ANDIJAN, Uzbekistan (AP) - Thousands of terrified Uzbeks fled for the border Saturday, a day after troops fired on demonstrators demanding more freedom in this tightly controlled former Soviet republic. President Islam Karimov said troops were forced to shoot after demonstrators tried to break through an advancing security cordon.
Witnesses said at least 200 people were killed, while Karimov said 10 government troops and "many more" militants died and at least 100 people were wounded in Friday's fighting in the eastern city of Andijan. Victims' relatives accused the government of killing innocent civilians.
Soldiers loyal to Karimov fired on thousands of demonstrators Friday to put down an uprising that began when armed men freed 2,000 inmates from prison, including suspects on trial for alleged Islamic extremism.
The U.S. State Department expressed concern Friday that those freed included members of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, which is on the American list of terror groups.
Hundreds of angry protesters returned Saturday to the square where the shooting occurred, displaying the bodies of six people they said were killed in the fighting. Knots of bystanders watched as men covered other bloodied bodies with white shrouds.
Demonstrators, some with tears in their eyes, condemned the government for firing on women and children.
Karimov spoke by telephone Saturday with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin said.
"Both sides expressed concern about the danger of the destabilization of the situation in the Central Asian region," the Kremlin press service said in a statement.
In Washington, the White House urged restraint by both sides.
"The people of Uzbekistan want to see a more representative and democratic government. But that should come through peaceful means, not through violence," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Friday.
About 6,000 Uzbek residents headed Saturday to the border with Kyrgyzstan. Kyrgyz border guards were awaiting a government decision on whether to allow them in, said Gulmira Borubayeva, spokeswoman for Kyrgyzstan's border guard service.
Karimov said Saturday that authorities tried to negotiate a peaceful way out but would not yield to the protesters' demand for freedom for all their followers across the impoverished Fergana Valley. He termed that demand excessive.
"To accept their terms would mean that we are setting a precedent that no other country in the world would accept," Karimov told a news conference in the capital, Tashkent.
He said troops were forced to open fire when demonstrators who seized a government building attempted to break through an advancing line of Uzbek police and soldiers. The Uzbek leader also denied that forces targeted innocent civilians.
"In Uzbekistan, nobody fights against women, children or the elderly," Karimov said.
He also claimed the government offered to bus the demonstrators out of the city and let them keep the weapons they seized in attacks on a police station and military outpost.
But protest leader Kabuljon Parpiyev said Interior Minister Zakir Almatov did not sound willing to negotiate in a Friday phone call.
"He said, 'We don't care if 200, 300 or 400 people die. We have force and we will chuck you out of there anyway,'" Parpiyev quoted Almatov as saying.
No government forces were at the Andijan square early Saturday, but a few blocks away, about 30 soldiers clad in flak jackets and armed with assault rifles stood ready for action. Military trucks loaded with soldiers cruised the streets, and troops backed by armored vehicles surrounded heavily fortified local police headquarters.
Earlier Saturday, soldiers loaded scores of bodies onto four trucks and a bus after blocking friends and relatives from collecting them, witnesses said.
Lutfulo Shamsutdinov, head of the Independent Human Rights Organization of Uzbekistan, said he saw about 200 bodies being loaded onto trucks near the square.
A witness in central Andijan told The Associated Press that "many, many dead bodies are stacked up by a school near the square."
An AP reporter saw at least 30 bodies _ all shot, with at least one having his skull smashed. The streets were stained with blood and littered with spent cartridges.
Daniyar Akbarov, 24, joined the protests Saturday after being freed from the prison during the earlier clashes.
"Our women and children are dying," he said, tearfully beating his chest with his fists. Akbarov said he saw at least 300 people killed.
The focus of the jailbreak was 23 men charged with membership in a group allegedly allied with the outlawed radical Islamic party Hizb-ut-Tahrir, which seeks to create a worldwide Islamic state and has been forced underground throughout most of Central Asia and Russia.
