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U Z B E K I S T A N
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photos Þ exSoviet regions |
| maps ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ relief .pdf (1998) | |
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23 more killed in Uzbekistan clashes 3.30.04 AP
Tashkent, Uzbekistan Police & military clashed with suspected terrorists, incl 3 female suicide bombers, and 23 people were killed in a third
day of violence Tuesday that rattled the capital during a sweep to round up Islamic militants, witnesses &
authorities said. |
Uzbek police storm militant hideout; up to 23 dead 3.30.04 Reuters
Tashkent, Uzbekistan Uzbek special forces stormed a suspected Islamic militants' hideout in a
Tashkent suburb Tuesday, leaving up to 23 people dead after a day-long siege, the Interior Ministry said. A
suburban resident, Farida, said she saw special forces running away from a woman apparently wearing a belt with
explosives, who then pursued a bus carrying morning shift workers. But the vehicle sped away. "Then the police
shot her in the leg, she fell down and then she blew herself up," said Farida. "The woman's head flew over the wall
and into the courtyard."
The battle erupted in Yalangach, 2 miles from one of President Islam Karimov's residences, a day after explosions
killed 19 people in the Central Asian state. Authorities said Islamic militants triggered those blasts.
Tension remained high after dark in Tashkent, a sprawling city dominated by tatty Soviet-era buildings erected after
a 1966 earthquake. Soldiers with Kalashnikov rifles stood on corners and only a handful of cars ventured into the
streets. Monday's blasts, which the prosecutor general blamed on female suicide bombers, raised concern in
Washington, which uses an Uzbek airbase for operations in neighboring Afghanistan.
Residents & officials at the scene said 20 people were killed in the worst violence to grip the state since Soviet
times. 20 people died in 1999 bomb attacks aimed at Karimov. Western countries & rights groups have
criticized the ex-Soviet state for using tough tactics against Islamic opposition, including accusations of widespread
torture.
2 groups, Intl Helsinki Federation for Human Rights and the Human Rights Society of Uzbekistan, voiced fears
authorities "might take discriminatory and repressive actions" against religious communities and opposition groups.
"Improving human rights in Uzbekistan...could reduce the threat of terrorism," a joint statement issued in Vienna
said. |
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Tuesday's violence was centered in the Yalangach neighborhood, near the home of President Islam Karimov. An
AP reporter saw 4 separate sites of fighting in the area. The Interior Ministry said on state-run TV that 20 militants
and 3 police were killed in confrontations that began about 7:20 a.m. 5 police were wounded, it said. It did not say how long the operation lasted, but witnesses indicated it ended after several hours. The militants blew themselves up with homemade explosives while police tried to arrest them, the ministry said, without elaborating. Police stopped a small car and 2 alleged terrorists jumped out & detonated explosive-laden belts, killing themselves and 3 police officers and injuring 5 more policemen, said a National Security Service officer at the scene who declined to give his name.
In a separate nearby bombing, neighborhood resident Farida Raupkhajayeva said 4 women in a red car had driven
up to a police checkpoint. One woman, dressed in black, got out and approached a bus that was stopped there,
ignoring a police order to stop, Raupkhajayeva said. Police shot her in the legs, and she set off a bomb, said
Raupkhajayeva, 50. The other 3 women ran into the apartment building, which then was besieged by police.
An Interior Ministry officer said 16 suspected terrorists, 11 men & 5 women, had been killed in the apartment
building about 100 yards away from the suicide bombing site. Some had been shot by police but others killed
themselves with grenades, said the officer, who refused to give his name.
An AP reporter saw 5 bodies on a sidewalk outside the building. Police investigators & plainclothes security
officers with Kalashnikov rifles milled about as a white-coated medical official put the bodies on stretchers.
5 men escaped, said a resident who refused to give her name. She said the women in the car were wearing hijab
veils, revealing only their eyes, which is rare in secular Uzbekistan. She said they were speaking a Central Asian
language she could not understand. Security was increased across the city, with soldiers on patrol and hotels deploying metal detectors and not allowing vehicles to approach. Soldiers with dogs patrolled the airport, but flights continued. Foreign Ministry spokesman Ilkhom Zakirov said trucks and an armored personnel carrier were used to block the route to Karimov's residence. |
Violence since Sunday evening has left at least 42 dead in a series of clashes between militants & police, as
well as an explosion at a bomb-making hideaway. It began with a blast that killed 10 people at a house used by
alleged terrorists in the central region of Bukhara, Prosecutor-General Rashid Kadyrov said. Police found materials
& instructions for bomb-making, a Kalashnikov rifle, 2 pistols, ammunition and extremist Islamic literature, he
said.
