Before Entering the Other World
Safar Bekzhan
Translated from Russian by
prof. Michael Reynolds
Safar
Bekzhan was born in 1961 in Kazakhstan in an exiled family. The
family returned to its homeland, to Horezm in 1968. After finishing
high school Safar Bekzhan served in the Soviet Army. In 1982 he
arrived in Tashkent where he found work at the publishing house
³Uzbekistan.² In 1983 he entered the literature department of the
Tashkent Pedagogical Institute. He began writing poetry in 1976. He
has been published in Uzbek republican publications.
Safar Bkezhan has been
politically active since 1988. In 1993 he was arrested while serving
as a member of the Central Council of the ³Erk² party. He was freed
in 1996. In this book Safar Bekzhan describes his life in
imprisonment, and also the political activities taking place in
Uzbekistan during the last ten years.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I dedicate this book to my
friends-defenders of right and to my spouse Kurbana who plead for me
during my imprisonment.
INTRODUCTION
In the Name of God the
Merciful the Compassionate
I write this in the name
of God, the Merciful and the Compassionate, with hope for His
blessing. Creator, direct me to the true path, and do not allow me,
your servant, to deceive, amen.
The events described in
the book, resemble adventures, but this is not an adventure novel --
I had to live through all of it. The book was composed in sections in
various places, but most of it was written in prison in Uzbekistan
from 1993 to 1996, and then when I was freed, I added to it and
edited it.
Everything in here is
true, even the names of those people mentioned herein are unchanged .
And it is possible that this will not make them happy. But the
reasons that caused me to write the book are much more serious than
the desire to distress or please someone.
Today the people of
Uzbekistan suffer from a totalitarian regime. There are individuals
who are trying to deliver them from these sufferings, and the book
was written so that they will not be forgotten, and when the time
comes their efforts will be properly appreciated. On the other hand
there are also those who consciously aid this regime. I think that
they too necessarily will answer for their activities. They should
remember that it is possible to foregive treason , but it is
impossible to forget it.
It may seem that these two
reasons for writing the book are insufficient. Perhaps books are
written for more important motives. But for me the most important
thing is to say who ‘s who in Uzbekistan in the struggle with the
oppressors.
The Author.
Part I
Underground
Chapter I
27 September 1993. The
prison of the Interior Ministry. It was built in 1976. Then Minister
of the Interior Haidar Iakhiaiev personally oversaw its construction.
In an irony of fate, in 1984he himself ended up in this prison
located twelve meters underground and spent several years in it.
There are twenty cells in it, including two single cells and two
doubles with remaining cells intended for four and ten prisoners.
I spent two months alone
in the second cell, a double, and out of boredom busied myself with
composing complaints. I knew that it was useless but persisted
nonetheless. It was still better than doing nothing. But my activity,
it seems, annoyed the prison administration and one day the window in
the iron door opened and in it appeared the smirking face of a guard:
-- So, trouble-maker,
you¹re still alive? Today we¹ll transfer you to another cell and
deprive you of your ³walks,² so be prepared.
Is it necessary to explain
what those ten minutes of fresh air meant for a person who has been
sitting underground for two months, especially all alone?
After a half an hour the
door again opened and two guards and one man dressed in civilian
clothing entered the cell. The latter said:
-- Safar Bekzhan, I know
your habits. Your politics or other affairs don¹t interest us. We
are doers, and now you will not be able to call an ambulance with the
excuse that you have a stomach ³ache² or something else. Now you
will not raise a fuss for all the world through the doctors and send
out all sorts of appeals. You are not any sort of medical patient,
understand?
According to the unwritten
rules of the prison, the prisoner is supposed to listen silently when
the authorities speak. Questions and talking can turn out badly.
However, knowing that I would object all the same, the authorities
tried to withdraw immediately. And this ³guest² also attempted to
leave, but I was quicker:
-- Citizen Chief, if you
are not afraid of anything, why don¹t you at least give your name?
-- You constantly write to
me with your complaints and still you ask who am I? Maybe you are
mocking us? I am the Chief of this prison, and for you I will be
Shurat-aka ! -- he said in a raised voice.
The effort to demonstrate
himself as a fearsome chief in front of his subordinates flashed in
his eyes. Turning around he ordered one of them:
-- Transfer him to cell
eleven!
-- It will be done,
Comrade Colonel! -- answered the guard.
I was happy that I was
saved from loneliness until they led me to cell eleven. I didn¹t
have time to look back as the door was shut loudly. After the bright
light in the hallway it was difficult to make out anything in the
half-lit new cell. When at last my eyes adjusted, I discovered to my
great disappointment that all six beds in this cell were empty, as if
there were no other prisoners in this world. Nonetheless I gained a
little satisfaction from the move. For all that the two month
protests yielded fruits of some kind: the previous cell was one and a
half meters wide and two and half meters long. This cell was twice as
large. It meant that here ³shuffles,² i.e. walking until
exhaustion, was possible. Otherwise, in a place where from all six
sides concrete and dampness surround you, you will inevitably get
sick.
Less than a half hour
passed when the door opened again and the chief of the
superintendents on duty, a police captain, whose face let it be known
that he spoke Uzbek well.
