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| Karimov still taking the gaspipe ... | |||
| 2005-05-19 | |||
| TASHKENT - Uzbekistan's autocratic President Islam Karimov faced pressure at home and abroad Wednesday over a deadly crackdown, after foreign diplomats slammed a state-run trip to the site of the violence for its lack of access and an opposition group called on him to resign. After days of steadily increasing criticism over deadly clashes between troops and protestors in the eastern city of Andijan, Britain, the European Union, the United States and the United Nations called for an international inquiry into the unrest last Friday. "It is a matter of grave international concern that these killings took place," British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw told BBC radio.
"We need to see action urgently to address the appalling events in Uzbekistan," Straw said during a speech to a Washington think tank. "I call now for an independent, international enquiry to find out why the killings happened, the full nature of the killings and who was responsible." Opposition activists have said that based on data collected in a door-to-door survey at least 745 people died after soldiers called to disperse an anti-government rally in the city of Andijan last Friday fired indiscriminately into crowds of demonstrators. Karimov's government has said that 169 people died and described the clashes as a battle between Islamic radicals seeking to overthrow the government and law enforcement officials. The United States, which has been accused of toning down criticism of a nation it views as a key ally in its anti-terror campaign, was more restrained although Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has called for reform and openness in Uzbekistan. "We certainly do agree that there needs to be a credible and a transparent accounting to establish the facts of the matter of what occurred in Andijan," said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher in Washington. "And I'm sure the international community will be prepared to be part of that process, either supporting it or undertaking it."
"Can we not see some people?" British Ambassador David Moran asked a deputy foreign minister who accompanied the group, which included ambassadors from Britain, the United States and France, as well as 30 journalists.
In the strongest domestic criticism of Karimov following the Andijan clashes, a secular opposition group called on the 67-year-old to resign after 15 years at the head of this poor nation of 24 million people on the northern border of Afghanistan. The leader of the secular Ozod Dehkonlar (Free Farmers) party, a group that has not been registered officially as a political party, called on Karimov and his government to resign over the clashes and appealed on the international community to support its stance. The Andijan clashes showed that "the present regime is not fighting Islamic extremism but is simply clinging to power by way of government-sponsored terrorism against its citizens," Nigara Hidoyatova, the head of the party, said at a news conference. She said the party wanted Karimov and his government to resign and for fresh presidential elections to be held within three months. The party also appealed for the international community to support its stance. Public criticism of Karimov is rare inside Uzbekistan, where the Soviet-era | |||
| Posted by:Steve White |