Update [2005-5-22 8:22:57 by susanhbu]: BBC: Hundreds of residents of the Uzbek border town of Korasuv have returned to the streets to demand the release of the leader of a popular uprising. Bakhtior Rakhimov was among those seized after taking the town last week, inspired by unrest in nearby Andijan.


The protesters said they would stay until the detainees were freed.

Correspondents for Reuters have seen fresh graves “near the epicenter of last week’s violence, the town of Andizhan,” where hundreds died, reports Reuters/Yahoo:

Refugees who fled a crackdown by Uzbek troops said on Friday they dared not return home [from Kyrgyzstan], and the United Nations turned up the volume on its demands for an inquiry into deaths believed to have run into hundreds.


As reports trickle out of that obscure region, I learned much from “Democracy Now!” about why people protested for 23 imprisoned businessmen, and more about the U.S. alliance with Uzbek’s dictatorship … Mostly, I learned how f–king stupid the Uzbek and U.S. dictatorships are. Below:
I mostly learned how f–king stupid the Uzbek and U.S. dictatorships are.

I’ve gone through the Friday interviews with Uzbek experts, and found answers to questions that I’ve had:

Why did the people protest?

JUSTIN RAIMONDO [editorial director of Antiwar.com]:

Well, you know, I think you have to understand why the people were there for a month demonstrating every day, because basically these 23 businessmen were arrested because they’re businessmen, and they employ most of the people in town.

So that when the cops came and arrested these guys, took them away and charged them with being part of this Islamic clique, which doesn’t exist, everybody was unemployed.

So, that’s why people broke in armed, took over the town, and basically freed the people, freed their employers.

Because they needed jobs, and because the government destroyed an economy in one fell swoop by imprisoning 23 businessmen. How idiotic can you get?


What happened during the protests?

PETER BOEHM [Freelance journalist who has reported from Uzbekistan for the Christian Science Monitor and the Independent of London]:

Well, it’s as you said, in, as you said before, it seems to have been triggered by this trial against 23 businessmen. There were protests basically every day, the supporters of these 23 businessmen. In the end, there were 4,000 people standing every day in front of the courthouse.

And these 23 men were to be, they were already found guilty, and they were to be sentenced, and then overnight, armed men — armed men stormed an army barrack and a police station, took perhaps weapons, then went on to storm the prison, released the 23 businessmen, released 2,000 more prisoners, and then went on to occupy the building of the regional administration.

Then demonstrators, protesters gathered around this building or rather on a large square in front of this regional administration building, and they started to denounce the government. The demonstrators were not, they were not shouting any inflammatory, Islamic prose, they were just protesting against the economic situation and they were talking about their grievances against the government.


Then, it seems, early evening about 1700 local time, a crowd of some 2,000 people started to walk away from the regional administration building.

In the crowd there were armed men … but there were also women and children, and there were other unarmed civilians. [T]his crowd of 2,000 walked along a boulevard, and until or up to a place where two armed personnel carriers and soldiers were blocking this road, and then the shooting started.

[A] large part, we have to fear, by what eyewitnesses say, in the end, a large part of this crowd who had walked towards the soldiers was lying dead on the street, and you know, the shooting went on for two hours without stopping, and then the whole night, the shooting went on.

And even eyewitnesses who maintain that some of the soldiers went up — and this was supposedly happening early morning — that some of the soldiers followed injured people and killed them before taking them up and putting them on lories and taking them away.


So a government too stupid to protect a region’s economy and to keep its citizens employed can only handle a situation by firing bullets? Sounds vaguely familiar.


What about the U.S. involvement with this dictatorship and its response to the bloodshed?


AMY GOODMAN: Wasn’t this the country that Donald Rumsfeld recently went to and said, “I’m happy to be here?”


ACACIA SHIELDS [Senior Researcher on Central Asia for Human Rights Watch — See HRW’s 2004 report on Uzbekistan.]:

Absolutely. Absolutely. And, you know, the U.S. government has had a very close relationship with Uzbekistan for a long time, and I think it’s important right now, as President Karimov attempts to paint what happened in Andijan as a reaction to terrorism as part of his policy of counter-terrorism, to watch how the U.S. government reacts to that, because the U.S. government has given President Karimov a lot of leeway over the years when he justifies his policies of abuse in the name of counter-terrorism?


AMY GOODMAN: How?


ACACIA SHIELDS: The U.S. government gives substantial aid to Uzbekistan, and even when there has been criticism from the Congress, criticism from the State Department, regarding Uzbekistan’s record, the Bush administration has still held firm in its support, and more importantly, the U.S. military has come in and given supplemental aid when other aid was cut, as a way to really to compensate and show that no matter what the record is, the U.S. military supports Karimov?


JUAN GONZALEZ: And is that because of its strategic military importance, vis-a-vis other countries in the region, or is that because Karimov is opening the country up to foreign investment or U.S. investment?


