8 Uzbek troops killed in clash with attackers

Difficult position for U.S.
The unrest presents a quandary for the United States because President Islam Karimov is considered a key ally in the fight against terrorism and the United States maintains a military base in Uzbekistan to support anti-terrorist operations in Afghanistan.

On Friday, White House spokesman Scott McClellan urged restraint by both sides and Uzbeks should pursue their goals peacefully.

On Sunday, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw called for democratic change in Uzbekistan.

“The situation is very serious. There has been a clear abuse of human rights, a lack of democracy and a lack of openness,” Straw told British Broadcasting Corp. radio.

Uzbekistan’s government denied Straw’s previous claim that soldiers fired on demonstrators.

“From where has Jack Straw learned that law enforcement had ’opened fire on demonstrators’ if that did not take place at all?,”’ the Foreign Ministry said.

Following the day of violence in Andijan, some 5,000 angry protesters swarmed the border town of Korasuv on Saturday, looting and burning official buildings, torching police cars and assaulting local officials.

Protesters fault government
Participants in the protest accused the government of failing to improve living conditions. The town that straddles the river border was split in two following the 1991 Soviet collapse, and Uzbek officials dismantled a bridge two years ago as part of their effort to impose new restrictions on traders.

The move vexed Korasuv residents, who depended on a big market on the Kyrgyz side of the border to earn their living. Many people have drowned while trying to cross the river using ropes.

Korasuv residents quickly rebuilt the metal bridge and scores of jubilant traders went to the market Sunday.

At another section of the border, some 6,000 Uzbeks sought to cross into Kyrgyzstan to get shelter. About 500 were gathered on Kyrgyz territory, and Kyrgyz authorities and international relief groups were considering efforts to help them, said Almambet Matubraimov, the Kyrgyz presidential envoy to the region.

Uzbek president blames extremists
Karimov blamed Islamic extremists for the uprising in Andijan, the ex-Soviet republic’s fourth-largest city. He claimed that people from Kyrgyzstan were among the organizers of the violence in the city, where protesters stormed a prison and occupied the local government offices before government forces put down the uprising.

Karimov said 10 government soldiers and “many more” militants died in Friday’s fighting. Witnesses said 200-300 people were shot dead, and an AP reporter saw at least 30 bodies in Andijan. Karimov said at least 100 people were wounded.

He claimed negotiations with the militants collapsed after they demanded all their followers be released from jails across the Fergana Valley, Central Asia’s conservative heartland. The uprising began when the militants stormed a prison where the 23 were being held. Karimov said they freed 600 prisoners.

ENCARTA UZBEKISTAN: Maps, facts and figures

“To accept their terms would mean that we are setting a precedent that no other country in the world would accept,” Karimov told a news conference in the capital, Tashkent, on Saturday.

Karimov claimed the uprising was orchestrated by a “faction of Hizb ut-Tahrir,” a banned movement seeking to create an Islamic state in Central Asia. Hizb-ut-Tahrir has long been targeted by the Uzbek regime — a campaign that has been one of human rights activists’ top grievances against the authoritarian government.

The 23 businessmen at the focus of the uprising were charged with membership in a group allegedly allied with Hizb-ut-Tahrir, which seeks to create a worldwide Islamic state and has been forced underground throughout most of Central Asia and Russia.

The men are alleged members of Akramia — a group named for their founder, Akram Yuldashev, an Islamic dissident sentenced in 1999 to 17 years in prison for purportedly urging Karimov’s ouster. He has proclaimed his innocence. The group forms the heart of the city’s small business community.

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