Islam Karimov, the Uzbek autocrat responsible for the Andijan massacre, in which hundreds of people were killed in 2005, according to human rights organizations, joined yesterday in evidence to the European Commission and NATO with a visit to Brussels on which both organizations tried to run a veil. Karimov's arrival occurs when the EU commends the popular uprising against President of Tunisia Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, a close associate of the Union until his flight to Saudi Arabia."This visit is an embarrassment to the EU and the West" laments Mutabar Tayibaieva Uzbek dissident, imprisoned until 2008 by Karimov. The dictator was invited himself to Brussels and called for talks with Commission President José Manuel Durão Barroso, and Secretary General of NATO, Anders Fogh Rasmussen.
Neither found reason to frustrate the desire, contrary to what they did the Belgian authorities and European Council president, Herman Van Rompuy. As the visit was shameful and the traveler was rare, there was no joint press conference with Barroso and Rasmussen, contrary to usual. The chairman of the Committee merely expressed in a statement that the EU "has a policy of critical engagement, conditioned and spacious" with Uzbekistan.
"I raised the concerns of Europe, especially those concerning human rights and civil liberties," he added. Besides talking, the Commission signed an agreement with Karimov on energy. The NATO Secretary General at the meeting also justified by the fact that Uzkebistán is a key partner of the Alliance for their assistance in the transit of equipment to the Allied soldiers in Afghanistan.
Rasmussen promised that the interview with Karimov will raise questions "about human rights and democratic principles." Uzbek president's visit to Brussels coincided with the annual report of Human Rights Watch, a human rights defender in the world. Ken Roth, executive director, was very critical of the way the EU deals with human rights and attacked the rhetoric of the press and the quiet diplomacy of Catherine Ashton, masking the lack of an EU strategy on the issue.
As an example of wrong approach, Roth apparently raised yesterday in Brussels, closed-door talks on human rights. Barroso's what they did and Rasmussen Karimov "one of the worst human rights violators in the world," said Roth. Speaking of the role of Europeans in Tunisia, embodied in a France that hours before the fall of Ben Ali still has offered help to contain "the situation of public order" - an EU diplomatic source said that the EU is "with countries, ie with governments and societies.
" Tunisia's first lesson is that "people have a voice and can be heard regardless of what may be the repressive regime," the source said.
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