[Marxism] Uzbek Violence rooted in (post-Com) poverty

[Chris Brady <cdbrady@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dad Tells of Son's Death in Uzbek Violence

By BAGILA BUKHARBAYEVA, Associated Press Writer April 3, 2004

KAKHRAMON, Uzbekistan -- Nyemat Razzakov buried his 25-year-old son in
the greening spring earth near the Silk Road city of Bukhara on
Saturday. Authorities said the young man was part of a militant cell
that plotted a wave of terror attacks.
[clip]
Razzakov claimed his son would not have done anything wrong unless he
was forced to do so.

Nevertheless, he acknowledged: "He also had no proper job and didn't
know what to do with himself."

Other villagers and the alleged militants who found shelter in there
were in much the same boat as Normat.

The newly sprouted grass and blossoming fruit trees fail to hide the
stark poverty in Kakhramon, which means hero. And for that, villagers
don't hide their anger with authorities. Life, they say, is
hand-to-mouth because salaries, meager at best, haven't been paid for
more than two years.

"Nothing like that could happen if we lived well," said a 46-year-old
villager, a thin, unshaven man in shabby clothes with holes in his
shoes.

Explaining the violence, he said 80 percent of the village's several
hundred residents were jobless. The rest, working for the state-run
agricultural cooperative, were among the unpaid.

On the road from Bukhara to Kakhramon, a special forces officer told a
reporter that suspects arrested for the violent attacks, mainly on
police -- ten were killed -- were not cooperating with authorities and
were "behaving defiantly and calling police enemies of the state."

The officer agreed with the villagers, saying militants won over the
locals because of widespread poverty and joblessness.

"They didn't even have bread on the table," the special forces officer
said of the suspects, as he stood at a checkpoint watching passing cars,
a Kalashnikov across his chest.
[clip]

Full:
http://www.heraldsun.com/firstnews/37-466248.html

For a poll of Uzbeks that corroborates the opinions expressed above (and
retains the syntax of the original language):

UZBEKS SYMPATHIZE WITH THE VICTIMS OF BLOODY EVENTS AND TRY TO DISCHARGE
'TERRORISTS'
By: Ferghana.Ru
Translated from Russian by Muslim Uzbekistan, Thursday, April 01, 2004
http://www.muslimuzbekistan.com/eng/ennews/2004/04/ennews01042004c.html

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