U.S. "Deeply Disturbed" by Reports Uzbek
Troops Fired on Protestors
Rice says U.S. is encouraging Uzbek
government to make reforms
May 16, 2005
Washington -- The United States is "deeply disturbed" by reports that
Uzbek troops fired on demonstrators May 13, State Department spokesman
Richard Boucher said during the daily press briefing May 16.
"We certainly condemn the indiscriminate use of force against unarmed
civilians and deeply regret any loss of life," Boucher said.
"Ми, безумовно, засуджуємо нерозбірливе застосування сили проти
неозброєних громадян та глибоко співчуваємо через людські втрати",
сказав Баучер.
According to news reports, Uzbek government soldiers opened fire on
thousands of protestors in the eastern Uzbekistan city of Andijan May
13 after demonstrators stormed a jail to free 23 men accused of
"Islamic extremism." Some reports have put the death toll in the
hundreds.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, returning May 16 from a trip to
Iraq, told journalists that the United States is "still trying to
understand" what happened in Andijan. "The main preoccupations are now
to encourage everybody to forgo any further violence, to help with the
refugees that went into Kyrgyzstan out of Uzbekistan, and to try to
deal with the consequences right now of this set of issues," she said,
according to an Associated Press account of the briefing.
"We have been encouraging the [Islom] Karimov government to make
reforms, to make the system more open," she told reporters. "This is a
country that needs, in a sense, the pressure valves that come from a
more open political system."
Boucher said the United States continues to urge the Uzbek government
"to exercise restraint, stressing that violence cannot lead to
long-term stability. And we've made that point with senior Uzbek
authorities in Washington and Tashkent."
Boucher also condemned the armed attack by the demonstrators on the
prison in Andijan and other government facilities as "the kind of
violence that we cannot countenance in any way."
"There's nothing that justifies acts of violence or terrorism, and
we're very concerned at reports of either the release or the escape of
the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan members," he said.
The United States has designated the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan
(IMU) a terrorist organization.
Boucher said the United States is urging the Uzbek government to allow
the International Committee of the Red Cross and other humanitarian
organizations full access to the region, both "so we can get the facts
... [and] so they can help take care of people that may need their
help."
"We also urge the Uzbek government to restore full access to news
broadcasts and the Internet for its population, so people can know
what's going on," he said.
"But we also want to continue to make the point that the stability in
Uzbekistan ultimately depends on their government reaching out to the
citizenry and instituting real reforms, political reforms, economic
reforms, the rule of law, and addressing its human rights problems,"
Boucher said. "We're disappointed in the degree of progress we've seen,
and we will continue to work with the Uzbeks to address all these
areas."
He noted that the United States has documented in its annual human
rights reports and elsewhere that the tag of "Islamic extremist" has
been used too broadly by the government of Uzbekistan, "and that there
needs to be more respect for people who want to peacefully exercise
their religion."
However, "no one can deny that Uzbekistan has faced a problem of
terrorism by real extremists who are violent, who are trying to
overthrow the government and kill people, and those people need to be
dealt with as well," Boucher added.
He reiterated U.S. support for the Uzbek government's fight against
terrorism while again citing the U.S. government's long-standing call
for democratic reforms that "allow people who have a peaceful view of
Uzbekistan's evolution to find an outlet in the political system for
that view."
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Ukrainian language statement