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Andijan refugees speak out. Scenario-reconstruction.

by Bakhtiyor Mukhtarov �Andijan � Adolat va Tiklanish�,
bahtiyormuhtarov@gmail.com
www.fergananews.com/news/photos/2015/06/andijanrefugeesspeak.pdf

Human Rights Watch (HRW) in the report �'Bullets Were Falling Like Rain': The Andijan Massacre, May 13, 2005.
www.hrw.org/reports/2005/uzbekistan0605

Human Rights Watch, 2006
"The Andijan Massacre: One year later, still no justice".
www.hrw.org/backgrounder/eca/uzbekistan0506/

Who are we?:
We, a group of refugees from Andijan, have established our own organization �Andijan � Adolat va Tiklanish�, which is translated as �Andijan � Justice and Revival�
We have interviewed 220 people, mainly those refugees from Andijan who are currently living in the US, Canada, Australia, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Holland, and other European countries.
A number of them have decided bear witness aloud, having realized that by merely speaking the truth, they can genuinely help their country, and hence, their relatives, friends, and hometown, recover freedom from tyranny.

On May 13, 2005, Uzbek government troops opened fire against thousands of demonstrators who protested against the unfair trial of their fellow-citizens, 23 local businessmen who were well known among the local population for their charitable activities

Only through the results of a very limited survey of refugees we have been able to document the fact of the death of at least 500 persons, who were killed by the bullets of government troops.
On the square:
The number of demonstrators reached over 20 000 people.
People wanted to complain to the president about unemployment, lack of money for medical treatment, unfair officials, corruption, and about many other things.
Many, naively hoping that the president would come to listen to them.

�In the center of the square, under the monument, there was a microphone.
At the microphone, people spoke about such problems such as unemployment, poverty, about the unjust verdicts of the judges, about the jails in which people sat for years without ever being shown any charges�.

�On this day, many were congratulating each other; happy that, finally, there might come some kind of changes in their lives�.

�Then, from the microphone, they called for calm, saying that the bullets were blanks and they � the authorities � would not dare shoot at people.
After several minutes it was already clear that the bullets were real�.

�While the vehicles passed, they were continuously shooting from automatic weapons.
A journalist from Germany was lying not far from me, on the asphalt, like me, trying to dodge bullets.
He was wearing a bag and a camera�.

�From approximately 17:00 they began heavy fire at the demonstrators.
Soldiers were shooting from every side, forcing the crowd to move forward�.

�Bloodied corpses of men, women and children, torn limbs, groans of the wounded, all of this had forced people to extremes�.

�People tried to escape and divided into two convoys and went in the direction of Chulpon movie theater�.

The massacre of all of the participants of the demonstration:

The task handed down from the leadership of the operation was the massacre of all of the participants of the demonstration, and not breaking up the demonstration.

Blocking:
At noon on 13 May, government troops began an operation to block exit from Bobur square.
Block the square from all sides so that no one could get out of there.
Soldiers began firing without giving participants in the demonstration the chance to disperse.
Ample evidence suggests that the operations to massacre the demonstrators were widely employed by the snipers.
They were taking their positions on Chulpon Avenue on the roofs of private homes and on several floors of the multi-story buildings, and even in trees.
The objective of the snipers was not to allow the demonstrators into the yard of the buildings on the sides of Chulpon Avenue.

�In front of the Andijan Civil Engineering Technical College, was blocking the road.
At the street there were �URAL� military vehicles and two APCs�.

�Sweep� operation:
First convoy consisted of about one thousand people, the death toll could be much higher, since it was only a very few who managed to escape from the massacre.
The convoy was fired at from a heavy machine gun mounted on the APC
They massacred everyone making no distinction between men, women, or children.
The people in army uniform and in masks absolutely did not react to the cries for help and that they killed women and children.

�There were approximately one thousand people in the convoy.
From the side of the APC they shot in short bursts, first at those standing at the poles along the road, and then at the long lines of people in the convoy.
Someone among them cried �save the women and children!� And only then I knew that
The shooting did not stop, although that women and children there was clearly visible�.

�The military fired at as for about 15 minutes non-stop, then fired on those who stirred or gave any signs of life.
Some tried to scream, mostly they were requests to stop firing, and others cried for help
I heard a child's voice which cried �Ayadjon!� (Mama!).
Among us there were many women and children, many of whom did not manage to get out�.

