On The Road In The Kingdom Of Fear

Lenin offers some thoughts on the Uzbek situation… thanks dude!

The uprising in Uzbekistan is one revolution that won't be branded. The State Department has no word for the protesters, about 500 of whom were murdered by the government led by Islam Kalashinov. This is the very same regime ex-diplomat Craig Murray (stood against ‘Jack the rascal Straw’ in the election) accused of boiling dissidents to death and torturing thousands of people each year - the regime is much more cruel and vicious than the former Soviet one. Mr Murray also told Newsnight last night that the regime's courts have a 99% conviction rate (ours is 3%), so those sprung from prison had a very low chance of being tried fairly. It is alleged that the protesters began the violence, but the BBC was reporting on Thursday that the protests, which had been going on for months, represented Uzbekistan's "most orderly protests" in some time. Kalashinov claims that the troops had to fire into the crowd of demonstrators to put down an uprising, after they had tried to 'negotiate' a peaceful settlement. Troops don't negotiate - they say "get the fuck out of here before we kill your asses", or they simply kill your ass.


Naturally, the American news is taking a remarkably even-handed approach in all of this. "Troops and protesters killed in Uzbekistan clash” says the New York Times. CNN International is even better: "U.S. values Uzbekistan but urges rights reform" : "The United States has had good relations with the government of Uzbekistan in recent years but at the same time is bluntly critical of the country's political system and the human rights situation there." Rewind two years and replace the word Uzbekistan with 'Iraq' - wouldn't that have been a remarkable sentence?

posted by Alexander Try @ 10:36 pm