MaximsNews Columnist

Tiananmen Square 16 years ago this weekend.

         "China firmly supports Uzbekistan's moves to crack down on the "three evil forces" of terrorism, separatism and extremism, and maintain domestic and regional stability for peaceful development, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said in Beijing Tuesday."  The People's Daily

           The Uzbek government insists that it was an attack by a small group of terrorists which resulted in the deaths of 173 people. 

However, the eyewitness reports and unnamed army sources who spoke with BBC revealed that the number of killed may easily exceed 700 with many more wounded. 

Numerous eyewitnesses say that shootings lasted for hours with brief intervals and that soldiers shot at the wounded to finish the job.

            UNITED NATIONS - 5 June 2005   www.MaximsNews.com / -- Sixteen years ago this weekend the Chinese Government gave its answer to the
thousands of young people who had been encouraged by the ripples of democratization across the Communist World, and had poured into Tiananmen Square to demand reform. 

After weeks of negotiating with the demonstrators, the hardliners in the government gained the upper hand, and sent some ten thousand heavily equipped troops to clear the square. 

And they did. 

Sweeping humans aside like litter after a street fair. 

It has been sixteen years and until today no independent inquiry was conducted. 

Countless people were thrown into jail and driven into exile, and the subject still remains a big taboo in the Chinese society: the one Chinese leader Zhao Ziyang sympathetic to the demonstrators became a non-person, under house arrest until his death this year. 

The memory of Tiananmen square is, even after all this time, strong enough for public opinion in democratic countries to prevent lifting all barriers to trade to with China.

In contrast, this month the US is negotiating with the regime of Islam Karimov in neighboring Uzbekistan about prolonging the lease of its Khanabad airbase and is continuing military aid to the government, where only three weeks ago, in the southern city of Andijan the regime staged a replay of Tiananmen Square all over again. 

The Chinese government promptly gave an A plus to their pupils and expressed total support for the perpetrators of the massacres. 

Researching both events it is nauseating to see similarities both in the origins of the events and their aftermath, right down to the 'damage control.' 

Then and now, both regimes claim "foreign media" spread false news about the dead.

Very similarly, people ran out of patience with economic and political oppression. 

The most reliable local reports suggest that it was triggered by a smaller peaceful demonstration organized by relatives and friends of 23 people on trial accused of Islamic extremism. 

After several days a group of angry men attacked a military base and a prison freeing thousands of people after a court had sentenced men in secret to 20 plus years in prison.

Later, they occupied a city building and were joined by many thousands of ordinary unarmed people who seized this first opportunity to get their voices heard.

Just like their Chinese mentors, the Uzbek government used heavily armed units including anti-terrorism units (which were reportedly trained by the Americans with the American taxpayers' money) to shoot indiscriminately
at men, women, children. 

The Uzbek government insists that it was an attack by a small group of terrorists which resulted in the deaths of 173 people. 

However, the eyewitness reports and unnamed army sources who spoke with BBC revealed that the number of killed may easily exceed 700 with many more wounded. 

Numerous eyewitnesses say that shootings lasted for hours with brief intervals and that soldiers shot at the wounded to finish the job. 

The prolonged nature of the shooting suggests that it is more likely that the order has been given at the highest level than that local troops had momentarily lost their heads. 

Something that the president Karimov denied, saying that "he never ordered to shoot at demonstrators" and shooting only occurred while armed militants attacked the army.

Only days after the massacre president, Karimov flew to China on an official state visit to a 21 gun salute. 

Beijing was quick to condemn "three evils forces of terrorisms, separatism and extremism" saying that Beijing supports Uzbekistan's crackdown on these forces.

The People's Daily reversed reality with its report that 'Thousands of armed protesters plunged the city of Andijan into chaos last Friday, releasing prisoners and clashing with security forces'. See: http://english.people.com.cn/200505/25/eng20050525_186614.html

From the Chinese point of view, they want an Uzbek ruler who could keep control over the so-called Islamic threat.

The Chinese would like to keep its overwhelmingly Muslim Uygur population in Western Xinjiang region from ideas of independence. 

Uzbekistan has a sizable minority of Uygurs inside the country but obligingly cracks down on Uygur activists who advocate the creation of Eastern Turkestan. 

And of course, they can hardly complain if one of their neighbours follows in their own bloody footsteps. 

But what does the US gain? 

How is the 'War on Terror' helped by arming and training terrorists, for how else can you describe Karimov's killing of hundreds of unarmed civilians? 

It is all very well to supply arms and training to fight terror, but when Karimov himself says that unarmed demonstrators are terrorists, he is telling us what those weapons will be used for!

In the long run, supporting a bloodthirsty dictator makes a mockery of all the rhetoric about expanding democracy. 

It will create more anti-American sentiment in the region and open way to Islamic fundamentalism, the very evil President Bush claims to be fighting. 

Karimov himself is unlikely to last sixteen years, but Washington owes it to the Uzbek people, and its global credibility, not to become amnesiac about Andijan quite so quickly.            

              AnoraMahmudova@MaximsNews.com

Anora Mahmudova's Columns in MaximsNews

           Uzbekistan’s Growing Police State

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