A top US envoy is calling for an independent investigation into the violence that has devastated southern Kyrgyzstan, as amateur video emerged of unarmed Uzbeks gathering to defend their town during the attacks.
Prosecutors on Saturday charged Azimzhan Askarov, the head of a prominent human rights group who shot the video, with inciting ethnic hatred. Askarov had accused the military of complicity in the bloody rampages that sent hundreds of thousands of Uzbeks fleeing for their lives.
The country’s rights ombudsman Tursunbek Akun insisted the charges against Askarov were fabricated and activists in Bishkek demonstrated before UN offices to demand his release.
Valentina Gritsenko, head of the Justice rights organization, said she feared Askarov was being tortured. He was detained with his brother on Tuesday in his southern hometown of Bazar-Korgon, colleagues told reporters.
Entire Uzbek neighborhoods in southern Kyrgyzstan have been reduced to scorched ruins by rampaging mobs of ethnic Kyrgyz who forced nearly half of the region’s roughly 800,000 Uzbeks to flee.
Kyrgyz Interim President Roza Otunbayeva says up to 2,000 people may have died in the clashes.
Kyrgyz authorities say the violence was sparked by supporters of ex-president Kurmanbek Bakiyev, who was toppled in April amid accusations of corruption. The UN has said the unrest appeared orchestrated, but has stopped short of assigning blame. Bakiyev, from exile, has denied any involvement.
Many ethnic Uzbeks also accused security forces of standing by or helping majority Kyrgyz mobs as they slaughtered Uzbeks and burned neighborhoods. Colonel Iskander Ikramov, chief of the Kyrgyz military in the south, says the army didn’t interfere because it is not a police force.
US Assistant Secretary of State Robert Blake met with Otunbayeva in Bishkek, the capital, on Saturday after touring several packed refugee camps in neighboring Uzbekistan.
Blake said the interim government should probe the violence and “such an investigation should be complemented by an international investigation by a credible international body.”
He said the US was working with the Kyrgyz government to make sure the refugees would be able to return home safely. The US has released US$32.2 million in aid and Russia and France also sent planeloads of relief gear.
Meanwhile, Kyrgyzstan’s military began clearing barricades from around Uzbek neighborhoods in the ravaged city of Osh yesterday after extending a state of emergency in the volatile south.
The removals proceeded calmly despite earlier fears that the clearing of the makeshift barricades would provoke further violence.
Armored military vehicles pushed aside burnt-out cars, concrete pillars and cut-down trees that were set up outside Uzbek districts during the violence, which officials say may have killed up to 2,000 and forced 400,000 from their homes.
In some areas, Uzbek residents were even assisting the military in pulling down the barricades, which authorities had said would be removed, by force if necessary, by 6pm local time yesterday.
Watching as barricades were taken down in the neighborhood of Shahid-Tepa, 64-year-old resident Salizhan Numanzhanov said she hoped life was starting to get back to normal.
“Of course we are afraid. But we will not put the barricades back if it stays calm. Life must return to normal at some point,” said Numanzhanov, whose brother was among those killed in the unrest.
Kyrgyzstan’s interim government said on Saturday it was extending a state of emergency in Osh and nearby areas to Friday. Imposed on June 11, the state of emergency had been due to expire yesterday.
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