Uzbekistan: The Andijon Uprising

Bishkek/Brussels  |   25 May 2005

Western governments and international bodies must press much harder for fundamental changes in Tashkent to avoid further mass violence, and even state failure, in Uzbekistan.

Uzbekistan: The Andijon Uprising,* the latest briefing from the International Crisis Group, examines the events surrounding the 13-14 May popular uprising in the eastern Uzbekistan city and its brutal suppression by the government of President Islam Karimov. For too long, the international community has ignored Karimov's abuses and the clear signs the country was headed for serious trouble. It is time to abandon failed policies of muted criticism and tacit support of this murderous regime.

"Some world capitals seem almost surprised by the events in Andijon, but the uprising and the massacre that followed did not just appear out of nowhere", says Michael Hall, Director of Crisis Group's Central Asia Project. "Public anger and extreme frustration with the regime have been mounting everywhere in Uzbekistan for months, if not years".

Following half a year of increasingly strident demonstrations across the country, the Andijon uprising began with protests over the trial of 23 local businessmen accused of involvement in Islamic extremism and acts against the state. There is no credible evidence for the involvement of jihadists in these protests, and the businessmen in question had shown no inclination to violence.

That an armed crowd broke into Andijon prison on 12 May 2005, freeing as many as 2,000 prisoners, was certainly a crime, but there can be no justification for the government's response: firing indiscriminately into unarmed, peaceful civilians, killing perhaps as many as 750 people, including many children.

Protests over the past six months have been mostly driven by the regime's ruinous economic policies. Government decrees have levied high tariffs on imports and restricted the activities of bazaar traders in a country where shuttle trading across borders is sometimes the only way people have of making a living. Worsening corruption and bureaucracy have also prompted rising anger against the government, as have shortages of gas and electricity throughout a very cold winter.

Russia and China have strongly backed Karimov's approach, ignoring the reality that his policies have fuelled the potential for a serious Islamist opposition. The U.S. has focused almost entirely on maintaining a strong security relationship, with far less attention to improving human rights, encouraging political reforms or opening the economy, thus inevitably adding to the very risks Washington says it is engaged in the region to prevent.

"The massacre at Andijon is unlikely to be the last serious bloodshed this regime unleashes on its own citizens", says Robert Templer, Director of Crisis Group's Asia Program. "The international community must push for deep economic and political reforms if it wants to avoid further violence and ensuing state failure in Uzbekistan. Chaos in Uzbekistan would only benefit the region's militant Islamist groups, as do the regime's brutal policies".