Witnesses describe bloodbath outside Uzbek school

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L15228509.htm

ANDIZHAN, Uzbekistan, May 15 (Reuters) - Uzbek soldiers fired into a crowd, including women, children and their own police comrades begging them not to shoot, when they crushed an uprising in the town of Andizhan, witnesses said on Sunday.

Soldiers later moved in among "literally hundreds" of bodies, finishing off some of the wounded with a single bullet, said one witness to Friday's killings outside School No. 15.

The two independent eyewitness accounts to Reuters, both by men who live nearby but who asked not to be identified, could not be independently verified. President Islam Karimov said on Saturday he had forbidden the use of force against women, children and the elderly.

Two days after an uprising in the mostly Muslim Central Asian state's Ferghana Valley, blood and body parts, hastily sprinkled with soil, still lay on the pavements, streets, and gutters in the centre of this leafy town of 300,000 people.

[wakeme2008]

1. And Uzbekistan best friend is Bush.

he sure knows how to pick them.

[Judi Lynn]

2. How clear could it be that with Bush, there ARE no limits to barbarity

as long as his administration benefits? He wants Uzbekistan for his own purposes. It simply doesn't matter what Islam Karimov does at any point.

Everyone who stands between _Bush and everything he wants is going to get smashed.

[norml]

4. Shot down, ‘like rabbits’

Shot down, ‘like rabbits’




Relatives of a victim carry his coffin in Andizhan. (Reuters)

Andizhan (Uzbekistan), May 15 (Reuters): Families of hundreds killed in Uzbekistan when troops opened fire to quell protests buried their dead today as witnesses told of bloody mayhem in which women and children were shot “like rabbits”.

In a single incident in Andizhan on Friday, witnesses said soldiers had fired on a crowd including women and children and their own police comrades who were begging them not to shoot.

Hundreds of bodies lay overnight outside the eastern town’s School No. 15 after the massacre until they were removed in the early hours yesterday, the witnesses, who did not wish to be named, said.

Islam Karimov, autocratic President of the mainly Muslim Central Asian state, said troops were given no order to fire in Andizhan. He blamed the violence on rebels belonging to the outlawed Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir. Hizb ut-Tahrir denied involvement.




snip




http://www.telegraphindia.com/1050516/asp/foreign/story_4745340.asp

[norml]

3. CHRONOLOGY-A history of violence in Uzbekistan since 1989

CHRONOLOGY-A history of violence in Uzbekistan since 1989
15 May 2005 11:23:29 GMT

Source: Reuters

ANDIZHAN, Uzbekistan, May 15 (Reuters) - Hundreds of people are feared to have died in the Central Asian state of Uzbekistan when troops cracked down on protesters and rebels in the eastern town of Andizhan.

If casualty figures are confirmed, the Andizhan unrest would be the worst violence in Uzbekistan's post-Soviet history under the rule of autocratic President Islam Karimov.

Following is a chronology of major political events in Uzbekistan since Karimov assumed leadership of the Uzbek Communist Party in 1989:

1989 - Islam Karimov, the orphan son of a Tajik mother and Uzbek father, becomes leader of Uzbek Communist Party.




snip




http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L1543394.htm