Uzbekistan 'on brink of revolution' as protests against President spread

...

One witness said he saw a thousand people, mostly women and children, gathering in the centre of the city yesterday morning. 'Some were bringing their dead. Many of them were old people or women, some were throwing stones at the soldiers. I saw over 20 dead, but someone told me they had seen many more piled up near the central square.'

...

he military claimed to control the town last night, though a resident told Interfax the centre was still blockaded. Riot troops were still massed within the city limits. The website ferghana.ru reported dozens of flights arriving at an airport in the region, suggesting extra troops were being flown in.

As the violence continued to spread, Russian President Vladimir Putin rang his Uzbek counterpart. 'Both sides expressed concern about the danger of destabilisation of the situation in the Central Asian region,' a Kremlin statement said.

On Friday night the United States raised fears that members of a 'terrorist group' may have been released from prison during the riots, but urged both sides to show restraint. The EU said the government's human rights record and disregard for poverty were to blame.
more
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1484252,00.html

why isn't our jackass president on the tube smirking and jiving about it?

F*** the Chimpster, Condi and the stilettos she stole from Babs.

This one's a real revolution, not one of the NED's Potemkin Color-Themed "Soft" Coups. So there will be no coverage of Karimov's horrors (real or fabricated), no beatific shots of immeasurably tiny crowds of "protesters," no newsdolts or Congress members racing about with sherbet-pink (or whatever the hell color) shawls, no unquestioning and unremittingly positive coverage.
Poor Brzezinski, his chess game is having the pieces eaten off it now.
During the Soviet Union, media readers knew that what was important was not what was said, but what was not said.

bush & Cartel only take credit for and celebrate over revolutions when it's a democratic leader who gives a shit about his own people who's being overthrown.

in thier country, money they use to torture people and kill protestors.

Azerbaijan is also on the brink

Georgia-Ukraine-Uzbekistan-Azerbaijan-Moldova

lots of pissed off people in the streets there tired of our crusade against their evil religion.

Just you watch, whenever an oil rich, third world country's people wants to change their own status quo, Washington will start saying that it's the terrorists to blame. Hmmm...... this reminds me of when third world countries during the cold war revolted against capitalism and the capitalists siad that it was the evil communists to blame.

We used to do totally f'd up thing to fight communism. Now we do really corrupt and evil things to fight terrorism. Same people benefit, and the American people, greatest democracy in the world, etc,, etc., do not benefit but remain clueless. We're actually enslaved by the folks who claim to protect us: the military-industrial-media complex.

15.5.2005. 11:10:48

Human rights campaigners in Uzbekistan say at least 500 people were killed when troops opened fire on 3,000 demonstrators who had occupied a state building in the eastern town of Andijan.

The government claimed it was back in control

Troops are reported to be patrolling the city backed by helicopters.

But protestors have also been gathering and thousands of people are reported to have fled to the border with Kyrgyzstan.

The border has been sealed, but hundreds of refugees are reported to have slipped through.

President Islam Karimov has blamed the violence on outlawed Islamic group Hizb ut-Tahrir.

It erupted after days of peaceful protests over the imprisonment of 23 local business leaders accuseed of Islamic extremism.
http://www9.sbs.com.au/theworldnews/region.php?id=111675®ion=2

...Rumsfeld would probably give him some intel on where to drop the cans.

The more things change...



The more they stay the same...

I hope they over throw the bastard quickly and the Military joins them.

....and then Condi snuck into the Middle East last night to assess the situation, Condi sez everything is cool and Democracy is winning the game in Iraq....we got em on the run now! Wow! What a brave brave women! Kind of reminds one of Joan Of Ark

terrorists may have been released from prison.

Terrorist inspired is it you hypocritical bastards.

"Democracy is spreading" not when you fund and arm a dictator who boils pro democracy opponents to death it doesn't

and another Bush ally bites the dust!

Galima Bukharbaeva, a reporter with international monitoring group the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, who witnessed the killings, described a column of armoured personnel carriers firing indiscriminately and unprovoked at protesters.

They had stormed the city prison after 23 businessmen were put on trial for alleged Islamic extremism. They took over the local administration centre and blockaded the city centre, some demanding that the government resign.

Karimov responded: 'To accept their terms would mean that we are setting a precedent that no other country in the world would accept.' He dismissed claims that children had been among the dead. 'In Uzbekistan, nobody fights against women, children or the elderly,' he added.

Among those who hurriedly left the city were seven British tennis players due to take part in the F4 Futures Event. Information was scarce inside Andijan, with most phone lines blocked as part of an apparent news blackout in the region. Human rights worker Lutfulla Shamsutdinov told Agence France-Presse yesterday: 'This morning I saw three trucks and a bus in which 300 dead bodies were being loaded by soldiers. At least one third of the bodies were women.' The claims were impossible to verify.
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1484252,00.html

the domino affect will be playing out all across the world where Islamic peoples are in numbers. As the former 'communists' join the 'capitalists' in genocide against 'Islamics' After all, you have to have someone to hate, don't you?

Karimov's not likely to go quietly. There's a real chance of a greater blood bath here. What will Bush say about the Uzbek army firing into crowds of civilians? :-(

What did Bush say about Bolivian army firing into crowds of civilians?

What would Bush say about US army firing into crowds of civilians, protesting against unlawfull and unjust detention and trying to free the prisoners under Patriot Act War of Terror, under inhumane War Against Drug Users?

Even here in Europe, police has shot anti-capitalist demonstrators in Sweden and Italy...

thanks to nutsy balls... well maybe that will learn'm

peace

its in central Asia.

Its the old Soviet countries that are rising up. Gorgia, Ukraine, Kyrgistan.

