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Old 05-15-2005, 08:43 AM
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Default U.K. Condemns U.S. Ally

AP


British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw on Sunday called for democratic change in Uzbekistan and said there had been "clear" human rights abuses in the central Asian state.

About 500 bodies have been laid out in rows at a school in the eastern Uzbek city where troops fired on protesters to put down an uprising, a doctor in the town said Sunday, corroborating witness accounts of hundreds killed in the fighting.

Relatives were arriving at School No. 15 to identify the dead, said the doctor, who spoke by telephone on condition of anonymity. Another 2,000 people were wounded in the clashes Friday, said the doctor, widely regarded as knowledgeable about local affairs. It was unclear how she arrived at her estimate.

The unrest presents a quandary for the United States ? which has declined comment on the situation ? because President Islam Karimov is considered a key ally in the fight against terrorism and the U.S. maintains a military base in Uzbekistan to support anti-terrorist operations in Afghanistan.

"The situation is very serious, there has been a clear abuse of human rights, a lack of democracy and a lack of openness," Straw told British Broadcasting Corp. radio.

Straw's comments came after troops fired on protesters in the eastern Uzbek city of Andijan on Friday, killing hundreds of people, according to witnesses.

The government has given no clear casualty figures. Karimov has said 10 government soldiers and "many more" protesters died in the uprising, which he blamed on Islamic extremists.

Straw said the British ambassador to Tashkent planned to meet local officials Sunday to reiterate Britain's call for "transparency about what is happening in the country, to allow the Red Cross and other foreign observers in so they can see what is happening."

He also said the ambassador, David Moran, would "repeat the points we've been making for a long time about the need for a step-change to take place in respect of human rights and for moves to be made toward democracy."

Straw also issued a statement Saturday in which he said he was "extremely concerned by reports that Uzbek troops opened fire on demonstrators (...). I totally condemn these actions and I urge the Uzbek authorities to show restraint in dealing with the situation and look for a way to resolve it peacefully."

The Uzbek Foreign Ministry said it was "surprised" by Straw's statement.

"Where has Jack Straw learned that law enforcement had 'opened fire on demonstrators' if that did not take place at all," the ministry said. "Mr. Straw first should better have analyzed what happened and only then make such loud statements."

On Sunday, there were no more protesters at the square that was the center of violence, the doctor said. Another Andijan resident reached by telephone said the city was largely quiet overnight.

But villagers in the border town of Tefektosh said several troops were killed in a skirmish between armed men and government forces early Sunday. Their account could not be verified, but blood could be seen on the pavement.

As residents of Andijan, Uzbekistan's fourth-largest city, cleaned the streets of blood and identified the dead, witnesses relayed grim scenes.

Abdugapur Dadaboyev, a rights activist who visited Andijan on Saturday, said he saw the bodies of police and soldiers lying in the streets. Civilians' bodies, in contrast, were quickly removed, he said.

Russia's state-run Channel One television showed footage, shot Saturday, of uniformed men with rifles slung over their shoulders carrying a corpse to a truck, and of a dead man lying face-down on a street, his head thrust between the bars of a fence and his legs still straddling an old bicycle.

Karimov has blamed Islamic extremists for the uprising in which protesters stormed a prison, freed inmates and then seized local government offices before government troops put the protest down with force. The violence was Uzbekistan's worst since gaining independence following the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.

Karimov accused a faction of Hizb ut-Tahrir, a banned movement seeking to create an Islamic state in Central Asia, of orchestrating the uprising. Hizb-ut-Tahrir has long been targeted by the Uzbek regime ? a campaign that has been one of human rights activists' top grievances against the authoritarian government.

The 23 businessmen who were the focus of the protest were jailed on charges of membership in a group allegedly allied with Hizb-ut-Tahrir. The men are alleged members of Akramia, a group named for their founder, Akram Yuldashev, an Islamic dissident sentenced in 1999 to 17 years in prison for purportedly urging Karimov's ouster.

Following the day of violence in Andijan, some 5,000 protesters swarmed the streets of Korasuv on the border with Kyrgyzstan, looting and burning official buildings, torching police cars and assaulting local officials. Protesters accused the government of failing to improve living conditions.

The town that straddles the river border was split in two following the Soviet collapse, and two years ago, Uzbek officials dismantled a key bridge as part of their effort to impose new restrictions on traders.

The move vexed Korasuv residents, who depended on a big market on the Kyrgyz side of the border to earn their living. Many people have drowned trying to cross the river using ropes.

Korasuv residents quickly rebuilt the metal bridge Saturday, and scores of jubilant traders streamed to the market Sunday.

Sunday's skirmish in Tefektosh killed eight government troops, one villager said, declining to give his name. Residents said the armed men fled to Kyrgyzstan.




Local residents on Saturday look at the bodies of people killed in the fighting following suppression of an uprising in Andijan, Uzbekistan.
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