I knew him: among the
superintendents he was the best. I had called for an ambulance
precisely on his watch because he allowed me, at least for a minute,
to remain with the doctor eye to eye. Making use of this, I asked the
doctor to call a certain phone number and report my condition. As it
later became known, this worked. My family and comrades, who for more
than a month after my arrest didn¹t know in which prison I was and
what was happening with me, were at last able to find out. In a word,
may God reward this policeman for doing a good deed for me, willingly
or unwillingly.
-- Well, politician, come
out, you will meet with the prison government, -- he said.
-- What, the prison even
has its own government?
-- We ask the questions
here, make your bed quickly, -- answered the captain.
Moving through the
hallway, which did not resemble a prison hallway (if you do not
consider the iron doors) we came to a cell on which was written ³No.
18.² Along the entire corridor a carpet was laid down. This was done
so that the steps of the superintendants would not be heard and so
that they could approach the cells unnoticed and observe what the
prisoners were doing through the window. For this purpose there
various devices placed in the hallway.
Door eighteen opened and,
barely before I could enter, it shut with a bang. The dull light of a
small lamp above the door allowed me to see two people sitting in the
corner. I greeted them. ³Greetings, guy,² said the one who sat on
the shkonka, the iron bed. The second one, who was kneeling before
him and was prostrated in some way, did not utter a single word.
I froze in the middle of
the cell with a mattress rolled up under my arm, and watched a scene
which until then I had seen only in the movies. The man who was
kneeling looked as if he had placed his head on an executioner¹s
block, the role of which a metal stool played. The executioner lacked
only an axe and mask.
- Why did you plant
yourself, guy, the show still hasn¹t begun. You can seat yourself on
any free bed that you like. What frightened you, ³cop witness?² --
the one sitting on the bed spoke again.
-- Friend, I am not any
kind of ³cop witness,² they put me in for political reasons, -- I
said indignantly.
-- Guy, you¹re not on the
street here, you have no ³friends² here. Only ³guys² or ³chaps²
eat here. You didn¹t recognize me? I am Yadgar Agzamkhuzhaev. Both
here and on the street they call me ³Yadgar the chap.² And they
also call me ³thief in the law,² maybe you¹ve heard? Now we¹ll
listen to you.
My name is Safar... . Just
as I began the man who was kneeling suddenly stood up and dashed to
the door, and began to bang furiously on the door and shout,² Guard,
guard, open the door!²
But none of the guards,
who usually came running at the smallest noise, paid attention to his
cries. When Yadgar got up from his place and approached the man
shouting, he hid behind my back, shouting as loud as he could.
-- Don¹t shout, the door
will not open. Your death is necessary in order for them give that
man death penalty -- Yadgar pointed to me, -- on account of such a
midge like you they should should shoot a thief in the law and a
politician. Don¹t shout, bastard, even Karimov himself doesn¹t make
me play those games. We¹ll settle accounts with you in the Tashkent
prison! -- Yadgar shouted.
I stood, shaken by what I
had seen, but I did not understand anything. Yadgar walked up to the
door and started to shout: ³Almatov, take him and play better, if
you are playing! I know you are in your office waiting and how it
will end! You can freely declare ³Yadgar had mercy on his canary!²
Right then a siren sounded in the hallway, the pounding of people
running was heard and the door of our cell flew open. Two guards
burst in and led out the man who was hiding behind my back. When they
left, Yadgar said:
-- Tell Zakir, not to
spoil my mood, otherwise I¹ll raise the zones! And not to hold back
the food and cigarettes that they bring me!
The guard, looking at me,
gnashed his teeth and quietly closed the door.
-- Big guy, sitting in
prison is also politics. Well, I have sitting here since age
fourteen. I was released when I was twenty-six and had just become a
thief in the law when they put me in prison again. The most famous
people of Uzbekistan were at the celebrations of my receiving this
title. They gave me seventeen automobiles. Guests arrived from
Moscow, Georgia, and even Italy. The famous Odessa thieves worked as
servants for us for three days. I¹ll explain what happened here, let
it be a lesson to you. Behind the iron door our authority begins.
That authority was always against any policy. We are in opposition
also to those who call themselves ³democrats,² such as yourself.
At that time the door
opened and a paper bag was held out. Yadgar put the bag on the iron
stool and continued his speech as if nothing had happened:
-- They brought the man
you saw here ten to fifteen minutes before you. He¹s the closest man
to Almaz who now has pretensions to the title ³thief in the law.²
Almaz is my enemy. He ruined all of Tashkent. That man testified
against me in court. According to thieves¹ laws I am supposed to
kill him now. The reason for bringing you here was precisely so that
you would become a witness to this murder. But according to prison
laws testifying against a thief means to condemn yourself to death.
In a word, they wanted to destroy you and me with one blow. Therefore
I didn¹t murder him, but I¹ll get him in the Tashkent prison, or my
people will absolutely do this in any zone. Of course, now they will
harm me, saying that I didn¹t kill my ³canary,² but that is
temporary. I don¹t want to lie -- understand that acted thus not at
all out of pity for you. It would be much worse for me if were tried
for one charge with a politician.