Police were attacked at a factory Sunday night and a traffic checkpoint early Monday, killing 3 officers. Suicide
bombings were carried out 30 minutes apart Monday at a bus stop and a Children's World store in Tashkent's Old
City, killing 3 police and a young child, in addition to the 2 female attackers, Kadyrov said.
They were the first suicide bombings ever reported in the 5 Central Asian nations once ruled by the Soviet
Union, which also include Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. Karimov blamed Islamic
extremists and reported several arrests. He said backing for the attacks might have come from a banned radical
group, Hizb ut-Tahrir, or the Party of Liberation. It has never been linked to terrorist acts, and the group denied
involvement.
Russian President Vladimir Putin called Karimov to discuss cooperating "in fighting terrorism." All the attacks
appeared to target authorities, including the suicide bombings, the first of which was timed for when police
normally gather outside the children's store for a daily briefing. Karimov alleged the attacks were planned 6 to 8
months ago, and said there were indications of outside support.
"Yesterday, Karimov said everything was fine in Uzbekistan and today it is happening again," Raupkhajayeva said.
"We are afraid. We are afraid there will still be more." The violence was the most serious in Tashkent since a
bombings in 1999 that killed 16 people who allegedly targeted Karimov.
Uzbek authorities claim Hizb ut-Tahrir is a breeding ground for terrorists and have sought so far unsuccessfully to
have Washington label it a terrorist group. Hizb ut-Tahrir spokesman Imram Waheed in London, said his group "has
wide support throughout Uzbekistan & Central Asia, and the govt … is trying to dent that support and
malign the organization by linking it with these terrorist acts. "There is a history of the govt orchestrating such
(terrorist) activities in the past," he said, saying evidence suggested a govt link to the 1999 Tashkent bombing. "We
feel the govt would have no qualms in undertaking such actions, killing civilians."
Uzbekistan's tiny opposition, banned by Karimov's authoritarian regime from working openly, fears the attacks will deepen a widespread crackdown against dissent and independent Islamic mosques. Thousands have been jailed, drawing international condemnation. NYC based Human Rights Watch released a report Tuesday documenting the campaign of religious persecution, including torture & arrests of people engaged in legitimate religious activity.
Since its independence in 1991, following the demise of the Soviet Union, Uzbekistan has struggled with the
political & economic demands of a new nation. Although Uzbekistan has a constitution which outlines a
parliamentary system with guarantees for basic human rights and political and economic freedoms, the govt of
President Islam Karimov has maintained strict control over the country's institutions & population. The govt
has continued to justify its systematic crackdown on any opposition as an effort to ensure stability and progress.
Beatings, harassment, jailing, torture and persecution have virtually eliminated public protest in Uzbekistan.
The media have fared no better than political parties. Today there are no legal independent broadcasts or print
media in the Republic of Uzbekistan. In the summer of 1993, the process of media registration began. Almost 400
daily & weekly papers had to state their ownership and the source of funding.
The govt, President Karimov's People's Democratic Party (former Communist Party) and the parliament were
declared to be the official owners of newspapers and periodicals. Print journalists are subjected to direct,
institutionalized censorship despite Article Four of the law on mass media, which clearly makes
this illegal.
Uzbek govt's public calls for greater press freedom lie in stark contrast to its complete failure to give force that
guarantees freedom of expression, as well as to the impunity granted to those who beat and harass
journalists. Today there exists a tension between official govt policy toward free speech, which allows the principle
of free media and the stark reality for journalists and media consumers who cannot enjoy the practice of
free media because of govt harassment. Specialists like journalist and Internews lawyer, Karim Bahriev, believe
that the Uzbek mass media laws are good on paper, but no public debate on freedom-of-speech issues is allowed
to exist. Journalists perceived as a threat to the power structure are not only jailed for what they write, but are
entrapped by other means, such as having narcotics planted on them.
One such example in the past year was S. Yalgashev, who wrote for the paper funded by and named after puppet
political party Adalat (Justice). After publishing critical material against the regional mayor, Yalgashev was arrested
for the possession of narcotics. Another journalist, for the state paper Khalq Sozi (The People's Word), Polat
Gadaev, was arrested for taking a bribe after publishing critical material against the govt. Shadi Mardiev, a
journalist who presented the program "The Law and Us" on a regional radio station in Samarkand and which was
often critical of the authorities, was sentenced to 11 years in jail and is said to have suffered 2 strokes.
Two Russian journalists from the news agency Panorama were beaten up by a group of strangers as they were
leaving the Tashkent home of a human-rights campaigner. A few days earlier, they had gone to the Fergana Valley
to meet govt opponents, human-rights activists. As Holly Cartner, Executive Director of Human Rights
Watch/Helsinki, wrote: "Censorship coupled with political repression is so much a way of life for journalists, that
most of the time they censor their own questions before asking them, and this leads to the insidious practice of self-
censorship."
