It was necessary: Karimov on Ferghana crackdown

Even as Uzbekistan’s government maintained that it had acted to minimise the use of force in putting down a prison break and demonstrat...

Even as Uzbekistan’s government maintained that it had acted to minimise the use of force in putting down a prison break and demonstration in the Ferghana valley late last week, survivors of the crackdown said on Tuesday that security forces had fired indiscriminately at unarmed civilians, and struck women and children.

In interviews in at the Suzak regional hospital in Kyrgyzstan, just across the Uzbek border from the site of some of shooting, survivors with gunshot wounds excoriated the government of President Islam A. Karimov, saying the authorities had turned weapons on civilians in the public square in Andizhan with little warning.

The wounded described scenes of one-sided violence and chaos. Some said that after they fled, they came under fire again near a border crossing to Kyrgyzstan.

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The crackdown began on Friday, after armed Uzbeks and demonstrators, protesting what they regard as the unjust prosecution of 23 Uzbek businessmen, stormed a local prison, releasing the businessmen and about 2,000 other prisoners.

Survivors of the crackdown said that after the prison break, when news circulated that Karimov would be traveling to Andizhan, many civilians gathered in the city’s square hoping to see him and present their complaints of joblessness, sporadic utility services and poverty. Instead of meeting Karimov, the survivors said, they were met by advancing government troops.

‘‘Tanks came, with soldiers,’’ said Makhammed Mavlanov, a trader and Kyrgyz citizen with a gunshot wound in his left arm. ‘‘Shooting started. There was no fight. It was just mass death.’’

Details of the crackdown and violence that has occurred intermittently since then have been sketchy and contradictory, with movement through the areas of the most intense confrontations largely restricted. Both telephone and Internet services have been either inconsistent or inoperable.

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The Uzbek government has blamed the violence on those who stormed the prison, describing the heavy response as necessary. The Uzbek leadership said 10 government troops and ‘‘many more rebels’’ had been killed.

An employee of the information office of Uzbekistan’s Foreign Ministry refused to comment on Tuesday on the reports of extensive civilian casualties, referring back to Karimov’s public statements on Saturday, when the President said that troops had fired only after being fired upon first.

Karimov also blamed the unrest on Islamic extremist groups, a description he has used for political opponents in recent years that his critics say is a pretext for maintaining a repressive state.

Most of Uzbekistan was reported to be calmer on Tuesday, although there were reports of skirmishes in or near Andizhan, and of thousands of Uzbek refugees making their way to Kyrgyzstan. There were also indications that the Uzbek government did not have full control of a portion of the Ferghana valley. —NYT