Update [2005-5-15 6:51:55 by susanhbu]: Witnesses describe bloodbath outside Uzbek school (Reuters Alertnet): “Soldiers later moved in among “literally hundreds” of bodies, finishing off some of the wounded with a single bullet.” The first to die were a group of policemen taken hostage and pushed to the front of the crowd.
Read the rest of this story from hell below the fold. Also new below the fold: “Iron Fist in Andijan.”
From Sat., 07:34:07 PM PDT: Oui’s diary alerted us to this story. I did a follow-up and added updates this morning:
- “Anti-government protesters stormed a prison early Friday morning, releasing thousands of inmates”
- a “human rights activist witnessed as many as 200 people killed in a fusillade launched against a crowd”
- “[t]housands of terrified Uzbeks fled for the border Saturday, a day after troops fired on demonstrators
Now, The Guardian reports:
Update [2005-5-15 6:59:11 by susanhbu]: Overview from Time magazine, one hour ago:
Sunday, May. 15, 2005
Some leaders sneak out of their country during an uprising; others become paralyzed by mass demonstrations. But when Uzbek oppositionists rose up in the eastern city of Andijan last week, Uzbekistan’s President Islam Karimov sent in the armor. Communications with Andijan were cut; foreign TV news broadcasts to Uzbekistan, including from Russia, were replaced with light entertainment.
[………………………]
… Few observers believe this is the end of the violence. Authoritarian regimes such as Karimov’s are less susceptible to unrest, says regional analyst Andrei Grozin: “But even if the authorities are able to crush the uprising in Andijan, the next upsurge could come in a month, or a year.” …
Reuters Alertnet Update Excerpts:
By Dmitry Solovyov
ANDIZHAN, Uzbekistan, May 15 (Reuters) – Uzbek soldiers fired into a crowd, including women, children and their own police comrades begging them not to shoot, when they crushed an uprising in the town of Andizhan, witnesses said on Sunday.
Soldiers later moved in among “literally hundreds” of bodies, finishing off some of the wounded with a single bullet, said one witness to Friday’s killings outside School No. 15. …
The two independent eyewitness accounts to Reuters, both by men who live nearby but who asked not to be identified, could not be independently verified. President Islam Karimov said on Saturday he had forbidden the use of force against women, children and the elderly.
Two days after an uprising in the mostly Muslim Central Asian state’s Ferghana Valley, blood and body parts, hastily sprinkled with soil, still lay on the pavements, streets, and gutters in the centre of this leafy town of 300,000 people.
A human rights campaigner from Andizhan, Saidzhakhon Zaidabitdinov, has said up to 500 were killed, including police and soldiers, in the Friday violence.
The first to die outside School No. 15, the witnesses told Reuters, were a group of policemen who had been seized by rebels. Some rebels seen in Andizhan on Friday were carrying guns.
“About 10 policemen were pushed ahead of the crowd as hostages,” said one of the witnesses, a 35-year-old businessman. He said an armoured personnel carrier (APC) and troops took up position in front of them.
“‘Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!’ they (the police) begged. But then the APC opened fire from about 150 metres (yards) away.”
It was not clear from witness accounts to what extent those in the crowd were armed, or returned fire.
Panic broke out as troops continued firing from rooftops and people fled down narrow alleyways, some pursued by soldiers.
The rebels, whom Karimov says are Islamic militants, had earlier taken 10 police officers hostage and seized a state building in the central square. Protesters, some calling for Karimov to resign, staged a demonstration outside.
When troops opened fire in the square, the rebels took their hostages and mingled with a large crowd, including casual onlookers, that made its way 1,200 metres (less than a mile) down Cholpon Avenue, a broad tree-lined street, to the school, the witnesses said.
[………………]
On Saturday, soldiers started removing corpses and the wounded, but a handful who tried to escape were shot dead, the witnesses said.
“Those wounded who tried to get away were finished with single shots from a Kalashnikov rifle,” said the businessman. “Three or four soldiers were assigned to killing the wounded.”
From Sat., 07:34:07 PM PDT::
The Guardian continues:
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. …
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.
[……………….]
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?’