PRESIDENT KARIMOV NOT AN ORPHAN, AND OTHER FAMILY

C O N F I D E N T I A L TASHKENT 003519

C O R R E C T E D C O P Y - ADDED ADDRESSEES

DEPT FOR EUR/CACEN

E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/27/14
TAGS: PREL PINR PBIO PGOV UZ
SUBJECT: PRESIDENT KARIMOV NOT AN ORPHAN, AND OTHER FAMILY
SECRETS

CLASSIFIED BY AMB. JON R. PURNELL FOR REASONS 1.4 (B, D).


1. (C) Summary: Although his face was covered in bruises,
the physical resemblance to the President is striking. In
a wide-ranging conversation with poloff, Islom Karimov's
estranged nephew, Jamshid Karimov, and Jamshid's mother,
Muslima Karimova -- the President's sister-in-law --
revealed details about their famous relative. They said
that President Karimov was never an orphan, as his official
biography asserts, but grew up in a "normal family."
Threatened politically by a minor corruption scandal
involving his older brother, Hurshid, Karimov began to
distance himself from his family in the mid-eighties; he
broke off contact entirely when he became First Secretary
of the Uzbek SSR in 1989. The Jizzak Hokimiyat maintains
Jamshid and his mother in modest comfort -- perks given in
exchange for keeping a low profile. Jamshid, a small-time
journalist with casual connections to the local human
rights community, claimed that his recent decision to sign
on as a stringer with IWPR prompted local authorities to
have him beaten. Jamshid's IWPR colleague, however, said
that the beating was more likely a random act of violence.
End summary.

NEVER AN ORPHAN
--------------


2. (C) On December 26, poloff spoke with Jamshid Karimov
(strictly protect),a Jizzak-area journalist hired in
October as a stringer by the USG-funded media NGO,
Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR). As reported
in a short Reuters news bulletin, Karimov had been beaten
by two unidentified assailants on December 20. The article
mentioned that Karimov is the nephew of President Islom
Karimov. Poloff was greeted at the family's small
apartment by Jamshid who, even with a bruised face, closely
resembles his uncle, and by Jamshid's mother, Muslima
Karimova (strictly protect),the widow of President
Karimov's elder brother Arslan. Over the next hour and a
half, Jamshid and Muslima discussed their family's break
with Uzbekistan's First Family, providing tantalizing
glimpses into the President's early career and family life.


3. (C) Muslima laughed at the official story of the
President's upbringing. (Note: According to his official
biography, President Karimov is an orphan. The President
is known to be close to his wife's family; his biological
family is never mentioned, nor is Pyotr, Karimov's son by
his first wife. End note.) He was no orphan, Muslima
stated, he had six brothers and one sister, and grew up in
a "normal family" in Samarkand. Of Karimov's seven
siblings, two brothers -- Hurshid and Ibodulla -- remain;
one lives in Tashkent, the other in Samarkand. She said
that Karimov first started circulating the orphanage story
in the mid- to late 1980s as a way of distancing himself
from his family.


4. (C) Both Jamshid and Muslima stated that the early
family relationship had, in fact, been fairly close.
Muslima's earliest recollections of Islom Karimov were from
their student days when the future president would
constantly pester her for small loans. "He never paid me
back," she commented ruefully. Muslima implied that
Karimov's marriage to Natalia, the daughter of the Chairman
of the Tashkent Agricultural Machinery Plant, Pyotr Kuchmi,
had been a union of ambition. Karimov had a son, whom he
named Rustam. But after he divorced Natalia in the late
1960s, she had their son's name changed to Pyotr.

THE BREAK
--------------


5. (C) Karimov began to distance himself from his family
in late 1985 and early 1986, when his brother, Hurshid, a
distributor of retail food products (mostly tea),became
embroiled in a minor corruption scandal. At the time,
according to Muslima, Karimov was Deputy Chairman of
Gosplan, and was expecting a promotion. Karimov called his
brother Arslan (Muslima's husband) and demanded that they
disown Hurshid, arguing that their careers were in danger.
Arslan, the Chair of the Jizzak City Court, refused. (Now
Hurshid is a rich man, Muslima said with some resentment;
he lives in a fancy house in Tashkent and is protected by
Ismoil Jurabekov.) From that point on, there was almost no
contact, Muslima stated. Karimov was soon named First
Secretary of Kashkadarya and spent almost all of his time
shuttling between Tashkent and Karshi. It was then,
Muslima and Jamshid said, that Karimov began to claim that
he had been orphaned.