During twelve years of
imprisonment I have seen not a few like you. Have you heard of
Vlasov, Kantariya, Yesinbaev, who first flew the flag of the USSR
over the Reichstag? I sat together with Yesinbaev¹s son, Albert.
They sentenced him for devising a plan for breaking up the USSR.
Sitting in my cell, he wrote it again. I helped convey it to the
outside. They accused him of killing several people in Alma-Ata. He
graduated from the law department of Moscow State University. To
convict someone like that is just not easy. His trial was interrupted
three times -- because he declared that Lenin was an executioner and
murderer. He rehearsed his speeches at the trial in front of us.
Finally, his father, a Hero of the Soviet Union, and his mother, a
People¹s Teacher of the USSR, disowned Albert in writing. In 1984 he
was condemned to death and then shot.
I sensed that Yadgar
wanted to make the impression he also understood politics.
-- The present situation
differs from the one that was then, -- I said.
-- We¹ll talk about the
present situation later, -- he answered as he opened the paper bag.
There were five to six
blocks of Marlboros, butter, chocolate, scones, and salted dried
fish. Spreading out everything on the table, Yadgar began to tear
open one of the fish, trying to find something. Finally he found what
he wanted, to judge by his satisfied look. In his hand there was a
small onion. Cutting it with a knife, he pulled out of it a tiny
plastic bag and opened it. Inside it there was a white powder,
similar to flour, which Yadgar immediately began to sniff. Gradually
his severe, worried face became more lively, a smile flitted on it,
his eyes shined. Only now I noticed that he was still young, tall,
broad shouldered and clearly had been an athlete at one time.
Yadgar snorted the cocain.
-- Welcome to the table.
Forget all those Tashkent customs and take what you want. Take
advantage of the Zakir Almatov¹s generosity. Unfortunately, I fell
in with a circle of those who specially introduce drugs into the
criminal world. The Moscow wisemen invented this insidious trick. We
also have enough of our own, so be careful, they might hook even you
to drugs.
-- I¹ll already went
through this. They kept me in this kind of cell for a month. In the
first basement of the Tashkent prison there is a certain cell, 003-8.
In it there were informants who tried to get me hooked to drugs, but
they didn¹t succeed. Finally they beat me up, and after the incident
they had to transfer me here.
-- I read about you in the
papers and in general I know enough about you. Ulugbek from Chinaza
is in cell six and he told me about you. It turns out that democrats
are very naive people. The Communists, unlike you, know the customs
of prisons. They don¹t even trust their own mothers here.
-- They are atheists, -- I
said.
-- The issue isn¹t
whether you believe in God or not. The issue is whether you can
believe in man. For example, I do not bow to God. He who fears anyone
or anything cannot become a thief. The Communists also don¹t fear
anything. They are their own God and law. They sat in prison with
their mouth closed. Recently ³democrats² have begun to appear here.
They are so simple that they reveal everything to the first person
they meet.
-- We don¹t have any
secrets which we have to hide from someone so that they didn¹t talk
aboout us, -- I said.
-- Listen, take for
example among those sitting here in prison with us that same Ulugbek:
there are four men in the cell. Among them, at a minimum, is one
informant. He specially provokes you into an open discussion and
reports your every word or he even has a special microphone.
Even now they are
listening, but what we are saying is uninteresting. Ulugbek cursed
Samandar Kokanov and sobbed that he suffered because of Muhammad
Salikh. According to prison customs, you must not say that you are in
because of someone. If they put you in, it means you yourself are
guilty. Don¹t drag anyone after you! That Ulugbek became noisome
with his chattering, whether they asked him or not. They had to beat
him and, it seems, he understood and no longer chatters.
-- It would be good to
take a look at yourself. Uzbekistan has become the estate of
racketeers and car thieves. Its become normal to kill a man for some
petty thing, to steal, to gunfight. It was natural that the State
would declare war on you.
-- In fact those around
Gorbachev artificially stimulated the growth of crime in order to
discredit him in the eyes of society and bring him down. They wanted
to bring a ³stern hand² to power, justifying this with the need to
restore order and fight crime, Yadgar said.
-- You want to say that
the thieves are actually humanists?, -- I asked.
-- The thieves were always
independent of the state apparatus. A society without thieves doesn¹t
exist. Let the state struggle with us, however it should obey the
very laws it established and not slander us. The Tashkent criminal
groups sprang from the Interior Ministry, pay a ³share² to it and
are controlled by it. As a result they were able to launder their
³illegitimate² capital and put it into legal business and they
practically became legitimate.
-- Yadgar, why do you
talk, since if they are listening to us the consequences will be bad?
-- I asked.
-- I am saying this for
them too. They can¹t hold us together in one cell. If I behave like
this, they will be forced to remove one of us, answered Yadgar.
-- I think that something
else is being prepared ³up top.² I want to begin a hunger strike.
-- Alright, first lets eat
what we were able to receive despite the wishes of Zakir, and
tomorrow we will declare the beginning of the hunger strike, Yadgar
pointed at the table.
In the morning we handed
over the remains of the food to the guard and gave the prison
adminstration our statements on the beginning of the hunger strike --
mine with political demands, Yadgar¹s in connection with his
criminal case. Thus began the first day of our hunger strike.
