it's one of the most obscure forgotten and unknown countries in the world's one
to test this allow me to ask you three questions one have you ever heard of us
Backus dong - would you know where to find it on a map and three could you
name its capital if you answered all three questions correctly
congratulations you're an expert in international geography
if not then worry it's not unusual and today you'll have the chance to discover
many more curious facts because dear viewers today on visual politic we're
talking about his megastar
it may not be very popular with tourists but with more than 30 million
inhabitants as Pakistan is the most populous country in Central Asia it's
also incredibly young that's young in both senses of the words not only
because one out of every three inhabitants is under the age of fourteen
but also because the country was part of the former Soviet Union so modern as
Becca Stan is only 28 years old and Aviva
it's a remote country it's so isolated from the rest of the world that on top
of having no access to the sea like Liechtenstein it's the only country on
the entire planet that is surrounded by countries that don't have access to the
sea either and it's natives they're pretty obscured to Kyrgyzstan Tajikistan
Turkmenistan Kazakhstan and Afghanistan well I suppose the last one there is
very well known but not for good reasons anyway as you can see if you want to
have an adventure in the 21st century typical of an explorer get away from the
known worlds and feel like David Livingstone or even Marco Polo then you
could go to us Becca Stan the focus obviously this isn't a travel ad so is a
question why on earth you think we're talking about is Becca Stan on a visual
politic any ideas well what if I told you that this country is at an
interesting crossroads
you see as mega stone is a country roughly the size of California but it's
only got 1.5 percent of California's GDP it's a country where only 1 in every 3
inhabitants lives in a city and it has to make a very important decision it
needs to decide whether to commit itself to a full reform program that will set
it on a path to becoming a 21st century economy once and for all or
alternatively retreats back into obscurity from the rest of the world and
the what can I say here on this channel but we love this sort of thing in this
video we're gonna see what's happening in Uzbekistan but first we need to
introduce you to a leading character so have you heard of Islam Karimov well
listen up
every hand full pockets sometimes everything changes and yet
things remain practically the same and that's exactly what happened in
Uzbekistan in 1991 when the country declared its independence from the
crumbling Soviet Union at that time the man on the screen now Islam Karimov was
the general secretary of the communist party in his mecca stand as well as the
president of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic and of course if he had all the
power why should he let any of it go and that's the question
Karimov must have asked himself and not surprisingly while he decided not to
on April the 1st 1991 when it wasn't yet clear if the Soviet Union would end up
disintegrating karimov saw his opportunity and declared the
independence of us Pakistan on December the 29th of the last same year elections
were held they were so fortunate that they would
make even nicolas maduro looked like a democrats Karimov got 88 percent of the
votes and from then on you know what while the results they kept on improving
asmath managed to maintain a suspiciously high percentage of the
votes in subsequent elections he only needed to make a call to the electoral
board and dictate the results of the elections all before they were even held
of course once that was done the deal it was sealed
the upshot folks is that during his 25 long years in power Islam Karimov became
the master of his Pakistan he was one of the most ruthless tyrants on the planet
a guy who had no qualms saying something publicly like this I'm prepared to rip
off the heads of 200 people to sacrifice their lives in order to preserve peace
and calm in the Republic Karimov oversaw truly terrible human rights
abuses for over 25 years as the news Beck president hugh
williamson Human Rights Watch
during his years in power vac media censorship was one of these strictest in
the world arrests and convictions of journalists and social and political
activists were an everyday event and the police and Secret Service used torture
as part of their normal protocol of course as a result nobody knows Becca
Stan dared to speak ill of the president in addition Kerimov regularly used
expropriation as a mechanism to consolidate his power
yeah sorry Hugo Chavez you weren't an innovator in their field you were kind
of more like an apprentice he also maintained a lot of the economic
policies that he had learned during the Soviet era policies such as currency
controls completely artificial official exchange rates a huge amount of state
interference in the economy and more and more stuff like that furthermore he
increased the country's isolation by having terrible relationships with most
of us Beca Stan's and neighbors all this explains why under his rule the majority
of the population was poor seriously poor even though as becca stan
is rich in hydrocarbons and mineral resources for example it has the third
largest gold reserves in the world by the way we can't give you poverty
statistics because the Uzbek government officially determined by law that there
is no poverty in the country and if it doesn't exist well then of course it
can't be measured to give you an idea they consider that
the average salary is $225 per month the jobs that are paid according to the
official regulations and of course for under-the-table jobs it's even lower
and as you can imagine caramels family and in a circle they've accumulated an
immense fortune Carroll's own daughters have visited the most glamorous places
in the world have shared experiences with Hollywood a-listers have released
albums jewelry lines perfumes they've just done whatever they want really but
folks perhaps the best way to see how immensely tyrannical despotic and
autocratic caramel's government was is by taking a look at what was happening
in the cotton sector this is traditionally the most important
economic activity in the country
this is because Pakistan is actually one of the largest cotton producers in the
world so can you imagine a country where every year the leader enslaves a very
significant percentage of the population to work for him and now don't be fooled
this time we aren't talking about taxes we're talking about forced labor well
that's exactly what's happening with us Becca Stan each year between September
and November to collect the cotton harvest the government mobilizes between
1 and 2 million people in virtual slavery conditions to avoid going you
