Publication

This paper examines 1) how Western governments and media responded to the armed confrontation that occurred in 2005 between Uzbek government troops and an Islamic group in the city of Andijan, and 2) the negative repercussions that followed. Basically, the dominant Western narrative of the event, which was that the government used excessive force in order to crush a local struggle for freedom, collided head on with the Uzbek authorities’ characterization of events, which was that the violence was instigated by Islamic militants who were bent on fomenting unrest. In the years that followed, both sides hardened their positions, which then led to a distancing of Uzbekistan from the West that lingers even today.