass the rising costs of production onto small farmers and banana plantation workers. In translation, this means that small banana producers and plantation workers won’t benefit at all because they will work for the same money as before, while raw materials and energy will become more expensive. It should be known that children and women often work on plantations in poor conditions with wages that do not cover living expenses.

The uncertain future of bananas

While Chiquita has lost control of Latin American politics, the modern banana industry is not without its problems, which concern end consumers. Like oil, bananas are an endangered resource whose future is uncertain. Banana production requires strong pesticides that can be dangerous to the environment.

The future of bananas as a resource is threatened by a fungal disease known as Panama disease or Tropical Race 4 (TR4). Panama disease attacks the root of the banana tree and slowly colonizes the lower parts of the plant, blocking the xylem the tree uses to channel water and nutrients, leading to the slow death of the entire plant. This is a serious concern for the entire banana industry because the Cavendish variety, which accounts for about 40% of world production and dominates the global market, is under attack.

This is not the first time that the banana industry has faced the threat of destruction. In the 1950s, the Gros Michel (Big Mike) banana variety dominated the world market and an earlier variant of the Panama disease almost destroyed it.

TR4 disease appeared back in the 1990s in Taiwan and spread to 20 countries. This is of particular concern for Latin American countries that base their economies on the cultivation and export of bananas. Once the fungus enters a plantation it is almost impossible to eradicate and can remain hidden for years before reappearing. In the spring of 2022, the Peruvian government announced the discovery of TR4 in the Piura region and immediately declared a state of emergency, as the Peruvian economy relies heavily on organic banana production. Banana producers must find a solution to control the rapidly spreading disease. For the banana industry, it is important to work to preserve biodiversity by finding new solutions such as new varieties.

Uzbekistan: Overturn Unfounded Criminal Sentence Against Blogger Otabek Sattoriy And Release Him – OpEd

Young protester holds photo of independent blogger Otabek Sattoriy in Paris. Photo Credit: AHRCA

 March 29, 2023 

By IPHR

The authorities of Uzbekistan should overturn the sentence passed against blogger Otabek Sattoriy and release him from prison, Association for Human Rights in Central Asia (AHRCA) and International Partnership for Human Rights (IPHR) said Wednesday.

On 30 March 2023, independent blogger Otabek Sattoriy is facing a court hearing in Navoi, where he is currently serving a prison sentence, concerning an incident on 10 March 2023 in which he allegedly violated prison rules[1] by queuing with other prisoners for food in the canteen instead of taking his food separately (as he has special dietary requirements). He received an official warning and tomorrow, the court will rule on whether Sattoriy infringed prison rules and decide on the next steps. IPHR and AHRCA believe this is a new attempt to put pressure on the blogger and his family.

Previously, on 10 May 2021, Muzrabad District Court in the Sukhodarya region sentenced Sattoriy to six and half years in prison after finding him guilty under one count of slander (article 139 of the Criminal Code) and four of extortion (article 165 of the Criminal Code). He appealed the ruling but in July 2021 Samarkand Regional Criminal Court dismissed the appeal. The Supreme Court of Uzbekistan subsequently rejected Sattoriy’s cassation complaint and upheld his sentence in April 2022. His lawyers tried twice to appeal against the Supreme Court’s decision, but without success.

Sattoriy has been serving his sentence in prison colony No. 4 near the city of Navoi since 28 July 2021.

There are credible allegations that the criminal case against Sattoriy was fabricated to punish him for peacefully exercising his right to freedom of expression. The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention recently called for Sattoriy’s immediate release after concluding that “the basis for the arrest and subsequent detention of Mr. Sattoriy was in fact his exercise of freedom of expression.”

An independent blogger, Sattoriy is known for speaking out about corruption. Prior to his arrest he had repeatedly criticized and accused representatives of local authorities in the Surkhandarya region of corruption, including the former mayor (hokim) and other officials[2],  on social media and in YouTube[3] videos under the name of “Halk Fikri” – “People’s Opinion”. [4] As his posts drew the attention of the general public, he began to receive death threats from unknown people warning him to stop blogging.

On 30 January 2021 plainclothes police officers detained the blogger near his house and on 1 February 2021, Termez City Criminal Court remanded him in custody. He was accused of extorting a new mobile phone from the director of the local Sherabad bazaar in December 2020 by threatening him to publish information about shortcomings at the bazaar unless he gave him the phone.

During the trial Sattoriy stated that he had gone to the bazaar in December 2020 together with a journalist of the media outlet effekt.uz to report about food prices after President Mirziyoyev had promised that there would be no price hike ahead of the New Year festivities. Two men who introduced themselves as employees of the bazaar reportedly told Sattoriy that it was not allowed to take photos at the bazaar. After a verbal fight the men reportedly grabbed Sattoriy’s mobile phone and damaged his jacket.

