Print

Mail

wiki links

Unrest continues in Uzbek border town

Tensions remained high in this town on the Uzbek-Kyrgyz border yesterday as Tashkent struggled to quell unrest in the wake of a deadly crackdown that has sparked unprecedented Western criticism of the authoritarian Uzbek regime.

Some 200 demonstrators, mostly women, paraded banners demanding freedom for a self-proclaimed Islamist leader as well as a popular local wrestler in the town of Karasuv, which straddles the border between the Central Asian former Soviet republics of Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.

Several hundred soldiers and riot police stood by as the protesters blocked the road leading to a bridge to the Kyrgyz side of the town, over the Sharikh Khansai canal.

The protesters tried to get traders crossing the bridge to join them, with one young man smashing the window of a car that was trying to get to the bridge, witnesses said.

They held placards proclaiming the innocence of the Islamist leader, a cattle farmer called Bakhtiyor Rakhimov, and the wrestler, Dilmorod Mamajanov.

"We don't want anything but the freedom of these two -- we have no other demands," said one of Rakhimov's relatives, named Anakhan.

"They are suffering for you so you can cross, why don't you stand here with us?" another woman shouted at a passerby.

Rakhimov and Mamajanov were among several people arrested two days earlier when Uzbek troops reclaimed the town from protesters who had chased them out last weekend, following clashes in the eastern city of Andizhan.

Hundreds of people are feared to have been killed in the bloodshed which began in Andizhan on May 13, sparking calls, including from the US, for President Islam Karimov to allow an independent investigation.

The situation eased here mid-yesterday as Uzbek forces allowed traders to cross the bridge, one of two destroyed by Uzbekistan in recent years in a clampdown on trade with Kyrgyzstan.

The mayor of a neighboring town helping negotiate with the protesters said compromise was being sought.

"It's better to look for compromise and find a peaceful solution to the problems put forward by these protesters," said the mayor, Manzura Egamova.

But residents crossing to Kyrgyzstan said they feared Uzbek authorities were using harsh methods to deal with those blamed for the recent days' unrest.

Overnight, Kyrgyz border guards intercepted a crowd of some 500 residents of the Uzbek side who tried to cross the river, shouting that they wanted refugee status, a spokeswoman for Kyrgyzstan's border service said.

"They were shouting that they were afraid of Karimov's investigations," the spokeswoman said.

"There are many rumors of arrests -- people are complaining, they are fed up," a local farmer said. "We want more money and more work, but the authorities send us more soldiers and more police."

Western officials, led by the UN and the EU, have stepped up the pressure on Uzbekistan's hardline regime for a thorough inquiry into the Andizhan events.

On Friday US Secretary of State Secretary Condoleezza Rice reaffirmed US calls for a transparent, international inquiry, warning Tashkent, a US ally in the war on terror, could face international isolation should it fail to comply.

The OSCE also called for an inquiry and said Tashkent was not responding to its efforts to mediate.
This story has been viewed 1505 times.