�13 May 2005, after finding out that President Karimov was coming to Babur square, I went out with my five children to the square�
My children clasped me from five sides, crying loudly�
On Chulpon Avenue, they started firing at us from all sides.
Women and children in this horrible massacre nearly lost their minds.
Men took women and children into the center and they stood at the edge to protect us.
Protecting us, many men were killed or wounded.
One young man around 28-30 years old, thin, tall, wearing a black suit, was walking next to us, protecting us.
Suddenly a bullet hit him in the neck
His head hung to one side and he fell, dying.
I covered the eyes of my 9 year old son, so that he wouldn't be afraid.
The men who surrounded us were falling one by one�
We ran. But there was not strength for them.
Everyone turned to the street on the right of the road.
In front of us we saw our way blocked by soldiers and tanks (apparently APCs).
They began to shoot at us again.
I too, turning to the street, looked back, looking for my daughters.
Among the dead bodies and wounded, drowned in blood, I was looking for my daughters.
The men broke down the iron fence in order to open the way�.

�We all were surrounded by a hail of bullets.
Men who were on the edges, shielding us, fell one by one�.

�About 150 meters from me lay the bodies of men, as if they were just grass cuttings, so that at first I thought that it was just bags of sand stacked on top of each other�.

�When the convoy reached the Chulpon Movie Theater, again, they began to shoot, but this time the shooting didn't stop even when we were all lying on the ground�.

�Already nearly dark, and we were all lying down.
I was afraid to even move, because snipers hit without a miss any of those who moved�.

�I jumped up and ran crouching, and behind me there were another 3 or 4 people following me.
Again, the shooting began.
Just as I ran through the corpses, I fell right into the puddle.
At first a bullet hit the man who was fleeing in front of me, he fell down and never moved.
The second person was hit right in front of the door of the school, he fell down already into the school yard, and also didn't move any
They shot the third just as he moved through the gate of the school�.

�The shooting lasted for about two hours, until dark.
The military kept shooting until there was no longer anything in sight�.

�After the firing stopped, about one hundred people crawled through the corpses on the roadside in the direction of the Technical College.
The military again began to fire in that direction.
From there, one could hear the cries of the wounded and of those crying for help.
Once out on the edge of the road, they and I included took turns crawling under the gate of the fence, on the territory of the Technical College. The gates were shut�.

�Having collected the wounded, We found about 20-25 people like this.
And then we saw from the edge of the door of the Technical College two APCs
The APCs drove right over the corpses lying in the road, corpses, lighting up the roads with its headlights.
I, along with several other people, climbed over the wall in the courtyard of the Technical College towards the makhalla�.

People lying on top of each other in the middle of the road.
The APC drove over people who were still alive.

�Filtering� operation.
If the task of the government troops during of May was to surround and massacre the demonstrators using heavy machine guns, Kalashnikov and sniper rifles, then after the events the authorities assigned tasks to identify and neutralize all participants and witnesses of the bloody massacre by the troops.

The method of identifying participants of the events resembles the �snowball� method:
� Block the escape of refugees into neighboring Kyrgyzstan;
� Arrest those who are trying to escape;
� Arrest as many members as possible of the community of the village Bogi Shamol the residence and business place of the 23 businessmen and their relatives and associates;
� Detain all persons who were injured on the 13 and 14 of May;
� Then, using interrogation and torture, to identify other participants.

Later, the arrested or released, or transferred to a prison, or they torture him to death and send his body to the morgue.
Due to a lack of spaces, the arrested even slept in a prison truck, 20 people in each.
Due to lack of handcuffs, the hands of the arrested were tied with shoelaces removed from their very own shoes.
President orders are not discussed:
As a result of this plan, with orders coming from above, from the country�s president, during these investigations there flourished the most extensive use of sophisticated torture.
Officials themselves admitted that they had received permission from their leadership to take advantage of any means, including extrajudicial executions.

The investigative authorities received carte blanche from the country's leadership to use any means to get information, down to the most severe torture in order to identify all participants and witnesses.
In this case, it was not taken into account whether those arrested were passive onlookers.
Gestapo
Uzbek law enforcement bodies have always been distinguished for their particular cruelty and penchant for torture.
But during the investigation of the Andijan events, the practice of torture had gone so far that it is worthy of comparison with the practices of the Nazi Gestapo.

Here are several of them.
� Open fractures of the limbs and ribs.
� Many cuts and stab wounds.
� Removed nails on the fingers and toes.
� Male corpses were badly mangled or were completely missing their sexual organs.
� There were many cases when the corpse had several bullet wounds.

��In his body there were gunshots to the back as well as many knife wounds.
In addition, he had no sexual organ�.

��On his corpse there were sutures from an autopsy, traces of four bullet wounds, three of which were located around the heart, with a diameter of five centimeters�.

�The family was not allowed to open the coffin.
The police demanded an immediate burial and would not leave until the coffin was buried�.

�The wounded had only two choices�:
The first choice was that they give false testimony that their children and relatives were at fault for the events of the massacres on 13 May.
Those who would obey and bear false testimony, they promised, they wouldn't kill them through torture.
The second choice, - the wounded were promised a painful death.

