Uzbekistan presses "information cleansing" campaign on Andijan events

EurasiaNet September 13 Eyewitnesses present in Andijan's Babur Square on May 13 say Uzbek security forces unleashed a "military operation" against civilian protesters who had gathered to call for economic and social justice. Two journalists - Galima Bukharbayeva of the Institute for War and Peace Reporting and Marcus Bensmann, a German freelance reporter - were present when Uzbek armored vehicles opened fire a little after 5 pm. During testimony given in June before the US Helsinki Commission and elsewhere they said the scene at the square after the shooting began was like that of a "slaughterhouse." "There was no warning at all prior to the firing," Bensmann said during an appearance in June at the Open Society Institute (OSI) in New York. An investigative report compiled by Human Rights Watch, based on dozens interviews with eyewitnesses and released in early June, generally corroborated the accounts given by Bukharbayeva and Bensmann. The report [to see the full report click here] provided a detailed look at a complicated chain of events, starting with the 2004 arrests of 23 local businessmen on charges of illegal Islamic radical activity, and culminating in what HRW characterized as the "wanton slaughter" of hundreds of peaceful and largely unarmed protesters. On September 13, the British daily The Guardian published a lengthy article that provides additional evidence of brutality on the part of Uzbek security forces. The article draws on interviews with some of the 400-plus Uzbeks who fled Andijan on May 13, going first in Kyrgyzstan before finding new homes elsewhere. All of those interviewed said they were drawn to Babur Square on that fateful May day to voice complaints about poor social and economic conditions. The report added that the Karimov government has harassed, and in some cases employed torture, to punish refugees' relatives who remain in Uzbekistan. Uzbek authorities have gone to extraordinary lengths to intimidate Andijan residents into silence, according to the report. The campaign has been sufficiently successful that most of those who witnessed what went on in Andijan on May 13 are now unwilling to talk publicly about the events. Even many refugees were reluctant to talk on the record out of concern that relatives back home would suffer severe consequences, the report said. The Uzbek government is engaged in a far-reaching effort to convince domestic and international opinion that the testimony of Bukharbayeva and Bensmann -- along with all the other eyewitness accounts of the Andijan massacre -- are either a big lie or a wild dream. In the months since Andijan, Uzbek authorities have quashed all potential sources of independent information inside the country, and conducted a media campaign designed to portray the Uzbek government not as the perpetrator of an atrocity, but as the victim of a global Islamic radical conspiracy. "The Uzbek government is trying to shut down those people who are able to depict what actually went on in Andijan," said Alisher Ilkhamov, the former executive director of the Open Society Assistance Foundation (OSAF) in Tashkent, who now works out of OSI's London office to promote civil society in Uzbekistan. The Uzbek government shut down the OSAF office in Tashkent in 2004. The scope of what Ilkhamov and others characterize as an "information cleansing campaign," has left those who lived through the horrors of Andijan shocked and outraged. "It [the information cleansing campaign] is like something out of George Orwell," Bensmann said. "White is now black and black is white." At the heart of the Uzbek government's strategy is an effort to create an alternate reality -- completely at odds with reliable eyewitness accounts. In this alternate reality, the Andijan horrors were perpetrated by a local Islamic militant group called Akromiya, with alleged backing from international radical and terrorist organizations including Hizb-ut-Tahrir and al Qaeda. Tashkent insists the Islamic militants were attempting a coup designed to topple President Islam Karimov's administration. The centerpiece of the government's information cleansing endeavor was a multi-part television "documentary" -- titled Qabohat, or Villainy - aired in late July in which those interviewed are described as "victims," and who tell stories of Islamic militant atrocities. The programs also featured confessions given by those said to have been participants in the supposed armed uprising. The fact that the programs aired long after the actual events prompted many independent observers to doubt their veracity. Uzbekistan has long been notorious for using torture to coerce detainees into confessing to crimes. State-controlled media in Uzbekistan also has a reputation for putting the government's political line ahead of the facts. In August, the Nikolai Patrushev, the director of the Russian Security Service, admitted that Russian security police went to Uzbekistan to aid in the Karimov government's investigation into the Andijan events. This admission has prompted some Western experts to wonder whether Russia specialists had any role in devising and implementing the Uzbek information cleansing campaign. In trying to establish the primacy of the Karimov administration's version of events, Uzbek officials have followed a two-pronged strategy aimed at silencing potential dissenters within, while striving to cut off Uzbeks' access to outside news sources. The recent deportation to Russia of Igor Rotar - an Uzbek-based journalist who worked primarily for the Forum 18 news service - is one of many examples in which Uzbek authorities acted to stifle independent purveyors of information. In addition, authorities have restricted the ability of some Russian television channels to broadcast in Uzbekistan, and have sought to block access to Russian-language web sites that focus on Uzbek events, including Ferghana.ru and Tribune.uz. Prominent international broadcasters, such as the British Broadcasting Corp. and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, have also been harassed and verbally attacked. In associated moves, Uzbek authorities have routinely denied visas to foreign journalists seeking to visit the country. Authorities in Tashkent have additionally sought to remove foreign entities and scholars already in Uzbekistan. An Uzbek court, for example, ordered the closure on September 9 of the Tashkent office of the Internews Network, a US-based NGO that provided training to Uzbek media outlets. On September 12, another court ruling sanctioned a six-month suspension of the Uzbek office of the International Research and Exchange Board (IREX), one of the main vehicles used by foreign scholars to study in Uzbekistan, Ferghana.ru reported. Another important component of the Uzbek information campaign involves vitriolic attacks on all individuals and media outlets that continue to challenge Tashkent's version of events. On September 7, for example, the Uzbek Prosecutor-General's office released a statement alleging that some foreign media outlets, human rights groups and other non-governmental organizations had advanced knowledge of the so-called Islamic uprising in Andijan. "An information war against Uzbekistan was being prepared at the same time as the terrorist aggression," the statement said. In another instance, the newspaper, Hurriyet, published an article on August 3 claiming that terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden "is a loyal spy for the West." Though mainly focused on the domestic audience, there are indications that the Uzbek government at least contemplated internationalizing its information campaign. In June, before Tashkent evicted US troops from an airbase near Karshi-Khanabad, Uzbek officials reportedly considered reaching out to a prominent Washington-based lobbying firm, identified by a reliable source as Cassidy & Associates, to represent Tashkent. Repeated calls to Cassidy & Associates seeking verification were unanswered as of publication time. The eviction of US forces from Karshi-Khanabad, announced in late July, marked the culmination of the stunningly rapid collapse of the US-Uzbek strategic partnership. US officials ultimately did not believe the Uzbek attempt to whitewash Tashkent's decisions and actions concerning the Andijan events. Washington's repeated insistence on an independent international investigation into the Andijan events - calls that Karimov's administration, with backing from Russia and China, summarily rejected - served as a catalyst for the falling out. In general, Tashkent's version of events has met with profound skepticism in the West. The impact of the Karimov administration's information cleansing campaign on Uzbekistan's domestic audience is more difficult to judge, according to Ilkhamov. "People in Uzbekistan tend to be heavily influenced by [state-controlled] mass media. At the same time, there are still alternate sources of information," Ilkhamov said. "They [Uzbeks] are probably skeptical, but the propaganda, playing as it does on the population's fears, is no doubt having some effect," Ilkhamov added. "It may be changing the perception of events among a certain part of the population."