People walk in front of a giant poster of Uzbek President Islam Karimov in Tashkent, 24 December 2007.
In Turkmenistan’s six-times more populous northern neighbour, Uzbekistan, honest citizens have had a rough decade. The Central Asian country fell from a mediocre 68th spot in 2002 in perceived corruption to be the 6th most corrupt place on earth this year. Over that decade, and the one before that, the country was ruled by Islam Karimov, who hasn’t exactly turned the resource-rich nation into a Central Asian wonderland: “Torture is endemic”, Human Rights Watch says. “Government-sponsored forced child labor during the cotton harvest continues.”
The president’s daughter, Gulnara, was described as “the single most hated person in the country” by U.S. diplomats in a leaked cable. She serves her nation as a pop singer, university professor, diplomat and jewelry designer. “Most Uzbeks see Karimova as a greedy, power-hungry individual who uses her father to crush business people or anyone else who stands in her way.”
Beyond the first family, corruption is equally rampant, according to another cable. “Tenders and government positions can be fairly easily secured by paying the right amount of money to the appropriate individual, leading to a situation in which unqualified individuals have every incentive to engage in further corrupt activity to pay off the large debts they usually incur making down payments on the jobs.”