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Terrorists Don’t Wear Children’s Flip-Flops
I was in Andijan on May 14, the day after the massacre. The town was studded with shoes – these rubber flip-flops that poor people of warm southern towns often wear in summer.
Most of corpses were already taken away at night. First, dead bodies of women and children were taken off and dumped somewhere outside the city. Later, they started taking away men’s corpses. By the morning, only a hundred of dead bodies were lying in neat rows on the main square, and there must have been the same number of others somewhere in the city. But flip-flops betrayed the real scale of the night tragedy – they were everywhere. When people were saving themselves from firing military men in the pouring rain the previous night, they did not think where and in what shoes they were running. They were running bare-foot on the dead bodies of their neighbors.
There were almost no traces of blood left in the morning – it showered all night long. But when you crossed the street, you had to look under your feet so as not to slip on tiny wet children’s flip-flops lying on the sidewalk, and on shells of large caliber. There were more of the latter, of course.
Perhaps, I could also witness at the trial that is now underway in Tashkent. Perhaps, I could have also become a defendant – because Saidzhakhon Zeinabitdinov is a suspect in the case too. He is a cultured man, a human rights activist who I met in Andijan on that day. He locked himself up in his apartment for two days saying, “As soon as I leave it, the police will choke me off on the sly.”
He was missing for three days after our meeting. Zeinabitdinov paid the price for his speeches claiming that the authorities had framed up the Akramists case only for the regional authorities to pocket their business.
Fortunately, not only missing human rights activists are aware of the fact that the trial is framed up. And not only the people who took to Tashkent’s square 40 days after the Andijan slaughter holding a banner “Rest in Peace, Children of Andijan – Islam Karimov Will Answer for Your Deaths in the International Criminal Court.” It seems that the whole world realize what really happened in Andijan on May 13, because it was the world community that did not let the Kyrgyz authorities to deliver up to Uzbekistan those wretched refugees who had saved themselves from the Andijan massacre. Otherwise, they would now have to admit to terrorism, espionage and all deadly sins.
Islam Karimov is also perfectly aware of the fact that the trial is a trial against his. That’s why he blames one and all: foreign secret services, terrorist networks, powerful conspiracy, training bases all over the world. He has given a dare for everyone, and he knows than none of Western leaders will offer their hands for him.
Russia feels quite good about the current situation in Uzbekistan. The Russian authorities also realize everything but they don’t care. Sergey Ivanov comes to Tashkent on the day of the trial and shakes hands with Uzbek military and police who ordered to fire on May 13. They hold military exercise later to work through the elimination of terrorists.
I only hope that these terrorists don’t run in children’s wet flip-flops.
Mikhail Zygar
All the Article in Russian as of Sep. 22, 2005
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