Karimov is taking a page from his pal Dubya:
deny reality, no matter how many witnesses. It's the facts that are biased!Uzbek authorities deny troops killed civilians ANDIZHAN, Uzbekistan (Reuters) -
Uzbekistan's government said on Tuesday troops had killed "terrorists" not civilians to quell unrest, contradicting witnesses who said they shot hundreds of protesters, including women and children.
An Uzbek opposition party said it had compiled a list of
745 people killed. Witnesses and a human rights activist in Andizhan have put the death toll at about 500.
Uzbekistan's prosecutor general said it was 169, including three women and two children among hostages killed by rebels.
"Not a single civilian was killed by government forces there," Prosecutor-General Rashid Kadyrov told reporters in the capital Tashkent.
"There are absolutely absurd statements that troops opened fire on peaceful demonstrators. A number of news organizations focused on the shooting and used made-up facts on the number of casualties such as the number 500 (of dead)."He branded the people who took part in the rebellion "terrorists" and said almost all of those killed either had guns in their hands or were nearby.
"Only bandits were killed," he said.
On the streets of Andizhan, an overnight gun battle suggested pockets of resistance remained.
Residents of the leafy town of 300,000 have laid flowers on the parched pools of blood outside School No. 15 on Cholpon Avenue, where witnesses said the massacre took place.
The unrest, sparked by the trial of 23 Muslim businessmen and blamed by Karimov on Islamic extremists, was the bloodiest chapter in Uzbekistan's post-Soviet history.
Residents and a local human rights activist say the rebellion was staged by locals protesting against poverty, corruption and Karimov's hard line against Muslims.
(...)
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&e=1&u=/nm/20050517/ts_nm/uzbekistan_dc Unbelievable. They have almost as much chutzpah as Condi saying "the Iraqi war was brought on us," or Rummy claiming a few bad apples down the chain of command came up with the torture techniques in Abu Grahib.
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