Reporters Sans Frontieres has selected twenty (20) countries, including Uzbekistan, that it regards as enemies of
the Internet because they control access totally or partially on the pretext of protecting the public from "subversive
ideas" or defending "national security and unity." Last year several U.S. congressmen prepared a draft bill on
Central Asia which has been adopted in a sub-committee. They expressed their deep concern about the tendency
of Central Asian leader to seek to remain in power indefinitely and their willingness to manipulate constitutions,
elections, legislative and judicial systems. They urged the President, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of
Defense and other United States officials to raise with Central Asian leaders, at every opportunity, the concern
about serious violations of human rights. According to them, U.S. govt with participating states in the
region engage in clear, gross and uncorrected violation of its OSCE commitments on human rights, democracy and
the rule of law and they urge the Voice of America and Radio Liberty to expand broadcasting to Central Asia.
For all intents and purposes, the govt completely controls mass media. VOA-UZBEK is the only voice of the people
who have no other means to express their complaints and frustrations.The Service interviews Uzbek human rights
activists, opposition leaders, Uzbek govt officials on various issues. Our broadcasting also is focused on
promoting democracy, freedom, human rights,environmental issues and the American values in these countries
where people overwhelmingly get their unbiased information from Voice of America. What is more troubling is that
the only Voice of America radio broadcasts into Uzbekistan will be in Russian. The language perceived by local
Uzbeks as the language of the occupiers. We at the Uzbek language service are deeply troubled by the decision
because we believe thatin order for this service to be useful and effective in Uzbekistan, it is absolutely necessary
to communicate to them in Uzbek.
State Dept annual report says, " in Uzbekistan, the press operates under such restrictions that there is very limited
freedom of speech." Opposition members and human rights activists in Uzbekistan and exile leaders of banned
political parties from Uzbekistan recently sent an open letter to VOA saying that they are deeply troubled by the
decision of the BBG and respectfully urge them to consider reversing this decision. Because VOA/Uzbek has been
the only venue for the voiceless human rights activists, opposition members and the ordinary people who are
subject to oppression in Central Asia. As you are well aware of the situation in Uzbekistan and surrounding
republics, the freedom of press does NOT exist.
[ VOA claims that the Uzbek service is redundant because it is already
provided by Radio Free Europe. However, RFE (operated by Soros) gives the Karimov
dictatorship a free pass on human rights violations.
It is very important to keep the Uzbek service going because indigenous language broadcasting is the key element
fostering independent thinking in the former Soviet Union. The only indigenous Central Asian VOA language service currently is Uzbek.
B.Royce * per wm ]
The BBG s decision to eliminate the Uzbek language service contradicts their stated purpose. It also contradicts
Congressional Resolution 397 (10.20.00) which stated that " urge the Voice of America to expand broadcasting to
Central Asia, as needed, which focus on assuring that the peoples of the region have access to unbiased news and
programs that support human rights and the establishment of democracy and the rule of law. The Bush
administration should support independent broadcasting in the emerging states of the former Soviet Union and with
the forces of communism and repression gaining ground in various countries, the VOA Uzbek
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State Dept annual reports re Uzbekistan Heads of State & flags Refugees political links 1 2 Canadian Info Resource Ctr |
NY Times CNN CBC Seattle Times Phila. Inquirer |
links
EurAsia.net 1 2 forums 1 newsgroups & forums 1 2 newswire |
| legislation 10/1/00 |
H.R. |
S.R. |
country report
U.S. goods.
drugs
search link
Pentagon
Exercise
Central
Asian
Battalion
'97 &
'98
DoD in Samarkand
In
1998 one U.S. soldier stationed in Uzbekistan
Armed forces
In 2000, Uzbekistan bought $34K in military weapons from U.S.,
$1.6 million in 1998.
"Kiev has had significant advances on the CIS markets too. For instance, Malyev says that there has been a
significant expansion of contracts with Turkmenistan, in particular 'the air-defence system of Turkmenistan has
been repaired with the help of Ukrainian experts, enterprises and institutes; other works on certain air-defence
systems are under way'. The military technology cooperation with Uzbekistan is on a similar level. Active work has been
started with the Baltic states. Naturally, the military technology cooperation within GUUAM Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan,
Azerbaijan and Moldova is developing and Ukraine has been
implementing a number of contracts, mostly of repairs and modernization of military hardware, with Georgia and
Azerbaijan."
NGOs
Fed. American Scientists:
: Intel Arms
Amnesty Intl
USAID
Council on
Foreign Relations
Ctr for Strategic & Intl Studies
NED
ICG
Corp
WorldBank
Commerce Dept
Regional policy
1.4.01
regional pipeline map
(1998) oil v. demographics map (1994)
border
refugees
¹
²
Tahir
Yuldash
1
ZMag
2
IPS
Press Review
Time
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