Supporters of the 23 men say they were victims of religious repression by Karimov's secular government.
The men are alleged members of Akramia _ a group named for their founder, Akram Yuldashev, an Islamic dissident sentenced in 1999 to 17 years in prison for allegedly urging the overthrow of Karimov. He has proclaimed his innocence.
Akramis are considered the backbone of Andijan's small business community, running a medical clinic and pharmacy, as well as working as furniture craftsmen, and providing employment to thousands in the Fergana Valley, where Islamist sentiment runs high.
Their trial has inspired one of the largest public shows of anger at the government. In recent weeks, Uzbeks have shown increasing willingness to challenge the leadership in protests, apparently bolstered by the March uprising in Kyrgyzstan that drove out President Askar Akayev, which followed similar ones in Ukraine and Georgia.
Karimov said people from neighboring Kyrgyzstan helped organize the violence in Andijan in hopes of organizing a revolt similar to the one that occurred in their own country.
Almambet Matubraimov, acting President Kurmanbek Bakiyev's representative in southern Kyrgyzstan, vehemently denied that accusation.
"It's not true that Kyrgyz citizens were involved in the events in Andijan. Our people have nothing to do with it. Kyrgyzstan has had nothing to do with it," he said.
Uzbekistan is slightly larger than California and, with 25 million people, is Central Asia's most populous country. It is a minor oil exporter and hosts a U.S. air base to support military operations in neighboring Afghanistan following the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States. But it also is frequently denounced by human rights groups for torture and repression of opposition.
FERGANA, Uzbekistan (AP) - Groups of attackers killed several soldiers in eastern Uzbekistan on Sunday before fleeing across the border into Kyrgyzstan, villagers said, and about 500 bodies were laid out in the nearby city where troops fired on a crowd of protesters, a doctor said.
Residents' accounts of the fighting in Tefektosh could not be independently confirmed, but blood stains were visible on the pavement there.
The village is in the same region as Andijan, where troops fired on a crowd of protesters Friday to put down an uprising, killing hundreds, witnesses said. On Sunday, about 500 bodies were laid out in rows in Andijan's School No. 15, a doctor in the town said.
The doctor, who spoke by telephone on condition of anonymity, said the school was guarded by soldiers and residents were coming to identify dead relatives.
The doctor, considered knowledgeable about local affairs, said she believed 2,000 people were wounded in Friday's clashes, but it was unclear how she arrived at her estimate.
Andijan officials were trying to reach a nearby airport to escape the unrest, she said, while some organizers of the uprising were trying to flee to neighboring Kyrgyzstan. There were no more protesters in the square at the center of the uprising, the doctor said.
Abdugapur Dadaboyev, an Uzbek rights activist who visited Andijan on Saturday, said he saw dead bodies in police and military uniforms lying in the streets. Civilians' bodies, in contrast, were quickly removed from the streets, he said.
Russia's state-run Channel One television showed footage of uniformed men with rifles slung over their shoulders carrying a corpse toward a truck and of a dead man lying face-down on a street, his head thrust between the bars of a fence and his legs still straddling an old bicycle. It said the video was shot Saturday.
Dadaboyev said two local officials who were among the hostages seized in Andijan were buried Saturday in the nearby town of Asaka.
Another Andijan resident reached by telephone said the city had been largely quiet overnight, aside from a volley of gunfire in an eastern district that lasted a few minutes.
Following the day of violence in Andijan, some 5,000 angry protesters swarmed the streets of the border town of Korasuv on Saturday, looting and burning official buildings, torching police cars and assaulting local officials.
Participants in the protest accused the government of failing to improve living conditions. The town that straddles the river border was split in two following the 1991 Soviet collapse, and Uzbek officials dismantled a bridge two years ago as part of their effort to impose new restrictions on traders.
