Rohan Pearce
The May 13 massacre in the Uzbek city of Andijan proved acutely embarrassing for Washington. Uzbek President Islam Karimov has been an important ally in the White House's "war on terror" and the regime has received substantial US aid since 9/11. Washington appears torn between not wanting to further discredit its claims to be "spreading democracy" and not jeopardising the Pentagon's use of an important military airbase at Karshi-Khanabad in Uzbekistan.
A statement issued by NATO after the conclusion of a June 9-10 defence ministers' meeting in Brussels briefly noted that the meeting "discussed issues of security and stability in Central Asia, including Uzbekistan". According to the June 14 Washington Post, that wording was the product of a split within the NATO meeting, with the Russian representatives and the Pentagon on one side, and everyone else on the other.
The Post reported that the "communique's wording was worked out after what several knowledgeable sources called a vigorous debate in Brussels between U.S. defense officials, who emphasized the importance of the [US airbase in Uzbekistan], and others, including State Department representatives at NATO headquarters, who favored language calling for a transparent, independent and international probe into the killings of Uzbekistan civilians by police and soldiers".
Despite this brouhaha, White House spokesperson Trent Duffy told journalists on June 14 that "the administration has made its view known that it wants the government of Uzbekistan to allow a credible, independent international investigation into the events at Andijan. The administration is speaking with one voice on that, and both the defence department as well as the State Department have made those views known to the government of Uzbekistan."
There is already overwhelming evidence of deliberate, pre-meditated atrocities committed by the Uzbek regime. It is hardly as if the Andijan killings were a blemish on the record of an otherwise human-rights-respecting regime.
Harrowing testimonies from survivors of Andijan have been published in a June 7 report from Human Rights Watch, titled "Bullets Were Falling Like Rain". This explains that, although there were a handful of armed demonstrators at the Andijan protest, the massacre wasn't a case of panicked soldiers unable to control an unruly crowd — it was pre-meditated, well-organised slaughter.
Government forces made numerous assaults on protesters in the morning of May 13, including a 10am attack on demonstrators in Bobur Square that killed up to a dozen people. Human Rights Watch estimates that as many as 50 people may have been killed in the attacks early in the day.
By 4pm the square had been sealed off by armoured personnel carriers, lines of troops and buses. At about 5.20pm soldiers began shooting into the thousands-strong crowd, killing at least nine people in the first volley. No warning preceded the assault.
A journalist who witnessed the massacre described how an armoured personnel carrier "suddenly opened fire on the crowds, firing off round after round without even slowing down to take aim".
Protesters fled down Cholpon Prospect, the only street offering a possible escape. A witness told a Human Rights Watch investigator that, as he made his way down the street, he " heard a scream behind me. I looked back and saw a man with half of his head. The shooting became heavier. The number of wounded was more than those killed. They fired at us with all kinds of weapons. There were [red] tracer bullets. People got down on the ground and the shooting stopped. Then we got up and walked again. After we walked twenty meters the shooting resumed."
A hundred metres further down the road, government forces had used APCs to block off the road, "effectively blocking the main escape route of the crowd, and trapping the crowd in a sniper alley", claims the Human Rights Watch report. Hundreds of survivors fled the city and headed for Kyrgyzstan, those who reached the neighbouring country facing more bullets while trying to cross the border.
The atrocities in Andijan were just the latest bloody episode in Karimov's reign. The international scrutiny it has drawn, however, may force Washington to seek to replace him with a less embarrassing tyrant, preferably one who can avoid such rebellions altogether.
From Green Left Weekly, June 29, 2005.
Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.