I first learned about the
ways and rules of leading a political hunger strike from the Crimean
Tatars. I read the notes of their leader Mustafa Jemilev about prison
customs and about their hunger strikes. I got hold of them during the
hunger strike of the students of the Crimean Tatar Department of the
Nizami Tashkent Pedagogical Institute. At that time I was studying in
night school in the Department of Uzbek Philology of that institute,
and during the day I was working in the publlishing house
³Uzbekistan.² With the certification of this publishing house you
could enter even the Central Committee of the Communist Party of
Uzbekistan. The students of the Crimean Tatar Department undertook
their hunger strike in connection with the clsoing of their
department. They locked themselves in one of the rooms of the
department, located on the fourth floor of the Pedagogical Institute
on Glinka street, and six of them were ready to jump from the window.
I came to class in the
institute and saw that the police, who surrounded our department as
well, were not letting anyone by and were annoucning that there would
be no classes. Using my red certification card I passed through the
police cordon to the doors of the department. There I found a bunch
of papers which the hunger strikers distributed and palced it into my
bag and entered the building. But in the hallway one of the teachers
grabbed me by the arm and said, ³Leave immediately, otherwise you
will be blacklisted.² Together we left the building and, upon
arriving home, I read the the papers and admired the courage of the
Crimean Tatars.
Then I saw how the
authorities feared political hunger strikes. In general, I began to
form my ideas about prisons from the stories of my grandfather.
Chapter 2
My grandfather returned
from imprisonment in 1969 and immediately occupied himself with
bringing me up. Despite the fact that I had already reached the age
of eight, I still had not begun school. Everything changed with the
arrival of my grandfather. I began to go to school, formerly unknown
relatives appeared, the kolkhoz gave a house standing in a
picturesque garden to my family. The meaning of what was taking place
became clear to me later. It turns out that in that year we had been
rehabilitated, although unofficially. To be more exact, the charges
of political unreliability, put forth back in the 1920s because my
great grandfather had been the prime minister of the Emirate of
Bukhara and therefore had been repressed together with his closest
relatives.
I began studying
immediately in two schools: in a regular state school and with my
grandfather. What my grandfather taught completely contradicted what
I was taught in school. The result became known in the seventh grade.
On September 1, the first call was sounded, and the next day school
was canceled and everyone was sent to harvest cotton. However they
brought our class to a field treated with the chemical ³merkaptofos.²
My grandfather had told me that this chemical was exceptionally
harmful to human health, and therefore when the teachers left to
drink tea, I gathered my classmates and explained to them the
possible consequences of working in this field. As a result the whole
class quit working and went to their homes.
When I arrived home
unexpected ³guests² were already sitting there -- the school
principal, a policeman, several people unknown to me, and my father.
-- My life was spent in
front of prison gates worrying about your grandfdather, and now you
too want to add to this? -- he said and without warning hit me in the
face.
-- That¹s still too
little for you. If they boxed your ears more often, you would keep
your tongue in check, -- said the policeman.
The school principal was a
relative. ³We¹ll talk about the rest ourselves,² he said and led
the ³guests² out.
That was the first and
last boxing of my ears. After that incident they never let me near a
cotton field.
In 1978 they destroyed a
nearby building built by German prisoners of war. In the basement
they found a metal chest in which were books written in the Arab and
Latin alphabets. I was a ³book junkie² and therefore took as many
books as I could and showed them to my grandfather. Taking a look at
the books, he said that the people who wrote them had been repressed.
I later wrote an article
³Questions of Critical Realism in Uzbek Literature² based on these
books. The article was dedicated to art of Chulpan, Fitrat, Khamza,
Usman Nasyra and Abdulla Kadyri. I sent it to the journals Shark
iulduzi (Star of the East) and Gulistan . I gave one copy to my
mentor in literature, Nigmat Salaev. While reading the article, the
expression on his face changed and he asked, ³Who else has read
this?² I said that I had sent two copies to the Tashkent journals.
He grabbed the phonebook and beagn to call somewhere.
-- Teacher, can you take
one lad? He is from Urgandzhi. Okay, master.
Putting down the phonebook
Nigmat-aka turned to me:
-- Do you know Urgench
well?
-- Not very.
-- To right or the bazaar
is a technical school. Near the school is Pioneer street, ask for the
house of Bolta Davlatov. Everyone knows him.
In this way I met Bolta
Davlatov and later learned much from him. Overall, the above
mentioned article helped me come to know the characters of many
people. For example, from the journal Shark iulduzi I recieved an
answer signed by Shkura Kurban which said, ³Your article will not be
published in the journal, guess why if you can, but continue your
research.² From the journal Gulistan came a panicked letter written
by Akhmad Agzam. He advised me to no longer write on such things.
At that time thegurzhums
-- large trees which grow only in our regions and provide the coolest
shade -- began to whither everywhere in Horezm. The saying that ³if
every tree withers, the oasis will be covered with sand² circulated
among the populace. My grandfather said that ³Moscow did this in
order to resettle the population of Horezm in Tiumen.
