Civil Society:
BEYOND DOUBT: HUMAN RIGHTS GROUPS DOCUMENT THE ANDIJAN MASSACRE AND COVER-UP
9/20/05

Two leading human rights groups released reports September 20 that document the “stunning use of excessive force” used by Uzbek authorities to crush a protest in Andijan on May 13. The reports, issued by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, also provide details on a massive cover-up carried out by the Uzbek government, which seeks to deflect responsibility for the massacre.

The reports were issued to coincide with the opening of the trial of the 15 alleged ringleaders of the Andijan events. Uzbek officials assert that the defendants are members of an Islamic radical organization, which sought to overthrow President Islam Karimov’s administration. Government critics have compared the Uzbek case to Soviet-era show trials, in which defendants were tortured into publicly admitting to crimes that they did not commit.

The 73-page Human Rights Watch Report, titled Burying The Truth: Uzbekistan Rewrites the Story of the Andijan Massacre, uses eyewitness accounts to reconstruct what happened May 12-13 in Andijan, placing the events within the larger context of socio-economic discontent. The report probes the antecedents of the massacre, showing how the arrests in 2004 of 23 local entrepreneurs served as the catalyst for subsequent events.

The 23 entrepreneurs went on trial in February on charges of illegal affiliation with an underground radical organization, known as Akromiya. The defendants and their numerous supporters insisted that the charges lacked merit and were politically motivated. As their trial approached its conclusion, gunmen attacked the prison where the defendants were being held, freeing the inmates during the early hours of May 13. Following the jail-break, the gunmen attacked government buildings and killed several “security officials.” They later occupied the hokimiat, or the city’s main administrative building, taking Uzbek authorities hostage. The gunmen then organized a protest in Bobur Square outside the hokimiat. “The protest grew into the thousands, as people came of their own will and vented their grievances about poverty and government repression,” the HRW report states. The overwhelming majority of civilian protesters were unarmed.

The report adds that government troops later in the day sealed off the square, trapping the protesters. “Hundreds of them [protesters] were ambushed by government forces, which gunned them down without warning,” the report says. The HRW report goes on to note that its findings are generally supported by investigations conducted by the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

The HRW report concentrates on chronicling the Uzbek government cover-up of the massacre. The human rights group asserts that the Uzbek government is “working furiously” to rewrite history, seeking to blame Islamic radicals for the violence. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Tashkent claims that Islamic terrorists were responsible for all civilian deaths during the Andijan events. The official Uzbek death toll stands at 187, while independent assessments say the actual number of killed is much higher.

The Uzbek government has a “legitimate interest” in prosecuting those responsible for attacking government buildings and killing officials, provided that the rule of law is adhered to, HRW acknowledges. “But the Uzbek government is using widespread repression and abuse to manipulate the truth, so that it can depict the protest itself as violent—organized by ‘terrorists’ with a radical Islamic agenda ... and to suppress any evidence to the contrary,” the HRW report says.

According to HRW, authorities have used coercive measures against Andijan residents, including arrests and beatings, in order to force them into signing “false confessions of belonging to extremist religious organizations and bearing arms while participating in the May 13 protest.” Uzbek authorities have “hounded” relatives of the hundreds of refugees who fled to Kyrgyzstan, the report says.

In addition, authorities have tried to silence human rights activists, independent journalists and others capable of gathering information that might contradict the official version of events. HRW said that at least 11 human rights activists have been imprisoned since May 13 and 15 others have fled the country. Officials also deported prominent independent journalist Igor Rotar. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

The “ferocity” of the crackdown on civil society is “unprecedented even in Uzbekistan’s 14-year history of repression since it became independent from the Soviet Union,” the report states.

The Amnesty International report, titled Lifting the Siege on the Truth about Andijan, takes a close look at the Akromiya organization, and questions the government’s claim that the group was radical in nature and working to overthrow the government. “The true nature of the Akromiya group, and the extent to which the 23 men were involved in it, if at all, remains somewhat unclear, although they all deny any involvement in religious extremism,” the report says. Three of the 23 entrepreneurs who were arrested in 2004 and tried earlier this year now are among the 15 accused ringleaders whose trial opened in Tashkent on September 20.

After providing a comprehensive review of the events on May 13, the Amnesty International report joins HRW in assailing the Uzbek government cover-up. “The government has gone to great lengths to prevent information that contradicts the official version of events from reaching the outside world,” Amnesty International says.

Amnesty International reiterated calls for an independent, international investigation into the Andijan events. “In particular, it [an investigation] should assess whether the use of force and firearms by members of the security forces was, in each instance, consistent with national law and international human rights law and standards,” the report says.

HRW takes a harder line toward the Uzbek government, calling on the United States and European Union “to adopt targeted sanctions against the Uzbek government.” The HRW report urges the immediate suspension of the EU’s Partnership and Cooperation Agreement with Uzbekistan. The rights group also recommends that Washington freeze “any remaining military and counter-terrorism assistance” to Tashkent.