Diplomats taken to Uzbek town, not shown killing site

‘‘Write down in your story that they never took us to the school,’’ one diplomat shouted to reporters from a bus taking the envoys and foreign journalists back to the airport. It was outside School No. 15 on Cholpon Avenue that witnesses said the killings took place.

‘‘It’s really weird. Why should they want to go to this school,’’ this reporter heard one Uzbek official say to another.

Heavily armed special forces accompanied the bus-loads of visitors as they travelled around the deserted town, where the normally bustling tea houses and kebab shops were empty apart from the police and soldiers patrolling them. The more than two-hour visit was followed by international calls for an independent investigation into the killings, with diplomats saying that although their trip had been useful, many questions—such as casualty numbers—remained unanswered.

The government under pressure, now says that 169 were killed, most of them ‘‘bandits’’ who themselves had killed civilians and security officials. An Uzbek Opposition party said it had compiled a list of 745 dead.

‘‘We have already captured around 100 bandits. Some of them are already confessing,’’ said Interior Minister Zakirdzhon Almatov, who led the tour around the Central Asian town. Almatov repeated government insistence that it was rebels, not Uzbek troops, who were behind the bloodshed. The unrest was sparked by a trial of 23 businessmen and blamed by President Islam Karimov on Islamic extremists.

Opposition politicians in the capital, Tashkent, warned Karimov that more violence could follow the bloodiest chapter in the country’s post-Soviet history if he continued to ignore appeals for political reform.

‘‘Our people are beginning to stand up for themselves,’’ Nadira Khidoyatova, head of the Opposition Sunshine alliance, told reporters.

The US has called on Uzbekistan, an ally in Washington’s war on terrorism, to be open about events in Andizhan, while the United Nations and the European Union have called for an independent inquiry. —Reuters

Britain calls for international inquiry

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw today called for an ‘‘international and independent’’ inquiry into the reported killing of hundreds of protesters in Uzbekistan.

‘‘It is a matter of grave international concern that these killings took place,’’ straw told BBC Radio, adding that aid agencies, diplomats and the media should have ‘‘full and immediate’’ access to the city of Andizhan, where the violence occurred. ‘‘It is important that we get to the bottom of what happened,’’ Straw said. —AFP/PTI