Hey look! Bush finally found someone to replace Saddam Hussein!!!

Uzbekistan, which became an independent state in 1991, has retained much of its Soviet legacy. It has no independent political parties, no free and fair elections, and no independent news media. Torture and police brutality are widespread. Most vulnerable are political dissidents and religious Muslims who worship outside state controls.
Human Rights Watch
U.S. Cautioned on New Ally
October 4, 2001

It was my pleasure to bring to President the greetings of President Bush and also to extend to him our thanks for all the support we have received from Uzbekistan in pursuing this campaign against terrorism in Afghanistan and elsewhere throughout the world as well. They have been an important member of this coalition against terrorism, and I’m sure they will continue to be so in the future.
Colin Powell
Joint Press Conference with Karimov
December 8, 2001

Almost anyone who comes into the hands of the security services gets tortured, no matter where they come from. It wasn’t as bad in Soviet days as it is now . . . Thousands of people are tortured every year – not tens or dozens. There’s virtually nobody in Uzbekistan who doesn’t know somebody who has been tortured. It’s a regime that rules by fear.
Craig Murray, Britain's former
ambassador to Uzbekistan
Interview with Index magazine
January 2005

CRAIG MURRAY: ... The Uzbek Government routinely accuses any of its opponents of being Muslim extremists in order to discredit them. Andijan has long been a centre of democratic opposition to the Uzbek Government.

RAFAEL EPSTEIN: Craig Murray left the British diplomatic service after what he says was his Government's failure to see Uzbekistan for what it is – a repressive regime, torturing and killing anyone asking for basic human rights, while allies like the UK and the US turn a blind eye because hundreds of American soldiers use an Uzbek airbase with good access to countries like Iran and Afghanistan.

CRAIG MURRAY: I strongly suspect that the Uzbek Government will resort to extreme violence. This is a Government which is by no means concerned at shedding the blood of its citizens...

He rules a country accused of accepting subjects for torture on behalf of Western countries. He receives hundreds of millions of dollar in aid from the US, some in the form of military support, to help in the war on terror.

Ten killed as troops open fire to crush protest in Uzbekistan
By Peter Boehm in Tashkent
14 May 2005


The Uzbek military has violently crushed a mass protest in east Uzbekistan, opening fire on crowds after demonstrators stormed a prison to release 23 businessmen accused of Islamic extremism.

Some reports said that at least 10 people were kiled and as many as 50 civilians were shot by security forces as they attempted to end a stand-off with thousands of protesters camped out in the central square in the town of Andijan

Uzbek president defends firing on crowd; 300 believed killed

BY ALEX RODRIGUEZ

Chicago Tribune


MOSCOW - (KRT) - As authorities struggled to restore calm in eastern Uzbekistan on Saturday after a bloody uprising a day earlier, President Islam Karimov defended the decision by his troops to quell the violence by firing into a large crowd, killing up to 300 people by some estimates.

The uprising's toll became grimly clear at dawn Saturday, as soldiers were seen by witnesses pulling up four trucks and a bus to load the bodies of men, women and children shot to death by Uzbek troops in the eastern city of Andijan.

Saidjahon Zainabitdinov, an Andijan human-rights activist who watched soldiers, estimated that at least 300 bodies were loaded on the trucks and the bus. Another human-rights activist, Lutfulo Shamsutdinov, told The Associated Press that he counted 200 bodies being loaded.