ACACIA SHIELDS: I don’t the economic motivation is key for the U.S. decision to really invest in Karimov. I think that it really has been a decision that Uzbekistan is the bulwark for U.S. security policy in the Central Asian region. It was a buffer against Afghanistan for the U.S., when the Taliban was in power, and now is the location, obviously, of U.S. troops. So it, really is a security motivation.


AMY GOODMAN: And the response, Justin Raimondo, of the U.S. government to the latest killings of what’s believed to be more than 700 people?


JUSTIN RAIMONDO: Well, I mean, it’s just astonishing. You know, if this had happened, in say, you know, like Belarus or in Russia, or in China, you would have Condi Rice who would be screaming. Bush would personally condemn it, but Bush has said nothing. And you know it’s interesting, this whole revolution is economically based. It has nothing to do with Islam. It has to do with economics. You know, the other guy mentioned something about, well, you know, it’s U.S. investment. Actually, Karimov has banned imports. This is what really sparked the whole thing in November. There was a rebellion in a nearby town of Kokand and it was based on the fact that Karimov and his cabinet passed a law saying that nobody can sell any produce, any imports unless they have personally imported them physically. So, you have to understand, I mean, this brought economic life in the entire Fergana Valley to a standstill. This is the real reason for the upsurge in Uzbekistan, which is why I’m saying it’s a free market revolution, but Bush, Mr. Free Market, is not supporting it. And he’s not supporting it because the state interests of the United States are opposed to the official ideology of the United States. So, it’s very interesting and ironic.


These are brief sections of the interviews, which you can read, listen to, or watch.


From Amy Goodman’s backgrounder introduction to her three guests:

Uzbek President Islam Karimov has rejected calls for an international inquiry into a bloody crackdown on protesters in the town of Andijan last week. Human rights groups say as many as 750 people were killed, while the government claims just over 150 died.

[……..]


[Survivors fled] towards the border of Kyrgyzstan where witnesses say Uzbek troops fired on them once more. Some reports put the final death toll as high as 750.


Uzbekistan is one of the Bush administration’s closest allies in Central Asia despite the country’s notorious human rights record. The US has an airbase in the south of the country which provides logistical support to operations in Afghanistan.


On Thursday, the head of US Central Command – General John Abizaid – said that operations were being scaled back at the base as a “prudent move.” But he said this was not intended to be a political message of disapproval to President Karimov.


Torture and police brutality are widespread in Uzbekistan. The country has no independent political parties, no free and fair elections, and no independent news media.


Uzbekistan is also believed to be one of the destination countries for what is known as “extraordinary rendition” where detainees are transferred by the US to countries known to practice torture.


Last year Human Rights Watch released a 319-page report detailing the use of torture by Uzbekistan’s security services. It said the government was carrying out a campaign of torture and intimidation against Muslims that had seen 7,000 people imprisoned, and documented at least 10 deaths, including one man who was boiled to death in 2002.


One of Amy Goodman’s questions of Acacia Shields, HRW’s Senior Researcher on Central Asia:

AMY GOODMAN: Well, let’s talk about what is happening within Uzbekistan, Acacia Shields, reporting on someone who was boiled to death. What is the situation and the issue of the U.S. using this country to send prisoners to be tortured? What evidence do you have of this?


ACACIA SHIELDS: Well, our evidence is really of the torture of Uzbeks in Uzbekistan, and that we found to be systemic. We found not only this one case of a person being boiled to death, but the use of electric shock, the use of beatings, suffocation. So, there’s no doubt, and everyone knows it …


AMY GOODMAN: Wasn’t this the country that Donald Rumsfeld recently went to and said, “I’m happy to be here?”


ACACIA SHIELDS: Absolutely. Absolutely. And, you know, the U.S. government has had a very close relationship with Uzbekistan for a long time, and I think it’s important right now, as President Karimov attempts to paint what happened in Andijan as a reaction to terrorism as part of his policy of counter-terrorism, to watch how the U.S. government reacts to that, because the U.S. government has given President Karimov a lot of leeway over the years when he justifies his policies of abuse in the name of counter-terrorism?


AMY GOODMAN: How?


ACACIA SHIELDS: The U.S. government gives substantial aid to Uzbekistan, and even when there has been criticism from the Congress, criticism from the State Department, regarding Uzbekistan’s record, the Bush administration has still held firm in its support, and more importantly, the U.S. military has come in and given supplemental aid when other aid was cut, as a way to really to compensate and show that no matter what the record is, the U.S. military supports Karimov. …


Why is it that wherever you find torture and repression, you find the name of Donald Rumsfeld?


STUPID: The U.S. administration, too dense to realize the connection between human rights and economic productivity, the importance of peace in developing economic viability, and the need to be, in actuality, a beacon of hope for the world.