500 died in Uzbekistan fighting

[Said1]

500 died in Uzbekistan fighting, doctor says
Last Updated Sun, 15 May 2005 15:00:38 EDT
CBC News
ANDIJAN, UZBEKISTAN - As many as 500 people died in Friday's fighting in the central Asian country of Uzbekistan, an unconfirmed report says.

A doctor on Sunday told the Associated Press that about 500 bodies had been taken to a school in the city of Andijan, where the fighting had broken out between protesters and government soldiers.



The doctor, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said as many as 2,000 people were wounded.

Some people were trying to escape arrest by fleeing to nearby Kyrgyzstan on Sunday. Reports from Andijan said gunfire broke out several times during the day and soldiers with armoured vehicles were occupying the main streets.

On Saturday, authorities said the army had ousted the armed men who took over a government building after freeing about 600 prisoners from a jail.


The unrest began with protests about the trials of 23 businessmen accused of religious extremism through membership in a group that wants to create an Islamic state.
On Sunday, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw told BBC Radio that "there has been a clear abuse of human rights, a lack of democracy and a lack of openness."

The U.S. has a base in Uzbekistan used to fight terrorists in Afghanistan.

Link

 

[Said1]

Older more detailed article

 

[NATO AIR]

The terrifying part is wondering if something like this will happen again.

How many more innocents will die before the regime collapses?

 

[onedomino]

Getting Uzbekistan Wrong
Two powerful trends cross paths in the Ferghana Valley.
by Stephen Schwartz
05/16/2005 2:25:00 PM

http://weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/623dlyqv.asp

CERTAIN WORLD EVENTS, which at first seem obscure, have the peculiar capacity to illuminate the hidden contradictions of world politics. But the glare they produce often confuses most spectators. The collapse of Yugoslavia in 1991 was such an event. So was the uprising in the Uzbek city of Andijan last week.

The situation in Uzbekistan is easily understood: "U" for Ukraine, "stan" for Kyrgyzstan. That is, the peak of the democratization wave in the former Soviet states is reaching Central Asia, where it cannot but intersect with the similar wave in the Muslim world, and where it cannot be obstructed for much longer.

The bare facts about the Andijan events are simple, but were also predictable. First, the Ferghana Valley and neighboring regions of eastern Uzbekistan have been seething with discontent since late last year, when thousands turned out to demonstrate against high taxes and restrictive state policies on commerce. The protests began in the ancient city of Qoqand, which also has a tradition of local political rule, and quickly spread to Andijan province.

This turmoil is unrelated to radical Islam, and Islamist extremists were unable to capitalize on it. Nor is it motivated by desperate poverty; rather, it is an expression of rising expectations. The democratizing revolution in Kyrgyzstan, which lies on the border near Andijan, electrified the Ferghana Valley. The unsettled Uzbeks now have, next door, a successful example of direct action against unjust rule.

The crisis accelerated six weeks ago when citizens in the town of Andijan began peaceful demonstrations against the imprisonment of 23 young, local businessmen. The 23 were accused of belonging to an "Islamist conspiracy" called Akramiyya, which in reality seems to have been nothing more than a local spiritual and charitable circle. (Local "spiritual" Islamic circle? What does that mean? I wonder about the disclaimers regarding radical Islamic fundamentalists participating in the Uzbekistan unrest. Various sources claim they are not involved. I hope that is true, but I need more proof than a few news articles.) The Uzbek authorities and Russian and foreign news agencies and blogs have together accused Akramiyya of affiliation with Hizb-ut-Tahrir (HuT--the Liberation party), an extremist, neo-Wahhabi organization which is banned in several countries. (If this is true, then to hell with the Uzbekistan "rebels." But what is true? The Russians lie almost continuously. Are they telling the truth in this case? Who knows? Why should we trust the repeatedly incompetent Western Press?)

But Sheikh Muhammad Sadiq Muhammad Yusuf, the 52-year-old, former grand mufti, or chief Muslim cleric for Central Asia, whom I interviewed at length in December, and who is notably pro-American, denies the charge that Akramiyya is connected to HuT. According to him (as reported by the Jamestown Foundation), Akramiyya "has nothing in common with Hizb-ut-Tahrir and other radical political Islamic organizations." (Right, Muslim clerics are highly reliable sources. Try again for some credibility. I want to believe that Uzbek rebels are good guys, but where's the proof? A Muslim cleric? Cut it out.)

Although a reliable, detailed account of last week's incidents remains elusive, it is certain that Uzbek troops fired on demonstrators in Andijan, killing an unknown but significant number of people. Citizens fought back and killed some members of the security forces. In the aftermath of this tragedy, Uzbeks began streaming from Ferghana toward the Kyrgyz border, convinced their lives were in danger and that they had to reach a territory where some kind of democratic norms were in place.

