Uzbek soldiers shot people with white flags-witness

Reuters October 14 Uzbek soldiers opened fire on people waving a white flag when they suppressed an uprising in the Uzbek town of Andizhan in May, a witness at the trial of 15 men accused of terrorism said on Friday. Interrupted by the judge and prosecutor, Makhbuba Zakirova, a 33-year-old housewife from Andizhan, shocked the court with statements undermining three weeks of testimony in what foreign diplomats had dismissed as a scripted show trial. "I saw soldiers shooting at people with a white flag," Zakirova said. "Even Hitler did not do it that way. It was the military who opened fire." Official accounts, and the confessions of the 15 men on trial, say 187 people died, mostly foreign-financed Islamic "terrorists" who wanted to overthrow President Islam Karimov. A Reuters reporter in the main square in Andizhan on May 13 saw troops open fire on a large, unarmed, crowd of people that had gathered near a government building seized by armed rebels who had sprung 23 local businessmen from jail overnight. Witnesses later told Reuters they saw soldiers kill as many as 500 people outside School No.15, about a kilometre (mile) away, as the crowd sought to flee. Zakirova said she had come to the main square in Andizhan with her child "out of curiosity". She stayed on, she said, "because there was a rumour Karimov would come and address the people". Many of those on the square were protesting against poverty and joblessness, endemic in the mostly Muslim state that has barely reformed its economy since the Soviet Union collapsed. "I SAW SOLDIERS SHOOTING" Zakirova said: "There were people in helmets everywhere. I twice saw soldiers shooting from military vehicles." "The shooting was intense," Zakirova, a small Uzbek woman wearing a traditional long gown and bright yellow brocade kerchief, said several times in a nervous voice. Uzbek Deputy Prosecutor General Anvar Nabiyev, interrupting, asked: "Do you realise what you are saying? Are you sure?" She answered: "Are you going to arrest me now? I was telling only the truth, and you yourself asked me to give a truthful testimony. I don't know, what kind of terrorists they (rebels) were ... I am only saying what I saw." The jailbreak in Andizhan was prompted by the trial of the 23 businessmen who had all been significant employers but were put on trial for religious extremism. Only state-sponsored Islam is tolerated in Uzbekistan and human rights groups say there are thousands of political and religious prisoners. Karimov has said he has to take a tough line to prevent radical Islam taking root. Zakirova said she was among the hundreds of refugees who fled through the Ferghana Valley to the border with Kyrgyzstan. Without giving details, she said soldiers tried to shoot them as they crossed the border. Most of the refugees in Kyrgyzstan have been evacuated to Romania by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees despite pressure from Uzbekistan for all its nationals to be returned to the authoritarian Central Asian state. Zakirova said she was brought home to Andizhan from the refugee camps by her brothers-in-law. "I am now afraid to live there (in Andizhan)," she said. The European Union last month imposed an arms embargo and visa bans on Uzbek officials due to what it said was the disproportionate and indiscriminate use of force in Andizhan. But Russia, which along with China has publicly backed Uzbekistan after Andizhan, said this week the sanctions were purely political and it was wrong to tolerate extremists. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice this week toured the Central Asian states, but pointedly skipped Uzbekistan, which ordered U.S. troops out of the country after Washington criticised it over Andizhan.