Uzbeks mourn loved ones as soldiers prowl streets

Flowers dotted the streets and freshly-dug graves scarred the earth across the eastern Uzbek city of Andijan as residents mourned what witnesses said were hundreds killed by security forces last week – the worst unrest since the former Soviet republic won independence in 1991.

New reports said violence in nearby towns killed hundreds more, further threatening the stability of the government of President Islam Karimov.

The violence puts the US in a difficult position because it relies on Karimov’s authoritarian government for an air base in the country and anti-terrorism support.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said yesterday that the US was “still trying to understand” what happened in Andijan, Uzbekistan’s fourth-largest city, where government troops put down a prison uprising by alleged Islamic militants and a demonstration by citizens about dire economic conditions.

“They really need more political reform and we’ve been saying that to the Uzbeks for some time,” Rice said. “I don’t mean that they should tolerate terrorists or terrorist groups … But it is a system that is politically too closed.”

“The main preoccupations are now to encourage everybody to forgo any further violence, to help with the refugees that went into Kyrgystan out of Uzbekistan, and to try to deal wih the consequences right now of this set of issues,” she said.

The government has blamed Islamic extremists for the violence. The crackdown came after protesters stormed a prison, freed inmates and then seized local government offices. But many of the demonstrators were citizens complaining about poverty and unemployment.

Karimov’s government has denied firing on demonstrators. However, an Associated Press reporter and other journalists witnessed troops opening fire on the crowd at Andijan’s central square.

Channel One state television aired a report alleging militants in Andijan had fired at civilians.

Khushnudbek Matmusayev, a doctor, told Channel One that the militants had fired at an ambulance, killing two medics and a driver.

It is unknown how many died in Friday’s violence.

A respected local doctor in Andijan said about 500 bodies were laid out at a school for collection by relatives.

There was no independent confirmation of the claim by the doctor, who did not want to be identified out of fear for her safety. Other witnesses have said 200 to 300 were killed when troops put down the uprising.

Saidjahon Zaynabitdinov, head of the local Appeal human rights advocacy group, said government troops killed about 200 demonstrators on Saturday in Pakhtabad, about 20 miles north east of Andijan. There was no independent confirmation of his claim.

In Andijan, several bouquets of flowers dotted the middle of one of the city’s main streets. Buildings along the road were pockmarked by scattered bullet holes.

A United Nations official, remaining anonymous for fear of compromising his position, said government troops were concentrating near the city of Namangan, site of the regional airport and a major transport hub in the Fergana Valley, yesterday.

Troops and armoured personnel carriers formed a tight circle around the city centre in Andijan. Men were digging graves, including one that appeared to be a large common grave, at neighbourhood cemeteries under the watch of Uzbek security service agents.

Zaynabitdinov, the rights advocate, displayed a bag with about a dozen dirty sandals he collected at the centre of Friday’s violence, some stained with blood, and said the street had been filled with shoes and clothes from those gunned down.

“These were poor people. They weren’t terrorists,” he said.

He also had a bag full of spent Kalashnikov cartridges and much larger-calibre shells fired from armoured personnel carriers, which were used by government forces to quell the protests.

In the capital, Tashkent, several rights activists and opposition politicians, surrounded by scores of uniformed police and plainclothes security agents, laid flowers at a monument to commemorate the victims of violence in Andijan.

Participants accused Karimov of giving orders to shoot at the crowd in Andijan.

“It’s clear that they wouldn’t have opened fire without an order from the top,” said Inera Safargaliyeva, the head of the Committee for Freedom of Speech and Expression.