While the whole world, myself included, has been focused on the withdrawal of U.S. forces from its base in Uzbekistan, something interesting has been going on in the upper hierarchy of the Uzbek government relating directly back to the Andijon massacre. If you’ll recall, President Karimov blamed the entire uprising as being organized by radical Islamist militants. This story was backed by Russia and China. But as I explained, and this is what everyone else keeping tabs on this story knows now, is that the protestors were pissed off because the government was trying 23 businessmen who made up a core of job providers in the economically devastated Ferghana Valley.

The Ferghana Valley is the most economically devastated in the entire country, and that????????s even in comparison to the rest of the country. Andijon, the city where yesterday????????s protests took place, resides within this area. Many people are unemployed and disillusioned with Karimov because of this forced injustice, making Ferghana the most anti-government area in Uzbekistan.

Now, there is definitely a correlation between this and the trial of the 23 young businessmen. Karimov has arrested hundreds of people in this area on trumped up charges, but in particular small business people and ???????Islamic extremists.??????? The latter is one of his favorite excuses for arrest. In any case, these twenty-three individuals comprised a core part of the local business community, and many people knew them because of it. It seems to me that Karimov takes the prominence of local leaders as a threat and wanted them extinguished, citing ties to ???????radical Islamic groups.??????? Being that they provided opportunities in a place where so few exist, however, seems to have really sparked the outrage of the locals. In fact, these protests are hardly random, as people have been peacefully protesting these arrests for four months already.

Now keep that in mind as you read the following. Karimov is purging high-ranking ministers from economic ministries for their policy failures, of which allowed such unrest in Andijon to materialize.

Ferghana.Ru sources close to the government of Uzbekistan report a serious staff shuffle in the upper echelons of state power. What amounts to demotion of former Deputy Premier Rustam Azimov (in charge of the whole economic bloc once, he became minister of foreign economic contacts, investments, and commerce) is the central event of the last several days. And not the only noteworthy one.

Official announcements have not been made yet, but the Prosecutor General’s Office instituted proceedings against several senior state officials. All of them have to do, directly or not, with national economy – Shakhlo Abdullayeva (senior deputy minister of foreign economic contacts), Bakhtijar Khusanbayev (chairman of Uzbekturism), and E. Mirkhodzhayev, former chairman National Bank who resigned of his own volition in early July. There are the rumors that Khusanbayev and Mirkhodzhayev are already on the run.

There is no information on charges at this point. As local observers assumed, however, the events in Andizhan officially ascribed to international terrorism were actually sparked by the population’s disappointment with the economic policy of the state. They had to result in at least a partial revision of the policy in question.

Several presidential decrees signed in early June were taken by Uzbek businesses as revolutionary. Staff changes that follow the decrees may serve as an indication of seriousness of the political leadership of the country. On the other hand, they may actually be a smoke-screen (several scapegoats are found to pin the blame on, but no radical changes are intended).

This means one of two things. For one, Karimov could simply be punishing failures and scaring into line future government ministers in the economic field. Or, Karimov knows the real reasons behind the protests and realizes that he has to have some form of economic progress to show for his long rule. Otherwise, Andijon will repeat itself over and over again in the years to come. The crackdown was a sign of Karimov strengthening his hand absolutely in the face of dissent, but such action is always taken in fear. Could the shake up in the Uzbek economic ministries signal a silent shift of policy?