UZBEKISTAN: US-BACKED DICTATOR DROWNS UPRISING IN BLOOD

[seemslikeadream]

By: Bill Van Auken
Uploaded/Updated: 05/14/2005 16:23:07
...

The former British ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray testified that he had seen photographic evidence that interrogations include the use of drowning, suffocation, rape and even boiling the victims to death.

In a confidential memo to the British Foreign Office that was leaked to the Financial Times last year, Murray wrote: “Uzbek officials are torturing prisoners to extract information , which is supplied to the US and passed through its Central Intelligence Agency to the UK.”

While the US State Department has issued formal reports criticizing the regime for human rights violations, the Bush administration has authorized the CIA and the military to “render” those it has detained in the “war on terrorism” to Uzbekistan, precisely because the regime practices torture.

Karimov’s dictatorship receives hundred of million of dollars annually in aid from the US in return for providing the Pentagon with a key military base at Qarshi Hanabad, where approximately 1,500 US personnel are stationed. The base serves as a major supply facility for the continuing war in neighboring Afghanistan as well as a platform for projecting US military power in the rest of Central Asia.

The Uzbek dictator has been able to draw on Washington’s support, claiming that his brutal methods against his own people are part of the worldwide struggle against terrorism.

There were reports that Karimov flew from the capital of Tashkent to personally direct the repression in Andijan.
more
http://www.muslimuzbekistan.com/eng/ennews/2005/05/ennews15052005a.html

[knowbody0]

1. way to spread democracy

[IndianaGreen]

5. Bush has turned "freedom" and "democracy" into obscenities

I don't think I will ever mention those words without first qualifying them with some sort of adjective such as "socialist democracy" to differentiate it from the meaning given to them by Bush.

[seemslikeadream]

2. Uzbek president defends firing on crowd; 300 believed killed

Basing his account on conversations with several witnesses, Zainabitdinov said the demonstrators and their hostages were fleeing down a roadway when soldiers positioned on both sides of the road opened fire. The demonstrators in the fleeing group were armed, but scores of women and children in the group were not, he said.

"Those people did not expect that the troops would open fire," Zainabitdinov said. "It was a situation that was next to impossible to escape. The troops ambushed from both sides of the road."

Zainabitdinov, who lives near where the soldiers opened fire on the crowd, said he surveyed the scene afterward. "There were pools of blood everywhere," he said. "There were bodies all over the place, spent cartridges, dozens of shoes and umbrellas scattered all over the street."

Though Uzbek security forces regained control of Andijan on Saturday, thousands of protesters massed in the city square to denounce the government's violent crackdown on demonstrators Friday.

"They wanted someone to be held responsible for the bloodshed," said Mirafror Akhrorov, a Tajik journalist with Radio Liberty who was in Andijan on Saturday morning. "Some of them were saying, `Look what the authorities have done to us! Somebody has to pay!'
http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/mld/myrtlebeachonline/news/world/11648884.htm

[xray s]

3. Hello Saddam The Second

Poppy's favorite torturer, circa 1985...

W's favorite torturer, circa 2005...

[Judi Lynn]

4. Isn't it comforting to know American taxpayers are supporting this?

You most likely won't hear any word of disapproval coming from the _Bush perversion of the White House.

".....The owner of Uzbekistan is a corrupt and vicious ruffian called Islam Karimov. He is not a Muslim, in spite of his first name, and was First Secretary of the Uzbek Communist Party Central Committee. When the USSR finally collapsed he ditched communism and declared independence. Then he achieved leadership in a contest in which opposition parties were either not permitted to take part or were criminally persecuted by the police and other thugs.

In 1992 he banned the main opposition parties and imprisoned their leaders, following which his former communist organization, risibly renamed the People’s Democratic Party, won elections. Karimov’s leadership term was extended to five years by referendum in 1995, and in 2000 in an equally crooked ballot he was ‘re-elected’ president. (Independent observers described the performance as “neither free nor fair”, which is diplomat-speak for being as well-rigged as a Baltimore Clipper.) The man is a racketeering tyrant with blood on his hands.

So naturally he was invited to the White House. Following his meeting with Bush and Rumsfeld he visited Congress. According to the media release:

"When Islam Karimov entered, the senators stood and applauded him for a long time. They noted that relations of Congress to Uzbekistan changed sharply because of Uzbekistan’s early support of the anti-terrorist coalition, no longer limited to supporting its role in regional security, but in defending principles of democracy and freedom."

