ANDIJAN, Uzbekistan, 14 May 2005 — Troops loyal to Uzbekistan’s President Islam Karimov opened fire yesterday on protesters and counterattacked insurgents who had seized control of central Andijan, the ex-Soviet republic’s fourth largest city.
Panic erupted as soldiers drove a truck into the eastern Uzbek city’s main square and began shooting into a crowd of 5,000 that was demonstrating against Karimov’s government.
Protesters fell to the ground as the soldiers started shooting outside the administration building. An Associated Press reporter saw 10 people lying on the ground, apparently hit in a hail of automatic weapons fire. Moments before, demonstrators said three people had been killed.
Soldiers continued shooting as they surrounded the protesters, and the sound of what appeared to be large-caliber gunfire resounded through the area, along with automatic weapons fire. One man sobbed, “Oh, my son! He’s dead.”
Troops then moved in against armed anti-Karimov insurgents who had seized public buildings and freed 2,000 prisoners from the local prison, where 23 men accused of religious extremism were being held. The nighttime raid left at least nine dead and 34 wounded, according to the government.
Soldiers in armored personnel carriers and lorries spread throughout the city and by late yesterday the government counteroffensive appeared to have brought the city back under control.
Russia’s Interfax news agency, quoting local police, said security forces retook the administration building on the main square after intense fighting. Police also said hostages held in the building had been released.
But others disputed the government version. Protest leader Kabuljon Parpiyev told The Associated Press that as many as 50 people may have been killed over the course of the day. Two of the dead were children, said Sharif Shakirov, a brother of one of the defendants, and he said 30 soldiers who had shot at demonstrators were being held hostage. An AP photographer saw a city prosecutor being led away by demonstrators.
Protesters controlled a kilometer-wide stretch of the city center for most of the day, with their own representatives setting up guard patrols. As dusk fell, however, the city square was practically empty.
It was one of the most serious crises to shake Uzbekistan, which hosts a major US air base used for operations in Afghanistan.
Andijan, which has a population of 300,000, is near the border with Kyrgyzstan in the densely populated and impoverished Ferghana Valley. The violence followed days of protests in the city against the trial of the 23 men, who were charged with forming a cell of the outlawed Islamic group Akromiya.
Freeing those 23 men appeared to have been the original goal of the insurgents. Late Thursday they raided a military garrison for its weapons, then stormed the city administration building before breaking into the prison. It was after the night’s fighting died down that thousands of demonstrators gathered in the city center to call for Karimov’s resignation and to protest the lack of democracy in the country.
In the capital Tashkent, guards at the Israeli Embassy shot dead a man who refused to stop for security check. The man turned out to be unarmed.
The United States called for the government of Uzbekistan and demonstrators to show restraint. “We are concerned about the outbreak of violence, particularly by some members of a terrorist organization that were freed from prison,” White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters.
