Fears grow over Uzbekistan violence

Fears are growing over the stability of the former Soviet state of Uzbekistan today.

There were reports of further gunfire in the city of Andijan, where troops are alleged to have killed around 500 people in protests on Friday.

There have also been reports indicating that Uzbek troops have closed off a second town of Korasuv in the east of the nation.

Violence erupted in Uzbekistan on Friday, following anti-government protests, allegedly sparked by the jailbreak of a group of Muslim businessmen who had been on trial accused of Islamic extremism.

Witnesses were reported as saying that troops opened fire on the protestors, although Uzbek President Islam Karimov has denied this. President Karimov has blamed Islamic extremists for the protests, although various reports have indicated that social problems such as poverty and unemployment may also have been a factor in the unrest.

Appeal, a local human rights group, has also claimed that government troops killed around 200 protestors in Pakhtabad, which is around 20 miles northeast of Andijan.

There have been reports of hundreds of refugees fleeing from the country into neighbouring Kyrgyzstan.

Uzkekistan, which gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, is an ally of the United States in the war against terrorism and allows the US to use an air base in the country for operations against Afghanistan.

In an interview with BBC Radio 4 yesterday, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw described the situation as “very serious”. He said: “There’s been a clear abuse of human rights, a lack of democracy and a lack of openness”. He called for the Red Cross and other foreign observers to be allowed into the country to find out what is happening. He said: “We have long been concerned about abuse of human rights, about a lack of democracy in this country. Given all the reports that we've heard, we don't know exactly the number of casualties, but plainly quite a number of people have been killed or have been injured as a result of protests against the Government. We have to have immediate transparency about what is going on, openness and much higher standards in handling the demonstrators.”

(KMcA/SP)