UZBEKISTAN: Uzbek troops yesterday regained control of the rebel-held town of Kara-Suu, reportedly capturing rebel leader Bakhtiyor Rakhimov, as calls for an international investigation into last Friday's massacre of civilians increased, writes Chris Stephen
Gunfire and explosions echoed around the town as soldiers, backed by circling helicopters, regained control of the town that rebels had proclaimed was an Islamic state. With journalists refused entry to the town, which lies on the border with Kyrgyzstan, refugees fleeing across an iron bridge gave conflicting accounts of fighting, some saying the rebels fought back, others that they fled.
The US has joined calls for an international investigation into the massacre, in which human rights groups say more than 500 civilians were killed in the town of Andijan.
US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said "reports being compiled paint a very disturbing picture of the events and the government of Uzbekistan's reaction to them". Neither Washington nor anyone else has said what form this investigation should take, following the call for such an inquiry made on Wednesday by UN human rights commissioner Louise Arbour.
But the pressure on Uzbekistan's president, Islam Karimov, to allow an investigation is growing amid fears that the country could be heading for a prolonged uprising, or even civil war.
The Red Cross is trying to get access to Andijan, which is still under military control a week after the massacre, with officials saying they are being besieged by anxious relatives on the Kyrgyz side of the border seeking news of loved ones.
The organisation is hoping to be allowed to see the dead and identify them, amid claims from human rights organisations in the town that the number exceeds 500. Red Cross officials say many more people have fled or are missing, possibly in hiding, making an accurate toll of the dead impossible. "Families are looking," said International Committee for the Red Cross spokesman Christophe Peschoix. "They don't know if they have been killed, arrested or gone into hiding."
By yesterday evening, Uzbek troops were in control of the bridge linking Kara-Suu with the part of the town lying on the Kyrgyz side of the border. Some refugees were being allowed to leave, but reporters were not allowed to move the other way.
Reports in Moscow say that rebel Uzbek units have been criss-crossing the Kyrgyz border for several days, possibly using Kyrgyzstan as a place of refuge prior to launching fresh raids.
Islamic groups have been blamed for bomb blasts and embassy attacks last summer in the Uzbek capital, Tashkent.
The international support for an investigation into the deaths comes amid concern that, after a week of unrest, the fighting may escalate. The entire eastern region of the country remains tense, with local people telling human rights workers that the uprising has been caused by fury at unemployment and political repression. And in contrast to the former leaders in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan in recent times, Mr Karimov has refused to back down when faced with opposition protests, or even to offer negotiations to rebel leaders.
Uzbek authorities have now upped their own estimate of the dead, putting the number killed at 169, including security forces.
But interior minister Zakir Almatov blamed rebel units in Andijan for the killings, saying that 100 civilians were killed by rebel units last Friday, with a further eight losing their lives in crossfire with government forces.
Few among the thousands of refugees now camped in Kyrgyzstan seem to believe this version of events, and those crossing yesterday said Andijan remains under military control, and that in Kara-Suu troops were conducting house-to-house searches for rebel sympathisers. For now, the rebel plan to carve out an Islamic state in the eastern provinces of the country, which began on Saturday, has been defeated, but their forces remain in hiding.