U.K. Condemns U.S. Ally

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw on Sunday called for democratic change in Uzbekistan and said there had been "clear" human rights abuses in the central Asian state.

About 500 bodies have been laid out in rows at a school in the eastern Uzbek city where troops fired on protesters to crush an uprising, a doctor in Andijan said, corroborating witness accounts of hundreds killed in fighting as relatives began burying the dead.

The unrest presents a quandary for the United States because President Islam Karimov is considered a key ally in the fight against terrorism and the U.S. maintains a military base in Uzbekistan to support anti-terrorist operations in Afghanistan.

On Friday, White House spokesman Scott McClellan urged restraint by both sides and Uzbeks should pursue their goals peacefully.

Britain took a very different tack. "The situation is very serious, there has been a clear abuse of human rights, a lack of democracy and a lack of openness," Straw told British Broadcasting Corp. radio.

Straw's comments came after troops fired on protesters in the eastern Uzbek city of Andijan on Friday, killing hundreds of people, according to witnesses.

The government has given no clear casualty figures. Karimov has said 10 government soldiers and "many more" protesters died in the uprising, which he blamed on Islamic extremists.

Straw said the British ambassador to Tashkent planned to meet local officials Sunday to reiterate Britain's call for "transparency about what is happening in the country, to allow the Red Cross and other foreign observers in so they can see what is happening."

He also said the ambassador, David Moran, would "repeat the points we've been making for a long time about the need for a step-change to take place in respect of human rights and for moves to be made toward democracy."

Straw also issued a statement Saturday in which he said he was "extremely concerned by reports that Uzbek troops opened fire on demonstrators (...). I totally condemn these actions and I urge the Uzbek authorities to show restraint in dealing with the situation and look for a way to resolve it peacefully."

The Uzbek Foreign Ministry said it was "surprised" by Straw's statement.

"Where has Jack Straw learned that law enforcement had 'opened fire on demonstrators' if that did not take place at all," the ministry said. "Mr. Straw first should better have analyzed what happened and only then make such loud statements."

Gunfire broke out at least twice in or near the city of Andijan on Sunday in Uzbekistan's Fergana Valley, and villagers on the Kyrgyz border reported a deadly overnight clash.

Relatives were arriving at Andijan's School No. 15 to identify the dead, said the local doctor, who spoke by telephone to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity. Another 2,000 people were wounded in the clashes Friday, said the doctor, widely regarded as knowledgeable about local affairs. It was unclear how she arrived at her estimate.

"The city was burying its victims throughout the entire day, and the people are very angry at the president for his order to open fire at peaceful civilians," said an Andijan resident who asked to be identified only by his first name, Ilkhom.

He said he saw the bodies of three men killed Sunday — apparently by a soldier who feared they were going to attack him, according to witnesses. The three were shot after they got out of their car near the soldier; a fourth man in the car sped away after the soldier opened fire, he said.

There were no protesters Sunday at the square that was the center of violence, the doctor said. But reporters trying to enter the city in the evening heard bursts of automatic gunfire on its western outskirts. Police officers at a checkpoint dropped to the ground and fired in the direction of the shots.

An Andijan resident reached by phone also said gunfire rang out briefly near the city market in the afternoon. The resident, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said scores of troops backed by armored vehicles were deployed around the city's main avenues, and that authorities on Sunday detained several relatives of suspected participants in the unrest.

Villagers in the border town of Teshektosh reported a pre-dawn skirmish between armed men and government forces. One villager, who declined to give his name, said eight government troops were killed, and another resident said three militants also died in the firefight.

Residents said a group of more than 500 people, including the militants, crossed into Kyrgyzstan after the clash. Their account could not be verified, but blood could be seen on the pavement.

As residents of Andijan, Uzbekistan's fourth-largest city, cleaned the streets of blood and identified the dead Sunday, witnesses reported grim scenes.

Abdugapur Dadaboyev, a rights activist who visited Andijan on Saturday, said he saw the bodies of police and soldiers lying in the streets. Civilians' bodies, in contrast, were quickly removed, he said.

Russia's state-run Channel One television showed footage, shot Saturday, of uniformed men with rifles slung over their shoulders carrying a corpse to a truck, and of a dead man lying face-down on a street, his head thrust between the bars of a fence and his legs still straddling an old bicycle.

Karimov has blamed Islamic extremists for the uprising in which protesters stormed a prison, freed inmates and then seized local government offices before government troops put the protest down with force. The violence was Uzbekistan's worst since gaining independence following the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.

Karimov accused a faction of Hizb ut-Tahrir, a banned movement seeking to create an Islamic state in Central Asia, of orchestrating the uprising. Hizb-ut-Tahrir has long been targeted by the Uzbek regime — a campaign that has been one of human rights activists' top grievances against the authoritarian government.

The 23 businessmen who were the focus of the protest were jailed on charges of membership in a group allegedly allied with Hizb-ut-Tahrir. The men are alleged members of Akramia, a group named for their founder, Akram Yuldashev, an Islamic dissident sentenced in 1999 to 17 years in prison for purportedly urging Karimov's ouster.

The day after the uprising, some 5,000 protesters swarmed the streets of the border town of Korasuv, looting and burning official buildings, torching police cars and assaulting local officials. Protesters accused the government of failing to improve living conditions.

Meanwhile, a U.N. refugee agency team went to Suzac, Kyrgyzstan, 50 miles northeast of Andijan. Most of the 560 Uzbeks who arrived there Saturday were men, and 18 were wounded, UNHCR said.