According to one of Sattoriy’s former lawyers Umidbek Davlatov[5], the blogger then filed a complaint with the district authorities. Sattoriy’s lawyer and a fellow journalist both stated that the director of the bazaar subsequently offered Sattoriy to compensate him by replacing the damaged phone with a new one.

Prior to his detention on 30 January 2021, the director of the bazaar reportedly called Sattoriy, and they agreed to meet near the blogger’s house. However, as soon as the director gave him the new phone in the car and Sattoriy was walking away, plainclothes police officers approached and detained him at the gate of the house. His family was not told where he was. At 9 p.m. that evening the house where Sattoriy lived with his parents was searched by several dozen officials. Sattoriy’s family were informed of his whereabouts only two days later.

He was charged with extortion in connection with the phone and shortly afterwards additional charges of slander and extortion were brought against him based on complaints filed by individuals whom Sattoriy had accused of corruption in his blogs.

During the first seven days of his detention, nine victim complaints were allegedly lodged against Sattoriy, although not one had been registered before he was arrested. Later, those who lodged complaints against Sattoriy admitted that they were put under pressure to make these false statements.

There are also credible reports that Sattoriy was subjected to torture and ill-treatment during pre-trial detention from 30 January to 11 March 2021 at Termez Police Station. He was not allowed family visits, nor to receive parcels of food, clothes or medicines. He suffered from headaches, cystitis, kidney infections, high fever and convulsions, exacerbating his asthma and allergies. He caught Covid-19 but his relatives were not allowed to pass him medicines.

Sattoriy was threatened during questioning. The head of Termez City Polic department reportedly told him “You’ll be behind bars for the rest of your life”. His first state-appointed lawyer who represented Sattoriy 31 January to 1 March 2021 failed to take action to protect Sattoriy and was close to the police investigators. Sattoriy was not allowed a lawyer of his own choosing at this point. From 31 January 2021 until the end of the year, Sattoriy’s family came under pressure from law enforcement officials:  including surveillance; being followed; cars parked outside the house.

According to Sattoriy’s supporters, it transpired during the trial that the director of the bazaar had kept the bazaar running although the tax authorities had ordered it to close down. This was apparently why no filming was allowed in the bazaar and employees reacted aggressively when Sattoriy and the journalist – who were not aware of this background – started taking photos.

The circumstances of the case clearly suggest that case against Sattoriy was fabricated in retaliation for his independent blogging on corruption related issues. His case also fits into a broader pattern, in which independent journalists and bloggers repeatedly have been detained and criminally prosecuted in Uzbekistan after raising issues that are inconvenient to those in power.

IPHR and AHRCA call on the Uzbekistani authorities to put an end to the persecution of Otabek Sattoriy and to promptly release him in accordance with the decision issued by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention on his case. In order to prove the genuine nature of their commitment to human rights reform, the authorities must safeguard freedom of expression, including on social media platforms in accordance with its international human rights obligations. As long as Sattoriy remains behind bars, the authorities must ensure that he has access to adequate medical assistance for his health problems and protect him from abusive treatment.

[1] Decree №174 of 29.12.2012, https://lex.uz/acts/2216121

[2] Tura Bobolov was the former hokim of the Surkhandarya region; Хоким Сурхандарьинской области Тура Боболов покинул пост 24 декабря 2022 года, причина не указывается. https://kun.uz/ru/news/2022/12/26/tura-bobolov-osvobojden-ot-doljnosti-xokima-surxandarinskoy-oblasti?ysclid=lecjjcees9360790335

[3] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpgE1ePcdCDhEe10p4Zb3yA

[4]https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%91%D0%BE%D0%B1%D0%BE%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%B2,_%D0%A2%D1%83%D1%80%D0%B0_%D0%90%D0%B1%D0%B4%D0%B8%D0%B5%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%87

[5] Umidbek Davlatov has already passed away in the meantime.

IPHR

International Partnership for Human Rights (IPHR) is an independent, non-governmental organization founded in 2008. Based in Brussels, IPHR works closely together with civil society groups from different countries to raise human rights concerns at the international level and promote respect for the rights of vulnerable communities.

 

The March To War – OpEd

 March 19, 2023  Eurasia Review 

By Dr. Robert G. Rabil

On the morning of 14 March 2023, a Russian Su-27 fighter jet intercepted and downed an American MQ-9 Reaper drone into the Black Sea. This became the first direct contact between the Russian and United States Air Forces since the Cold War.

The response of some American leaders to the downing of an American drone by Russian jets in the Black Sea, coupled with the ICC’s arrest warrant of Russian President Vladimir Putin for war crimes, is alarming. They threaten a direct US-Russian confrontation and deepen the global divide at a time a new international order is being shaped. 