Towards the end of the
1970s the ecological tragedy in the Aral region roused the creative
intelligentsia which had been silent for many years. Not only
exclusively professional problems but social ones as well became the
topics of discussion in literary circles. Moreover the conversation
usually was about the works of the poets of Abdulla Aripov, Rauf
Parfi, and Erkin Vakhidov. I myself preferred to focus attention on
the poems of Muhammad Salikh, a then little known poet. Most of them
did not understand, but there were also those who were interested. At
one of the meetings in particular, I met the poets Matnazar Khakimov
and Shakir Bek. They both graduated from Taganrog University and
recently arrived in Horezm. Having spent several years in the
Ukraine, they were thoroughly penetrated by a spirit of national
liberation and anti-imperialism that was also passed on to me.
Grandfather tried to
school me in eastern literature, but I had difficulty. It was much
easier to read and understand western literature. Gradually I began
to publish in the local, regional, and then republican press.
I was not able to enter
the journalism school of Tashkent University in 1979. The next year I
was conscripted into the army and I served in the internal forces for
two years. Military service also became a great schoolso far as as it
helped make clear the true face of the Soviet system. One soldier saw
me hand to an accused man a letter from a relative and reported it to
his commanders. After that they transferred me from Moscow to Tula.
There we guarded the prisoners in one of the ³rehabilitation
centers,² as it was accepted to call places of imprisonment in the
Soviet Union. Of course, then I could not imagine that I too would
become a prisoner after some time. The fact that I learned at least a
little something about prisons helped me after my arrest. But it was
impossible for me in prison to say that I served in the interior
forces. In a word, thirteen years later, that is September 28, 1993,
I was sitting in the prison of the Interior Ministry of Uzbekistan,
and it was the first day of our hunger strike.
-- How long have you been
sitting? -- asked Yadgar as he continued to sniff his ³medicine.²
-- Today is the start of
he third month.
-- The third month? --
laughed Yadgar. -- Probably you were sitting earlier as well?
-- No, I wasn¹t sitting,
but they opened a criminal case and held me for a week in a
detainment cell.
-- Big guy, I spent three
years in solitary, and not just anywhere, but in the ³White Swan²
-- said Yadgar.
-- Is that the prison in
the Baltic Sea? -- I asked.
-- How do you know that?
-- I read about it in
books.
-- What you read about in
books I had to suffer with my own skin. They sent me there when I
declared that I wanted to become a ³thief in the law.² The most
terrible prison in the world is there. State criminals and dissidents
were held there in single cells. Even Gorbachev¹s glasnost didn¹t
reach there. There were poeple there who long ago should have been
freed, but they declared them deadŠ
Glancing sideways at the
door, Yadgar muttered, ³They changed the supervisor,² and
continued:
-- My father is a Phd, a
professor. He, of course, didn¹t like it that I went on another path
and he wrote in the papers that he disowned me. He never devoted
himself to his family. His whole life he served only the state. It
turned out, of course, that the authorities needed only his knowledge
and intelligence, and when he became ill with tuberculosis, he became
unnecessary and they forgot him. Now he is in critical condition, and
my people are treating him, on my money. The authorities don¹t fear
old scholars, they fear force. So, you are sitting two months -- have
they even once brought you any news?
-- No, I don¹t even have
permission to meet with an attorney.
-- There, exactly, they
don¹t fear you. They fear me because I have money, people. This past
July in the building of the Supreme Court of Uzbekistan there was a
shootout. I set up this ³settling of accounts.² Almaz, who they
also sentenced -- is a KGB man. He put the blame on me for the things
that his group did, and ordered them shot. That nit got away, but his
main, important people died. Then, they didn¹t sentence him, but
they say that he is afraid to appear on the street and prefers to sit
in the basement of the KGB. If he were a real ³chap,² he wouldn¹t
sentence himself. The guy who was supposed to die yesterday also was
his man. Moreover, his brother is up top. He has an important
position, -- Yadgar pointed upwards to where the Interior Ministry
building was located.
-- You mean yesterday they
wanted to sacrifice their own man? -- I asked.
-- Yesterday¹s game
wasn¹t Zakir¹s business. Aliev, the chairman of the National
Security Committee, organized it.
-- If they are listening
in on this room, why don¹t they then remove you or me from here? --
I inquired.
-- Its possible that our
declaring a hunger strike upset their plans. If the strike spreads
through the whole prison someone will lose a stripe. In January we
did this in the Tashkent prison. Afterwards they began to kill fewer
suspects.
In fact, torture, right up
to murder, was often used during investigations. But the authorities
succeeded, and still succeed, in hiding this from international
society, and even in misleading it. For example, after visiting
already prepared ³example-demonstration points,² a delegation from
the French police academy which Karimov specially invited declared
that prisoners in Uzbekistan are treated perfectly wellŠ .To recall,
a delegation headed by Roman Rollan played an analogous role in the
1930s. At the same time as millions of Turkestanis were dying from
starvation, the French intellectuals announced that ³Uzbekistan is
prospering.²
The first day of the
hunger strike passed. I do not pay attention to the desire to eat. I
can quietly give myself to reminiscingŠ
I arrived in Tashkent in
the fall of 1982. I had to get ready for beginning my studies and
finding work. I had met the poet Aman Matchan back in Horezm and he
had promised to help when I arrived in Tashkent. He worked in the
Gafur Guliam literary publishing house. I visited him. He introduced
me to Muhammad Salikh and the circle of his friends which included
the poets Rauf Parfi, Akhmad Agzam, Ibragim Khakkul, the artist
Isfandier Khaidar, the scholar Bek Tashmukhammedov and other
intellectuals.
