Ferghana.ru Information Agency – THE TRUTH ABOUT ANDIZHAN: The Andizhan regional hospital resembles a maximum security military object nowadays – a checkpoint at the entrance, soldiers brandishing automatic weapons, a metal fence all around. This is where residents of Andizhan wounded on May 13 and 14 are kept, practically like in a jail.

“My son has been absent from the hospital for five days already,” an old woman said. “His wife went over to see him only to be told that his name was not on the list of patients. She went to the police station now to find out if they might have him…”

Global Echo – The New Great Game: With corporate media still tying itself in knots to justify US foreign policy, more evidence emerges to support the obvious conclusion that ‘its all about oil’… This image of a memo arrived in my inbox today, it is from Kenneth Lay (charges pending) former CEO of Enron and once heavily tipped for a cabinet position. It is a memo to non other than George W Bush when he was Governor of Texas telling him to lay out the red carpet for Ambassador Safeav of Uzebkistan. Why? Because Lay wanted a piece of a natural gas extraction and pipeline deal going down in the region.

A fax has recently come into circulation that relates to a meeting held back in 1997 between George Bush and the Uzbek Ambassador to the USA, Sadyq Safaev. The fax was sent from Enron CEO Kenneth Lay to George Bush, who at the time was Governor of Texas.

The fax discusses a forthcoming meeting between Bush and the Ambassador where they will discuss a US$ 2 billion contract to extract and transport natural gas from Uzbekistan. Enron concludes that this should result in friendship between Texas and Uzbekistan.

Recent events seem to indicate that that friendship did indeed mature and has proven very robust! The fax is now available online and is recommended reading for those wishing to understand more about the backdrop to current events.

US orders staff out of Uzbekistan

Nick Paton Walsh in Moscow

Saturday June 4, 2005

The Guardian

The US and Israel have withdrawn non-essential diplomatic staff and their families from Uzbekistan, following warnings that they could be targeted by Islamist militants. The move came after weeks of unrest in the central Asian country following the massacre of hundreds of civilians in the town of Andijan on May 13.

George Bush joined the EU, UK, UN and Nato last week in calling for an independent international inquiry into the killings.

The US has forged an uncomfortable alliance with the government of Islam Karimov which has extended to funding the Uzbek security services because of an airbase the US has rented in the south of the country. The state department said: “The United States government has received information that terrorist groups are planning attacks, possibly against US interests in Uzbekistan in the very near future”.

Last month a man carrying fake explosives was shot dead by security guards outside Israel’s embassy in Tashkent, the capital. The US statement said al-Qaida, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and the Islamic Jihad Union were active in the country.

The American withdrawal may further strain relations between Washington and Tashkent, which is looking to Moscow and Beijing to act as new allies. The withdrawal came the day after Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said that Chechen terrorists and “remnants” of the Taliban were behind the Andijan uprising. He could not provide evidence to back the claim.

Forum 18 – UZBEKISTAN: Protestants in north-west “illegal”: The last legal Protestant church in north-west Uzbekistan has been closed by the Karakalpakstan region’s Justice Ministry, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. As all unregistered religious activity in Uzbekistan is illegal, the church cannot now legally operate. Klara Alasheva, first deputy Justice Minister, denied that her ministry’s closure of the church was persecution of the Protestant minority. “We warned the church last year not to conduct missionary activity but they carried on regardless,” she told Forum 18. Alasheva also denied that Uzbekistan’s ban on missionary activity violated its international human rights commitments. “That’s what you’re claiming, but we’re legal specialists,” she told Forum 18. The authorities in north-west Uzbekistan have long conducted an anti-Christian campaign, but Protestants in the region are known to still be active. Catholic sources have denied a claim by Alasheva that there is a registered Catholic parish in Nukus.