The move vexed Korasuv residents, who depended on a big market on the Kyrgyz side of the border to earn their living. Many people have drowned while trying to cross the river using ropes.
Korasuv residents quickly rebuilt the metal bridge and scores of jubilant traders flooded to the market Sunday.
At another section of the border, some 6,000 Uzbeks sought to cross into Kyrgyzstan to get shelter following the violence in Andijan. About 500 were gathered on Kyrgyz territory just across the border, and Kyrgyz authorities and international relief groups were considering efforts to help them, said Almambet Matubraimov, the Kyrgyz presidential envoy to the border region.
Uzbek President Islam Karimov blamed Islamic extremists for the uprising in Andijan, the ex-Soviet republic's fourth-largest city. He claimed that people from Kyrgyzstan were among the organizers of the violence in the city, where protesters stormed a prison and occupied the local government offices before government forces put down the uprising.
The unrest presents a quandary for the United States _ which has declined comment on the situation _ because Karimov is considered a key ally in the fight against terrorism and the U.S. maintains a military base in Uzbekistan to support anti-terrorist operations in Afghanistan.
Karimov said 10 government soldiers and "many more" militants died in Friday's fighting. Witnesses said 200-300 people were shot dead, and an AP reporter saw at least 30 bodies in Andijan. Karimov said at least 100 people were wounded.
He claimed negotiations with the militants collapsed after they demanded all their followers be released from jails across the Fergana Valley, Central Asia's conservative heartland. The uprising began when the militants stormed a prison where the 23 were being held. Karimov said they freed 600 prisoners.
"To accept their terms would mean that we are setting a precedent that no other country in the world would accept," Karimov told a news conference in the capital, Tashkent, on Saturday.
Karimov claimed the uprising was orchestrated by a "faction of Hizb ut-Tahrir," a banned movement seeking to create an Islamic state in Central Asia. Hizb-ut-Tahrir has long been targeted by the Uzbek regime _ a campaign that has been one of human rights activists' top grievances against the authoritarian government.
The 23 businessmen at the focus of the uprising were charged with membership in a group allegedly allied with Hizb-ut-Tahrir, which seeks to create a worldwide Islamic state and has been forced underground throughout most of Central Asia and Russia.
The men are alleged members of Akramia _ a group named for their founder, Akram Yuldashev, an Islamic dissident sentenced in 1999 to 17 years in prison for purportedly urging Karimov's ouster. He has proclaimed his innocence. The group forms the heart of the city's small business community.
Their trial has inspired one of the largest public shows of anger at the government in years, and the largest outbreak of violence since Uzbekistan became an independent country after the 1991 Soviet collapse.
Associated Press reporter Burt Herman in Tashkent contributed to this report.
Uzbekistan: The US and its 'special' dictator By Pepe Escobar
May 17, 2005
"I am delighted to be back in Uzbekistan. I've just had a long and very interesting and helpful discussion with the president ... Uzbekistan is a key member of the coalition's global war on terror. And I brought the president the good wishes of President Bush and our appreciation for their stalwart support in the war on terror ... Our relationship is strong and has been growing stronger." - US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in Tashkent, February 2004
Uzbekistan dictator Islam Karimov's army, which last Friday opened fire on thousands of unarmed protesters in Andijan, in the Ferghana Valley, has been showered by Washington in the past few years with hundreds of millions of dollars (US$200 million in 2002 alone) - all on behalf of the "war on terror".
So you won't see the White House, or Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, hammering Karimov. You won't hear many in Washington calling for free elections in Uzbekistan. The former strongmen of color-coded, "revolutionary" Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan were monsters who had to be removed for "freedom and democracy" to prevail. So is the dictator of Belarus. Not Karimov. He's "our" dictator: the Saddam Hussein of Central Asia is George W Bush's man.