As an example, - the story of one of the witnesses.
His mother had been wounded the following morning after the Andijan events at the border village of Teshiktash.
�On 14 May 2005 after my mother was wounded, she was brought to the district hospital of the Djalakuduk village.
On 21 July 2005 my wife was allowed to meet with my mother
She said: �I have no strength to endure all this.
Tell my son that he will not blame me his whole life that I myself wrote that my son is a terrorist and extremist�.
The next day, on 22 July 2005 her body was brought home.
Apparently, she did not discredit me, deciding to leave into the light with a clear conscience�.

Witnesses disappeared or intimidated:
Many corpses that bore traces of torture and shots to the head came through the morgue.
And this is not a final number;
To determine the real extent is very difficult, as the population of Andijan has been intimidated, and many are afraid not only to testify, but even to talk on the telephone.
Those who were too frank paid either with their freedom or with their lives.

A widely known case was of the mysterious death of a local resident of the village Bogi Shamol.
After witnessing the burial, he began to talk about it to his neighbors.
After some time he was found murdered by knifing.
Residents are certain that Djuraboy (that was his name) was killed by SNB (National Security Service) officers.

All of the families who were brought back the bodies of their relatives were ordered not to disclose the fact of the death of their relatives and to quickly bury the corpses without going through the traditional Muslim burial rites.

�They did not allow people to attend the funeral rites�.

�Ozodbek was sweet and humble.
Director of the village school said that he should go and confess to his participation in the demonstration.
She urged that the Uzbek government is very humane and would forgive him for his mistakes.
� Ozodbek's corpse was mutilated and covered with black marks.
He hung by his legs.
The nails of his fingers and toes were ripped off.
His anus was torn.
His testicles were removed.
After a month and a half after her heart attack, she stopped eating and only cried.
A little later, she died because of a tortured conscience.
Before her death, she said that she had destroyed a nice and well bred guy.
She said that she had believed in the government, but that really, it turned out to be filth�.

��He asked that they beat him instead of his son.
And when they beat him, then his son begged that they spare his father, and instead, to beat him, his son�.

��his body was handed over to his relatives � as a �visual aid� to demonstrate what happens to those who struggle with the regime�.

��The soldiers said that they had raped his wife and daughter�.

Hospital murder:
�The facts and evidence available suggests that in the Andijan hospitals they were killing wounded witnesses�.

Kyrgyz border
After 10 hours of walking, at about 6:00am, 14 May 2005, refugees arrived in the border village of Teshiktash, where they were ambushed by the Uzbek military.

�The reason why the soldiers chased us to the very border was the fact that we are living witnesses to the shooting of peaceful people and their massacre�.

�We walked all night by foot and by morning we reached the village Teshiktash.
We just thought about resting when once again, they began to shoot at us.
But already this was too much.
Again, from different angles, the bullets came flying�.

�We ran into a lane and knocked at the first door.
Many people wouldn't open their doors�.

�After that, all who remained alive after the terrible slaughter walked all night and into the morning until they got to the Teshiktash village.
There the military was already waiting for us.
Again, the massacre began.
There were still dozens of corpses�.

�There at about 6:00 in the morning at the crossroads of the Teshkitash village, soldiers again began shooting at us.
There were many killed, and the rest fled�.
I wanted to get back home through the rice field.
But one old local man said that there were soldiers by the river.
About 30 people were killed there, near the river�.

Kyrgyzstan refugees returned to Uzbekistan:
�Before a refugee camp, there were about 200 meters when me and approximately another 80 people were stopped by Kyrgyz border guards and were handed back to the Uzbeks.
They took us to the police department, where they began to torture and humiliate us during grueling interrogations.
But soon I managed to escape again to Kyrgyzstan�.

Gratitude:
We are extremely grateful that the issue of our resettlement in Western countries was handled quickly and that we found in these countries warm welcome and shelter.
However, we would like to see these countries remain with us, support us in our fight for the truth.
We are also looking for support from the West to achieve the reunification of our families, end the torture of our fathers and children, brothers and sisters, who to this day continue to languish in the Uzbek GULAGs.

The tragedy is continues:
The tragedy in Andijan is continues in various forms, including:
� Prisons filled with hundreds of detainees that include witnesses to the carnage, torture, and abuse of them,
� Refusal of exit visas to the families of refugees who were outside of Uzbekistan�s borders,
� Continued discrimination in the country against the relatives of refugees.

In prisons in Uzbekistan passive participants and now are subject to torture and abuse, particularly those whose relatives were among the refugees seeking refuge in democratic countries.

Appendix 5. List of participants and witnesses to the events of 13 and 14 May, who are currently imprisoned

Relatives and returnees � at gunpoint:
The relatives of refugees who managed to obtain asylum in the west, were called in, to this day, for questioning, in which they were abused.

Culprits is triumphing:
Meanwhile, the main culprits in the mass executions of civilians are still at large.