The arrest warrant for Putin is toothless since Russia is not a party to the Rome convention, as are, among other countries, China, India, USA, Israel, Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia. Despite being indicted by ICC in 2009 and 2010, Sudanese president Bashir shuttled freely around the world. He was internally ousted from power in 2019.   

The ICC decision clearly targets for the first time the leader of a permanent member of the UNSC with the objective of highlighting Russian President Vladimir Putin’s crimes and isolating him. This is grand naivety. No non-Western country will arrest Putin, non-Western leaders will rally around Putin, and almost all will emphasize the ICC’s double standard. Foreign leaders are asking why President George Bush was not indicted for unlawfully invading Iraq in 2003. But the strategic blunder of this decision lies in deepening the global divide between the West and the rest of the world at a time a new world order is being shaped. Since the eruption of the Ukraine crisis, many countries led by China and Russia have been endeavoring to shape a new international order based on multi-polarity. This will impact American economy and dollar as many authoritarian and quasi-democratic leaders will try to reduce their reliance on American economy and currency, fearing under certain circumstances being indicted or their assets frozen. Needless to say, this will push China and Russia (plus many countries) to deepen their strategic alliance (and cooperation). 

At the same time, the response of some American leaders to the downing of the American reaper drone was ill-advised and perilous. They called for more drones escorted by American jets to fly over Black Sea international water and shooting down Russian jets should they intercept the drones. Some has raised the question what would President Ronald Reagan have done? 

This stance disregards the context in which NATO and Russia have operated in the Black Sea and make a confrontation between the two a matter of when not if. Since 2014 NATO has dramatically increased its naval presence in the Black sea and military presence in Bulgaria and Romania. In 2016, NATO created Tailored Forward Presence (TFP) to enhance cooperation and bolster NATO’s presence in the Black Sea region “on land, at sea and in the air.” Romania has become home to the Aegis Ashore ballistic missile defense site in Deveselu, and Novo Selo, a US military base in Bulgaria, was enlarged and upgraded to host more American and NATO troops and equipment.

This followed back-to-back NATO drills in the Black sea, Baltic Sea and North Sea (Iron Wolf 2017, Aurora 17, Defender Europe 20, Sea Breeze 2021, Formidable Shield 2021). Russia responded by carrying out military drills with Belarus and China and placing Iskandar tactical ballistic missiles in Kaliningrad, and S400 SAMs and Iskandar in Crimea, as well as moved nuclear submarines to Crimea.

This has heightened tension especially in the Black Sea, Russia’s warm water strategic depth. Close encounters with NATO took place when Russian jets buzzed NATO ships navigating the Black Sea. Today, Russia is doubly worried about US/NATO military presence in the Black Sea. Although not weaponized, the American drone is for surveillance and reconnoitering Russian military assets and deployments. Moscow fears that Washington will pass intelligence gathered by the American drone on to Ukraine to target Russian assets by NATO weapons. This is tantamount to Washington getting directly involved in the war. The United States had previously done that during the Iran-Iraq war (1980-1988) by providing Iraq with Iranian military coordinates for Baghdad to strike. Nuclear Russia is not Iran!  

No less significant, invoking President Reagan’s policy towards the Soviet Union is misguided. The Reagan administration was divided into two camps: The dovish Schultz State Department camp and the hawkish Weinberger Defense Department camp. This allowed the president to pursue a firm yet calibrated approach towards Moscow. Today, there is only one camp in the Biden administration, a hawkish camp supported by hawkish media and officials.

Washington should create a US-Russian de-conflicting commission to prevent any direct confrontation! Otherwise, US/NATO is moving headlong towards a confrontation, potentially including the use of nuclear weapons, with Russia! Something that’s unacceptable and globally catastrophic. What’s shocking is that many are clamoring for war from their safe refuge awfully oblivious to the intended and unintended catastrophes of war!  

• Dr. Robert G. Rabil is a professor of political science at Florida Atlantic University. He is the author of highly commended peer-reviewed articles and books including: Embattled Neighbors: Syria, Israel and Lebanon (2003); Syria, the United States and the War on Terror in the Middle East (2006); Religion, National Identity and Confessional Politics in Lebanon (2011); Salafism in Lebanon: From Apoliticism to Transnational Jihadism (2014); The Syrian Refugee Crisis in Lebanon: The Double Tragedy of Refugees and Impacted Host Communities (2016, 2018); and White Heart (2018). He has a forthcoming book on Lebanon-Turkey Relations (Summer 2023). He was the project manager of the U.S. State Department-funded Iraq Research and Documentation Project. He was awarded the LLS Distinguished Faculty Award, the LLS Distinguished Professorship of Current Affairs, and FAU Scholar of the Year. He was also awarded an honorary Ph.D. in Humanities from the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts.