Massacre Tears Apart U.S.-Uzbek Alliance
By GEORGE GEDDA
Associated Press Writer
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WASHINGTON (AP) -- It was perhaps the single worst atrocity committed by a government against demonstrators since China's Tiananmen Square in 1989. And amid the carnage from that violent day in Uzbekistan lay the remains of what had been a promising U.S. strategic partnership with that country.
Seldom has a country fallen faster from Washington's grace than Uzbekistan, the result largely of the attacks by heavily armed government forces against peaceful demonstrators in the eastern city of Andijan a year ago this weekend.
Hundreds are believed to have died. Since then, "Internal repression has gotten even worse with arrests, intimidation and violence against political opponents," according to Mark Schneider of the International Crisis Group, which monitors global hotspots.
It is time for sanctions against the regime, say leading Republican members of Congress. The European Union took that step last fall, but the Bush administration has yet to deal with the issue.
Bills introduced in the past week by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Rep. Christopher Smith, R-N.J., both active on human rights, would ban U.S. travel by Uzbek leaders, freeze any U.S.-based assets they hold and bar munitions exports to the country.
"History will remember the Andijan massacre of May 2005, and history will remember Uzbekistan's human rights abuses. It must also recall that America stands firmly and actively against them," McCain told a gathering of rights and public policy groups Tuesday. >>>cont
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Associated Press Writer
More World Video
WASHINGTON (AP) -- It was perhaps the single worst atrocity committed by a government against demonstrators since China's Tiananmen Square in 1989. And amid the carnage from that violent day in Uzbekistan lay the remains of what had been a promising U.S. strategic partnership with that country.
Seldom has a country fallen faster from Washington's grace than Uzbekistan, the result largely of the attacks by heavily armed government forces against peaceful demonstrators in the eastern city of Andijan a year ago this weekend.
Hundreds are believed to have died. Since then, "Internal repression has gotten even worse with arrests, intimidation and violence against political opponents," according to Mark Schneider of the International Crisis Group, which monitors global hotspots.
It is time for sanctions against the regime, say leading Republican members of Congress. The European Union took that step last fall, but the Bush administration has yet to deal with the issue.
Bills introduced in the past week by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Rep. Christopher Smith, R-N.J., both active on human rights, would ban U.S. travel by Uzbek leaders, freeze any U.S.-based assets they hold and bar munitions exports to the country.
"History will remember the Andijan massacre of May 2005, and history will remember Uzbekistan's human rights abuses. It must also recall that America stands firmly and actively against them," McCain told a gathering of rights and public policy groups Tuesday. >>>cont
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