Uzbekistan again faces U.S. broadcast cuts, programs to other countries without media freedom also at risk

by Ted Lipien

FreeMediaOnline.org Free Media Online, San Francisco, February 13, 2007 -- Coming as a good news for Islam Karimov, Uzbekistan's authoritarian ruler and suppressor of press freedom, the Bush Administration's federal budget proposal for FY2008 has revived plans for closing down Voice of America (VOA) Uzbek radio service. [Link to BBG announcement... ]

This is the second time the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) - bipartisan body in charge of U.S. international broadcasts - is trying to eliminate VOA radio programs to Uzbekistan. The BBG had stopped VOA Uzbek radio programs once before, in August 2004, but the pressure from the U.S. Congress and human rights groups forced the BBG to resume them in June 2005.

With apparent approval from the White House, the BBG is again trying to end VOA radio presence in Uzbekistan and in a number of other countries. In addition to VOA Uzbek radio programs, the BBG is planning to eliminate or reduce U.S. taxpayer-funded broadcasts to Kazakhstan, Russia, Tibet and China -- countries whose regimes are viewed as major violators of media freedom and freedom of expression. Uzbekistan's Islam Karimov, Russia's President Vladimir Putin, Kazakhstan's authoritarian ruler Nursultan Nazarbayev and China's leader Hu Jintao have been all declared "Predators of Press Freedom" by the Paris-based nongovernmental organization Reporters Without Borders (RSF). [Link to RSF announcement... ]

FreeMediaOnline.org, a California-based nonprofit group founded to support freedom of the press worldwide, described these proposed cuts and reductions in U.S. international broadcasting as nothing less than a "gift to dictators and suppressors of press freedom." FreeMediaOnline.org believes that "this lack of consistency sends a terrible signal to defenders of freedom and courageous journalists around the world. Some of them, like independent Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, paid with their lives for exposing human rights violations. To make their voices heard, they have relied on VOA Russian radio programs, which the White House and the BBG plan to eliminate."

According to the BBG, these program cuts are necessary to fund expansion of U.S. broadcasts to Iran and to other major Muslim countries and regions. Critics have pointed out, however, that there are many other noncritical programs within the U.S. international broadcasting bureaucracy controlled by the BBG. Reducing these support programs instead could easily pay for new programming to the Middle East and for the much needed enhancement and modernization of programs and program delivery to countries like Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Russia, and China.

A former VOA official told FreeMediaOnline.org that the White House and the BBG have been outsmarted by the ex-KGB spy President Putin and the former communists who had became authoritarian rulers in Central Asia after the collapse of the Soviet Union. These leaders forced all or many local stations to stop their cooperation with VOA and RFE/RL. The BBG then used research data showing dropping audience figures for U.S. broadcasters in these countries to justify its decisions to cut programs. What they should have done instead was to help these services reach their audience through improved program delivery and innovative use of the Internet.

The BBG has also shown an extremely bad sense of timing -- yet another proof that its members, both Republicans and Democrats, have little experience in dealing with dictators. The first time the BBG announced its plans for eliminating VOA radio broadcasts to Russia was just before President Putin's media regulators forced most Russian stations to drop rebroadcasts of VOA and RFE/RL programs and shortly before Anna Politkovskaya's murder, which is still unsolved. While the Kremlin was clamping down on independent stations in Russia, some BBG members were trying to negotiate with the Putin government to allow U.S.-funded broadcasters greater access to the Russian media market. Not surprisingly to those who warned against Mr. Putin's anti-democratic ambitions, these efforts ended in a failure. The Broadcasting Board of Governors has been outsmarted by a former Soviet spy. The BBG's second announcement about Russian radio program cuts came just before President Putin launched a major ideological attack on the United States in a recent speech in Munich.

The Bush Administration and the BBG also miscalculated in betting that Uzbekistan would move toward democracy and closer relations with the U.S. The assumption was that Uzbekistan would not need VOA programs, which the Uzbek leader who had allowed American military bases to operate on his country's territory found threatening and offensive. But after VOA Uzbek radio broadcasts had been taken off the air in 2004, in May 2005 Uzbek troops fired into a crowd of protesters in an attempt to squash civil unrest in the eastern city of Andijan. Estimates of those killed in the Andijan massacre ranged from between 187 and 1,000 people. The Karimov government blamed the protest on Islamic terrorists -- a claim rejected by international human rights organizations, the EU and the U.S. Mr. Karimov also suspected American and British governments of promoting the protests through the work of Western-supported NGOs. With strong encouragement from President Putin, Mr. Karimov told the U.S. to remove its military bases from Uzbekistan.

Administration officials and the Broadcasting Board of Governors took the easy way out by rewarding dictators and betraying defenders of press freedom in Russia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tibet, China, and in other media-at-risk countries and regions. The U.S. Congress should refuse to accept these cuts and demand from the White House and the BBG a consistent U.S. international broadcasting strategy in support of freedom.

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