On June 4, 1989 Chinese Government Forces slaughtered from 400-800 official reports to 2,600 or more innocent democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square in China.
On May 13, 2005 Uzbekistan Government Forces massacred from 745 (169 government numbers) to more than 2,000 protesting men, women and children at a similar reform protest in Andijan.
After this horrific event, as the blood and hair were swept from the streets of Andijan and trucks were toting away the dead women and children, the world media began looking for a place to put appropriate blame… And, it didn’ take long. Although this is a remote Central Asian country cut from the former Soviet Union, a country that most Americans had never heard of, let alone could point out on a map,… the blame pointed West. Clearly, for the America-haters and Bush-haters of the world press, the source of this massacre did not point in the direction of President Karimov who ordered the strike. For the America-haters in the press, the blame was put on the “warmongers” directing events from the opposite side of the globe.
After all, this is the same evil regime that “continued where Saddam Hussein left off” at Abu Ghraib, “the prison that was opened under new management” (see Ted Kennedy). These are the evil interrogators that “maybe” flushed Islam’s Holy Book down a toilet, or “maybe not” (see Newsweek). And this is the same evil society that shows a murderous dictator of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis in his boxer shorts (see New York Post)!
To some people, even a dreadful massacre half way around the globe is a good time to blast the US and the present Administration:
* This interview was reported at Democracy Now!…
AMY GOODMAN (Democracy Now): Well, let’s talk about what is happening within Uzbekistan, Acacia Shields, reporting on someone who was boiled to death. What is the situation and the issue of the U.S. using this country to send prisoners to be tortured? What evidence do you have of this?
ACACIA SHIELDS (Human Rights Watch): Well, our evidence is really of the torture of Uzbeks in Uzbekistan, and that we found to be systemic. We found not only this one case of a person being boiled to death, but the use of electric shock, the use of beatings, suffocation. So, there’s no doubt, and everyone knows it, that the Uzbek government’s record is atrocious. I think —
ACACIA SHIELDS: The U.S. government gives substantial aid to Uzbekistan, and even when there has been criticism from the Congress, criticism from the State Department, regarding Uzbekistan’s record, the Bush administration has still held firm in its support, and more importantly, the U.S. military has come in and given supplemental aid when other aid was cut, as a way to really to compensate and show that no matter what the record is, the U.S. military supports Karimov?
* This is from an article at JohanHari.com (He is a columnist for the UK Independent)…
No; the reasons for our governments’ connections to Karimov are rather different. Uzbekistan’s first uprising – the first of many – is right now being crushed by US-trained troops and with US funds, in return for access to the last great oil-grab in history. The Republican regime in the White House wants to be part of the global scramble for the final untapped stash of fossil fuels on earth, before the carbon-burning party winds to an end.
* From the Khaleej Times, Britain shares honors with the US:
Britain and the United States share in the blame for deadly unrest in Uzbekistan because of their support for the authoritarian regime there, Britain’s former ambassador to the Central Asian country was quoted yesterday as saying.
* From the Asia Times Online:
So you won’t see the White House, or Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, hammering Karimov. You won’t hear many in Washington calling for free elections in Uzbekistan. The former strongmen of color-coded, “revolutionary” Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan were monsters who had to be removed for “freedom and democracy” to prevail. So is the dictator of Belarus. Not Karimov. He’s “our” dictator: the Saddam Hussein of Central Asia is George W Bush’s man.
* From the World Socialist Website:
…the Bush administration has authorized the CIA and the military to “render” those it has detained in the “war on terrorism” to Uzbekistan, precisely because the regime practices torture.
* The Age titled their article “Bush’s Favourite Dictator” :
* From Muslim Uzbekistan by Justin Raimondo (who previously wrote…”Lying propaganda continues to gush from the Bush administration, like vomit from a drunk. The latest comes courtesy of Condoleezza Rice, the President’s national security chief and a woman who, in any other circumstances, would have been out on her ear, but in this clueless administration maintains a highly visible role.”)
…Our not-so-bright secretary of state can be sure that Karimov understands exactly what has happened here – it’s called mass murder….
…The reason for the moral and political ambiguity of our democracy”-promoting foreign policy officials is not too hard to discern. Karimov has been a faithful ally of the United States, and sits at the crossroads of a region rich in oil and strategic possibilities…
…State terrorism, you see, doesn’t count – unless the state involved happens to be one of the Bad Guys, like Iraq under Saddam.
Once again, an American writing Anti-American prose for the foreign press (see Aljazeera )
Gee, with all of the “Blame America” articles that were floating around this week.. I can hardly wait to see what Newsweek has to say!
Note: The US announced today a scale back of operations in Uzbekistan. Condoleezza Rice earlier this week called for Uzbek reform.
