Video on the events in Andijan released by the Uzbek authorities backfired

Click here to see the video (70 minutes)

This Thursday, several Western web sites offered their visitors a chance to view a video displaying the events in Andijan, Uzbekistan, on May 13, 2005. An anti-government uprising and a mass rally there were crushed and dispersed by automatic rifle fire. According to the official reports, about 200 people were killed, most of them "Islamic terrorists". Human rights activists and witnesses say that there were many more victims - the locals demonstrating against the policy of the authorities.

The same video was shown in Tashkent, Moscow, Washington, and some European capitals several months ago. The audience comprised experts, political scientists, and specialists in Islam. Uzbek Professor Bahtijar Babajanov provided a running commentary, doing his honest best to convince everyone that it had been a riot of armed Islamic radicals in Andijan and nothing else.

The video itself leaves a wholly different impression. The audience cannot help wondering what socioeconomic and political problems stirred the population of Andijan to this an extent and what measures if any the authorities took to prevent the bloodshed. When meticulous journalists saw the video, even more questions were raised. The video is available in Internet now, and public debates over the matter therefore enter a new phase.

Released for what are clearly propagandistic purposes, will the video spark new accusations against the Uzbek authorities? Can the video serve and be used in international investigation of the massacre?

Here are some excerpts from a piece in the Moscow-based newspaper Kommersant.

"The video denounces official Tashkent's assurances that most participants of the anti-government demonstration were religious extremists and not innocent and unarmed locals chanting democratic slogans. Never released for public viewing, the video shows that only a few people in the crowds were armed while the overwhelming majority was unarmed and included a lot of women and children. Some closeups even show the wives of the 23 Uzbek businessmen arrested on charges of religious extremism last spring. It had been the trial of the so called Akramians that sparked lengthy protest actions which eventually ended in the bloodshed."

"Screams "Allah Akbar!" may be heard from the screen but it is the word "Freedom!" that is heard much more frequently. (In fact, democratic slogans can be heard even in the version edited for foreign diplomats but they are not translated.) And here is another shocking nuance: judging by the sound, the government troops never asked the crowd to disperse and did not even try to use any non-lethal means of crowd-control like water guns or stun-gas. They opened up on the crowd all at once and without a warning. In another episode one of the protesters addresses the crowd shortly before the soldiers opened fire with the words, "No bloodshed please. Be calm. These soldiers are your brothers. They are not going to shoot..."