ALMATY, July 4 (Reuters) – Eighteen people were killed and 243 wounded during unrest in Uzbekistan’s autonomous Karakalpakstan province last week, Uzbek authorities said on Monday, the worst outbreak of violence in the Central Asian country in 17 years.
Security forces detained 516 people during the protests that erupted over plans to limit Karakalpakstan’s autonomy, but have now released many of them, the National Guard press office said at a briefing.
On Saturday, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev abandoned plans to amend articles of the constitution regarding Karakalpakstan’s sovereignty and its right to secede. He also declared a month-long state of emergency in the northwestern province. [nL8N2YK08U]
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According to official reports, protesters marched through the provincial capital of Nukus last Friday and attempted to seize local government buildings.
According to the prosecutor’s office, 18 people died “from severe wounds” received during the clashes. The Russian news agency RIA quoted the head of the National Guard as saying the victims were 14 civilians and four law enforcement officers.
Two exiled opposition politicians in contact with people on the ground told Reuters they believed the real figure was much higher. It was not possible to independently ascertain the death toll.
Karakalpakstan — located on the shores of the Aral Sea, for decades the site of an ecological disaster — is home to the Karakalpaks, an ethnic minority group whose language is distinct from, though related to, Uzbek.
“Karakalpaks are not Uzbeks… They have their own traditions, culture and law,” Aman Sagidulayev, the Norway-based leader of the pro-independence Alga Karakalpakstan party, told Reuters, accusing the government of running a “punitive operation”.
MUFFLED REACTION
A group of opposition politicians and activists who call themselves the Karakalpakstan government-in-exile issued an appeal to Mirziyoyev.
They called for the release of the arrested demonstrators, the dissolution of the Karakalpak government and new elections, as well as a review of the actions of law enforcement agencies, including “the unjustified and disproportionate use of force that resulted in human casualties, torture and arbitrary detention.”
They complained of discrimination against their language and the “silencing and distortion” of the region’s history.
Russia, with which ex-Soviet Uzbekistan has close ties, said the issue was Uzbekistan’s internal affair. Russia’s foreign ministry said it was confident authorities there would be able to normalize the situation and said problems should be resolved by “lawful means” rather than rioting.
The European Union called for an “open and independent investigation into the violent events in Karakalpakstan”.
Mirziyoyev’s office said he had discussed the matter with EU Council President Charles Michel and that the riots were instigated by “criminal elements”.
Pulat Akhunov, an exiled Uzbek opposition politician, told Reuters that a curfew imposed during the state of emergency and heightened security measures appeared to have stabilized the situation, but there was still a risk of ethnic clashes.
Among Uzbekistan’s population of 34 million, there are about 700,000 Karakalpaks, most of them in the autonomous republic. Geographical and linguistic proximity has led many to seek work and sometimes move to neighboring Kazakhstan.
Some observers believe that Tashkent’s miscalculated attempt to limit Karakalpakstan’s autonomy – Mirziyoyev himself criticized local lawmakers for not telling him of public opposition to it – may have been an attempt to prevent any surge of separatism amid the war in Ukraine.
In 2005, Uzbek security forces crushed armed protests in the city of Andijan, with 173 people killed in the clashes, according to official reports. The government at the time blamed Islamist extremists for the crisis in Andijan – located in the opposite, eastern part of Uzbekistan.
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Report by Olzhas Auezov; Additional reporting by Mark Trevelyan in London; Editing by Alison Williams and Kevin Liffey
Our standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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