The as yet unpublished memoirs of a former British ambassador to Tashkent have become a cause celebre thanks to the release of formerly confidential Foreign and Commonwealth Office documents appearing to indicate that the British government knowingly received information from the government of Uzbekistan; information gained under torture.

The documents were initially published on the website of Craig Murray, who resigned from the diplomatic service in 2004 following a turbulent and headline-grabbing two-year spell as Our Man in Tashkent. The documents have subsequently appeared all over the internet, eagerly reproduced by those wishing to cock a snook at the powers-that-be.

Craig Murray’s book, tentatively titled Murder in Samarkand, will presumably lift the lid off the seamy underside of Great Power geopolitics in Central Asia. (Love the title, though; redolent of all those Great Game memoirs: A Mission to Bokhara, Mission to Turkestan, Mission to Tashkent etc.) Maybe it will also chart his wanderings through the highways and by-ways of diplomatic service, including his involvement in the “Arms to Africa” affair (BBC story from 1998 & UK parliamentary report).

Here are some of my thoughts:

1) A Little Bit of History Repeating – Great Game rhetoric was often masked by concerns about human rights. The plight of Russian slaves in Transcaspia and Bukhara in particular was used by Tsarist hawks to justify intervention in Central Asia. But, as noted in Peter Hopkirk’s masterly study on the period, legal punishments such as mutilation continued to be meted out even after the Emirate of Bukhara was forced to become a Russian protectorate in 1868.

2) What to do? – Clearly the regime in Tashkent is at fault but what model of political reform should be pursued? Many critics of Anglo-American links with Uzbekistan also opposed the war in Iraq, so presumably we can can any thoughts of removing Karimov by force, as in the cases of Saddam or Manuel Noriega (Panama).

Meanwhile, if we are looking for alternative political voices, Ahmad Chalabi (Iraq) and Viktor Yushchenko (Ukraine) are good (or should that be bad?) examples of what happens when one pins one’s hopes on charismatic but unpredictable individuals.

Finally, we could hope that the implementation of sanctions (economic, travel, arms etc.) might force Karimov et al to reform. Good, if you are thinking of South Africa and the dismantlement of Apartheid – bad, however, if you remember how sanctions entrenched Saddam and the Iraqi people suffered. Which leads me onto my next point …

3) It’s not really about Uzbekistan – by which I mean the release of the FCO documents has been used by the anti-war movement to attack Bush-Blair rather than to press for reform in Uzbekistan. Mr Murray has never stinted in his criticism of the government of Uzbekistan because he has seen at firsthand the effects of its policies, but he has now been added to the pantheon of British whistleblowers that contains an eclectic bunch of individuals – Katharine Gun, David Shayler, Richard Tomlinson etc.

4) What Do We Want? – Whistleblowers, such as those named above, often cite honourable motives for leaking classified documents and telling all. Yet Mr Murray was in a stronger position to champion human rights in Uzbekistan as HM Ambassador than he is now, now that he is simply Mr Murray rather than Ambassador Murray.

Furthermore, with authoritative foreign media representation in Uzbekistan emascalated by the withdrawal of the BBC and constant harassment of RFE/RL (pdf), Western perceptions of Uzbekistan are bound to be much diminished.

Also, we run the risk of ignoring the elephants in the corner – China and Russia. Through the aegis of EURASEC and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), Beijing and Moscow are better placed than Washington or London to influence Tashkent’s thinking, and with both countries able to cite the examples of Chechnya and Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Republic (XUAR), are more attuned to the Uzbek government’s fears about militant Islamism, real or imagined.

As I have already hinted, Mr Murray has become more of a rallying point for the anti-war left, and therefore the criticisms of Washington and London’s relationship with Tashkent have become embroidered into the tapestry of opposition to the recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It’s not hard to find examples of where Mr Murray’s revelations have triggered reams of conspiratorial nonsense about oil, Iraq, Enron, Halliburton, Cheney, “Bush knew!”, Mossad ad nauseam. “What we want” (or, “something must be done!”) is but empty rhetoric if governments lack the incentive to do anything, especially now that Uzbekistan and NATO are further apart than ever.

5) What Do They Want? – Well, presumably the Uzbek government would like us to turn our gaze elsewhere, but I’m talking about the problems of Uzbeks unrelated to “extraordinary rendition” or the “war on terror”. (Two in particular interest me – (dessication of the Aral Sea), and “the curse of cotton“). Amidst all the shouts and catcalls, the continuing trial and imprisonment of local police and prison officials in Andijan goes on.