In the strongest statement by US officials since Uzbekistan carried out a bloody crackdown earlier this month against a revolt and demonstration in the city of Andizhan, three US senators on Sunday called for an international investigation into the violence, and issued a stern rebuke to the authoritarian regime.
The senators' statement came amid new details of the conduct of Uzbek security forces during and after the violence, including claims that injured victims have disappeared from hospitals, and that troops had fired on a civilian ambulance during the crackdown, killing three medical workers inside.
The accounts further undermine the insistence of Islam Karimov, Uzbekistan's president and a US ally in the "war on terror," that his troops operated with precision, and that armed men behind the revolt were responsible for the civilians deaths.
Uzbekistan now says 173 people, including 36 government troops, died in the uprising and crackdown on May 13. The government attributed the increase from the previous count of 169 to the deaths of four more troops from injuries suffered that day.
Human rights groups, opposition parties, survivors and relatives of the dead have said that at least several hundred civilians were killed by troops who fired rifles and machine guns into dense crowds.
Appearing in Tashkent, Uzbekistan's capital, where the senators met with members of four opposition parties, the delegation called the crackdown "a tragedy," and suggested that given Uzbekistan's long record of repression and human rights abuses, the bloodshed was not surprising.
"History shows that continued repression of human rights leads to tragedies such as the one that just took place," said Senator John McCain, Republican-Arizona. He later added: "When governments repress or oppress their people, sooner or later, if they have no avenue of expressing their desire for freedom, violence takes place."
The statement, made in the presence of the US ambassador to Uzbekistan, was a significant shift in tone. The three senators, all Republican supporters of the Bush administration's anti-terrorism efforts, did not characterize the gunmen or escaped prisoners who initiated the revolt as militants or terrorists, as some US officials have.
Uzbekistan has repeatedly described the men it fought as international Islamic terrorists, a characterization rejected by witnesses, who said the gunmen were local men who had been pushed to violence by the unrelenting repression and corruption of Karimov's regime.
DEADLOCK: Putin has vowed to continue fighting unless Ukraine cedes more land, while talks have been paused with no immediate results expected, the Kremlin said Russia on Friday said that peace talks with Kyiv were on “pause” as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin still wanted to capture the whole of Ukraine. Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump said that he was running out of patience with Putin, and the NATO alliance said it would bolster its eastern front after Russian drones were shot down in Polish airspace this week. The latest blow to faltering diplomacy came as Russia’s army staged major military drills with its key ally Belarus. Despite Trump forcing the warring sides to hold direct talks and hosting Putin in Alaska, there
North Korea has executed people for watching or distributing foreign television shows, including popular South Korean dramas, as part of an intensifying crackdown on personal freedoms, a UN human rights report said on Friday. Surveillance has grown more pervasive since 2014 with the help of new technologies, while punishments have become harsher — including the introduction of the death penalty for offences such as sharing foreign TV dramas, the report said. The curbs make North Korea the most restrictive country in the world, said the 14-page UN report, which was based on interviews with more than 300 witnesses and victims who had
COMFORT WOMEN CLASH: Japan has strongly rejected South Korean court rulings ordering the government to provide reparations to Korean victims of sexual slavery The Japanese government yesterday defended its stance on wartime sexual slavery and described South Korean court rulings ordering Japanese compensation as violations of international law, after UN investigators criticized Tokyo for failing to ensure truth-finding and reparations for the victims. In its own response to UN human rights rapporteurs, South Korea called on Japan to “squarely face up to our painful history” and cited how Tokyo’s refusal to comply with court orders have denied the victims payment. The statements underscored how the two Asian US allies still hold key differences on the issue, even as they pause their on-and-off disputes over historical
CONSOLIDATION: The Indonesian president has used the moment to replace figures from former president Jokowi’s tenure with loyal allies In removing Indonesia’s finance minister and U-turning on protester demands, the leader of Southeast Asia’s biggest economy is scrambling to restore public trust while seizing a chance to install loyalists after deadly riots last month, experts say. Demonstrations that were sparked by low wages, unemployment and anger over lawmakers’ lavish perks grew after footage spread of a paramilitary police vehicle running over a delivery motorcycle driver. The ensuing riots, which rights groups say left at least 10 dead and hundreds detained, were the biggest of Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto’s term, and the ex-general is now calling on the public to restore their
RSS