Three Years on, Andijan Still Waits for Truth

Three years after Uzbek security forces turned their guns on a crowd of demonstrators in the eastern city of Andijan, the chances that a proper independent investigation will be ever be carried out remain minimal.



The government of Uzbekistan seems set on effacing the 2005 shootings from the country’s historical memory. The public, meanwhile, block the event out of their own minds, for fear that remembering it will bring unpleasant consequences.



May 13 was the third anniversary of the day government forces opened fire on demonstrators in the city centre. Officials said 189 people died and more than 500 were injured, while independent human rights organisations claim the true number of dead was closer to 800.



The authorities accused the protesters of being members of radical Islamic terror groups which they named as Akramia, Hizb-ut-Tahrir, and al-Qaeda. They proceeded to arrest anyone they deemed to be ringleaders of the protests, plus eyewitnesses, human rights activists, journalists, and anyone else who expressed views different from their own.



The government responded to pressure for an independent international investigation by closing down the missions of foreign organisations assisting civil society and media development.



In November 2005, the European Union placed sanctions on Uzbekistan, consisting of a visa ban for several high-ranking officials held directly responsible for the violence, and an embargo on arms sales.



After his re-election last year in a ballot of dubious constitutionality, for the third term contrary to the Constitution, President Islam Karimov started hinting at plans to implement liberal reforms. He freed a few human rights activists under amnesty, he saw through a the abolition of the death penalty, and he let the International Committee of the Red Cross in to inspect prisons.



Analysts say these actions resulted in the almost complete lifting of the sanctions when the EU reviewed the matter on April 29. The visa ban was suspended for six months, leaving just the embargo on arms sales.



Yet three years on, Andijan remains a dark stain on the country’s history, and is rarely even discussed openly by people living in Uzbekistan.



One street trader in Andijan said the mood was still one of “trepidation and the expectation of repression”.



“If I talk about Andijan, I will draw down danger and problems upon myself,” he said.



An observer who recently visited the city commented on the “extremely depressed” atmosphere there. This was a society, he concluded, that harboured no hopes of a fair investigation.



Meanwhile, the authorities studiously avoid mentioning the subject.



“No one talks about Andijan any more, not even President Karimov, who once talked about the ‘terrorists’ who seized control of [government] institutions in Andijan,” said the observer.



“The tragedy has been thrown on the junkheap of history.”



Nadezhda Atayeva, the head of the Paris-based Human Rights in Central Asia Association, says there is no longer any chance of an objective investigation.



She explained how the authorities have “neutralised” society by purging it of its active members – human rights activists, journalists, and opposition supporters. Secondly, there can be no access to centrally-held comprehensive documentation, as it has been either hushed up or destroyed.



“The mass murder of people that took place in Andijan – as confirmed by human rights reports collated from eyewitness testimony – is a crime against humanity,” she said. “The authorities therefore want to make May 13, 2005 a secret of history.”



(NBCA is an IWPR-funded project to create a multilingual news analysis and comment service for Central Asia, drawing on the expertise of a broad range of political observers across the region. The project ran from August 2006 to September 2007, covering all five regional states. With new funding, the service is resuming, covering only Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan for the moment.)