Uzbek Leaders Change Story on Deaths

The government Wednesday changed its account of how people died in last week’s crackdown on protesters, saying that more than 100 civilians were killed in the eastern city of Andijon but insisting that they died at the hands of rebels, not government troops.

On Tuesday, Uzbekistan’s top prosecutor, Rashid Kadyrov, said that 169 people died when government troops clashed with thousands of protesters and armed militants. Those killed included 32 law enforcement officers as well as armed protesters, he said.

“Everyone who was killed had weapons,” Kadyrov said during a news conference in Tashkent, the capital, with President Islam A. Karimov at his side.

On Wednesday, Uzbek Interior Minister Zakir Almatov told diplomats and journalists who were taken on a tightly controlled tour of Andijon that “bandits killed 100 civilians and another eight were killed by random bullets,” the Russian news agency Itar-Tass reported.

It appeared that the government may have found it no longer possible to deny that many unarmed civilians had died.

Human rights activists and others in Andijon say that 300 to 500 people died in Friday’s clashes, most of them civilians shot by government troops. Witnesses in Andijon have also told Western media, including the Los Angeles Times, that many armed rebels were involved in the clashes.

Critics of the government rejected both of its accounts of the casualties.

“None of the people I know, both Uzbeks and Russians, believe the government tales that more than 100 people were killed in Andijon by militants,” said Alexandra Tikhonova, 33, an ethnic Russian trader in Tashkent who resells old goods. “If there were militants at all, they counted on the desperate people’s support. They wouldn’t shoot at civilians. It’s the work of the government troops.”

The events in Andijon began when armed fighters attacked a police checkpoint late Thursday night, Almatov told reporters Wednesday, according to the Russian news agency Interfax. “There were 35 to 40 assailants,” Almatov said. “They were armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles. They stole equipment, submachine guns and the policemen’s officially issued weapons.”

Later that night the fighters attacked a prison, freeing many inmates, including 23 prominent businessmen who were on trial for allegedly being Islamic extremists belonging to a group called Akramia. Some of the militants then seized a government building in central Andijon.

Almatov said local people were then forced to join a daytime rally near the seized building, Interfax reported. “Insurgents were deployed along the perimeter [of the square] to stop people from leaving,” Almatov said. “A rally with political slogans did not take place there.”

According to human rights activists and correspondents for Western wire services, however, thousands of people voluntarily joined a protest at which speakers complained about unemployment and low living standards.

“You wouldn’t believe the abject poverty people live in. People live like animals in the provinces,” Tikhonova said. “We are lucky to live in Tashkent. There are at least job opportunities.... But in the provinces they can’t afford to buy the most necessary things, like clothes and medicine.”

Mohammed Solikh, exiled leader of the Erk Party, an Uzbek opposition group that has not been allowed to register as a political party, said in a phone interview from Oslo that the crackdown marked “the beginning of witch hunting in Uzbekistan.”

“But I think it is impossible to stop the people now,” he said. “People have no fear anymore.”

The Bush administration considers Uzbekistan an important ally and maintains a military base there that is used to support U.S. operations in Afghanistan. But Solikh urged Washington to distance itself from Karimov.

“One should understand that Karimov’s power is based on three pillars,” he said. “The first pillar is the police and secret services, the second is the army and the third is his allies in the counter-terrorist alliance, meaning first of all the United States. If one of these pillars falls down, the regime will collapse. We don’t want this collapse to be a bloody one. We want to come to power as democrats did in Ukraine, Georgia and finally in Kyrgyzstan.”

In those former Soviet states, opposition forces came to power within the last two years through largely nonviolent uprisings triggered by alleged electoral fraud.

By all accounts, most of those killed in Andijon died in late-afternoon or early-evening clashes Friday after government troops arrived.

“During the liquidation of bandits who attacked Andijon, 100 criminals were detained and 269 submachine guns were confiscated,” Almatov said.

Government officials and human rights activists in Andijon have said that when the crackdown began, militants left the government building with hostages. Various accounts, from officials and activists, suggest that many people died when troops and militants clashed.

Almatov said Wednesday that the hostages held by the militants as they tried to flee included women and children who had been doused with gasoline.

Lachinbek Tursunkhodzhayev, a former leader of the Erk Party in Andijon who now describes himself as an “independent expert,” said in a telephone interview from Andijon that he believed that relatives of the 23 imprisoned businessmen may have participated in the prison raid that freed them.

“I can understand what they felt, but it is impossible to do it that way,” he said. “Later, those people seized the government building, and when they were leaving it they indeed took hostages with them, but no one would believe that they doused women and children with gasoline.... If you listen to officials, you can only believe 5% of what they are telling us.”

The 23 businessmen were widely respected in Andijon, and human rights groups had criticized their detention and trial.

Initial reports said an estimated 2,000 prisoners were released when fighters took over the prison, but Abdukarim Shadiyev, a prison official, told reporters on the government tour Wednesday that the prison had held 700 inmates.

About 500 were freed and more than 400 of them had voluntarily returned, he said. Out of 30 supporters of Akramia freed in the raid, which would include the 23 businessmen, only three had been recaptured, he said.

Atanazar Arifov, secretary-general of Erk in Tashkent, said that anger over the businessmen’s trial led to the clash. “About 50 people organized a picket on May 11,” he said.

“On May 12, some of them were beaten, others had their automobiles confiscated, and some were arrested. Peaceful discontent turned to armed action.”

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Loiko reported from Tashkent and Holley from Moscow. Yakov Ryzhak in The Times’ Moscow Bureau contributed to this report.