At this time hard times
hit the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. They died one after
another: in Moscow Suslov, Brezhnev, Chernenko; in Tashkent Rashidov.
Then the usual ³strong arm² headed the Soviet state -- Andropov. A
campaign was begun in the Soviet press accusing the Uzbeks of taking
bribes. Usmankhodzhaev, taking the place of Sharaf Rashidov, appealed
to ³the Great Russian brothers² with a request for help in purging
the republic¹s cadres at the sixteenth plenum of the Central
Committee of the Communist Party of Uzbekistan. Shortly thereafter a
team of ³purgers² arrived from the office of the Procurator of the
USSR, first headed by Karakozov and then by Telman Gdianom. Something
terrible began. But in fact this was not a punitive measure against
thieving Communists, but against the people.
The people gathered around
Muhammad Salikh began to discuss more often not issues of literature
and art but socio-political problems. This phenomenon was not planned
-- the rising national consciousness caused it. Leaflets appeared
with the following content: ³Stop accusing the Uzbeks of taking
bribes. The nation is not guilty if several Communists took bribes.²
The young poet Dilarom Iskhakova posted these leaflets around even
the building of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of
Uzbekistan.
Apparently after this
incident the KGB got involved. Its agents, under the guise of
literary criticism, fell upon the work of Muhammad Salikh, and tried
to destroy him, above all, as a creative figure. One after another,
articles subjecting each of his works to withering attack began to
appear in the Uzbek press. The result this produced, however, was the
opposite of what was expected. In Moscow, the Baltic republics, in
the Ukraine and abroad they began to translate and publish his
poetry. In this situtation the KGB preferred not to create a
dissident among the Uzbeks, and began to work on his colleagues,
scaring them individually and trying to destroy the group. But the
group survived all the same, although its numbers declined severely.
Chapter 3
The second day of the
hunger strike began. No results have been felt, just my head hurts a
little. This morning some kind of noise was heard in the hallway.
They let the prisoners out to exercise. Yadgar walked up to the door
and, assuming the pose of a soccer player getting ready to kick the
ball, beckoned to me with his hand. Surprised, I went, and he pointed
his finger at the hole in the iron door. While I was trying to figure
out what was going on, the eye of a supervisor appeared in the hole
and immediately a loud noise rang out: Yadgar had kicked the door. He
burst into laughter, and from the hallway was heard the supervisor¹s
cursing.
Laughing like a child,
Yadgar said while looking at the door:
-- Chief, will you let us
out to exercise? Let us see the light of day too!
-- We¹ll let you out, but
end your hunger strike. You won¹t achieve anything anyway, it¹ll be
worse for your ownselves -- they answered from the hallway and added:
-- The supervisor will now
write up a report to the procurator about how you wanted to poke out
his eye!
-- Tell the supervisor
that before he gets home they¹ll cut off his ear and put it in his
hand! -- Yadgar said loudly.
The guard was silent and,
apparently understanding that they did not succeed in frightening
Yadgar, left.
-- Big guy, can you speak
on the telephone? -- asked Yadgar.
-- On which telephone -
the one on the outside? -- I now asked.
-- No. Forget about the
outside, I mean that one, -- he answered, pointing to the sleeve of
my jacket.
-- Take it off and place
your ear to the inside of the sleeve, -- he said.
I did what he asked.
-- How does it sound? They
call that ³the telephone,² -- Yadgar whispered, putting his mouth
to the open end of the sleeve.
Then, putting the sleeve
to his ear, he now asked me to talk. I laughed:
-- The Uzbeks have a
saying, ³A thing done in a sleeve.² It seemingly reflected our
situation most precisely.
-- There are a couple of
things I should tell you only in this way. If I don¹t do this and
die from drugs or seven grams of lead, these things will go with me,
-- he laughed.
Thus the second day of the
hunger strike passed.
It seems that I am
beginning to get used to this terrible basement.
I first heard about the
SIZO (investigative isolator) of the Ministry of Interior Affairs of
Uzbekistan from the secretary of the democratic party Erk, Atanazar
Arifov. This man sat in there for six months when he was sentenced
for the first time in the famous ³Milli mezhlis ² criminal case.
Atanazar Arifov was born
in 1937 in the Tashauzsk oblast. He is a doctor of physics and
mathematics and professor. His father, Ishan Arif, was an imam well
known throughout the Aral region. He died in 1996 at an age of 90,
may God have mercy on him. In the 1930s Ishan Arif was arrested,
suffered persecution, and his father, Atanazar¹s grandfather, was
shot without a trial or investigation. Atanazar-aka, an exceptionally
modest and principled man, never told anyone about this. A
philosopher, who arrived at God through science, he really does match
his name ³Arif,² which means he who knows truth. He diligently
obeys the practice of the five daily prayers.
