 |
||||||||
 |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
America’s new friends
By THOMAS FRENCH TERMEZ, Uzbekistan -- Somewhere across the river, the war churns on. Boys who collect firewood on the outskirts of this border city can see fighter jets in the sky high above, streaking along the curving banks of the Amu Darya. Farmers, standing beside their wheat and cotton fields at night, have heard the explosions of bombs the Americans are dropping on the Taliban.
In Termez, a dusty city of 120,000 that guards the only bridge between Uzbekistan and Afghanistan, the war seems to have stopped no one. The streets are filled with swerving cars, honking vans, even a few donkeys, slowly clopping beside rows of evergreens and palm trees. Uzbek pop, blaring from boom boxes and car radios, competes with the cries of women carrying smoldering pots of issirik, a fragrant-burning weed thought to bring good luck. After sunset, boys crouch on the pavement outside a store, playing backgammon in the dark. At a nearby restaurant, customers drink hot cups of choi, the Uzbek green tea, and raise endless toasts of vodka and beer. "A man is young as long as women love him," says one, nodding to his companions. "And I hope that women will love us for many years to come."
In a park at the center of town, a newly married couple, still in their wedding gown and suit, lay a wreath of flowers at the feet of a statue commemorating the grieving mothers of soldiers killed in World War II -- a tradition from when Uzbekistan was part of the Soviet Union. At a square not far away, an old beggar woman fights off a competitor, chasing him away when he dares to ask passers-by for soums, the Uzbek currency, too close to her corner. "You are a scoundrel! You are a bastard!" she says, waving a stick in his direction. "I collect money here, not you. Get out of here!" Down the street, a group of peasant women sit along the sidewalk in bright floral dresses. They are from kishlaks -- villages -- surrounding Termez. This morning, before dawn, they milked their cows and then brought the milk to sell at the market. Now, a few hours later, the milk cans at their feet are empty, and they are waiting for a bus to take them home. Meeting two visitors from America, the women smile shyly and cover their mouths with their hands. "We are laughing," says one, "but some of us don't have any teeth." This only makes them laugh harder. Like most Uzbeks, these women are Muslims. Still, they speak without hesitation in favor of the American campaign in Afghanistan. "For us," Hafizahon Allaeva says, "it is better if they kill all the Taliban." One of the visitors asks Allaeva what she would like Americans to know about Uzbekistan. "Only one thing," she says. "We want peace in the world." Around Termez, the same sentiments are expressed again and again. People see the Taliban as their enemy and America as their friend. Fahritdin Saidov, a farmer who lives outside of Termez, pauses for a few minutes from irrigating his fields. "We want peace, so we can work our land and feed our families, so our children will grow up," he says, leaning on his shovel. "Peace. I don't need anything else." * * * Uzbekistan confounds every stereotype. Especially the stereotypes that many Americans hold about Muslim countries of Central Asia. This is not Afghanistan, where women have been beaten in the street if they venture outside without shrouding themselves in a burqa. Uzbek women work outside the home, attend college and are free to wear European clothes.
President Islam A. Karimov is in a shadow war with the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, a radical group that wants to oust Karimov and usher in a Taliban-style government. In recent years, the Islamic Movement is believed to have been working out of Afghanistan, fighting alongside the Taliban. Two years ago, when bombs went off in the capital of Tashkent, nearly assassinating Karimov, the Islamic Movement was blamed. Human rights groups say Karimov has used the movement's activities to justify the arrest of thousands of Muslims, many of whose only offenses were to resist the state-sponsored form of Islam and to worship in mosques not approved by the government. Some have reportedly been convicted in secret trials and tortured. These concerns have led some in the United States to wonder about the wisdom of America's recent reliance on the Uzbekistan government. Since Sept. 11, as the United States mobilized against the Taliban, President Karimov has allowed U.S. forces to use a former Soviet air base at Khanabad, not far from the border. In return, the United States has promised to protect Uzbekistan. Does it make sense, human rights advocates have asked, for the United States to ally itself -- yet again -- with a totalitarian regime just because it serves American interests? What message does it send to Muslims around the world if the United States supports a government that persecutes devout followers of Islam? Late last week, such questions did not seem to weigh heavily on the residents of Termez. More than a dozen people, interviewed around the city, unanimously expressed relief that Uzbekistan and America are working together to defeat the Taliban and al-Qaida. "There's a war going on in Afghanistan," said Dzhamshid Kuchkinov, a butcher who talked while chopping a piece of beef with an axe. "Terrorists are being destroyed, and that's the right thing to do." Next door, at the entrance of a two-story bazaar, young women carrying armloads of yopkan non -- flat round loaves of bread torn into pieces and served with every Uzbek meal -- said they are grateful that Americans are helping the Northern Alliance advance across Afghanistan. Many Northern Alliance soldiers are Uzbeks. "It's very good that they're fighting the Taliban," said a woman named Dilorom, "because the Taliban tried to recruit people here." Some women selling wares proudly showed off their eyebrows, which in keeping with Uzbek custom were painted together across the tops of their noses. A few had grown their eyebrows together. "Beautiful," said a young man admiring nearby. At 9 a.m., the bazaar was jammed with booths selling nuts, candy, lottery tickets, daisies, boots, knives, crackers and cookies, detergent, baby clothes. In one corner, two salesmen -- standing solemnly, in dark clothes, with their hands folded -- offered marble gravestones. At the top of the stones, carved in Arabic, were the words, "Glory to Allah." Downstairs, in a small room among a row of shops, teenage boys crowded