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International | Anti-WarDoctor: Uzbek protest toll about 500
About 500 bodies have been laid out in rows at a school in the eastern Uzbek city where troops fired on protesters to put down an uprising, a doctor in the town said. Relatives were arriving at School No 15 in Andijan to identify the dead, said the doctor, who spoke by telephone on condition of anonymity.
Another 2000 people were wounded in the clashes on Friday, said the doctor, widely regarded as knowledgeable about local affairs. It was unclear how she arrived at her estimate. The government has given no clear casualty figures. President Islam Karimov has said 10 government soldiers and many more protesters died and at least 100 people were wounded in the uprising, but witnesses reported hundreds killed. Search for relatives Distraught relatives searched for bodies in the smouldering city. Smoke billowed from a government building that burned during the night and the streets were mostly empty of people and cars. The exception was the mortuary, where relatives came to look for their missing loved ones. "I have been looking for two days for the bodies of my brothers," said Bakhadyr Yergachyov, clutching his siblings' passports. "They are neither at the morgue nor at the hospitals. I know that they had gone to the square to participate in the demonstrations." An accurate toll from the violence was impossible to come by, as soldiers guarding the city mortuary and hospitals denied entry to reporters amid a general media clampdown by the autocratic government. AFP correspondents had seen up to 50 bodies on the streets, and local witnesses spoke of seeing up to 300 dead. Innocents perished The bloodshed started early on Friday, when weeks-long demonstrations over a trial of 23 local business people boiled over. Prosecutors had accused the men of belonging to an outlawed Islamic group, but their supporters said the charges were fabricated. After armed backers of the accused stormed a local prison to free them, along with some 2000 other prisoners, the military moved into the city that by then was gripped by mass anti-government protests. Witnesses accused the soldiers of firing indiscriminately into the crowd. "The situation is terrible," Nadyr, a worker at the Andijan market, said on Sunday. "The innocent perished. They placed weapons near the killed civilians to make people think that they are terrorists." Frustration explodes Like many, he blamed the repression and corruption of the government in impoverished Uzbekistan for driving people to protest and the ensuing violence. "We live very badly, I have trouble feeding my children," he said. "This is the fault of the president. It is he who has reduced us to this situation and it was he who ordered the killing of the innocents." Karimov, a 67-year-old Soviet-era leader in the nation of 24 million who is supported by both Moscow and Washington, has blamed Islamic groups for the violence, and denied that the soldiers were given the order to shoot. "Their aim is to unite the Muslims and establish a caliphate. Their aim is to overthrow the constitutional regime," Karimov said on Sunday. He said soldiers fired only after being fired upon by the protesters. Crackdown on Muslims? Karimov's government, wary of Islamic influences in a country that shares a border with Afghanistan, has moved on what it considers radical groups for years. Critics say that in practice, this has meant a crackdown on practicing Muslims that has filled the nation's prisons, fuelled discontent with the government and paradoxically has driven many to support the groups opposed by the government. Although human rights groups have routinely charged Karimov's government with using systematic torture in prisons and police stations, the United States has been mild in its criticism as Uzbekistan houses a US military base and is considered an ally in Washington's war on terror. Russia, fearful of Islamists as its battle against Chechen insurgents stretches into its 11th year, has also backed Karimov. After the clashes, Kyrgyzstan, Tashkent's eastern neighbour where mass protests overthrew a Soviet-era government in March, closed its border with Uzbekistan. But on Sunday, authorities said the border crossing at the city of Kara-Suu, which lies in both countries, would be open for five days. "Uzbek and Kyrgyz authorities decided to open the border," an official with Kyrgyz border authorities said. http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/187E6C4F-27A4-4411-B762-1D7A809AC224.htm Uzbek security forces have sealed off the centre of Andijan city, where many people were shot dead on Friday. Troops are on the streets, hunting the leaders of anti-government protests and roads into Andijan are closed. It is still not known how many people died when soldiers opened fire on demonstrators in the city square. Estimates vary from dozens to hundreds. UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw told the BBC there had been "a clear abuse of human rights" in Uzbekistan. Mr Straw said the situation was "serious" and called for more transparency from the Uzbek government. Figures disputed The city of Andijan was quiet on Sunday, with most people staying at home. Relatives are frantically searching morgues, hospitals and the city's streets for those who died. "I have been looking for two days for the bodies of my brothers," Bakhadyr Yergachyov told the AFP news agency. "I know that they had gone to the square to participate in the demonstrations." Armed guards dressed