Uzbekistan II

Another update from my Ukbekistan correspondent:

The Uzbek President gave a speech about the protestors blanketly denouncing them all as terrorists, when in reality, most were innocent frustrated civilians. You can also see how untrustworthy the Russian media is these days -- they say that outside influences, like the Taliban, caused the protests.

The one thing I have noticed is that even out here, people are talking about it, looking at internet websites, and trying to get outside information. In a few internet cafes, BBC news has been blocked. I was in a taxi yesterday and two young men were calling around for the latest to their friends in Andijon and the Fergana Valley. I asked them what happened, and we exchanged stories. They didn't realize how many people were killed and we shocked to hear that it was higher than three. To put it in perspective, this is on the scale of Tiananmen Square, with the government reporting a few dead, and the Western media reporting upwards of the mid-hundreds. I'm thinking, and estimate somewhere in the middle? Still, that is a lot of people killed by their own government.