6. (C) The final break came in 1989, the year Karimov was
named First Secretary of the Uzbek SSR. Arslan died that
year in what Muslima described as a "suspicious" collision
with a bus. A street in Jizzak was named after him, but
Karimov ordered it changed back to the original name.
Karimov's eldest brother died that year, as well.
According to Muslima, Karimov made a brief appearance at
the funeral, where he offered 350 Rubles to the family (not
a small sum in those days). Since then, there has been no
direct contact. Muslima occasionally calls the
Presidential Apparat if she needs something specific, such
as medical treatment. The one time she tried to get
through to the President's residence, she said, his
daughter Gulnora picked up the phone and hung up
immediately.


7. (C) The Presidential Apparat offers some material
support, provided through the Jizzak Hokimiyat, but it is
far from lavish. "All he has to do is sign a paper, and
we'd be set up," Jamshid's wife complained. Instead, the
family was compelled to sell their large house in Tashkent
and move to an apartment in Jizzak, where they live in
modest comfort. The family's gas, electricity, and phone
bills are paid for, and the Hokimiyat provides occasional
gifts during holidays. In exchange, Jamshid implied, the
family is expected to keep a low profile. The only thing
that Karimov has done for his family, Jamshid's wife
interjected, is to maintain a mausoleum in the Shakhri
Zinda complex in Samarkand.

AN UNINSPIRING CAREER, MILD INTEREST IN HUMAN RIGHTS WORK
-------------- --------------


8. (C) Soon after the break, Jamshid began working as a
journalist for "Jizzak Pravda," a Communist Party newspaper
that later became the official paper of the regional
Hokimiyat. Bored with what he described as an
unchallenging sinecure, Jamshid was introduced to IWPR
Director Galima Burkharbaeva by the Chairman of the Human
Rights Society of Uzbekistan, Jizzak native Tolib Yakubov.
(Jamshid said that he had struck up a friendship with
Yakubov in 1998 and over the next few years had come to
know several members of Jizzak's local human rights
community.) Jamshid said that he was attracted by the
prestige of working for an international media NGO and, in
any case, the money was good (100 dollars per article).
So, in October of this year, he signed a contract and began
working as a stringer.


9. (C) This, however, was just the kind of attention that
the Jizzak Hokimiyat did not want. Almost immediately
after filing his first articles, Jamshid was called in by
the Regional Chief of the National Security Service, a man
named Morozov, who promised to arrange a better government
job if Jamshid would only promise to stop working for IWPR.
According to Jamshid, Morozov was particularly worried that
Jamshid would be seen covering Jizzak's frequent small
human rights demonstrations. Jamshid's older sister,
Gulbahor Karimova, a local political operative running for
parliament on the National Democratic Party ticket, also
asked Jamshid not to work for IWPR. Later, Jamshid was
offered the newly created job of "personal publicist" for
Regional Hokim Ubaidulla Yamankulov. Jamshid said that he
was inclined to take the position, but the offer was
withdrawn at the last minute, at the insistence of the
Presidential Apparat.


10. (C) Jamshid said that he had not, in fact, done much
work for IWPR, and that he had not covered demonstrations.
Nevertheless, on December 20, the evening before a
demonstration was scheduled to take place in front of the
Jizzak Hokimiyat, Jamshid was accosted by two persons on
the street, dragged to the pavement, and kicked repeatedly
in the head. "These are methods used by the security
service," Jamshid stated. Speaking with poloff later that
day, Jamshid's IWPR colleague Ulugbek Haidarov (protect),
stated that Jamshid's attackers had been drunk and that the
incident was almost certainly a random act of violence. No
one would dare do this to the President's nephew without
approval from the very top, Haidarov reasoned. Haidarov
stated, the Chief of Staff of the Jizzak Regional Ministry
of Health treated Jamshid personally.

COMMENT
--------------


11. (C) Kept from public view for the better part of two
decades, Jamshid Karimov is not an influential man. His
and his mother's ruminations offer insights into a
personality that remains to this day largely a cipher.
Karimov and those around him have gone to great lengths to
promote, and jealously safeguard, what now appears to be an
apocryphal myth of orphaned childhood. Jamshid and
Muslima's accounts were detailed and hung together
coherently; it seems extremely unlikely that they would
concoct such an elaborate tale, much less stage a beating,
just to plant a story.


PURNELL