Friday, May 20, 2005

Uzbekistan again

My correspondent has informed me that this will be the last update for a little while:
It seems that the Uzbek border town of Karasuv has been retaken by the government forces. Therefore, the short-lived attempt at revolution has been repressed for now. I heard on the BBC World Service this morning that the UN push for an inquiry was being balked at by the Uzbek authorities, because they let a few German journalists into Andijon for observation. Thus, the inquiry is "complete." We'll see how the UN reacts to this message from Karimov.

All of this has affected our Peace Corps Mission in Uzbekistan too. Currently, the Peace Corps is not "accredited" by the Uzbek government. This means that our status is neither diplomatic nor are we under the umbrella of a non-government organization. Essentially, we are being tossed around by the Ministry of Foriegn Affairs. For my service so far in Uzbekistan, we have been relentlessly hassled by the government over our visas; some PCVs [Peace Corps volunteers] have been given year-long visas, while others for only three months.

We can only hope that Uzbekistan will allow us to continue our roles of helping people who are already underserved by their own government.
Many thanks to my correspondent for the updates that have been provided thus far. He reads this blog so if you'd like to tell him thanks yourself, please feel free to do so in the comments section.
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Update: Welcome instapundit readers. You can see other emails from my Uzbekistan correspondent here, here, here and here.

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