Uzbek refugees too scared to go home

BARRASH, Kyrgyzstan - Refugees who fled a crackdown by Uzbek troops said on Friday they dared not return home, and the United Nations turned up the volume on its demands for an inquiry into deaths believed to have run into hundreds.

Reuters correspondents who travelled to a village near the epicentre of last week's violence, the town of Andizhan, saw fresh graves in which, local residents said, victims of the clashes between protesters and troops were buried.

President Islam Karimov has denied ordering troops to fire on civilians in Andizhan, but rejected a United Nations call for an international inquiry.

Asked about Karimov's refusal to allow an inquiry, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said: "As to what consequences there might be, I think Uzbekistan does not want to endure further isolation from the international community".

Rice told a news conference in Washington that the US administration, which last year withheld $11 million (6 million pounds) in aid to Uzbekistan, would not be able to provide funds unless it can certify progress on human rights and democracy in the former Soviet republic.

Karimov's officials have blamed the violence on armed Islamic extremists.

"We feared they would finish us off in Andizhan so we decided to flee to Kyrgyzstan," said Khasan Shakirov, 27, whose said his two brothers had disappeared. "I will not return."

He was among more than 500 people crammed into a small refugee camp inside Kyrgyz territory but just 150 metres from the Uzbek border. In interviews, they said they were ordinary people, not terrorists.

"I was running in the crowd to survive. Those who left the crowd were finished off by snipers," said Nabidzhan Yunusov, a 41-year-old market trader, describing a dramatic border crossing during which he was wounded in the hip.

Karimov has said 169 people were killed when soldiers seized control over Andizhan after what he called a "bandit" uprising. Officials say there were only seven or eight civilian deaths, describing the rest as police and rebels.

Witnesses said more than 500 people were killed by troops putting down a popular protest against the trial of 23 local businessmen and an outburst of anger over Karimov's tough rule.

Reuters correspondent Dmitry Solovyov saw around 20 fresh graves near the village of Bogu Shamol outside Andizhan which, locals said, contained the corpses of unidentified civilians secretly buried by soldiers after the Andizhan crackdown.

"This is the place they buried the unidentified bodies of people killed last Friday," said a local resident. "There are similar burials at the other end of this cemetery and in neighbouring places."

OPS SCALED BACK

Uzbekistan, with 26 million inhabitants the most populous state in ex-Soviet Central Asia, is an ally in US President George W. Bush's war on terrorism. It hosts an American air base which serves as a waystation for operations in Afghanistan.

A top US officer said operations had been cut back in the wake of the unrest. "We have decided to make sure that we're cautious about how we're operating," said General John Abizaid, head of US Central Command.

Despite Karimov's refusal, the UN special investigator on extrajudicial killings, Philip Alston, pushed to be allowed into Uzbekistan, while the International Committee of the Red Cross sought access to those who had been wounded or arrested.

"Quite apart from the need to distinguish political opponents from terrorists, the point is that governments are clearly obligated to address any such situations within a framework clearly governed by human rights law," Alston said.

In the Uzbek capital Tashkent, two dozen opposition activists picketed the offices of democracy watchdog the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, urging it to take a tougher line with the Karimov regime.

SAFE RETURN

The Uzbek Foreign ministry said it had told the Kyrgyz authorities it was ready to take back women, the old and children without conditions. Adult males returning home to Uzbekistan would though be subject to checks, the ministry said.

Kyrgyz officials complain they are short of funds to keep up the Barrash camp -- a collection of tents housing up to 30 people each. Its residents were getting only one hot meal a day.

But for many of them -- even those who do not come from Andizhan itself -- the tent village seems to be a safer place than home.

"My relatives must be looking for me in morgues, but I won't go back," said Inom Rasulov, who said he was shot in the leg while visiting Andizhan from his home in the Uzbek town of Kokand. "Anyone who returns is being arrested."