Comments on: Farewell, Counterpart

By: Karl

Karl — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 15:23:48 +0000

As a Former Peace Corps Volunteer in Uzbekistan, I can testify that Counterpart did great work there, and offered invitations to Uzbek government officials there on a regular basis to view their operations in Uzbekistan.

By: Dolkun

Dolkun — Fri, 05 May 2006 12:24:42 +0000

Rustam,

Despite your earlier expressing the desire to see me suffer the anguish of the damned, I have to admit, you make a good point.

By: Rustam

Rustam — Fri, 05 May 2006 08:28:04 +0000

Laurence – so what even if the CI did promote American values, championed the cause of democracy and human rights, asked for free and fair elections, is it not the official policy of Dictator Karimov, is he not the one who repeats these goals that he is supposedly seeking in his speeches to the Cabinet of Ministers and joint sessions of the Parliament over and over again? And why do we have to object to the fact that American NGOs, funded by the USAID would try to promote US interests that are compatible with the long-term development of the host nation, why we have to object if German NGO’s would try to promote their way of life, their values, their electoral system?
The issue is not to find dirt in the NGO’s, likes of Mr. Dorkus, because the fundamental causes of the action of Dictator Karimov is far from these. We have SNB which monitors all these NGO’s and their employees as well as those who was unfortunate to come to any contact with them day and night, law on NGO’s and the Criminal Code is strict enough, if Karimov would find them doing anything against the law or as he like to say “anti-constitutional” who is holding his hands to try these cases in the court, on the bases of real evidence and real felonies, not on the bases of these dull administrative charges.
The reason behind this blanket expulsion is the upcoming Presidential elections, the last time with Andijon all the “efforts” of SNB, MVD and Army was undermined by the likes of Bukharbaeva, BBC, DW and NGO sector as a whole, they were the prime cause for information getting out of the borders of the country and most crucially the reporting was done not by wacko fundamentalist, from the start bias against the Mr. Karimov, who has been fighting for years against the menace of Islamic fundamentalism, but by journalists working for respected news organizations, news organizations that we trust and by NGOs supported by ourselves, who’s credibility is unquestionable. This time, they will not tolerate this, accreditation of the few remaining journalists working for foreign news agencies will expire maximum by the end of the year and no NGOs to whom we would trust, this time for sure people will demonstrate as well and when they do no one will be there to tell the story of really how this “terrorist uprising” was dealt with.

By: Brian

Brian — Thu, 04 May 2006 23:20:07 +0000

Inernational NGOs? I know that that some US based NGOs like Save The Children were involved in a bit of propaganda in the past, but I haven’t heard of reputable international NGOs funding armies. I think local NGOs are a different story… after all anyone can start an NGO. A for-profit business can call themselves an “NGO” if they want.

By: Laurence

Laurence — Thu, 04 May 2006 20:17:40 +0000

Maybe someone from Counterpart could post answers to the many questions raised in this discussion? It is kind of hard to advocate transparency for Central Asia when American NGOs don’t answer questions themselves. There are some good books by David Rieff, Alex de Waal, Fiona Terry, and Michael Maren about NGOs funding guerrilla armies and terrorists around the world from Cambodia to Africa under the rubric of “humanitarian relief”–so perhaps sometimes even paranoids have enemies?

By: Brian

Brian — Thu, 04 May 2006 16:54:50 +0000

Well, I think it would be helpful to know for what capacity was Counterpart giving IT training. For instance, if Counterpart was involved in delivering Western made medical equipment to hospitals, it may be prudent to train some hospital staff in how to access either the manufacturer (or another organization) through the internet to receive maintenance and technical support. The same thing goes for the agricultural sector, free software has been developed to assist farmers in identifying various parasites and dieseases that afflict their crops.

By: Dolkun

Dolkun — Thu, 04 May 2006 16:11:41 +0000

At this point, even if NGOs wanted to get in tighter with the government, and I imagine most do, they have to answer for things they did several years ago, when Uzbekistan actually officially requested assistance with democratization, human rights, rule of law, and the like, under the strategic framework with the U.S.

Also, I don’t see how giving people internet and e-mail equates to political activity.

By: Peter

Peter — Thu, 04 May 2006 15:29:50 +0000

All this is true, but I cannot help but feel that it only serves to underline the nature of the predicament that NGOs operating in Uzbekistan find themselves in. My misgivings are not directed at training people in IT skills, but of the uses that may sometimes be made of such opportunities.
I would like to know, for example, if the Counterpart Consortium NGO Support
Initiative for Central Asia was active in Uzbekistan, as they were in Tajikistan, in providing grants for local NGO personnel for the provision of email and Internet access, and whether any, some or much of this personnel was active in promoting human rights issues, minority rights and civil society promotion. All these things are desperately badly needed in Uzbekistan, no doubt about it, but think about how this looks to the authorities. It is more than likely that I am a misguided optimist, but how about developing a model of aid that actively avoids political association? Is this actually impossible to do? As one NGO after another is turfed out of Uzbekistan, which looks to be increasingly turning in on itself, should we not be wondering about the future appearance of plans B,C, D and so on?

By: Dolkun

Dolkun — Thu, 04 May 2006 14:50:32 +0000

At the risk of giving a patronizing answer, Counterpart and other NGOs tend to try to teach people to fish, rather than hand out fish.

Local NGOs with good management capacity, and yes, knowledge of IT, can have a knock-off effect. If you look at Tajikistan, there are local NGOs there running million-plus micro-credit portfolios, training government officials, running complex agriculture development projects, etc.

Specifically in the area of health, NGOs are often better equipped than the government to work in fields ranging from HIV/AIDS to basic health education.

And considering the valley contains roughly one-third of the Uzbek population, Counterpart would have had to actively avoid working there.

By: Peter

Peter — Thu, 04 May 2006 13:31:06 +0000

There is common strain among these comments to the effect that the Uzbeks excercised themselves with excessive paranoia in ejecting Counterpart. Which is really why I posed my original question. I remember reading, sadly I don’t remeber where, that there was some grumbling among people in neighbouring Tajikistan that Counterpart were training local pro-democracy NGOs in IT training when this money might have been better invested in other areas. Without necessarily advocating this view, is there not reason for believing that the Uzbek government would have been suspicious of an organisation active in such areas working in the Ferghana Valley?
Obviously, I have no evidence on which to base a suggestion that Counterpart was up to anything it should not have been doing, so I will not make any such claims. My question is merely whether Western NGOs would not be in less of a danger of endangering their often invaluable work in the health sector if they were not also being seen to encourage or in any way support the work of pro-democracy NGOs. Not that there is no need for such work, but there appears to be no realistic opportunity for carrying it out at the present juncture. If the Uzbek government perceives Western NGOs as conditionally linking their welfare activities with political activities, is it surprising that they will be paranoid about it?