"The Bush" Contracts Our Torture to Uzbekistan, No "Freedom on the March" is Going to be Tolerated There.

Uzbek Information Vacuum Heightens Tension

FERGANA, Uzbekistan -- Almost everyone in the Fergana Valley seems to know that something awful happened. Few know many details beyond that. A day after the bloody suppression of an uprising in Andijan, one of the valley's major cities, residents of this eastern region near Kyrgyzstan were gripped by anxiety Saturday as they tried to piece together information.

Broadcasts by foreign TV news channels were cut off Friday, and Uzbekistan's tightly controlled state TV channel was dominated Saturday by the repeated airings of President Islam Karimov's news conference where he gave his version of the violence -- without any footage of the events in Andijan.

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Kinatkhon Buriyeva, 54, said she saw something on state TV about trouble in Andijan but "I didn't understand anything." But she said she heard from other people that some of those injured during the shooting had been brought to the Fergana hospital.

"Even though they don't say anything, we hear things," she said.

Barchinoi, 51, another Fergana resident who also gave only her first name, asked: "Is war going to come here, too?"

If so, "it's all Karimov's fault," she said. "He deserves death."