Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
07TASHKENT1576
2007-09-04 10:41:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Tashkent
Cable title:  

PULATOV FOR PRESIDENT?

Tags:  PGOV PHUM UZ 
pdf how-to read a cable
VZCZCXRO7453
PP RUEHDBU
DE RUEHNT #1576/01 2471041
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
P 041041Z SEP 07
FM AMEMBASSY TASHKENT
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 8414
INFO RUEHAH/AMEMBASSY ASHGABAT 3241
RUEHTA/AMEMBASSY ASTANA 9407
RUEHEK/AMEMBASSY BISHKEK 3854
RUEHDBU/AMEMBASSY DUSHANBE 3718
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 TASHKENT 001576 

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

DEPT FOR SCA/CEN AND DRL

E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/04/2017
TAGS: PGOV PHUM UZ
SUBJECT: PULATOV FOR PRESIDENT?


Classified By: CDA BRAD HANSON FOR REASONS 1.4 (B, D).

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 TASHKENT 001576

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

DEPT FOR SCA/CEN AND DRL

E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/04/2017
TAGS: PGOV PHUM UZ
SUBJECT: PULATOV FOR PRESIDENT?


Classified By: CDA BRAD HANSON FOR REASONS 1.4 (B, D).


1. (C) Summary: A Birlik party member told poloff on August
17 that an initiative group would be formed in September to
announce the candidacy of Birlik Chairman Abdurakhmon Pulatov
for the expected presidential elections in December. The
Birlik party member, who is also head of the Ezgulik human
rights organization, added that Ezgulik was planning on
issuing a shadow report on torture to present along with the
Uzbek Government's official report to the UN Committee
Against Torture (CAT) in Geneva in November. We believe that
Pulatov, who currently resides in the U.S., has little chance
of being registered as a candidate, let alone polling many
votes, but nevertheless, Pulatov would be the most prominent
opposition figure who has yet declared his intention to run
for president. End summary.

PULATOV PLANS TO ANNOUNCE CANDIDACY IN SEPTEMBER
-------------- ---


2. (C) On August 17, Birlik party member Vasila Inoyatova
told poloff that an initiative group would be formed in
September to announce the candidacy of Birlik Chairman
Abdurakhim Pulatov for the expected presidential elections in
December. The initiative group will attempt to collect 300
signatures and submit the necessary documents to the State
Electoral Committee to register Pulatov as an official
candidate. According to Inoyatova, Pulatov, who has been
living in the United States since 1998, is under no illusions
that the current regime will register him as an official
candidate and he has no plans to return to Uzbekistan to
actually campaign. Instead, Inoyatova said that Pulatov's
candidacy will serve as a symbolic protest highlighting
continued human rights abuses and the lack of political
reform in Uzbekistan.

EZGULIK PLANS SHADOW REPORT FOR UN COMMITTEE
--------------


3. (C) Inoyatova, who is also head of the Ezgulik human
rights organization, also said that Ezgulik is planning on
issuing a shadow report on torture to present along with the
Uzbek Government's official report to the UN Committee
Against Torture (CAT) in Geneva in November. Originally,
Ezgulik was planning on issuing the shadow report in
conjunction with the Rapid Reaction Group, a coalition of
human rights organizations in Uzbekistan. However, in July,
Ezgulik was asked to leave the Rapid Reaction Group by the
other groups, which felt that Ezgulik was too political in
nature because of its close ties to the Birlik party.
Ezgulik now plans to issue the shadow report on its own, and
Inoyatova has requested financial assistance from the U.S.
Government to send two of its members to Geneva so that they
could present the report to the committee in person.

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


4. (C) If Pulatov does announce in September his candidacy
for the presidency, he joins a list of at least four other
human rights and opposition activists, including Suhbat
Abdullayev, Akhtam Shaymardanov, Jahongir Shosalimov and
Abdillo Tojiboy ug'li, who have already announced plans to
run in the expected December elections. We agree with
Inoyatova that Pulatov has little chance of being registered
as a candidate, let alone polling many votes. Given his many
years in exile, Pulatov is no longer an influential figure in
Uzbek society, and Birlik's influence and current membership
levels also are negligible. Nevertheless, Pulatov would be
the most prominent opposition figure who has yet declared his
intention to run. His candidacy also may draw added
publicity to Ezgulik's planned shadow report for the UN
Committee Against Torture in November.

BIO NOTE
--------------


5. (SBU) Born in 1945, Pulatov is an ethnic Uzbek from
Tashkent province. In 1968, he graduated from the Moscow
Energy Institute and was a graduate student at the USSR
Academy of Sciences' Computing Center in Moscow from 1968 to

1973. From 1973 to 1991, he worked in the Uzbekistan Academy
of Sciences' Cybernetics Research Institute, and in 1984, he
defended his doctoral dissertation on robotics and artificial
intelligence. In 1980, Pulatov joined the Communist Party of
the Soviet Union, and in 1985, he became the Communist Party
Committee Secretary at the Cybernetics Research Institute.
Pulatov began his independent political activity in the

TASHKENT 00001576 002 OF 002


spring of 1988 as a member of the Committee to Save the Aral
Sea. In the same year, he became a founding member of the
Birlik initiative group and was elected its chairman in 1989.
In 1992, Pulatov was beaten by unknown assailants and fled
to Baku, Azerbaijan. In 1998, Pulatov relocated to the
United States and is currently living in northern Virginia.
He is married and has two children.
HANSON