had to send someone else in your place or face the consequences most were
public servants such as doctors and teachers or workers from companies that
were contracted by the government yep you heard that right
in fact a lot of hospitals were left practically without doctors because the
government had sent them to pick cotton you come to work with all the makeup
wearing nice clothes good shoes and the polyclinic director runs and says I need
40 people in the field the buses outside hurry hurry
doctor Kido yadava to the New York Times cotton is mandatory for everyone the
government gave orders to pick and you will not go against these orders if I
refuse they will fire me we would lose the bread we eat an Uzbek schoolteacher
and that's not the rest of it for many years a lot of these workers were
children who had stopped going to school in order to pick cotton for thin
governments
the system it worked like this the farm has received free labor and then sold
the cotton to the government at a very low price then the government sold it to
textile companies or exported it to produce clothes all over the world at a
price far greater than what they paid the farmers in that way cotton became
one of the largest sources of government revenue anyway as you can see Geron off
he didn't fool around
perhaps another example of how despotic and authoritarian Karimov was can be
found in how he treated his own daughter see kerim OVA was so to speak his
favorite daughter there was even speculation that she
would be his heir she lived life to the fullest surrounded by luxuries and
celebrities and was very popular among jet-setters
among how many activities she was even once ambassador to Spain well it turns
out that Guerra mova caused a huge problem for the us-backed governments
because she had been dealing with hundreds of millions of dollars for
international companies in exchange for false concessions in his Pakistan and
then to top it off she argued with and publicly confronted her mother and
brother and well that was simply too much
one fine day Karen off sent the secret police to his daughter's house with a
mission typical of Hollywood movies
dressed in black they assaulted carryovers house throwing themselves
from helicopters with ropes quarter and they locked her in a room in a mansion
Karam over one of the richest women in the world never saw her father again and
nobody has seen her in public since we know that she's been transferred to an
Uzbek prison the trial that condemned her it was held in her own kitchen
as I said before Karimov he does not fool around surprised well despite all
of this the truth is that Karimov was a good ally of the West especially the
United States and probably there we need to hold up a second because I mean how
could Western countries ally themselves with such a tyrant well let's just say
there are two very compelling reasons on the one hand as Pakistan is a
predominantly Muslim country despite this Karimov government was strongly
opposed to radical Islamists and has persecuted them with the same heavy
hands with which it kept its people subjugated well probably an even heavier
hand actually evidently Karimov didn't take this line due to personal
conviction religious tolerance or to defends personal liberties but because
radical Islamism represented a direct threat to his power on the other hand
Uzbekistan has a border with Afghanistan and that's something that the United
States after Afghanistan's invasion could really use in fact the Pentagon
installed an airbase in the south of the country in exchange for you guessed it a
financial donation to kerim officer regime in 2002 alone the Uzbek
government received 500 million u.s. dollars you know normal international
politics but folks in 2016 with Karen auvs death this all came to an abrupt
end and now the question is has a new era really begun well listen up
change or no change check out this headline news becca stan
emerges from isolation with 1 billion dollar bond sale in hillary 2019 the
government of Uzbekistan made its first bond issue in the international markets
by issuing euro bonds worth 1 billion dollars in London anyway Watts
international investors practically snatched them out of their hands the
demand was 8 times greater than the offer the question is what investor in
his or her right mind would lend money to a government like this
well dear viewer the fact is that after caramels death his number to the Prime
Minister chef Katie Mears Kalev rose the role of
president this game is no surprise to see had been caramels Prime Minister
however to everyone's surprise miss Kiev announced a lot of reforms that would
open the country to the world for example he improved relations with his
neighbours prohibited forced labour in the cotton harvest purged the
high-ranking officials from the security services that had led the repression
freed a lot of political prisoners and removed 18,000 people from a government
blacklist that had prevented them from travelling or being able to work just by
breathing relations with their neighbours and reopening border
crossings trade between US Pakistan and the rest of the Central Asian countries
has increased by 50% since 2017 as just two years
and that's not all most of the changes by far have occurred in economic policy
the new government's has eliminated capital controls and most price controls
it has announced the privatization of most public companies it has decreased
tariffs and given free rein to prospect companies to export without having to
ask the government for permission or pay them a fee they've also announced lower
taxes for aspects and particularly for companies that invest in the country
this is basically opposite of what Matri is done there's a president that should
take lessons from the president of Uzbekistan and as the country's
officials have traditionally been very corrupt the Finance Minister mr. Koo
Kirov has decreed a three year moratorium on all company inspections
while the government improves its processes and decreases bureaucracy
interesting move
the point is that these are all reasons that the forecast for the country's
future have improved so much so that the government can now issue debt in the
London market without investors fleeing now does this mean that as becca stan
has being completely transformed well no not at all is Becca Stan
although better now than with Kerimov still has a repressive government
censorship still exists and free elections are still not in sight and of
course the new president still has a huge amount of control over everything
that happens in the country let's just say that the process has kind of just
started but folks we're just gonna have to wait and see how things play out with
time and we're gonna be watching very closely because you can't say that it's
not an interesting story in fact I think this video was very much visual politic
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