in tracksuits are patrolling the grounds of the hospitals and outsiders, like journalists, are not allowed in. There have been a few funerals, but many people said the authorities have not released the bodies of all those killed. Correspondents in Andijan report seeing up to 50 bodies on the streets, though some local witnesses said they had seen as many as 300. The Associated Press cited a doctor saying 500 bodies had been laid out in a school for identification. Official figures are much lower. The BBC's Monica Whitlock said without any independent humanitarian agencies operating in the region, the true figure may never emerge. Many people are distressed that the state-controlled media have broadcast only minimal news of what happened. They do not know if the rest of Uzbekistan or the outside world knows or cares. There are almost no reporters in the city and those with cameras have been ordered out. Roads into Andijan have been blocked. Hundreds of people, including women and children, are said to have crossed the nearby border with Kyrgyzstan to a refugee camp on the other side. At the border, Uzbek authorities were nowhere to be seen, following clashes with locals on Saturday, the BBC's Ian MacWilliam reported. In the border town of Karasu, he said, local people rebuilt two bridges that had been destroyed by Uzbek forces, and said they intended to resume the cross-border trade they had relied on for years. Uzbek President Islam Karimov blamed the unrest in Andijan on what he described as criminals and Islamic radicals linked to the banned Hizb ut-Tahrir movement, who wanted to overthrow the government. Mr Karimov, an ally of both Washington and Moscow's war on terror, has taken a tough line on security since a spate of suicide bombings last year, blamed on Islamic extremists. But critics say he is using the threat of extremism as a cover to crush dissents. Many of those who had demonstrated in Andijan said it was poverty and unemployment - rather than political or religious demands - that brought them onto the streets. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4548299.stm |
By Stephen Khan and Francis Elliott in London and Peter Boehm in Tashkent
15 May 2005
Hundreds of protesters are reported to have been gunned down in bloody clashes with government forces that have ravaged eastern Uzbekistan.
One human rights observer in the eastern city of Andizhan said that up to 500 people may have perished in the shootings and the gun battles that followed. A doctor spoke of "many, many dead", witnesses said 200 to 300 people were shot dead, and an AP reporter saw at least 30 bodies in Andijan. As night fell, tension was high, with armoured vehicles positioned at crossroads and trucks blocking main thoroughfares. Terrified demonstrators tried to flee the country, seen as a key ally by Britain and the US in the war on terror.
As blood-spattered bodies were lifted from the streets of Andizhan, survivors and thousands of others packed their bags and headed for neighbouring Kyrgyzstan. Some made it across the border and were in refugee camps.
In a severe rebuke to London and Washington's approach to the region, Britain's former ambassador to the country yesterday said the countries had swallowed Uzbek propaganda that sought to portray the democracy movement as a brand of Islamic extremism.
Craig Murray told the IoS that the Government had to take some responsibility for the unfolding events because it had failed to support those trying to oppose the dictatorship of President Islam Karimov. He revealed that he visited Andizhan a year ago and met those trying to build a democratic opposition movement. In a bid to bolster their cause he asked the UK government to fund them. His requests were turned down by the Foreign Office.
"The Americans and British wouldn't do anything to help democracy in Uzbekistan," he said. Uzbekistan provides a base for US forces engaged in anti-terrorism operations in neighbouring Afghanistan.
Mr Murray added: "We didn't provide support for those who were trying to develop democratic opposition, and that includes these people in Andizhan. People are turning to violence because we ... gave them no support."
The former ambassador, who left the Foreign Office earlier this year after accusing the British Government of accepting intelligence gained under torture by Uzbek authorities, had called for the pro-democracy activists to be supported by the West, as elsewhere in the former Soviet Union. His requests to London were turned down.
"The Americans were making a distinction between human rights training, which they were happy to do, and pro-democracy training, which they weren't."
The Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, insisted yesterday that the UK had "consistently made clear to the authorities in Uzbekistan that the repression of dissent and discontent is wrong and they urgently need to deal with patent failings in respect of human and civil rights".
Andrew MacKinlay, Labour MP for Thurrock and a senior member of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the last parliament, said: "I deeply regret that [the Foreign Office] did not do more to help the pro-democracy movement."
Sir Menzies Campbell, deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats, said, "Rather than use force to impose democracy, as in Iraq, should we not be more assiduous in promoting democratic movements in countries like Uzbekistan?"
Battles raged on Friday when rebel gunmen sprung hundreds of people they regard as political prisoners from a jail in Andizhan.
