Fear rules one year on from mass killings

Spring is in full bloom in the eastern Uzbek city of Andijan, with flowers and blossom bushes everywhere. Taking advantage of the good weather, some residents are holding a traditional wedding ceremony in the Bogi-Shamol suburb of the city. The scene is a complete contrast to the bloody events almost a year ago when Uzbek security forces suppressed a popular demonstration that killed up to 1,000 civilians and left the world cold. Government forces opened fire indiscriminately on thousands of people in Andijan’s central square on 13 May 2005. Rights groups and relatives insist 1,000 were killed, while the authorities put the number of dead at 187 – all either security forces or Islamic militants. One year on, there are few reminders of what transpired in the city, aside from a military checkpoint surrounded by sandbags outside Andijan’s high security prison, the facility where 23 local businessmen, whose trial and conviction sparked the protests, were held. Further down, five or six buildings on the eastern part of the square are riddled with bullet holes. They have yet to be painted over, along with the glazed facade of the office of the city prosecutor that remains pockmarked by rounds from heavy calibre weapons. “I guess the authorities keep these as evidence,” Makhkamboi, a local resident in his 20s, said. “Maybe they [the holes] will be plastered over as soon as the trials of those accused are over.” Less easy to remove are the memories of those who chose to take on the authoritarian state in this eastern city. “I saw from a distance that both sides shot, but the governmental forces had superiority. They showered the rebels with a hail of lead. A lot of innocent people, who came to the demonstration responding to the call of the protest organisers, were killed, one woman selling cigarettes in central Andijan whispered. After the massacre Tashkent moved quickly to arrest witnesses, silence journalists and hound those who escaped into neighbouring Kyrgyzstan. The oppression is still palpable 12 months after the killings, with many residents clearly too afraid to talk openly. “Many locals are afraid to speak up. Everyone has started fearing each other. There are lots of informants around,” Khayitkhon, a 25-year-old businesswoman, said. “The feeling of fear and concern still remains,” she added. Even those who lost their relatives in the violence believe they will share the same fate if they broach the subject of the killings. A petrified grey-haired old man who lost his son refused to be identified, fearing government reprisal. “My son did not want to harm anybody, he believed in justice and went to the square to seek it. I have nothing more to say,” he said, making it clear that the hasty conversation had ended. His wife wiped her tears away and drew her headscarf across her mouth before speaking. “Probably, that was the will of Allah. I wish we would have died [instead of him],” she said, casting around to see who was watching. Fleeing the crackdown, hundreds of protesters crossed into neighbouring Kyrgyzstan. More than 430 of them were granted refugee status by the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and were airlifted to Romania in July 2005 following pressure from Tashkent to extradite the groups for alleged terrorism. Fatima, a 35-year-old woman from Andijan, has not heard from her brother for almost a year since he fled with the group. “We all miss our brother. We do not know how he is doing in a foreign country. He does not write nor does he phone us. Perhaps he knows that if he does we could be punished,” she said, referring to the intimidation of the relatives of those who fled the killings. The climate of fear since the events of 12 months ago has been confirmed by local rights activists. “From the few local residents whom we managed to meet, we learnt that many people are scared to say anything [related to the Andijan events]. They are afraid that the authorities might close them in,” Tolib Yakubov, head of the Human Rights Society of Uzbekistan (HRSU), said from the capital, Tashkent. “There are no rights activists in Andijan. The authorities have wiped out all rights organisations that used to operate there. Therefore, it is very difficult to get any detailed information from Andijan,” Yakubov explained. “There is a police regime enforced there.” The international rights watchdog Amnesty International on Thursday said in its new report entitled: ‘Andijan – Impunity Must not Prevail’, that one after year after the killings it had become increasingly clear that the world was no nearer the truth. "The authorities in Uzbekistan have blatantly ignored the calls of the international community for an impartial, independent and thorough international investigation. They have refused to take any effective measures to investigate the violence by the security forces and to bring to justice those responsible," Maisy Weicherding, Amnesty’s researcher on Uzbekistan, said in a statement. "One year on, the need for such an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the tragic events in Andijan remains as pertinent and pressing as ever in order to determine the truth of these disputed events and to ensure reparation, including redress, for all the victims of the human rights abuses perpetrated on those days," Weicherding maintained. The introduction of tougher regulations for foreign media outlets and the closure of several independent foreign media and international non-governmental organisations in the country has made it even more difficult to get access to independent sources of information on the events there, the rights watchdog noted. To mark the one year anniversary of the massacre in Andijan the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHF), Memorial-Moscow, the International League for Human Rights (ILHR), the International Crisis Group (ICG), Freedom House and representatives of NGOs from Central Asian states are gathering in the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek, on Saturday, 13 May - the actual date of the anniversary. The participants are expected to renew calls on the international community to bring the perpetrators to justice. “There are many ways to bring those people [responsible for the killings] to justice, for example, the [former] minister of interior, Zakir Almatov, could have been arrested when he was in Germany [receiving medical treatment] recently,” Ramazan Dyryldaev, chair of the Kyrgyz Committee for Human Rights told IRIN in Bishkek. “But I think one of the effective methods is the mechanism of the International Criminal Court,” Dyryldaev said. In response to Tashkent’s continued refusal to allow an independent international investigation into the killings, in November 2005 the European Union (EU) announced an arms embargo to Uzbekistan and a one-year visa ban on 12 senior government ministers and officials deemed responsible for the Andijan killings. In December 2005, the UN condemned Tashkent’s refusal to allow an international investigation and urged the authorities to stop their “harassment and detention of eyewitnesses”. On Wednesday, the British government said it would continue pressing Uzbekistan to improve its human rights record and to try to strengthen punitive measures already in place against the Central Asian nation. “We will keep up the pressure on Uzbekistan in order to make sure that the human rights situation ... is changed," Prime Minister Tony Blair said. Meanwhile, the people of Andijan grieve behind closed doors. But 12 months on, the grief is giving way to anger. “We have been bloodied but we will be back. Shooting hundreds has only made people more sick with this regime, we are just waiting for the right time to strike back,” one young man who lost his mother in the killings said.