Uzbekistan: A show trial

Survivors of a massacre face execution

IN TRYING criminal cases, judges in Uzbekistan have a great advantage: the defendant always pleads guilty. The 15 men brought to trial before the supreme court in Tashkent, the country's capital, last week were no exception. Each pleaded guilty to charges of having led an armed Islamic insurgency in the eastern city of Andijan on May 13th that led to mass killing, and each begged for forgiveness.

But oddly, no one, with the possible exception of the Uzbek authorities, believes them. Human-rights groups have documented the liberal use of torture in Uzbekistan's prisons as a means of extracting confessions. Besides, eyewitnesses to the violence who fled to neighbouring Kirgizstan have said that the government, and not the defendants, conducted a massacre of anti-government protesters in Andijan. Calls for an independent investigation into the killings have been rejected.

The violence followed another trial, of 23 local businessmen in Andijan, who were also alleged to be Islamic extremists, a charge often levelled at the government's opponents. On the night of May 12th, a group of their supporters attacked a police station and an army garrison, stole weapons, then stormed the jail where the businessmen were being held, freeing them and other prisoners. They also seized a government building. The next day thousands of protesters, young and old, gathered in the town's main square to demand democracy and economic reforms. Hours later soldiers were ferried into the square in armoured personnel carriers, and began shooting at unarmed demonstrators, killing an estimated 700-1,000. The Uzbek government puts the death toll at 187, and says most of the dead were militants.

No one has presented any visual proof of the massacre, or a verifiable count of the dead: the bodies were quickly collected and buried in unmarked mass graves; the handful of journalists present were detained and their equipment confiscated. Yet reports of the killing sent shock waves through Central Asia. In particular, the incident exacerbated Uzbekistan's long-standing tensions with Kirgizstan, where more than 400 survivors of the killing found refuge. The Uzbek government insisted the refugees return, both by exerting pressure on Kirgizstan's government and by dispatching relatives of the survivors to persuade them to follow its bidding.

At first, Kirgizstan, which depends on Uzbekistan for natural gas, seemed to cave in to the pressure, returning four of the refugees. But in July, under pressure from western diplomats, Kirgizstan allowed the United Nations to airlift 439 refugees to Romania, whence they were dispersed among other countries. Inevitably, Uzbekistan retaliated. It ordered America, which was involved in the evacuation, to vacate its Karshi-Khanabad air base - from where it supplies its troops in Afghanistan - in the south of the country within 180 days. In the ongoing trial, one defendant has claimed that the American embassy in Tashkent financed the uprising in Andijan. Another three defendants have told the court that they had trained at military camps in Kirgizstan.

Assuming they are convicted, the defendants face execution. In total, more than 100 people may be tried for the same alleged crimes. Whether this will keep President Islam Karimov at the helm of a country still seething with anger at the atrocity is still to be seen.