As bodies were picked up from the streets yesterday, Saidzhakhon Zainatbitdinov, an independent human rights worker said: "The total number of deaths could reach 500 people." Earlier, President Karimov claimed that 10 police and troops had been killed, and many more "rebels".
The Kremlin expressed its concern over the "danger of the destabilisation of the Central Asian region".
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/story.jsp?story=638532
By Ainagul Abdrakhmanova, Sultan Jumagulov, Alisher Saipov and Jalil Saparov in Bishkek and southern Kyrgyzstan. (RCA No. 377, 14-May-05)
Hundreds of people who fled the bloodshed in Andijan to seek refuge in neighbouring Kyrgyzstan have been telling stories of coming under renewed gunfire as they tried to escape from Uzbekistan.
IWPR spoke to would-be refugees who had been desperate enough to push their way past Uzbekistan's rigorously-controlled frontier defences on May 14. Some were reportedly killed by their own country's border guards.
The fleeing civilians were not allowed to enter Kyrgyz territory after the government there ordered the border to be closed. But they were allowed to wait nearby, on the strip of neutral land that separates the two countries, and apparently beyond the reach of the Uzbek security forces.
“We can't return to our city, because death inevitably awaits us there," said a young man from Andijan who gave his name only as Kamil. "Kyrgyzstan must save us. If we return to our own country, our days will be numbered.
"The Kyrgyz authorities have treated us peacefully, and your soldiers are protecting us.”
Kamil was one of 539 people whom an IWPR contributor found waiting on no-man's land, close to the Suzak district of Kyrgyzstan's Jalalabad region.
Most were men aged 20 to 40, although the group also included 82 women and 17 children.
Some of the men were among those who escaped from Andijan jail, when crowds stormed it overnight on May 12-13 to free 23 local businessmen in trial for charges of Islamic extremism. The trial sparked the day of protests which ended in violence as Uzbek security forces using armoured vehicles moved in and fired into a rally apparently indiscriminately.
One of the accused businessmen, who gave his name as Shamsutdin, was among this group of refugees. "Only in Kyrgyzstan can we stay alive," he said.
Another refugee, Mahammad Mavlanov, told IWPR, “I accidentally found myself among the protestors. The soldiers started shooting directly at a crowd of people who were simply holding a peaceful protest. I was forced to flee with them. I lost my passport along the way.”
Members of the group said about 1,000 people had fled Andijan early on May 14. On their way to Kyrgyz territory they were shot at by Uzbek border guards, and two women and three men were killed. Another eight people were injured, and two were in need of urgent hospitalisation, they said.
Matluba Dodobaeva gave her account of the May 13 assault by security forces and the ensuing flight of refugees. “I saw the police and soldiers surrounding the protestors and firing at them. After the shootings, many people fled the city, because they were scared to return home where they could have been tracked down.
"We fled towards Kyrgyzstan. On the way we were ambushed by Uzbek soldiers who shot at us, killing five people. We had to hide in a Kyrgyz village, where a local resident helped us evade the Uzbek soldiers. Now we think that we are in a safe place.”
Dodobaeva concluded with bitter words about Uzbek president Islam Karimov, “A president who shoots at his own people, at mothers and children, has no right to stay in his job."
Dodobaeva and the other survivors are now exhausted, sitting on the ground a kilometre away from the Uzbek border, their only possessions the clothes they were wearing. Suzak villagers have tried to provide what help they can.
All those interviewed denied the story being put out by the Uzbek authorities that the protesters were Islamic militants, and insisted that they had no affiliation to any such group.
There is no clear picture of how many people have made it through the border to Kyrgyzstan, and how many more are still trying to.
An anonymous source at the Kyrgyz interior ministry told IWPR that some 3,000 people had gathered on the Uzbek side of the border in hope of escaping.
Many of the fleeing Andijan residents say they want to be granted political asylum in Kyrgyzstan. Ethnic and family connections link the two sides of the border, and many Andijan people have relatives in southern Kyrgyzstan.
The Kyrgyz government closed its border with Uzbekistan on May 13, but has yet to say whether it will accept any refugees. Until it does, local government officials in the southern regions are unable to let them in.
The speaker of parliament, Omurbek Tekebaev, said Kyrgyzstan's international treaty obligations required it to offer political asylum even if that caused "certain tensions”.
At the Dostuk border checkpoint, a captain in the Kyrgyz police who asked not to be named said there had been no refugees so far, and he had received no instructions either to let them in or turn them away.
