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Wednesday, May 18, 2005

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International

Hundreds killed in Uzbekistan: Opposition

Vladimir Radyuhin

"Impoverished region heading for a general uprising"

BIDING THEIR TIME: Uzbek refugees sit in a tent in the neighbouring Kyrgyzstan on Tuesday. — PHOTO: AP

MOSCOW: As many as 800 persons may have been killed in recent violence in Uzbekistan, an Opposition group said.

The official death toll for armed clashes in the city of Andijan in eastern Uzbekistan stood at 169, Uzbekistan's Prosecutor-General said on Tuesday. However, a small Opposition party put the figure at 745 killed and said it could cross 800.

List compiled

The leader of the Free Peasants Party, Nigara Khidoyatola, told Russia's Izvestia daily that party activists had compiled lists of 542 persons shot dead in Andijan last Friday, when troops opened fire on protesters after they had killed 10 police and armymen, seized weapons and captured some hostages. The riots had been triggered by the trial of 23 local businessmen accused of belonging to an Islamic extremist group. Another 203 persons were killed in the city of Pakhtabad, north of Andijan, where riots began at the weekend, Mrs. Khidoyatola said.

House-to-house call

She suggested the casualty figure could still go up as volunteers were continuing their house-to-house call.

Officials in Tashkent said the situation in the violence-hit Ferghana Valley had returned to normal, but Andijan is still closed to foreign media and human rights activitists.

Several thousand Uzbek people fleeing violence have gathered in the town of Kara-Su on the border with Kyrgyzstan, trying to cross into the neighbouring republic.

Mrs. Khidoyatola predicted that the impoverished Ferghana Valley, where a third or even a half of Uzbekistan's population lives, was heading for a general uprising.

"The region will be quiet for a week or so till people bury their killed relatives," the Opposition leader told Izvestia. "Then local riots will begin, which authorities will savagely suppress, so that a couple of months later popular anger will explode."

Unemployment runs at 30 per cent in Uzbekistan, Mrs. Khidoyatola said. The local bureaucracy rolls in money and unheard-of privileges, while all Opposition parties have been banned.

She said authorities had refused to register the Free Peasants Party.

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