UN calls for investigation into Uzbekistan violence
Uzbek officials took foreign diplomats and journalists on a lightning-quick tour of Andijan today, showing them a prison and the local administration building and arranging meetings with local officials, as the top UN human rights official called for an independent investigation.
The people of Andijan were kept blocks away from the delegation, leaving little chance for an objective assessment of last Friday’s violence that reportedly killed at least 169 people by official counts, although a political party, the Free Peasants, and human rights advocate Saidjahon Zaynabitdinov put the figure much higher, at about 500 people.
“We blocked a few roads for your security,” Interior Minister Zakir Almatov told the delegation as it was bussed along streets lined with cordons of troops and police.
The only local residents whom visitors were allowed to see were the parents of a police officer killed in the riots and several local officials, who relayed the government version of events.
Tursunbai Rustamov, wearing a traditional Uzbek robe, said he was proud of his son, saying he had “remained loyal to his people.”
Inside the gutted administration building, a local official pointed at signs of looting and described how militants had allegedly executed local officials whom they took hostage and used civilians as a shield as they tried to flee.
Uzbek President Islam Karimov blamed the violence on Islamic militants and denied that authorities had fired on civilians. An Associated Press reporter, however, saw troops opening fire on Friday on a crowd of demonstrators on Babur Square outside the administration building, most of whom were protesting economic hardship.
The delegation was allowed to spend only about 20 minutes in one section of the square, which was at the epicentre of the violence.
Almatov ignored a reporter’s request to visit to a school where a prominent local doctor had said 500 bodies were stored following the violence.
After three hours in Andijan, the delegation was treated to a lavish lunch of the national lamb and rice dish, plov, at the airport and flown back to the capital, Tashkent. Some diplomats complained that the trip was too short and that there was no opportunity to speak to Andijan residents.
British Ambassador David Moran, whose country had strongly urged Karimov’s government to open Andijan for international inspection, said a more thorough survey was necessary.
“I think we need to be realistic about how much can be achieved in a whistle-stop tour of ambassadors in a large delegation format over such a short period,” Moran said.
“I think what we need now is a systematic process of openness that will enable the international community to make an authoritative assessment of the scale and nature of what happened here.”
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour said today she was deeply concerned over reports about “indiscriminate and excessive use of force by law enforcement officials, followed by the imposition of restrictions on local and foreign media.”
Arbour urged the Uzbek government to adhere to international principles of the use of force and weapons by officials and to “guarantee the rights Uzbekistan has pledged to uphold under international law, including the freedoms of assembly and expression.”
She pushed for an independent investigation into the causes and circumstances of the Andijan violence.
Uzbek state television broadcast a report on the trip featuring interviews with ambassadors from Russia, Ukraine, Algeria and Turkmenistan denouncing the militants.
US Ambassador Jon Purnell, speaking in Russian, said further investigation was needed but added that “there was a bandit element".
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