Tuesday, September 13, 2005
May 13 Massacre in Uzbekistan
The Guardian runs a lengthy report on the Andijan killings in May, piecing together what it calls 'the full story of the Uzbek massacre that the world forgot '.
Nafruz, 34, lay on the ground, realising that "whoever raised their head would be shot. I was surrounded from all sides by shooting." It seems likely, from the size of ordnance described by the survivors, and the fact that bodies were reportedly being flung back a metre and a half when hit, that anti-aircraft weaponry was being used against the unarmed crowd. "My clothes were covered in brains and blood," says Nafruz. "I stayed two hours after the shooting stopped, then crawled over the bodies to the college."
....
Baltabai hid under piles of corpses until after the shooting stopped, he thinks at about 8pm - 10 hours after the gunfire began. "Then I crawled behind a tree and stood, looking at what I saw. Dead people everywhere, and some alive, just moving. I felt sick, because of all the things splattered on my clothes. I went into the college and saw the APCs moving over the bodies. They wanted to kill anyone who was wounded. Soldiers walked down the sidewalk, firing single shots at anyone moving. It was a scene from hell, but I saw it, just a hundred days ago."
....
"It's disgraceful and dismaying," says the London director for Human Rights Watch, Steve Crawshaw, "that there is still no international attempt to address the horror of what took place. The facts are undeniable, and the response is foolish, cynical or both.
Well, I'm sure that the 'International Community' has everything in hand. It's probably just very busy at the moment. Give it time - Bush and Blair will be liberating the Uzbeks very shortly, you'll see. Because that's what they do. That's what drives them.
Nafruz, 34, lay on the ground, realising that "whoever raised their head would be shot. I was surrounded from all sides by shooting." It seems likely, from the size of ordnance described by the survivors, and the fact that bodies were reportedly being flung back a metre and a half when hit, that anti-aircraft weaponry was being used against the unarmed crowd. "My clothes were covered in brains and blood," says Nafruz. "I stayed two hours after the shooting stopped, then crawled over the bodies to the college."
....
Baltabai hid under piles of corpses until after the shooting stopped, he thinks at about 8pm - 10 hours after the gunfire began. "Then I crawled behind a tree and stood, looking at what I saw. Dead people everywhere, and some alive, just moving. I felt sick, because of all the things splattered on my clothes. I went into the college and saw the APCs moving over the bodies. They wanted to kill anyone who was wounded. Soldiers walked down the sidewalk, firing single shots at anyone moving. It was a scene from hell, but I saw it, just a hundred days ago."
....
"It's disgraceful and dismaying," says the London director for Human Rights Watch, Steve Crawshaw, "that there is still no international attempt to address the horror of what took place. The facts are undeniable, and the response is foolish, cynical or both.
Well, I'm sure that the 'International Community' has everything in hand. It's probably just very busy at the moment. Give it time - Bush and Blair will be liberating the Uzbeks very shortly, you'll see. Because that's what they do. That's what drives them.
