THE POST-SOVIET state of Uzbekistan is a nightmarish world of “rampant corruption”, organised crime, forced labour in the cotton fields and torture, according to leaked cables.
However the secret dispatches released by WikiLeaks reveal that the US tries to keep President Islam Karimov sweet because he allows a crucial US military supply line to run into Afghanistan, known as the northern distribution network (NDN).
Many dispatches focus on the behaviour of Mr Karimov’s daughter Gulnara, who is described by them as “the single most hated person in the country”. She allegedly bullied her way into gaining a slice of virtually every lucrative business in the central-Asian state and is viewed, they say, as a “robber baron”.
The US secret cables detail how the dictatorial president recently flew into a rage because the US secretary of state Hillary Clinton presented a Women of Courage award in Washington to a newly released Uzbek human rights campaigner, Mutabar Tadjibayeva.
Karimov’s displeasure was conveyed in “icy tones”, which alarmed the embassy.
Separately, the first lady of Azerbaijan has problems showing a “full range of facial expression” following “substantial cosmetic surgery, [done] presumably overseas”, US diplomats say.
Diplomats describe Mehriban Aliyeva (46), wife of Azerbaijan’s president Ilham Aliyev, as more “fashion-conscious and daring” than the “average woman in majority-Muslim Azerbaijan”. She “wears dresses that would be considered provocative even in the western world”, a cable says.
“On television, in photos and in person, she appears unable to show a full range of facial expression,” it adds. The same cable says: “Observers in Baku . . . note that today’s Azerbaijan is run in a manner similar to the feudalism found in Europe during the Middle Ages.”
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said in a documentary yesterday that he faced prosecution by the United States and was disappointed with how Swedish justice had been “abused”.
Mr Assange has been remanded in custody in Britain after a European arrest warrant was issued by Sweden, which wants to question Mr Assange about allegations made by two women of sexual crimes. He has denied the allegations.
“I came to Sweden as a refugee publisher involved with an extraordinary publishing fight with the Pentagon, where people were being detained and there is an attempt to prosecute me for espionage,” Mr Assange said in an interview in the documentary, aired on Swedish public television.
“So I am unhappy and disappointed with how the Swedish justice system has been abused,” the 39-year-old Australian added in the documentary, which was made before his arrest.
Meanwhile, a Dutch man (19) arrested on Saturday over a cyber attack on the website of the public prosecution office was released yesterday after admitting involvement in the attack, Dutch authorities said. – (Guardian service/Reuters)