What was Sting doing in Uzbekistan?

Ex-ambassador for the UK and whistleblower, Craig Murray, recently wrote a piece on his blog exposing the musician Sting for having played a 'charity concert' in Tashkent alongside the Uzbek dictator's daughter, Gulnara Karimova, "for some of the 'Charities' which have been set up in the past three years as the regime seeks to burnish her image to take over from her dissident massacring father."

Sting (Gordon Sumner) is known for having founded The Rainforest Foundation in 1989 along with his wife, Trudie Styler.

So "the greatest irony of the arch tosser Sumner's involvement is that the Uzbek government not only tortures thousands every year, has ten thousand political prisoners and massacres demonstrators. It is also responsible for one of the world's greatest environmental disasters - the disappearance of the Aral Sea, and the huge toxicity of the remnant and of the blown seabed dust."

Murray goes onto ask the question, "[d]id it not occur to Sting to wonder just where his glamorous hostess gets her billions from? Karimov and his daughter have for decades resisted every attempt to liberalise and diversify Uzbekistan's agriculture. The slaves pick [cotton] for them. And for Sting, apparently."

How is it possible that Sting would have accepted playing a gig in a country known throughout the world for being run by a barbaric dictator such as Karimov? It is inconceivable that he would not have known.

"The arsehole Sumner may not have noticed, but in the last three years even Wal-Mart, Marks and Spencers and Tesco have put a total ban on Uzbek cotton in all the clothing they sell."

Was he that short of cash to stoop so low or did something else take him to Tashkent? Back in the 'seventies, Sumner helped to co-found a rock group called The Police with Stewart Copeland who became the drummer. They called the group The Police because Copeland's father worked for the CIA and his mother for British intelligence.

Personality clashes led to the break-up of The Police. But maybe the old, spooky associations never died out after all?