Tension simmers in Uzbekistan
2005-05-17 07:47
Andijan - More gunfire was heard early on Tuesday in the eastern Uzbek town of Andijan, days after security forces reportedly killed hundreds of demonstrators, as Washington stepped up pressure on its Central Asian ally to exercise restraint.
With the city under an overnight curfew, it was not possible to determine from what direction the shots were coming, or who was firing. The gunfire was intensive and lasted between three and four hours.
Later on Tuesday, after sunrise, policemen said several checkpoints surrounding the regional administration building had been shot at, but declined to say who had been shooting.
The city was quiet and people could be seen walking about the streets.
Tanks were stationed in the city centre, but otherwise Andijan looked normal.
International concern
The bloodshed in Andijan started last Friday, when weeks-long demonstrations over the trial of 23 local businessmen, accused of membership in an outlawed Islamist group, boiled over.
Armed backers of the accused stormed a local prison to free them, along with hundreds of other prisoners, and thousands of people converged onto the city's main square for an anti-government rally.
The military moved against the crowd within hours. Witnesses said the soldiers fired indiscriminately into the crowd, with a leader of a local non-government organisation saying he saw 600 bodies in makeshift morgues.
Uzbekistan's authoritarian President Islam Karimov has blamed Islamic groups for fomenting the unrest and said soldiers fired only after being shot at. The latest official government information put the toll of the violence at 30.
The United States, which has an air base in Uzbekistan it used in operations against the Taliban regime in neighbouring Afghanistan, stepped up calls on its ally to exercise restraint and urged reforms to defuse the situation.
US State Department spokesperson Richard Boucher said late Monday that the United States was "deeply disturbed" by the reported violence.
"We had urged and continue to urge the Uzbek government to exercise restraint, stressing that violence cannot lead to long-term stability," he told reporters late Monday.
Human rights watchdog Amnesty International condemned the crackdown and called on Uzbekistan to allow independent investigation of the events.
There were more reports of violence as scores of Uzbeks tried to cross into Kyrgyzstan after the crackdown in Andijan.
Residents of the village of Tesik-Tosh in eastern Uzbekistan said Monday they saw Uzbek soldiers shoot dead 13 unarmed people as they tried to flee across the Kyrgyz border.