Uzbek Blast Highlights Need for Openness

The media blackout that followed an accident at an arms depot in western Uzbekistan has prompted human rights experts to urge the authorities to be more open when such incidents happen, and also to ensure the investigation into the causes of the July 10 incident is conducted transparently.



The accident began with a fire which set off a series of explosions at an artillery ammunition depot in the town of Kagan, near the city of Bukhara.



Official sources eventually revealed that three people died and 20 were injured in the blast. Independent news services reported that the casualty figure was higher than officials would admit.



The Ferghana.ru news site reported that about 300 army personnel were in the vicinity when the accident happened, while other media suggested there might have been casualties at a nearby army camp and hospital.



The regional press failed to mention the accident.



Visiting the scene on July 17, President Islam Karimov led a meeting of the state committee that is investigating the accident, and reported that the situation was under control, the danger had been dealt with and assistance had been provided to those injured.



The authorities say the main reason for the explosions was that the Soviet-era arms depot did not meet current safety standards.



As Karimov put it, “The defence ministry did not show the proper care and responsibility for the ammunition dump, and things were left to drift.”



As the authorities released partial and sometimes contradictory information about the incident, the Ezgulik human rights group issued an appeal to the authorities to disclose full details. Citing reports that thousands of people had been evacuated from their homes and buildings had been damaged in Kagan, Ezgulik recalled the Andijan violence of May 2005, after which the authorities strove to conceal the true number of dead. That experience, the group said, had caused a loss of public confidence in the authorities.



“The Karimov regime tries to block the release of any information that runs counter to the official version of events, and thus to cover up the facts,” said one human rights activist in Samarkand, also in the west of Uzbekistan.



The political observer from Tashkent said that in trying to avoid sowing alarm, the authorities were displaying their own brand of concern for the public good.



But he said restrictive information policies merely made the speculation and rumours worse.



“The fact that the public only finds out what’s going on from foreign sources indicates that the authorities are unable to stay on top of the situation,” he added.



However, Tashpulat Yoldashev, an independent political analyst in Uzbekistan, saw the reporting on the Kagan accident in a more positive light.



Even if the announcement was late, the authorities did at least report the truth. This, said Yoldashev, was an unprecedented step.



At the same time, it would have been hard for the authorities to pin the blame on Islamic terrorists, for example, as the arms depot is in a remote, well-guarded location 20 kilometres from Kagan and is effectively impenetrable by intruders.





Non-government groups in Uzbekistan are now hoping the authorities will conduct an impartial and transparent investigation, which should include gathering witness testimony.



(NBCentralAsia 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.)