{"id":888,"date":"2005-05-14T11:22:13","date_gmt":"2005-05-14T15:22:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/wordpress\/?p=888"},"modified":"2005-05-14T11:22:13","modified_gmt":"2005-05-14T15:22:13","slug":"democracy-through-peacefull-meanswhat-a-concept","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/?p=888","title":{"rendered":"democracy through peacefull means…what a concept"},"content":{"rendered":"

?The people of Uzbekistan want to see a more representative and democratic government. But that should come through peaceful means, not through violence,? White House spokesman Scott McClellan said<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Except in Iraq, Afghanistan, or wherever<\/a> the U.S. decides to strike next.<\/p>\n

?Our women and children are dying,? said Daniyar Akbarov, 24, who claimed to have seen at least 300 people killed in the violence.<\/p>\n

Big military trucks loaded with soldiers cruised the streets and troops backed by armored vehicles surrounded the heavily fortified police headquarters.<\/p>\n

‘Many, many dead bodies’<\/strong>
\nEarlier, soldiers loaded scores of bodies of those killed onto four trucks and a bus after blocking friends and relatives from collecting them, witnesses said.<\/p>\n

Lutfulo Shamsutdinov, the head of the Independent Human Rights Organization of Uzbekistan, said he saw about 200 victims being loaded onto trucks near the square in Andijan, the fourth-largest city with a population of 350,000.<\/p>\n

Another witness who declined to be named told The Associated Press ?many, many dead bodies? were stacked up by a school near the square. The city?s hospital was cordoned off and officials could not be reached for casualty figures.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

DOZENS KILLED IN UZBEK CITY, AS SECURITY FORCES CRUSH PROTEST IN ANDIJAN <\/a><\/p>\n

After taking control of the regional administration building, a leader of the militant group telephoned a Ferghana.ru correspondent, issuing an appeal to Russian President Vladimir Putin to intervene in the crisis and prevent further bloodshed. “They [security forces] are shooting unarmed people who are simply demanding their rights,” the militant leader was quoted by Ferghana.ru as saying. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters in Moscow that the Andijan crisis as an “internal matter for Uzbekistan.”<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

State-controlled Uzbek media attributed the unrest in Andijan to Islamic “extremists,” “criminals” and “bandits.” Karimov critics vigorously disputed that characterization, saying that most of the Andijan protesters were not affiliated with any radical group. “This protest was the result of his [Karimov?s] economic policies,” a high-level representative of the Sunshine Coalition, an Uzbek opposition alliance, told EurasiaNet. “The people are being driven by a sense of desperation.” <\/p>\n

The Sunshine Coalition representative suggested that the Karimov administration?s use of force would not deter future anti-government protests. “There is a sense among people that there is nothing to lose,” the representative said, adding that events in Kyrgyzstan last March, when protesters toppled Askar Akayev?s administration, seems to have emboldened Uzbeks to resist. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive<\/a>]. “Kyrgyzstan is right next door,” the representative said. “The Kyrgyz revolution has prompted a lot of people to wonder why they should tolerate such poor living conditions [in Uzbekistan].”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

?The people of Uzbekistan want to see a more representative and democratic government. But that should come through peaceful means, not through violence,? White House spokesman Scott McClellan said. Except in Iraq, Afghanistan, or wherever the U.S. decides to strike … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdXTf-ek","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=888"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/888\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}