The Uzbek government of Islam Karimov has continued to blame the Andijan insurrection on HuT, and to try, therefore, to decouple the crisis from the post-Soviet democratization movement. (Yeah, but is the HuT accusation true, or not?) I saw this coming during my December visit to Uzbekistan, which coincided with the Orange Revolution in Ukraine. In extensive talks with Uzbek officials, I found them impervious to the logic of their situation. When Ukraine was mentioned, they would change the subject or argue that it was irrelevant to them--indeed, Karimov himself declared that democratizing "projects" allegedly inspired from outside would have no place in his domain.

When I tried to explain to the Uzbeks that neither President George W. Bush nor Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who had supported Karimov in the past, wanted to hear this, they became hostile. My visit coincided with the decision of the U.S. State Department to declare HuT an "extremist," but not a terrorist, organization. Why were "we" doing this, I was asked aggressively and angrily? Why were "we" protecting terrorists? According to Uzbek security officials and ethnic Russians who work in their ranks, the U.S. and Britain have coddled HuT to maintain it as a weapon against Moscow.

The bottom line in Uzbekistan is simple and obvious. The people of the Ferghana Valley have Kyrgyzstan next door, just as Wahhabi-ruled Saudi Arabia has newly liberated Iraq next door, and just as 25 years ago, the Soviet Union had Poland next door. Uzbekistan is the most populous and developed of the former-Soviet Central Asian republics. Of all these states, it has the most in common with Ukraine and Georgia, even more than Kyrgyzstan had. The appeal of radical Islam in Uzbekistan is highly overrated; (Where's the proof of that? We need more assurance than just this Western author that HuT is not a militant Islamic organization.) the resentment of local bazaar merchants against unjust taxation and other abuses in the Ferghana Valley is not. It's time for the Uzbeks to definitively join the democracy movement and leave the Soviet era, with its bloodshed and lies, behind. (Let's hope this can be accomplished without the cancer of radical Islamic fundamentalism.)

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[Annie]

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/635iihrr.asp

This is one thing that I find so illogical in the aftermath of 9/11. I have always found it hard to defend, though not understand, why the US back Saddam against the Iranians. In that case it was the US Vs. USSR; Cold War; Real Politik; what have you. We did associate with some very bad actors for those 50+ years, I do not see where it is necessary to continue to back the types of dictators we are now fighting a war to get rid of.

To be playing the same game today? Not acceptable, from the intro:

Our Uzbek Problem
From the May 30, 2005 issue: The character of the Karimov regime can no longer be ignored in deference to the strategic usefulness of Uzbekistan.
by Stephen Schwartz and William Kristol
05/30/2005, Volume 010, Issue 35


IN THE WEEKS AFTER SEPTEMBER 11, 2001, as Washington prepared for a difficult war to remove the Taliban from Afghanistan, the neighboring former Soviet republic of Uzbekistan became a particularly useful ally. Indeed, Uzbekistan was the first country to offer military assistance to our government on the afternoon of September 11, and the Pentagon subsequently established a base there. After the main fighting in Afghanistan ended, we continued to work with the regime of Islam Karimov, even though he remained an unsubtle dictator of the neo-Soviet style. We did little to help promote political freedom there. Indeed, we seem to have "rendered" dozens of terrorists to the Karimov government for interrogation, despite (or perhaps because of) its well-deserved reputation for brutality and torture.

But the character of the Karimov regime can no longer be ignored in deference to the strategic usefulness of Uzbekistan. The Taliban has been defeated, and, with the liberation of Iraq, the nature of the global struggle to which the Bush administration is committed is no longer exclusively focused on the destruction of terrorist redoubts. We are now committed to a democratizing effort that challenges tyranny along with terror as threats to peace and freedom around the world. The Uzbek regime that was part of the solution in 2001 is now, with its bloody suppression of protests, part of the problem.

[...]

 

[onedomino]

nature of the global struggle to which the Bush administration is committed is no longer exclusively focused on the destruction of terrorist redoubts. We are now committed to a democratizing effort

I agree. And a fine goal to be sure. But is that what the Uzbek rebels have in mind? Democracy? Or does HuT (if it is an Uzbek factor as the government claims) have Wahhabi religious fascism as its goal? The MSM has done a very poor job (typical) of reporting on the plans and aspirations of the Uzbek rebels. What are the rebel plans? Will there be elections?

 

[Annie]

I agree. And a fine goal to be sure. But is that what the Uzbek rebels have in mind? Democracy? Or does HuT (if it is an Uzbek factor as the government claims) have Wahhabi religious fascism as its goal? The MSM has done a very poor job (typical) of reporting on the plans and aspirations of the Uzbek rebels. What are the rebel plans? Will there be elections?

I guess at heart I'm a pragmatist. We really needed that base in Uzbek. at the beginning. Once the other things started tumbling, should have been quick to cut the strings. This is the type of thing that can/probably will come back to bite us.