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| Central Asia | |
| Tales Of The Uzbek Princess | |
| 2004-01-07 | |
| Edited for length, wait for the movie: She is known as the Uzbek Princess, a powerful businesswoman, tipped by many to succeed her father as ruler of the largest country in Central Asia. But Gulnara Karimova has been branded a harridan, a wicked witch, a dragon lady. Her bitter divorce battle has spiralled into an international scandal, involving accusations of kidnapping, corruption and dirty politics. It may even have significant implications for America’s "war against terrorism". When I meet Ms Karimova in the foyer café of a smart Moscow hotel, the 31-year-old seems an unlikely source of such controversy. She wishes to reply to her critics, she tells me. Yet she appears quiet, almost shy, but very beautiful. Karimova’s predicament derives from an extraordinary set of circumstances that reflect extraordinary times. A Harvard-educated martial-arts black belt, she is the elder daughter of Islam Karimov, the former Communist Party leader and now President of Uzbekistan - America’s key strategic foothold in Central Asia. Many would describe Karimov as a dictator. Can I see a show of hands, yup, every one agrees. At the age of 19, the President’s daughter was married to a man she scarcely knew. Mansur Maqsudi was the brother of a family friend, from a wealthy clan of long-time Uzbek emigrants who lived and made money in the United States. She had met him, aged 19, when she was working as a conference interpreter in the Uzbek capital, Tashkent. After their marriage in 1991, she lived the life of a minor jetsetter, dividing her time between studies in New York and Boston and homes in New Jersey and Tashkent. Meanwhile, her husband’s business enterprises flourished. He established a local bottling plant for Coca-Cola in the Uzbek capital. And it was here that Karimova gave birth to her first child, a boy called Islam. Six years later, after a spell working at the UN in New York, she had a girl, Iman. OK, cue sad music, begin act two... By 2000, though, the marriage was in difficulty; the couple were spending more and more time apart and the following summer, her husband announced that he wanted a divorce. At this point Karimova took off for Tashkent with the children and the trouble really began. Maqsudi filed for divorce in the US courts, claiming that he would not receive a fair hearing in Uzbekistan. That’s what you get for marrying the dictator's darling daughter. In his legal submissions to the divorce court, Maqsudi claims that, following his split from his wife, his business interests in Uzbekistan were crippled. A month after their separation, a series of raids began on Coca-Cola’s local bottling plant - by tax inspectors, fire inspectors, customs inspectors, and even an anti-narcotics official; this culminated in a four-month shut-down of the plant. Uzbekistan’s attorney general also issued a warrant for the arrest of Maqsudi, his brother and his father, accusing them of tax evasion, corruption and trading oil for Saddam Hussein. The Uzbek authorities deny that there was any connection between these actions and the divorce proceedings of the President’s daughter. Did they giggle when they denied it? In the summer of 2002, the couple’s case was heard in New Jersey. Maqsudi was awarded sole custody of the children. Karimova, still in Tashkent, did not attend the court or comply with the custody order; a warrant was then issued for her arrest, although this remains unenforcable in Uzbekistan as the necessary international agreements are not in place. And daddy owns the cops. The divorce and its aftermath became a political issue in the US that even found its way to Congress. "His is a big family," she says, "and if you cross it, you’re not just an enemy of the family, but of the whole community, the clan." She says that they made representations to the congressional committees concerned with human rights in Uzbekistan with a view to getting the children sent to the US. She suspects, too, that they were instrumental in having her diplomatic passport cancelled, and with it her immunity from prosecution while outside Uzbekistan. A further complication is the US military presence in Uzbekistan following the intervention in Afghanistan and the war in Iraq. Uzbekistan borders Afghanistan and is strategically important to the US, which has the use of a former Soviet airbase there. This, she hazards, may eventually work to her advantage. With its troops stationed in the region, the US administration does not want to get mixed up in anything that could cause friction with the Uzbek leadership - which means Gulnara’s father. Which is why this story is relevent to the WOT. Make of Gulnara Karimova’s story what you will. You can see her as a privileged brat whose life fell apart when it crashed into harsh reality. You can see her as an aggrieved mother, sheltering her children, or as a manipulative go-getter, exploiting her contacts for financial gain. Or you can see her as an innocent at large, marooned between a host of competing expectations and ambitions - her own and those of her father, her family and her former husband. I see a movie of the week.
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| Posted by:Steve |
| #2 WOT or no WOT, US support for former soviet despots should be a bit more selective. This guy has alot of fun repressing his own population with the tacit consent of the US. oh, sorry, forgot...they're muslims so it's cool and only 0.001% of the population has ever heard of Uzbekistan |
| Posted by: Igs 2004-1-7 8:38:50 PM |
| #1 she lived the life of a minor jetsetter I didn't realize there were minor league jetsetters. Makes me feel better.. I've been known to eat breakfast in Tallahasse, Lunch in Madison and pass out in Valdosta. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2004-1-7 6:09:41 PM |