http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1484252,00.html
The violence that has reportedly killed hundreds of protesters in eastern Uzbekistan appeared to be spreading to neighbouring towns last night, raising fears that the volatile Central Asian state could erupt into a full-scale revolution.
As human rights workers in the flashpoint town of Andijan warned that the death toll there could reach 500, an official from the neighbouring country of Kyrgyzstan said sporadic rioting had broken out in the border town of Karasu, with government buildings and police cars on fire and military helicopters circling overhead. One local official was reported by the Russian Interfax news agency to have been heavily beaten by rioters. The Uzbek President, Islam Karimov, claimed that troops had opened fire on protesters in Andijan only when they were advanced on. Visibly angry, he told reporters in the capital, Tashkent: ‘I know that you want to know who gave the order to fire at them … No one ordered [the troops] to fire at them.’ He said 10 soldiers were killed in the clash and ‘many more’ protesters. Galima Bukharbaeva, a reporter with international monitoring group the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, who witnessed the killings, described a column of armoured personnel carriers firing indiscriminately and unprovoked at protesters. They had stormed the city prison after 23 businessmen were put on trial for alleged Islamic extremism. They took over the local administration centre and blockaded the city centre, some demanding that the government resign. Karimov responded: ‘To accept their terms would mean that we are setting a precedent that no other country in the world would accept.’ He dismissed claims that children had been among the dead. ‘In Uzbekistan, nobody fights against women, children or the elderly,’ he added. Among those who hurriedly left the city were seven British tennis players due to take part in the F4 Futures Event. Information was scarce inside Andijan, with most phone lines blocked as part of an apparent news blackout in the region. Human rights worker Lutfulla Shamsutdinov told Agence France-Presse yesterday: ‘This morning I saw three trucks and a bus in which 300 dead bodies were being loaded by soldiers. At least one third of the bodies were women.’ The claims were impossible to verify. One witness said that he saw 1,000 people, mostly women and children, gathering in the city centre yesterday morning. ‘Some were bringing their dead. Many of them were old people or women, some were throwing stones at the soldiers. I saw over 20 dead, but someone told me they had seen many more piled up near the central square.’ A reporter for Associated Press said that he saw 30 bodies on streets spattered with blood and littered with spent cartridges. The dead had all been shot and the head of one had been smashed in. Daniyar Akbarov, 24, one of those freed from jail on Friday, tearfully beat his chest in the square yesterday. ‘Our women and children are dying,’ he said, claiming he had seen 300 people killed. The military claimed to control the town last night. The news website www. ferghana.ru reported dozens of flights arriving at an airport in the region, suggesting extra troops were being flown in. As the violence continued to spread, Russian President Vladimir Putin phoned his Uzbek counterpart. ‘Both sides expressed concern about the danger of destabilisation of the situation in the Central Asian region,’ a Kremlin statement said. On Friday night, the United States raised fears that members of a ‘terrorist group’ may have been released from prison during the riots, but urged both sides to show restraint. The former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, who claims that he lost his job for exposing the human rights abuses of the US’s new ally in the war on terror, said the Islamic elements in the Andijan crowds were moderate – ‘more Turkey than Taliban’. He added: ‘This has really blown up in the US’s faces. When will the US and UK call for fair, free and early elections in Uzbekistan?’ America gives $10 million a year in aid to the Uzbek security services and police, agencies which it says indulge in torture as a ‘routine investigation technique’. Murray said: ‘The US will claim that they are teaching the Uzbeks less repressive interrogation techniques, but that is basically not true. ‘They help fund the Uzbek security services and give tens of millions of dollars in military support as well.’ He said the money was a ‘sweetener’ in return for the Uzbeks allowing the US to have an airbase in the southern town of Khanabad, vital for operations in neighbouring Afghanistan. Russian state television carried comments from politicians and analysts, saying the unrest was a ‘green revolution’ – a suggestion that it was an Islamic fundamentalist revolt. A junior foreign minister said the unrest was caused by ‘the weakness of the authorities, social problems and the influence of extremist groups’. Officials from neighbouring Kyrgyzstan said that hundreds of refugees had tried to cross the border.
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Hundreds Die In Uzbek Crackdown
By Dmitry Solovyov in Andijon, Uzbekistanhttp://www.smh.com.au/news/World/Hundreds-die-in-Uzbek-crackdown/2005/05/15/1116095855982.htmlAs families buried their dead to the sound of continued sniper fire, human rights campaigners estimated up to 500 people died in a military crackdown in the eastern Uzbek city of Andijon, with witnesses reporting that troops mowed protesters down “like rabbits”.Yesterday, two days after an uprising in the mostly Muslim Central Asian state’s Ferghana Valley, blood and body parts hastily covered in soil coated the pavements, streets and gutters in the city of 300,000 people.
A human rights campaigner, Saidzhakhon Zainabitdinov, said estimates of 500 dead would make it the bloodiest incident in Uzbekistan’s post-Soviet history.
Lutfula Shamsutdinov, a member of the Apelyatsiya human rights group in Andijon, said he saw soldiers “loading 300 bodies into three trucks and a bus in the street opposite the cinema”. The claim could not be verified and access to the hospital was blocked.
Russia, meanwhile, said that planned actions by regional extremists were behind the violence.
“According to our information, the group that had prepared all this and tried to bring it to fruition included various representatives, including the Taliban,” ITAR-Tass quoted the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, as saying yesterday in Vienna.
The killings sparked panic, causing about 4000 people to flee to the border with Kyrgyzstan, where a camp for Uzbek refugees has been opened in the region of Jalal-Abad. The camp is already housing about 600 people, many of them injured.
On Friday, armed rebels broke comrades, standing trial for religious extremism, out of prison, took 10 police hostage and occupied Andijon’s local government building.
About 3000 protesters opposed to President Islam Karimov staged a rally outside, which troops later dispersed by opening fire.
“They shot at us like rabbits,” said a boy in his late teens standing outside School No. 15. Witnesses say part of the crowd fled towards the school, only to be caught in crossfire.
The two-storey school’s facade is pockmarked with bullet holes, and pools of wet blood mixed with water and dirt can be seen in the blocked open drains. A blood-soaked baseball cap lies in some bushes.
Witnesses said the bodies of about 30 people seen near the central cinema were those of people trying to escape. “Soldiers started shooting