An Uzbek Tiananmen?

At RFE/RL, Patrick Moore and Daniel Kimmage ask: Was Andijon Uzbekistan's Tiananmen Square?, and conclude:

Tiananmen Square was sufficiently momentous to determine the context for subsequent events, driving some into stunned silence even as the leadership eventually decided on a reformist course in 1992. And if the tensions of Tiananmen remain unresolved, the impact of reforms has been significant enough to sustain an ongoing debate over the perils and promise of "the Chinese way."

For Uzbekistan, Andijon is a similarly momentous event, and one that is likely to dominate the domestic context for some time to come. Yet the crackdown comes against a backdrop of official domestic policy that betrays no sign of reformist inclinations, and the Uzbek government's initial reactions point only toward a hardening of an already hard line. There is still time for the Uzbek leadership to heed the limited lessons of China's post-Tiananmen path, but the violent tensions that surfaced in Andijon suggest that time may be running short.