He was the Erk party
secretary from its founding, but never told anyone that he holds an
academic degree and title and is the author of ten books on nuclear
physics. American political scientists call him the ³Uzbek
Jefferson² because he drew up a draft Declaration of Independence.
At the same time that ambitious scholars and others, calling
themselves big politicians, chased after the heels of foreign social
and political actors, Atanazar-aka¹s home became a guesthouse,
because the visiting foreigners themselves sought him out. There is
already enough written about this man, and, I think, still more will
be written.
I want to discuss one,
still ³undisclosed² episode in the fabricated criminal case of the
³Milli mazhlis ³ which became the reason for the arrest of Atanazar
Arif and others.
The presidential elections
which took place in December 1991presented Karimov with an unexpected
result. Despite the fact that at every speech he stressed that ³the
people gave me eighty-six percent of their votes,² Karimov could not
deceive himself. The Erk party and its chairman Muhammad Salikh
picked up many more votes than was officially reported. This greatly
distressed Karimov. After three to four months, when he already had a
stronger grip on the throne, he decided to make short work of such a
dangerous opposition. The appearance of the action committee for
creating the ³Milli mazhlis ³ proved to be quite opportune for
realizing this idea.
Karimov charged a state
secretary, Mavlon Umurzakov, with carrying out the plan for crusing
the opposition. The national security service, as the KGB of
Uzbekistan is now called, was supposed to justify the punishing of
the opposition before international society. They accused the action
committee of ³attempting to overthrow the state² and sentence it.
However they were not able to realize the plan in full, since the
provocateurs could not get their teeth into the Erk party, the main
strength of the opposition.
I am not taking this
information from out of the air: Karimov¹s former friends, who also
ended up behind bars for not sharing bribes with him, told me thisŠ
The third day of the
hunger strike.
The scraping and squeeking
of the door woke me up. Yadgar is standing in front of it with his
hands on his hips.
-- Chief, today is the
third day. If you don¹t answer my declaration, I¹ll have a
³run-through² for the whole ³basement,² and tomorrow everyone
will be hunger striking.
The guard did not answer
and closed the door.
It seemed that the cell
was colder and rawer than usual, and there was an unpleasant smell
from my mouth. It meant the fasting was making itself felt.
Yadgar continuously walks
about the cell. I watch him, thinking about his sad fate, about how
this still young man has spent his whole life in prison. I cannot
understand why he considers his fate differently.
-- First time you have
fasted? -- Yadgar asks, continuing to move.
-- Its the second. In
August I fasted three days when I was in a two-person cell. Then they
put some guy in with me, but he did not participate in the hunger
strike. I think they sent him specially.
-- Who was he? -- Yadgar
asked.
-- He was about sixty
years old, swarthy, teeth turning black. He called himself Abduraim.
He said that he was caught with two counterfeit ten dollar bills. I
advised him to ³say that you were begging, and some unknown
foreigners gave you the dollars, but that you didn¹t know they were
counterfeit. Then they will let you go.² In the evening they called
him in for interrogating. Afterwards he says that bills were hundred
dollar bills, and adds ³They should let me go because I told them
how to find the ones counterfeiting the money. You look like a rich
man, if you hid something from your wife and children, you can tell
me. Man to man I promise -- I¹ll pass it on to your family, don¹t
worry.²
-- In fact he was planted,
-- agreed Yadgar.
-- I understood this
definitively when heopnely advised, ³You have got to do everything
that the investigators tell you, you too tell them about everything
they ask.²
-- ³Up top,² apparently,
they thought you were a fool -- laughed Yadgar.
-- Whatever happened, I
was forced to end the hunger strike. The provocateur sat with me
three days and every day he passed upwards the fables I made up.
-- Can we too hear them?
-- asked Yadgar with a smile.
-- Among the opposition
President Karimov loathes and fears Muhammed Salikha most. By March
1992 Salikh had gathered around himself the whole opposition.
Moreover, thanks to the financial aid of our supporters, our partya
began to stand on its feet. This provocateur clearly wanted to find
out about our financial base, but he did this very primitivelyŠ
-- Tell a fable! -- Yadgar
interrupted me.
-- A fable is like this:
Muhammad Salikh has a lot of money, he left it to us for party
activities. Its kept in his office, in three-ton, imported safe. The
safe¹s lock has a code, and the code consists of ten numbers which
only Salikh knows. He controls the safe through a sattelite link-up,
and the safe gives out the amount of money he orders, etc.
-- That fable probably
reached even Karimov¹s ears, -- Yadgar said.
-- Whether it reached
Karimov or not, I don¹t know, but they were probably wanted to know
where they make such fantastic safes, -- I said and we both burst out
laughing.
-- After they understood
that I was leading them by the nose, -- I continued, -- they
transferred me to special basement number one of the Tashkent prison,
to cell 003-8 and, as I said earlier, they tried to force me to use
drugs, but they didn¹t succeed: one of the prison employees, a
supporter of Erk, informed my wife about everything and she passed it
on to the world community.