'Either with me or against me' This is what happened in Andijan. Twenty-three local businessmen - who even resorted to hunger strike - have been on trial since February, accused of "Islamic terrorism". They were part of Akramia, a small Islamic movement whose platform privileges economic success over ideology and religious fundamentalism. Soon after they had set up a construction company - and apparently also a mutual fund - to help local people get a few jobs, the businessmen were arrested.
Washington has listed the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) as a terrorist organization. Hizbut Tahrir (HT) - which does not condone armed jihad - may soon follow, as Washington always follows Karimov's leads. In Uzbekistan, any opposition against the Karimov system is considered terrorism. Karimov blames HT for a series of bombings - which the group vehemently denies - as well as unspecified al-Qaeda-connected organizations (it was the IMU which was responsible for the 1999 bombings in Tashkent). According to Alison Gill of Human Rights Watch in Uzbekistan, Karimov's security apparatus cracks down heavily on HT, but now Akramia is also a target.
The group was founded in 1992 by a math teacher, Akram Yuldashev, and it's in fact a splinter group from HT. It's very popular with relatively educated youngsters in the Ferghana Valley - as it promotes a direct connection between an honest, pious Islamic way of life and economic success. Amplifying the Islamic tradition of zakat, Akramia also insists that part of business profits must be consecrated to help the poor and the needy. Yuldashev has been in jail since 1999. His wife, a defense witness at the trial, vehemently denied that Akramia's teachings encouraged political subversion: it's all about economic freedom.
Last Thursday, exasperated protesters close to the 23 businessmen organized a commando raid to release them, taking over the local administration center - with many also demanding for Karimov to go. According to the protesters, had they not acted this way, the 23 would have been condemned, tortured and killed: that's how it works in the Karimov system. The next day came the bloodbath. Galima Bukharbaeva, on site for the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, described a column of armored personnel carriers firing at will - and unprovoked - at the protesters. As many as 500 may have been killed, including women and children, and more than 2,000 wounded. People were angrily protesting against the corruption of the Karimov system, which they blame for their appalling living conditions. Karimov blamed it all on "terrorist groups". The White House copied him almost verbatim.
Seven decades of the Soviet system imprinted their atheist mark on Uzbekistan. This is not an Islamist haven. Talibanization is a deadend (and that's why the IMU is only a minor sect). The only true national religion is vodka - capable of alleviating even economic distress. Most women in Tashkent use makeup and mini-skirts with thigh-high boots. HT preaches peaceful jihad. The Karimov system's repression is relentless. All Muslim organizations and even mosques have to be registered. Sheikhs need a work permit issued by the government. If you don't pray in a state-sanctioned mosque and wear a long beard, traditional turbans or a hijab, you can go to jail.
A throne drenched in blood When Uzbekistan became an independent republic in 1991 Karimov operated a classic emperor's new clothes facelift: exit the communist apparatchik, enter the president; exit Marx, Lenin and Stalin, enter Tamerlan. Karimov, stony face and vacant eyes, is the new Tamerlan - without the conquering spirit (Tamerlan built an empire stretching from Egypt to the Great Wall of China).
The legendary, last nomadic ruler of the Central Asian plains used to order pyramids of skulls to be erected after battles to better terrify subdued populations. Karimov relies on proven "counterinsurgency" torture methods with a macabre, creative touch (immersion in boiling water) thrown in. He once declared, on the record, that Islamists should be killed by a bullet in the head - exactly like scores of wounded may have been killed in Andijan by the Uzbek army, according to some witnesses. In 2004, Human Rights Watch released a book with more than 300 pages of case studies in Uzbek torture. One of the key objectives of torture is to give the US "intelligence" connecting the Uzbek opposition - any kind of opposition - to al-Qaeda and "terrorist groups". Once again: the Karimov system regards any kind of opposition as "terrorism".
