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Global PostNATO plays host to one of world's worst dictators
Europeans distance themselves from Islam Karimov's visit to EU and NATO in Brussels.
By Teri Schultz - GlobalPost
Published: January 23, 2011 21:33 ET in European Union
BRUSSELS, Belgium — The world still doesn’t have the full report on exactly what happened on May 13, 2005, when Uzbek government troops opened fire on unarmed protesters in the central square of the city of Andijan. Uzbekistan’s authoritarian president, Islam Karimov, has blocked all attempts at an international investigation into the incident, but survivors tell of streets flowing with blood as men, women and children were mowed down by automatic weapons as they tried to flee; their corpses later loaded onto trucks and driven away.
Nongovernmental organizations have done their best to piece together the events of that bloody day, including a particularly detailed collection of eyewitness reports by Human Rights Watch, but the Uzbek government has yet to offer any cooperation — or suffer any real consequences for either the massacre or for obstructing the investigation of it. Human-rights activists continue to demand that Karimov be brought to account.
Instead, Karimov is being brought to Brussels, the capital of Belgium and the European Union.
As a testament to the distastefulness of his record, no one — not the European Commission nor NATO nor the government of Belgium — will admit to having invited him.
Read more:
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/european-union/110123/islam-karimov-uzbekistan-brussels-visit-eu-nato
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