Uzbeks hit out at US backing for president
Thousands of civilians are reported dead in the country after three days of violence and hundreds are reported to be trying to flee to neighbouring Kyrgyzstan.
Gunfire persisted again in the eastern city of Andijan where security forces fired on protesters last week a clash that reportedly left several hundred dead and new reports emerged that violence in nearby towns killed hundreds more.
Saidjahon Zaynabitdinov, head of the local Appeal human rights advocacy group, said yesterday that government troops had killed about 200 demonstrators on Saturday in Pakhtabad, about 18 miles north-east of Andijan.
Makhmud, a young Kyrgyz trader said as he returned to his home in Kara-Suu on the Uzbek-Kyrgyz border: "The West gave Karimov his power, they said he was a statesman, now he says he is statesman even though he murdered his own people. You tell me what's the difference between Karimov and Saddam Hussein."
Kara-Suu was palpably tense as traders hurried blankets and other goods between the Uzbek and Kyrgyz sides of town, divided by a fast-flowing river straddled by a make-shift metal bridge.
Rakhmat, a trader who crossed the hastily rebuilt Kara-Suu river bridge, said he saw desperate refugees drown in the water.
"President Islam Karimov took that bridge down in 1999 because he didn't want us trading in Kyrgyzstan, that's half the reason why there were protests in Andijan, it was poverty not politics that drove people on to the streets.
"Anyone who says the protest was the work of militant Islamists is lying. It was the people, tired, poor, hungry people, not extremists, who took to the street. Anything else is Karimov's propaganda, he thinks that's what the world wants to hear."
Uzbekistan, often touted as the most brutal post-Soviet regime, became a key ally in the War in Terror in 2001 allowing America to open an air base.
The country has been accused of a series of grisly human rights abuses, including torture, murder and boiling detainees alive.
The US has urged Uzbekistan to act with restraint but continued gunfire shattered an uneasy stalemate in Andijan late yesterday evening.
Residents said government troops were fighting militants in Bogishonol, an outlying district of the city, but the claim could not officially be confirmed.
More than 2,000 convicts, many held on charges of religious extremism, were freed during a jail break on Friday. Eye witnesses say protesters looted the armoury taking submachine guns, rifles and grenades.
Troops formed a tight circle around the city centre, where the local administration building at the centre of Friday's violence was on fire late on Sunday.
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