Everything in Uzbekistan is Soviet/clannish, Karimov-controlled. Practically every square inch in every neighborhood (mahalle ) in Uzbekistan is under surveillance by the so-called "White Beards" - the system's informants. Karimov's only weakness is his daughters. Gulnara Karimova, the eldest, practically owns the country - factories, mobile phone companies, travel agencies, the nightclubs where the micro-power elite dances to Russian techno. There may be lots of gas, oil and cotton - but the majority of 26 million Uzbeks subsist with less than a dollar a day. The currency - the som - is virtually worthless: 0.0007 euros. Changing money in Tashkent can become a war operation lasting a full hour.
Rosebud If Orson Welles could remake Citizen Kane (Citizen Karimov?) Uzbekistan's Rosebud would be Khanabad. Khanabad embodies a graphic post-Cold War irony. It used to be the biggest Soviet airbase during the 1980s war in Afghanistan. Now it hosts the Americans - ostensively serving to help the "war on terror" in Afghanistan.
The Washington-Tashkent "special relationship" started as early as the mid-1990s, during the Bill Clinton administration. In 1999, Green Berets were actively training Uzbek Special Forces. Khanabad has nothing to do with Afghanistan: Bagram takes care of this. But Khanabad is crucial as one of the key bases surrounding Bush's Greater Middle East, or to put it in the relevant perspective, the Middle East/Caucasus/Central Asia heavenly arc of oil and gas. It's on a seven-year lease to the Pentagon, due to expire in late 2008.
So Karimov in Uzbekistan is as essential a piece in the great oil and gas chessboard as Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan. Inevitably, there will be more uprisings in the impoverished Ferghana Valley that has reached a boiling point. Karimov again will unleash his American-funded army. The White House will be silent. The Kremlin will be silent (or dub it "green revolution" - by Islamic fundamentalists, as it did with Andijan). Corporate media will be silent: one imagines the furor had Andijan happened in Lebanon when Syrian troops were still in the country. Uzbeks in the Ferghana won't be valued as people legitimately fighting for freedom and democracy: they will be labeled as terrorists. And Rumsfeld will keep cultivating a "strong relationship" with Karimov's Rosebud.
KYRGYZSTAN INTERESTED IN EXPANSION OF RUSSIAN PRESENCE 21:39
BISHKEK, May 18 (RIA Novosti) - Kyrgyzstan is interested in the expansion of Russian presence, said Kyrgyz First Vice Premier Felix Kulov, a hero of the recent revolution in Kyrgyzstan. His interference prevented bloodshed in the republic.
"There is a Russian airbase in Kant (30 km to the east of Kyrgyz capital Bishkek), however, it is necessary to reinforce Russian presence on the Osh direction," Kulov said at a meeting with chairman of the State Duma commission for CIS and compatriots affairs Andrei Kokoshin.
According to Kulov, Russian investments in Kyrgyzstan will become a stability factor in the country.
Kulov and Kokoshin discussed the developments in Kyrgyzstan after the events of March 24 which led to President Askar Akayev's flight from the country and ways to stabilize the situation in the republic, as well as the situation in neighboring Uzbekistan following the recent turmoil in Andizhan, said the press service of the Kyrgyz government.
"The Islamic trace in Andizhan is obvious and this is a serious problem," Andrei Kokoshin stressed.
However, the Russian parliamentarian does not link his Thursday trip to Osh (southern Kyrgyzstan) with the events on the Kyrgyz-Uzbek border (refugees from Andizhan fled to the Osh region with the 50% ethnic Uzbek population).
Meanwhile, acting Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, currently in Tajikistan, claimed that there had been no 'color' revolution in Kyrgyzstan.
"Kyrgyzstan saw not a color revolution but a real Kyrgyz revolution which was the result of the execution of a peaceful demonstration in the Aksai district three years ago," Bakiyev said at a press conference in Dushanbe.
In his words, the results of the 2005 parliamentary elections were forged in many Kyrgyz regions.
Such things happen when the authorities do not care for people, he said.
In his opinion, the revolution in Kyrgyzstan will not have any negative influence on the situation in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan.
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