NGO Shutdowns & Uzbek Rapprochement With The West

Uzbekistan’s Ministry of Justice has recently put a handful of US health NGOs on notice that there are problems with their paperwork, that they are not sticking to their mission, etc. This is what has become the standard prelude to an ouster for NGOs working in Uzbekistan. Project HOPE and World Vision International were both accused of violations in recent days, and Population Services International (PSI) is the latest to draw the attention of the justice ministry. PSI is special though. It has upset the ministry not just for its paperwork violations, but also for a handful of other interesting reasons.

“PSI is especially famous for its projects universally asserting interests of persons with unorthodox sexual orientation,” the statement on the Internet said, adding that homosexuality is punishable by up to three years in prison in Uzbekistan.

The statement also alleges that PSI, founded in 1970, was created by U.S. entrepreneur Philip Harvey to promote the use of contraceptives produced by his sex products company, Adam & Eve.

I cannot find anything one way or the other about whether or not PSI supports homosexuals. But then again, it’s not worth it to spend much time looking into it. PSI’s Central Asia program targets at-risk youth, injecting drug users, and drug using sex workers to fight the spread of HIV. Homosexuality exists in Uzbekistan, and no responsible anti-HIV program should go along with the government in pretending that it does not. That support of homosexuals bothers the Uzbek government more than PSI’s work with prostitutes sure shows where its priorities are.

Phil Harvey, by the way, is a fairly interesting person. He started selling condoms through the mail while it was still illegal to do so in the United States. Before starting this business, he worked for CARE in India, where he concluded that a lack of family planning played a massive role in social problems. He founded Adam & Eve to fund family planning programs in the developing world, starting PSI, and later DKT International. The latter is focused more on family planning and market subsidized condoms in the developing world, but it appears that PSI does market condoms in Central Asia. And one would assume they use a similar model, selling them well below retail cost. According to information found at and via Harvey’s Wikipedia entry, the approach the organizations use is highly effective.

Crackdown a Cry for Rapprochement?

IWPR reported on the accusations against World Vision (who partners with PSI, interestingly enough), including the following interesting claim.

Political scientist Anvar Muminov agreed, adding that the Uzbek authorities were pressuring American NGOs in a bid to gain greater respect. “Tashkent is trying to impose its own rules of engagement on Washington,” he said. “If the US takes the hint and makes some concessions, things could improve for American NGOs.”

That sounds strange, but EurasiaNet reports that Uzbekistan is putting out feelers for rapprochement.

However, the article seemed to suggest that Washington would have to take the first step, and travel the most distance to make a rapprochement possible. It spoke of a need for US experts to “objectively understand the situation, which would allow them to efficiently take part working out short- and long-term political solutions.”

Additional evidence that Uzbekistan wants a rapprochement on its own terms came on February 23, when Pravda Vostoka resumed its attacks on the United States. A commentary posted on the newspaper’s website attacked US policy toward Central Asia. It claimed that the “primary objective” of two democratization-related institutes affiliated with major US political parties – the International Republican Institute and the National Democratic Institute – was to “gather strategic information and organize controlled conflicts outside of the United States in the interests of the White House.”

It is a strange argument, but perhaps only because one is hard-pressed to see how it could be effective. Uzbekistan’s government does want some degree of renewal of Western ties. And I think that it very obviously wants the relationship to be founded on its terms this time around. (It did last time too. This explains the constant attempts to convince Western officials and media from 2001-2005 that it faced a greater Islamist threat than it really did and that it was making more progress with reforms than it really was.) What it fails to grasp is that it does not have too much to offer to the West that it cannot find elsewhere in the region. The West has no compelling reason to do things solely on Uzbekistan’s terms, and in fact has indicated that it wants to see improvements in Uzbekistan before reengaging. If cracking down on NGOs is indeed supposed to lead to warmer ties with the West, the government would be advised to reconsider the message it sends.

Photo used courtesy of night_eulen.