Its been fifteen years since the collapse of the Soviet empire, and i think thats long enough for the population to get sick of the dictators that ceded the communists.

Following the collapse of communism, nationalism, and the fact that the Soviets were gone have been the force keeping the populationbs down, i think fifteen years is long enough for the discontent to spread throughout all these countries and i think there will be more.

and then there is South America, Africa, etc...

the desire for freedom from oppression is certainly spreading.

:hi:

peace

Any friend of Bush is our enemy, but Islam Kamirov is as brutal as Saddam Hussein. If his government falls, it will be a victory for real freedom. I hope that Pakistan's Musharaff goes next!

Anger as US backs brutal regime

Human rights concerns as troops put down uprising in Uzbekistan

Nick Paton Walsh in Moscow and Paul Harris in New York
Sunday May 15, 2005
The Observer

Heated criticism was growing last night over 'double standards' by Washington over human rights, democracy and 'freedom' as fresh evidence emerged of just how brutally Uzbekistan, a US ally in the 'war on terror', put down Friday's unrest in the east of the country.

Outrage among human rights groups followed claims by the White House on Friday that appeared designed to justify the violence of the regime of President Islam Karimov, claiming - as Karimov has - that 'terrorist groups' may have been involved in the uprising.

Critics said the US was prepared to support pro-democracy unrest in some states, but condemn it in others where such policies were inconvenient.

Witnesses and analysts familiar with the region said most protesters were complaining about government corruption and poverty, not espousing Islamic extremism.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1484251,00.html

I just posted that also.

Washington has often been accused of being involved in a conspiracy of silence over Uzbekistan's human rights record since that country was declared an ally in the 'war on terror' in 2001.

Uzbekistan is believed to be one of the destination countries for the highly secretive 'renditions programme', whereby the CIA ships terrorist suspects to third-party countries where torture is used that cannot be employed in the US. Newspaper reports in America say dozens of suspects have been transferred to Uzbek jails.

The CIA has never officially commented on the programme. But flight logs obtained by the New York Times earlier this month show CIA-linked planes landing in Tashkent with the same serial numbers as jets used to transfer prisoners around the world. The logs show at least seven flights from 2002 to late 2003, originating from destinations in the Middle East and Europe.

Other countries used in the programme include Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and Morocco. A handful of prisoners' accounts - including that of Canadian Maher Arar - that emerged after release show they were tortured and abused in custody.
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1484251,00.html

Let the Uzbeks be truly free from their despot, and from our own budding tyrant.

is a brutal Dicktatorshit.

a revolution. It's much too dangerous as they have both nukes and radical Islamists.
Also, Karimov is much worse than Musharraf.

Musharaff and his cronies in the military deserve a revolution. There is no such thing as "peaceful" when it comes to toppling tyrants, including our own. They sure as hell were not "peaceful" when they gained power, or when they hung to it.

In my opinion, there are good chances for a peaceful transition to democracy in Pakistan.
And there have been many examples for such peaceful transitions, for example in Latin America.

The assault began at 5.20 pm local time. At least nine people were killed in the first volley of gunfire. Their fellow-demonstrators carried their blood-covered bodies inside the compound of the Andijan regional government building, which was being held by the protesters.

We journalists witnessed these first shootings, but we were unable to make a count of subsequent casualties, because we had to dive for cover ourselves as the shooting continued.

The assault by government security forces was not unexpected. The protesters who had taken control of the local government building were anticipating that the authorities would use force on the first night after the protests began, and had prepared as best they could. Barricades went up, fashioned out of furniture, even safes, dragged out of the government offices. In the compound, men filled bottles to make Molotov cocktails.

In the course of May 13, at least 10,000 people gathered on the square outside – some participants said it was nearer 30,000.

-more-

http://www.iwpr.net/index.pl?archive/rca2/rca2_377_1_eng.txt

Phones and SMS from outside no longer get through. :(

ANDIZHAN, Uzbekistan (Reuters) - Families of the hundreds killed when Uzbek troops opened fire to quell protests in Andizhan buried their dead on Sunday as witnesses told of bloody mayhem in which women and children were gunned down.

"They shot at us like rabbits," a boy in his late teens said recalling the horror of troops rampaging through the town square on Friday where some 3,000 protesters had rallied in support of rebels holed up in a state building with police hostages.

A Russian news agency also reported that Uzbek troops had fired on civilians trying to flee into neighboring Kyrgyzstan to escape the violence in their homeland.

Uzbekistan's autocratic president, Islam Karimov, said on Saturday no order had been given to troops to fire in Andizhan. He said he had forbidden the use of force against women, children and the elderly.

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=8493789

I hope you're able to get to speak with him soon.

There is this one by a Russian who is translating all the Russian reports on the uprising. It includes many pictures so it takes a while to load
http://scrapsofmoscow.blogspot.com/

This one is by an American who is in the area as a member of a NGO.
http://noughsaid.blogs.com/

This post says it all:

"We are not going to overthrow the government. We demand economic freedom," a pale and thin Egomov told AP.

"If the army is going to storm, if they're going to shoot, we are ready to die instead of living as we are living now. The Uzbek people have been reduced to living like dirt," he said.

At least 600 people have been killed in a military crackdown following protests in the Uzbek city of Andijan.

The head of a local non-governmental organisation who saw the bodies says 500 lay stored in one of the eastern city's schools.

The head of the Animokur organisation says another 100 were packed in a nearby construction college.

The bloodshed started early on Friday when weeks-long demonstrations over a trial of 23 local businessmen boiled over.
http://seven.com.au/news/worldnews/81196

... may have been released from prison during the riots"

Would those be the 'terrorists' we sent over for 'interrogations"?

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