The custom in Uzbekistan has for many years been to speak about suspected radical Islamists in terms of sinister plots to sow death and destruction.
Accordingly, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s public remarks during a visit to Andijan over the weekend marked a curious development — albeit one the significance of which it may take some time to decipher.
In May 2005, Andijan was the site of a mass uprising that culminated in a bloody crackdown. Rights activists maintain many hundreds of people, mainly unarmed demonstrators, were among the dead. The official account allows for around 187 people killed and has cast a loose association of pious Muslims, known as Akromiya, as leading instigators and organizers of the unrest intended to bring about the overthrow of the government.
In a speech televised on the evening news on June 4, Mirziyoyev alluded to Akromiya at length.
"I want to say that people should be loyal to the motherland. If they are, they will serve the homeland and become patriots. But if they display no devotion and faith — by sitting on two chairs in anticipation of the system changing and the subsequent arrival of Akromiya — they will become traitors to the homeland. And then they they will cooperate with them,” Mirziyoyev said, speaking to a group of vetted civil society activists.
The speech appeared addressed first and foremost at the city’s clergy and devout community — to say, in essence, you are with us or against us.
Mirziyoyev’s tone was one of conditional acquiescence to those that have held out against the government heavy-handed and relentless campaign to bring non-compliant Muslims into the fold.
“There are people who have gone astray that want to return to normal life. We should make those people our friends and beckon them to spirituality,” he said.