Islam Karimov, Uzbekistan’s autocratic president and the second-longest serving leader of a former Soviet state, has died.
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He will be buried today in the city of Samarkand, his birthplace, the government said in a statement.
“The last 25 years have been known largely for repression – that’s his legacy”. Analysts have all but ruled out the possibility of Yuldashev becoming permanent, despite having served in office for 16 years. Security service chief Rustam Inoyatov and Karimova-Tillyaeva, the younger of his two daughters, could become kingmakers.
Karimov sought to balance relations with Russian Federation, where state-owned Gazprom is a major buyer of Uzbek gas, by cultivating ties with Europe and the U.S. He allowed the American military to use a base in his country to support operations against al-Qaeda in neighboring Afghanistan after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. On Friday, she posted again, saying: “He is gone”.
He was not just the President of another post-Soviet country.
“Without a strong government there will be chaos in society”, Karimov warned ahead of the poll.
In 1989, he was appointed first secretary of the central committee of the Uzbek branch of the Soviet Communist Party.
A far-sighted, principled and consistent policy, organizational talent, a truly state approach to most hard tasks fairly earned Islam Karimov the people’s love, deep respect and great authority both in Uzbekistan and beyond.
The major challenge for Karimov came when the palace power struggle within his own family emerged in 2013.
While Karimov “convinced” a majority of Uzbekistan’s electorate to vote in favor of the republic remaining part of the Soviet Union in a March 1991 referendum, just months later, in August 1991, he declared Uzbekistan’s independence following the Soviet Union’s failed hardline coup. There was no sign of her among family members accompanying the funeral cortege to Samarkand.
Karimov’s regime has repeatedly been accused of violating human rights, including torture and forced labor in the country’s cotton industry. Several alleged Islamists discovered in 2002 were boiled alive, according to human rights agencies and a forensic report by the British Foreign Ministry. His troops killed hundreds unarmed demonstrators with machine guns during a 2005 uprising, he jailed thousands of political opponents, and his henchmen reportedly boiled some dissidents to death.
The government dismissed the reports of a massacre and said the violence was a response to Islamic extremism. Russian media outlets are reporting that Yuldashev has assumed the duties of acting Uzbek president.
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Following 9/11, the West overlooked Karimov’s harsh policies and cut a deal with him in 2001 to use Uzbekistan’s Karshi-Khanabad air base for combat missions in Afghanistan.