A malign, rotten, barbaric dictator who permits “no independent judicial or legislative system, no legal opposition, and no free media” was honored by Bush and given a standing ovation by people who couldn’t find his country on a globe ("Ooze Becky Where?") because he provided a base for the invasion of Iraq. He can do no wrong in the eyes of Bush, and, thrusting aside all the evidence to the contrary, Washington professes to believe he is “defending principles of democracy and freedom”."
(snip)

http://www.world-crisis.com/analysis_comments/1010_0_15_0_C/

[NYC Liberal]

7. Whenever Repukes bring up the line that we went to Iraq to "free" it

I always ask repeatedly why then does Bush support/praise Uzbekistan and Karimov.

It's always the same response: "Why do you keep asking that over and over??"

[leftchick]

9. all of the torturing men...

That is beyond sick to look at. At least CNNI did a very good in depth analysis of the situation. It was made clear that this was not an Islamic uprising as 'the boiler' has said. It was an across the population backlash at him and his policies. It also made clear that the US is in a very tough situation now in trying to continue "propping him up". They were very good at noting the US condoning of the torture because of the US base and the supposed "war on terra". They ended by showing many of the dead, some under tanks, and saying that this is most likely the start of a bloody revolution.

[0007]

6. What's gonna happen when a large group of Americans troops

are captured? When the shoe is on the other foot the tone will be different and all of America will be called to come to their aid with prayers and support to defeat the evil doers.

Do American citizens indeed support this type of torture, when it has been proved that it is fruitless?

We'll see!

[NYC Liberal]

8. It's just like when the video of the bodies those 4(?) soldiers killed

in the initial invasion by Iraqi troops were shown on al Jazeera. People here were OUTRAGED by it. Said it showed how barbaric Saddam was and this is why we needed to invade etc.

Those very same people cheered and applauded when the US released video of the heads of Uday and Qusay being held up for the camera and the footage was shown ad nauseum on Fox CNN, etc.

[0007]

10. That scene was running through my mind also...I think they were four

mercenaries that were burned and chopped up and hung on a bridge for all to see.

At the end of WW II when the Russians were closing in on Germany from the East, there was no way the Germans wanted to be taken alive by the Russians. Many Germans killed themselves to avoid capture. On the Western front the Germans would surrender willingly to the U.S. knowing that no harm would come to them if they weren't war criminals.

The U.S. is just creating more terrorist and a more determined enemy.

[NYC Liberal]

11. "The U.S. is just creating more terrorist and a more determined enemy"

I remember reading an article (well, I'm sure there are countless other similar stories) where they were talking to this guy who had helped shoot down an American helicopter and was planning to do the same thing again.

He was talking about how the Americans had killed his entire family - wife, mother, kids - everybody. And so he killed some of them.

What can you say to that? They're even MORE determined because a lot of the time it's not just their "countrymen" being killed.......it's their familes, friends, etc.

[seemslikeadream]

13. EVERY DEATH CREATES NEW ENEMIES

EVERY DEATH CREATES NEW ENEMIES
MORE TERRORISTS
MORE DANGER
MORE DEATH
AND REMEMBER...
HE IS JUST GETTING STARTED...
BUSH'S PLAN FOR PEACE
IS THE PEACE OF THE COMMON GRAVE


3 MINUTE VIDEO

[Just Me]

12. *weep*

All people want freedom from terror. The neoCON corporacrats finance terror upon people. They do so without the approval of Americans since they hide such shameful evil actions. They are akin to the absolute worst of the Roman Empire.

They neither represent me or my values. I hate what they have become. :grr:

[hector459]

14. It used to be "communists" now "Islamic militants" is the justifier for

killing, lying, and stealing. Remember when all you had to do was accuse someone of being a communist and it was ok to either kill them, steal from them, or otherwise ruin their lives? Now the buzz term is "Islamic militants" and it's ok for former communists to engage in genocide and the trampling of freedoms so long as they call themselves "capitalists" or a "democracy."

Working men and women all over the globe will have to rise up to fight off the capitalist oligarchical corporate sleaze balls now taking over every country's economy and society. But they have to wake up first.

[Chicago Democrat]

15. FUck Uzbekistans Bloody Murder US Puppet!!!

DOWN WITH BUSH!

TAKE BACK THE PEOPLES HOUSE!

[K8-EEE]

16. Scott McClellan Thinks Uzbeks Should Use "Peaceful Means"

to fight the dictatorship. YEAH RIGHT! Just like BushCo did in Iraq, right? How does he even say this shit with a straight face??