before a row of televisions, playing Mortal Kombat and other video games. The room was dark, with posters of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Lee on the walls. The boys sat with their mouths slightly open, hands working furiously at the controls, eyes glazed. They hardly noticed when a handful of strangers walked in. "Why aren't you in school?" a stranger asked. Taking his eyes off the TV for a moment, a boy -- maybe 13 -- said, "We go in the afternoons." "What do you think about what's happening in Afghanistan?" The boy shrugged. "We know there's a war there. But the Americans are there." With that, he turned back to the game. * * * Uzbeks have long distrusted the Taliban. They have no taste for the Taliban's extremist interpretation of Islam. They worried that the Taliban might try to cross the Amu Darya and spread their rule northward. In 1997, when the Taliban seized the portion of northern Afghanistan that lies on the other side of the river, Uzbeks -- especially those living in Termez -- became alarmed. The Uzbek government ordered the border sealed and mined, and the one bridge that crosses the river between the two countries was closed. The Uzbeks know it as the Hairitom Bridge, but some still call it the Bridge of Friendship, which is what the Soviets named it. They had a long history with that bridge. Originally the Soviets used it to transport material to help build Afghanistan's infrastructure. In December 1979, they drove their armored divisions across it when they invaded the country. They drove them back over it when they retreated in defeat nine years later. Today the bridge remains closed, even to the relief agencies hoping to get supplies to the hundreds of thousands of Afghans who have fled their homes because of the war and a drought that threatens to starve much of the country. The United Nations has begun to move supplies across the border -- tons of wheat flour, thousands of blankets and jackets and boots -- but workers have been forced to use barges. As for the bridge, civilian traffic is forbidden. Guard towers are close by. Concrete barriers, checkered in black and white, block the entrance. Friday, on a surprisingly warm afternoon, it was possible to approach the bridge on foot. It was a desolate, yet strangely affecting place. The road was quiet, empty except for a few peasant boys on donkeys and an occasional military jeep rushing by, raising a trail of yellow dust. A huge sign, written in Uzbek but composed Soviet style, was painted on a concrete wall beside the road. In fading blue letters, it said: To live well, you have to work well. On the other side of the wall: If the family will be close-knit, the country will flourish. From trees on either side of the road, hundreds of black crows cawed. Cows nodded through the fields; a black goat bleated. From somewhere out of sight, a pop song played faintly. Eventually there was a post guarded by three soldiers in camouflage, their Kalashnikovs strapped to their backs. On the shoulders of their uniforms were patches that said: O'zbekistan Chegara Qo'shinlari. Border troops. They said they didn't want their picture taken. They declined to give their names. Looking bored, they politely told their visitors it was time to turn around. Past their post, across the fields, the Amu Darya was shining in the sun. Beyond waited the mountains of Afghanistan and the cold of winter. * * * A mile or so down the road, still within sight of the bridge, the visitors came across a shepherd guiding a small flock of sheep. His name was Rusa Saidov. He said he was 63. He was wrapped in a fraying black quilted robe, lined with thin gold strips; on his head he wore a sheepskin hat. His face was brown and furrowed; when he offered his hand to shake, his palm was calloused. For support, he leaned on the staff he uses to lead his flock. Taking a break from the sheep, Saidov talked with the Americans, telling them about his seven children, his 15 grandchildren, the wife to whom he has been married for 45 years. "I would have had five wives," he said, smiling. "But you need a lot of dollars to have five wives." He invited the visitors to his small brick and stucco house across the road. He led them into the back yard, where he keeps a plow and where his wife bakes the family's bread in a tandyr, a small oven made of clay and straw. Nodding his head, he took them to a small porch under a canopy of grapevines. His wife carried out some blankets so the men would have something to sit upon. A few minutes later, she brought some bread, a freshly brewed pot of choi and a dish of hurma, an orange-colored fruit. She also brought a more formal robe -- this one was royal blue -- for her husband to wear in honor of their guests. Her name was Oinabot. She was polite and gracious, even when the guests asked her age. (She said she is 60.) It was hard to imagine that she would have taken kindly to her husband introducing four other women into their marriage. As the afternoon sunlight deepened into gold, Saidov sat with his guests, encouraging them to eat and drink. He did neither; this was the first day of Ramadan, and he was fasting until sunset. He told about his years of serving in the Soviet navy and his years of overseeing a collective farm. He earned medals for his service on that farm, he said proudly. Now, he explained, he lives on his pension and his flock. He talked about the war, about the bombings across the river, about how the Taliban must not be allowed to exist. "They don't understand Islam properly," he said. "The Koran doesn't say anywhere that you should kill. Their only ideas are to poison, to blow up. That's not in the Koran." Before the Americans brought their planes, Saidov used to worry about the Taliban coming into Uzbekistan and killing his children and grandchildren. No more. "Now it's good," he said. "It's quiet. I'm not afraid of anything." Saidov said he is grateful for his life. He is healthy, his family has enough flour to eat, and he believes that peace has finally come to the area. Late at night, he said, he grazes his sheep and gazes up into the black sky and feels happy. "When I look at the stars," he said, "I have good thoughts so that life will go on." "What are your good thoughts?" a visitor asked. "To have my children marry, and to have grandchildren and to buy a car." He said he wanted a Nexia, a model Daewoo manufactures in Uzbekistan. "What color?" He grinned. "Kyzil!" Red.
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111 
|
From the Times wire desk
From the AP |
