ABSTRACT
The furor that arose beginning in 1989 around allegations that Uzbek military recruits were being systematically murdered or otherwise abused while serving in the Soviet Army was a further milestone in defining the new climate of relations with Moscow. Public pressure on local officials weighed as never before in Uzbek politics—a further sign of a new power configuration in the republic. The newspaper's correspondent, Karim Bahriev, charged that mistreatment of Uzbek recruits was a direct result of the anti-Uzbek tone of Moscow publications like Nash sovremennik and Ogonek. Bahriev reported that after visiting Sharafiddin's Abdusalamov parents he had made a point of talking to military veterans of all ages, from whom he gained the impression that the problem of military service had "become a great illness". In the Sharafiddin Abdusalamov case, the escorting soldiers had told parents of the deceased that they had been ordered by their officers not to reveal how their comrade had died.
