Death in Bobur Square (the forgotten Uzbek massacre)

[rodeodance]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,1568514,00.html
Death in Bobur Square

In a remarkable dispatch, Ed Vulliamy pieces together for the first time the full story of the Uzbek massacre that the world forgot

Tuesday September 13, 2005
The Guardian

Enough bricks had finally arrived to build a bread oven, and they finished it within hours: a splendid creation with a dome of clay, wood smoke rising into the late afternoon sun as it baked some lepeshka bread, deliciously special to Uzbekistan. It was yet another day's hard work by those trying to make this place home. These are Uzbeks, but this is not Uzbekistan; this is a refugee camp on the outskirts of the Romanian town of Timisoara, where huge efforts have gone into making a temporary staging post, before this tightknit group is scattered across the globe to whichever countries may take them.

Article continues
These are not ordinary refugees, outcast and dispossessed, like so many millions are, as the human side-effect of war. These 439 people are eyewitnesses to and, remarkably, survivors of one of the worst atrocities of recent times, a massacre which the perpetrators have tried to keep secret, and with whom the international diplomatic community cooperates through a conspiracy of silence.

The May 13 massacre of hundreds, possibly thousands, of innocent civilians at Andijan in eastern Uzbekistan was carried out by soldiers and paramilitary units dispatched to kill by the regime of President Islam Karimov - protege of Vladimir Putin and, until recently, a crucial ally to Britain and America in the "war on terror". The dead were among thousands who had gathered to protest for democratic and economic reforms, and in support of businessmen arrested and held on trumped-up charges. To date, there has been no official tally of how many perished, nor an official acknowledgement of the atrocity by the authorities, who have refused an international investigation.

And when these refugees disperse, so too will the only available testimony to what happened that terrible day, in what has been called central Asia's Tiananmen Square. Despite their wish to remain together, no single country has agreed to take all 439, and these people will therefore scatter across the globe, along with their account of the carnage. Meanwhile, the Karimov regime is harassing, arresting and torturing the refugees' families to the point that the refugees prefer not to endanger them with further contact.

For this article, their names have been changed and faces cannot be shown, for fear of what might happen to their loved ones back home. Karimov has refused an international inquiry into the bloodletting and closed his borders to human rights organisations and journalists wanting to investigate the massacre. Instead, a series of trials will reportedly begin next week of those charged with "fomenting" the violence of May 13. Perversely, it is not Karimov's troops who will stand accused, but those who organised and participated in the demonstration...........

[WhiteTara]

1. wow I remember some small amount of press

but the numbers of 10 to 30 thousand dead are staggering.