Plight of Uzbek riot refugees

|  | By Ian MacWilliam BBC, Kazakhstan

It has been two months since the protests in the city of Andijan in eastern Uzbekistan. Since then, hundreds of Uzbeks have fled to neighbouring Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. But this has not necessarily guaranteed their safety.

It had been a long hot week in Almaty, Kazakhstan's biggest city, lying in the shadow of the Tien Shan mountains.

I had just spoken to Lutfullo on the phone. He had been hearing unsettling reports about Uzbek spies turning up to find out where refugees from Andijan were hiding.

During the protest and the shooting in Andijan he had cycled around the town on his bike gathering information, which one of his colleagues then relayed to journalists and diplomats to let the outside world know what was happening.

As he describes it, when the shooting began in earnest, the crowds tried to escape down a long avenue.

But this became an alley of death as soldiers and military vehicles fired high-calibre rounds into the crowd from close quarters as they tried to get away.

Arrested

Soon afterwards, the expected round-up of suspects began.

Lutfullo's colleague was arrested as he tried to cross into Kyrgyzstan.

| The militia are here, they're arresting me! Lutfullo

Lutfullo himself fled with his wife, four children and a nephew to the north, to Kazakhstan. There, with little money, they managed to find a room.

But they had to stay inside most of the day to avoid being questioned by the migration police, always on the lookout for bribes from anyone whose papers might not be in order.

They were soon registered as refugees by the United Nations, and for the time being it seemed they were safe. So I escaped from the office to go for a swim.

Half an hour later my mobile phone rang.

It was Lutfullo. "The militia are here, they're arresting me!" he shouted urgently into the telephone. There was a scuffling noise and the phone went dead.

Uzbek demands

I spent the rest of the evening trying to find out where Lutfullo was.

I was suddenly face-to-face with the terrifying injustice of the Soviet legal system, still virtually unreformed in all these republics.

The militia had taken away Lutfullo, his wife and the two eldest boys, leaving three little children alone in the flat.

The wife and boys were soon released from the local police station, but when I asked about Lutfullo, I was told flatly he was a criminal and the Uzbeks wanted him back.

They would not tell me where he was and in any case, they said, no one would be allowed to speak to him.

Terrorism charge

Around midnight I met UN officials who had also been refused access to him. They were told Lutfullo was a terrorist and would be deported back to Uzbekistan.

| Under the Soviet system, you are all but guilty until proven innocent

In the ensuing days, Lutfullo's eldest son phoned me frequently for any news. "Mr Yan," he kept asking, "will they send my father back to Uzbekistan?"

What is one to make of a country, I thought, where the notion of returning to his homeland strikes fear into the heart of a young boy?

I did my best to reassure him. But the signs were not reassuring.

The Uzbek prosecutor had charged Lutfullo with involvement in terrorism and spreading information designed to cause public panic.

And under the Soviet system, you are all but guilty until proven innocent.

'Beaten and tortured'

There had been no news of Lutfullo's colleague since his arrest.

The Kyrgyz authorities had already handed four refugees back to Uzbekistan and there had been disturbing rumours of their fate.

It was said that one had been beaten so badly, he was now on the edge of death.

Other refugees I spoke to had heard similar tales of a young man who had decided himself to go back home. He had been beaten and tortured and now lay in bed, paralysed and unable to speak.

It is impossible to confirm or discount these stories.

The Uzbek authorities, like their Soviet forebears, allow no access and provide no information. Rumours and gossip fill in the gaps.

But there are too many tales of torture to ignore them.

Agony of uncertainty

As it turns out, Lutfullo's story has a happy ending.

For eight days his family waited without news, fearing the worst.

Then suddenly, I heard the Kazakhs had released him, in line with international refugee agreements. Diplomatic pressure and international concern had apparently convinced the authorities.

Lutfullo and his family had already been whisked away to asylum in an unnamed Western country.

But for several hundred other Andijan refugees who escaped to Kyrgyzstan, the agony of uncertainty continues.

More than 400 sitting under guard in a camp near the border still do not know what their fate will be.

The Uzbeks want them back.

The Kyrgyz authorities cannot decide whether to give in to Uzbek bullying or to listen to the pleas of the UN.

The Uzbek government says these people are terrorists, but if so, they are remarkably well-behaved terrorists who appear for all the world to be peaceable citizens caught up in a nightmare.

Some certainly were involved in organising the Andijan protest, but one thing is clear.

If they are sent back to Uzbekistan there will be no fair trials, and no happy endings.

From Our Own Correspondent was broadcast on Saturday, 16 July, 2005 at 1130 GMT on BBC Radio 4. Please check the programme schedules for World Service transmission times.
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