-- According to prison
regulations, a prisoner who has been on a hunger strike for three
days is given a special status, -- said Yadgar, demonstrating his
knowledge, -- this means that they should give him a special medical
examination and that the prosecutor should meet with him. Those, who
are up top, don¹t need political prisoners on hunger strikes. It was
that way in the days of the USSR. They didn¹t even curse at a
prisoner before trial. All the misery began after the trial. A number
of prisoners were seen for the last time during the trial, then they
dissappeared without a trace, as if they vanished into thin air.
-- There is no need to
compare the USSR with Uzbekistan, -- I said. Well, millions
dissappeared in the Siberian forests, but just don¹t have those
kinds of spaces. Karimov must take that into accountŠ
Engrossed in conversation,
we did not notice how time flew by. The captain of the guards,
starting on the evening shift and taking count of and receiving the
prisoners, asked us if we are continue to fast and wrote something
down in his notebook.
About an hour later the
door opened again and despite the guard¹s saying ³Go in one by
one,² four men burst into the room at once. They stood for some
time, adjsuting to the darkness, then they fixed their gaze on me,
then on Yadgar, and throwing the bed that they had brought with them
on the floor, they suddenly jumped to hug him.
-- Brother, how are you?
How lucky we are that we found your cell! -- said one and kissed
Yadgar like a relative.
-- Brothers, the cell
declared a hunger strike, and they imprisoned this man because he
cursed Karimov, -- Yadgar informed them, pointing at me.
- There was man in the
Tashkent prison named Abdumannov. He also cursed Karimov. But he
fooled all of us. He swore: ³Due to a lack of medicines people are
dieing here, if I am freed, I will arrange for aid from international
organizations.² He wrote Karimov a request for a pardon and they let
him go. It turns out that he leaves in America, but he doesn¹t even
send matches here. In a word, he is not a man. You too are probably
the same type, -- said one swarthy man with curly hair and racing
eyes as he looked at me.
-- He¹s telling the
truth, don¹t be offended, -- said Yadgar to me. He then turned to
his ³brothers² and said in a loud voice:
-- You who are dieing from
disease! You who the kill during interrogation! You, whose children
and relatives are poor! We have both money and power! Well, brothers,
tell me -- what is our first principle?!
-- Not to submit to the
authorities! -- the brothers cried out in a chorus.
Standing up, Yadgar
questioned them again: ³Our second principle?!² All four proclaimed
still louder, ³We get together at will, we eat in prison!²
-- Well, brothers, tell
me, what do you say to my hunger strike? -- Yadgar asked them while
looking at me expressively.
-- Where our brother is,
there we too are! -- they sang out fiercely.
-- The supervisors and the
guards, who responded quickly to the smallest sound, paid no
attention to these shouts.
Yadgar liked this small
crowd which lifted him up.
While watching this
picture, I remembered how a crowd which at first enthusiastically
raises its leader up in its hands can then simply trample him under.
It seems that my cell mate, trying to make an impression on me, still
had not experienced that.
A crowd always remains a
crowd, no matter who it is made up of. In 1989 in Fergana and Parkent
and in 1990 in Osh the crowd did not recognize even its own blood
brothers and countrymen. It is impossible to rely on a crowd, no
matter what banner it gathers under, no matter what uniform --
military or police -- it wears. The crowd that raised its clubs
against its own brothers in the Samarkand oblast over water did not
mutter a word against the eight year dictatorship of Karimov. And
today no one wants to gather a crowd in order to be trampled by it
later. There is a wise, old saying:
³Know that everything
that seems good has also bad
Know that everything that
seems bad also has some good.²
Three years of
imprisonment had changed my perception of the world. Not just
criminals sit in prisons. During three years of imprisonment I saw
not a few innocent inmates -- simple people, representatives of the
intelligentsia, religious figures. The latter saw their imprisonment
as an ordeal of fate and a thing pleasing to God, and they even
considered their death here a holy martyrdom. And, in fact, the fate
of the great martyrs befell several of them. May God forgive their
sins and grant them a place in heaven, amen!
Sometimes I ask myself:
³Why didn¹t I die?² At times my health reeached such a state that
the other prisoners who were looking after me cried as they,
seemingly, bid me farewell forever. On the day that I was freed, they
said, ³We didn¹t think that we will see you leave here alive and
standing on your own feet.² May God confirm their words.
Sometimes completely dark
thoughts entered my head.
In order to escape from
pessimism more quickly, I thought, in the manner of the ancient
philosophers, this world itself is a big prison. The earth was for
Adam and Eve its own form of a correctional-labor institution created
by God. For the man who thinks it amkes no difference if the prison
is large or small. Behind bars you begin to understand that time is
the most valuable thing in the world. If the prison is the size of
the Earth, you can lose yourself in it. But a cramped, one-man cell
is another matter. You understand time, life, and morality as much as
your patience allowsŠ
-- Brother, why aren¹t
they taking us out for exercise. Maybe we¹ll raise a ³khai ?²--
asked one of the recently arrived as he turned to Yadgar.
-- No, sit quietly. Today
a Kazakh will be on guard duty. Ask him to take us to the sauna. Let
someone prepare a mulka (a letter, communique, etc.). Whoever has
³air² should also prepare. The Kazakh-captain might request it.
Whoever has ³karakhan² give me some. Mine ran out -- said Yadgar.
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