Let's have the truth about Andijon's massacre

International Herald Tribune May 15 A year ago, my home town of Andijon made headlines worldwide after a huge, peaceful protest was ripped apart by government troops firing on unarmed demonstrators. We still don't know for sure how many were killed that day, hundreds certainly. But the government of Uzbekistan has yet to pay much of a price for its brutality that day, while its victims have yet to see justice. May 13, 2005, began with an armed uprising, but as that day wore on thousands of men, women and children came out to the town square to protest poverty, government corruption and the repressive grip my government holds over all aspects of political and religious life in Uzbekistan. Many of us stayed on the square all day, even though there were government troops all around us. There were rumors that President Islam Karimov was coming to listen to us, and this gave people hope that finally they would be heard. But this never happened. I left the square with hundreds of people. About 40 minutes later I heard shouting: "Don't worry, the solders won't shoot!" But then there was heavy fire, from armored personnel carriers and machine guns. I threw myself to the ground, along with everyone else. Bullets whistled overhead. Men and women were screaming, "Don't shoot, we're unarmed!" But the firing went on for at least 20 minutes. Hundreds of people must have been killed. Eventually, I managed to crawl away. For the past year the Uzbek government has tried to say that "terrorists" and "bandits" fired those shots. There were a few armed men in the crowd, but they had no time to load their weapons, let alone shoot. I was there. I saw the soldiers, the gun emplacements and the armored personnel carriers. The government has tried to say that the protesters were religious fanatics who wanted to install an Islamist government. But the only slogans I heard were about freedom and ending unemployment and corruption. My government has stopped at nothing to silence witnesses of this massacre. I had to flee my homeland last year because I was about to be arrested. I managed to get to Kazakhstan, but was arrested there because Uzbekistan wanted me extradited to face charges of "terrorism" and trying to organize an armed uprising. When Kazakh agents took me from my prison cell and put me in a car in the middle of the night, I was certain that they were sending me back to Uzbekistan. Only when we reached the airport and I saw my family and UN representatives did I understand that we were getting out to the United States. An international outcry blocked my extradition, and now I have asylum in America. But many others are not as fortunate. The Uzbek government has imprisoned human rights defenders, like my mentor, Saidjahon Zainabitdinov. And it is hunting down Uzbeks all over the former Soviet Union, to put them on trial and force them tell the government's version of the events. At these show trials, people are accused of all sorts of crimes supposedly related to the Andijon protests - murder, terrorism, religious extremism. The trials seem intended to deny any government responsibility for the killings that I saw. Meanwhile, there is no justice for the hundreds of people who lost their lives before my eyes. I am deeply grateful to the United States for all it has done for me and my family. But I can't understand how it can let the government of Uzbekistan get away with the murder of so many. The United States, which saved my life (or at least my sanity) by giving me asylum, should insist that the Uzbek government allow an independent investigation into the shootings and prosecute the perpetrators. The victims of Andijon deserve to see justice done. Lutfullo Shamsuddinov is an Uzbek human rights defender, chairman of the Andijon branch of the Independent Human Rights Organization of Uzbekistan. He now lives in exile in the United States.