Violence continues in Uzbekistan as 700 feared dead
Gunfire persisted today in the eastern city where Uzbek security forces fired on protesters last week – a clash that reportedly left several hundred dead - and new reports emerged that violence in nearby towns killed hundreds more, further threatening the stability of the government.
Thespreading unrest in a region bordering Kyrgyzstan – the worst since Uzbekistan gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 – also left 11 people dead in clashes yesterday in a third town and sparked a rampage by residents in a fourth on Saturday, witnesses said.
The government of President Islam Karimov has denied opening fire on demonstrators as witnesses have claimed, but the authoritarian government has sought to restrict access for reporters in the affected areas.
A respected local doctor in Andijan said about 500 bodies had been laid out at a school for collection by relatives. There was no independent confirmation of the claim by the doctor; other witnesses have said 200-300 were killed when troops put down the uprising on Friday.
Saidjahon Zaynabitdinov, head of the local Appeal human rights advocacy group, said today that government troops had killed about 200 demonstrators on Saturday in Pakhtabad, about 18 miles north-east of Andijan.
That fighting would have come a day after the violence in Andijan, when government troops put down an uprising.
If the reports of more than 700 deaths since Friday hold true and if Uzbek forces were behind the killing – as most reports indicate – the crackdown would be among the most violent in Asia since the massacre of protesters in China’s Tiananmen Square in 1989.
Andijan remained extremely tense today after gunfire continued throughout the night. Residents said government troops were fighting militants in Bogishonol, an outlying district of the city, but the claim could not officially be confirmed.
Alexei Volosevich, an Andijan correspondent for the Fergana.ru website, said witnesses told him that militants fired at police from the attics of apartment buildings near the city prison and that police eventually killed the assailants. There was no word about police casualties.
Troops and armoured personnel carriers formed a tight circle around the city centre, where the local administration building – at the centre of Friday’s violence – was on fire late yesterday. Piles of sandbags used as defences in the fighting dotted the streets.
Men were digging graves, including one that appeared to be a large common grave, at a local cemetery under the watch of many Uzbek security service agents.
“The people now are more afraid of government troops than of any so-called militants,” Zaynabitdinov said.
Zaynabitdinov reiterated the protesters’ contention that they were not aiming to overthrow the government, but simply wanted to air their grievances.
“The demonstrators did not have any claims to power. It was just an outpouring of people’s feelings. People were driven out into the streets,” he said.
In the capital, Tashkent, several rights activists and opposition politicians laid flowers at a monument to commemorate the victims of violence in Andijan. They were surrounded by scores of uniformed police and plain clothes security agents.
Participants accused Karimov of giving orders to shoot at the crowd in Andijan - a charge denied by the president, who blamed the violence on alleged Islamic extremists.
“It’s clear that they wouldn’t have opened fire without an order from the top,” said Inera Safargaliyeva, the head of the Committee for Freedom of Speech and Expression.
Channel One state television aired a report heaping praise on Karimov and accusing militants in Andijan of firing at civilians. Khushnudbek Matmusayev, a medical doctor, told Channel One that the militants had fired at an ambulance, killing two medics and a driver.
The report also showed scenes of broken furniture and equipment and bloodstains inside the administration building, which was occupied by armed protesters. It showed scattered syringes and suggested the militants were using drugs.
A United Nations official said government troops were concentrating today near the city of Namangan, the site of the regional airport and a major transport hub in the Fergana Valley. Namangan is also the birthplace of Juma Namangani, the leader of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, a Taliban-allied group that was fighting for establishment of an Islamic state in the valley.
Namangani was believed to have been killed in Afghanistan in 2001 or 2002, but reports have recently surfaced in the valley suggesting he is alive.
In a separate clash in the border town of Teshiktosh yesterday, eight government soldiers and three civilians were killed and hundreds of Uzbeks fled into neighbouring Kyrgyzstan, witnesses said.
Kyrgyz border guards spokeswoman Gulmira Borubayeva said that 150 Uzbek citizens had tried to cross into Kyrgyzstan near the Uzbek village of Ayim late last night, but Kyrgyz border guards refused to let them in because they tried to enter Kyrgyzstan bypassing existing border crossings.
The UN official said he had received reports about a skirmish in the same area today between a large group of Uzbek militants trying to cross into Kyrgyzstan and Uzbek government forces.
The violence puts the US in a difficult position because it relies on Karimov’s government for an air base in the country and anti-terrorism support. So far, US authorities have only called on both sides to work out their differences peacefully.
