President Islam Karimov claimed yesterday that authorities tried to negotiate a peaceful end to protests, but that troops were forced to open fire when insurgents who had seized a government building attempted to break through an advancing line of Uzbek police and soldiers.
He said 10 government troops and "many more" militants died in fighting on Friday in the eastern city of Andizhan. Relatives of the victims condemned the government, accusing troops of killing innocent civilians. Witnesses said 200 people to 300 people were shot dead.
Soldiers loyal to Karimov, who has maintained tight control over this Central Asian nation, fired on thousands of demonstrators on Friday to put down an uprising that began when armed men freed 2,000 inmates from prison, including suspects on trial for alleged Islamic extremism. The US State Department expressed concern on Friday that members of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, which is on the US list of terrorist groups, were freed.
Karimov said at least 100 people were wounded in the Friday clashes. He didn't specify who fired first.
Hundreds of angry protesters gathered yesterday at the site of the violence, placing six bodies on display from among the scores of people witnesses said were killed in fighting. Knots of bystanders watched as men covered other bloodied bodies with white shrouds.
Demonstrators, some with tears in their eyes, condemned the government for firing on women and children.
Fleeing the violence, some 4,000 Uzbek residents headed yesterday to the border. Kyrgyz border guards were awaiting a government decision on whether to allow them in, said Gulmira Borubayeva, a spokeswoman for Kyrgyzstan's border guard service.
Karimov said yesterday that authorities tried to negotiate a peaceful way out -- but won't yield to the protesters' demand -- which he described as excessive -- for freedom for all their followers across the Fergana Valley.
"To accept their terms would mean that we are setting a precedent that no other country in the world would accept," Karimov told a news conference in the capital, Tashkent.
The Uzbek leader denied that forces would target innocent civilians. "In Uzbekistan, nobody fights against women, children or the elderly," Karimov said.
He said the government also earlier offered the demonstrators free passage out of the city in buses -- with their weapons, seized in attacks on a police station and military outpost.
But a protest leader, Kabuljon Parpiyev, said Interior Minister Zakir Almatov didn't sound willing to negotiate in a phone call on Friday. "He said, `We don't care if 200, 300 or 400 people die. We have force and we will chuck you out of there anyway,'" Parpiyev quoted Almatov as saying.
In Washington, the White House urged restraint by both sides. "The people of Uzbekistan want to see a more representative and democratic government. But that should come through peaceful means, not through violence," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said on Friday.
No government forces were at the square early yesterday, but a few blocks away, about 30 soldiers clad in flak jackets and armed with assault rifles stood ready for action.
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
Taiwan yesterday denied Chinese allegations that its military was behind a cyberattack on a technology company in Guangzhou, after city authorities issued warrants for 20 suspects. The Guangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau earlier yesterday issued warrants for 20 people it identified as members of the Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM). The bureau alleged they were behind a May 20 cyberattack targeting the backend system of a self-service facility at the company. “ICEFCOM, under Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, directed the illegal attack,” the warrant says. The bureau placed a bounty of 10,000 yuan (US$1,392) on each of the 20 people named in
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
The High Court yesterday found a New Taipei City woman guilty of charges related to helping Beijing secure surrender agreements from military service members. Lee Huei-hsin (李慧馨) was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for breaching the National Security Act (國家安全法), making illegal compacts with government employees and bribery, the court said. The verdict is final. Lee, the manager of a temple in the city’s Lujhou District (蘆洲), was accused of arranging for eight service members to make surrender pledges to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in exchange for money, the court said. The pledges, which required them to provide identification