Uzbek Information Vacuum Heightens Tension

[seemslikeadream]

By BAGILA BUKHARBAYEVA
Associated Press Writer

May 14, 2005, 2:31 PM EDT


FERGANA, Uzbekistan -- Almost everyone in the Fergana Valley seems to know that something awful happened. Few know many details beyond that. A day after the bloody suppression of an uprising in Andijan, one of the valley's major cities, residents of this eastern region near Kyrgyzstan were gripped by anxiety Saturday as they tried to piece together information.

Broadcasts by foreign TV news channels were cut off Friday, and Uzbekistan's tightly controlled state TV channel was dominated Saturday by the repeated airings of President Islam Karimov's news conference where he gave his version of the violence -- without any footage of the events in Andijan.

Karimov said 10 government troops and "many more" militants died and at least 100 people were wounded in the fighting in Andijan. Witnesses counted more than 200 civilians dead.

In the densely populated valley, word travels fast, even if incompletely.

...

"It's because the government doesn't want it to spill over to other regions," said the young man, who gave his name only as Oibek. In tightly controlled Uzbekistan, many people resist telling journalists their full names, apparently afraid of angering Karimov's authoritarian government.
more
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/wire/sns-ap-uzbekistan-echoes-of-unrest,0,7227779.story?coll=sns-ap-world-headlines

[DrDebug]

1. The wunderful ally

(...)
Rumsfeld said, singling out Uzbekistan as a "wonderful" ally in the administration's war and reconstruction effort in Afghanistan. "What's important to us is to arrange in a way and in places that are hospitable"
(...)
http://angryleft.blogspot.com/2004/02/us-base-in-uzbekistan.html

[countryjake]

2. Just now heard a tiny blip at the top of the news...

that people are gathering back in the main square there. Heard another blip late last night saying all the bodies were being spirited away in trucks, but neither report could be confirmed.

Karimov ain't going down without a big fight...he's gotta stand up for that US base, after all. Wonder where ole Condi is? Figured she'd be heading over there by now.

We are in bed with the bastards of the world!