The Foundation for Tolerance International reported that close to Jalalabad region's Bazar Korgon district, there were 1,500 people waiting to cross the border from Uzbekistan.
But the deputy head of Bazarkorgon's local government, Palvan Avazbek, told IWPR, “This is all a lie. I've just come back from the border. Our border is protected by guards. There isn't a single person there. Not a single person will get across this border."
The Foundation for Tolerance also said the Kyrgyz authorities were now organising a filtration camp for refugees, and that in another area, Uzbek citizens were trying to cross to Kyrgyzstan's Batken region via an intervening strip of land belonging to Tajikistan.
At the major border crossing at Karasuu, there were dramatic scenes as people on the Uzbek side starting rebuilding bridges which their own authorities had knocked down two years ago. Welding equipment and even a crane were drafted in to work on one bridge.
There were reports that the mayor of the Uzbek town of Karasuu was taken hostage and police were beaten up. Angry residents set fire to police cars and pushed one of them into a canal.
The home-made bridges used to make it easy for Uzbek nationals to get over the Shahrikhansai river to reach the Karasuu market on the Kyrgyz side – a large retail area that is a magnet for traders up and down the Fergana Valley. The Uzbek authorities destroyed the bridges as part of an effort to seal their frontiers.
Healthcare is one area where it does seem the Kyrgyz authorities are making preparations to deal with refugees.
Reports of casualty figures in Andijan run into dozens, possibly hundred, and a Kyrgyz citizen returning from the city said, " “The hospitals are overcrowded with people with bullet wounds.”
Cholponai Umurzakova, a Jalalabad doctor, told IWPR that a seminar she had been attending was cut short so that medical staff could attend to the expected arrival of casualties. "All across Jalalabad region, the hospitals and policlinics are on the alert. We're expecting an influx of refugees, some of whom may be injured," she said.
In southern Kyrgyzstan there is a general sense that the refugees should be allowed in, for reasons that include the common bonds between adjoining parts of Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.
Kyrgyz parliamentarian Bayman Erkinbaev said, “There are many ethnic Uzbeks among my electorate who cannot sleep because they don't know whether their friends and relatives in Andijan are alive and well."
Some interviewees voiced concern that the refugees might include criminals released from Andijan jail, and that the rumours of Islamic militancy were true.
“I very much doubt that this is a revolution. If it is, why did they need to release criminals? I think it's the work of religious extremists - at least, that's what is being reported,” said a teacher from Suzak who wished to remain anonymous.
Among the people interviewed by IWPR, such concerns were particularly commonly heard from members of the substantial ethnic Uzbek population of southern Kyrgyzstan.
One community figure from Jalalabad warned, "It is good that the people are fighting for their rights, but the organisers [who are members of] banned religious sects would not be able to govern the nation and the people according to secular principles…. They would immediately proclaim a caliphate, and that would be very dangerous for the entire region.
"A revolution in Uzbekistan would be unpredictable for us, we wouldn't know what we were getting.”
Other arguments made by local Uzbek community figures reflected similar caution, with one man saying the revolt was "premature" because Uzbekistan's government was in fact slowly liberalising, and another saying it was "undesirable" for the opposite reason – that it would make the regime more repressive than ever.
Analysts such as Valentin Bogatyrev, director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Bishkek, were worried about the economic consequences of long-term border closure and the demographic changes caused by a population shift in a densely inhabited region.
But for many others, the theme was one of solidarity and hope that Uzbekistan might follow the example of the Kyrgyz "tulip revolution" which unseated President Askar Akaev.
“At last our neighbours too have taken to the streets to stand up for their rights and dignity. We are well aware that the most oppressed people in Uzbekistan are the Uzbeks themselves. We wish them nothing but success and prosperity,” said Suzak resident Uraim Atekov.
On May 14, the Kyrgyz students’ union held a demonstration at the Uzbek embassy in Bishkek to protest against the shooting of civilians in Andijan.
“We have gathered to express our solidarity," said students' union chairman Askat Dukenbaev. "These events may affect us, so we must make the Uzbek leadership understand that using such methods to solve problems will set Central Asia alight."
Ainagul Abdrakhmanova is IWPR programme coordinator in Bishkek. Sultan Jumagulov is a BBC correspondent in Bishkek. Alisher Saipov is a correspondent for the Fergana news agency. Jalal Saparov is an independent journalist in Jalalabad.
http://www.iwpr.net/index.pl?archive/rca2/rca2_377_2_eng.txt