BISHKEK, KYRGYZSTAN -- The last time Kabul Parpiyev surfaced in public, he was barricaded inside a central government building in Andijan, Uzbekistan.

His rebel group, armed with handguns and submachine guns, were guarding the main square where thousands of protesters had gathered. Government soldiers lurked in nearby streets.

It was the afternoon of May 13, and smoke from burning cars and buildings hung in the warm air.

Somebody handed Mr. Parpiyev a mobile phone. He heard the voice of Zakir Almatov, Uzbekistan's interior minister, calling to inform Mr. Parpiyev, as leader of the uprising, that the government was prepared for slaughter if the protesters didn't clear out.

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The demonstrators stayed. Troops opened fire. Hundreds of people died, and Mr. Parpiyev disappeared.

Two months later, the rebel leader remains in hiding, hunted by Uzbek agents.

But Mr. Parpiyev says he cannot stay silent.

He furtively made contact with a few trusted journalists in recent weeks, trying to refute the version of the Andijan massacre described by Uzbekistan and parroted by Russia and China as those two powers strive for greater influence over Central Asia.

That official story describes the massacre as the only possible response to an armed rebellion by Islamist terrorists who infiltrated Uzbekistan from Afghanistan and Chechnya. Uzbekistan says 187 people died in the unrest.

The main challenge to that version comes from the people -- particularly Mr. Parpiyev -- who escaped across the border into Kyrgyzstan and say troops mowed down several hundred peaceful demonstrators.

That alternative story has upset the region's balance of power: After the United Nations announced last week that 400 people who fled the Andijan massacre would be airlifted out of Kyrgyzstan to safe countries including Canada, the government of Uzbekistan retaliated by declaring the United States isn't welcome any longer at a key airbase on Uzbek soil.

For his part, Mr. Parpiyev says he never intended to destabilize the entire region.

Speaking to The Globe and Mail in his first interview with a North American media outlet since the massacre, the short, muscular 42-year-old described his regret about initiating the unrest and gave details to discredit the notion his rebels included foreign terrorists.

In the same conversation, however, Mr. Parpiyev promised revenge against the authoritarian regime and seemed to be threatening a campaign of terrorism.

"Our final option is this word 'terror,' which means sow fear among people," Mr. Parpiyev said by telephone from an undisclosed location.

The former engineer at an Andijan water conservation facility was clearly troubled by the idea of launching violent attacks, although he said many disgruntled people in Uzbekistan have contacted his network of scattered dissidents in recent weeks and indicated they're ready to resist.

"They cannot be patient any more," he said. "If they can get a small push, if they are supported, they will all stand up to fight the regime."

His group first showed signs of violence on May 12, after Uzbek security forces started mass arrests of the peaceful demonstrators who stood outside an Andijan courthouse.

They were protesting against a trial of 23 local businessman accused of religious extremism, in a prosecution international observers have complained was deeply flawed.

When protesters started disappearing into the Uzbek prison system, notorious for using torture, Mr. Parpiyev says he got together with other relatives and friends of the businessmen to organize a jailbreak and a public gathering.

"We decided to hold a meeting to attract attention of big bosses in Tashkent to our events, to make them come here and investigate," Mr. Parpiyev said.

"We never expected something like this could happen. We all hoped for the best, thinking President [Islam] Karimov wasn't aware of the real picture and that the local officials were to blame."

In retrospect, he says, this was a mistake. "I do regret very much," he said, although he added that he doesn't consider himself responsible for the bloody consequences.

The rebels' original plan was to get enough people into Andijan's main square that Mr. Karimov would be forced to visit the city and listen to their complaints.

Now, he says, only two options remain: international intervention or armed conflict.

Powerful countries should force Uzbekistan to comply with requests for an independent investigation of the Andijan events, he said. The United Nations, the European Union, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, and many countries such as the United States have called for such an investigation, but no major sanctions have been declared.

Failure to intervene would force the rebels to attempt their own action against the government, he added.

"If they don't do it," he said, "we should look for other ways to take the sword of power out of Karimov's reach."

Mr. Parpiyev remained vague about what methods he was contemplating, despite repeated questions.But his threats to take violent action against the Karimov government will likely erode the rebels' support among international agencies.

Reports issued recently by the UN and the OSCE have generally favoured the opinion that the armed uprising was an expression of local frustration with an oppressive regime and that the subsequent massacre was a grossly inappropriate response.

Mr. Parpiyev says his group didn't include any foreigners, that they only seized weapons and hostages in self-defense and that their total arsenal of pistols and Kalashnikov rifles only amounted to 24 weapons. He also rejected the label of religious extremism.

"Yes, we are all religious," he said, "but not extremists or radical Islamists or anything similar."

Still, the rebel leader sounded unsure about what amounts to extremism under Uzbekistan's brutal government.

"Right now, they imprison people, shoot people . . . they made people fear, they use terror. . . . isn't this terror?"

Finding Parpiyev

Kabul Parpiyev risked his life to tell his story. Like several other organizers of the Andijan uprising, he slipped across the nearby border into Kyrgyzstan after the May 13 massacre.

He doesn't sleep in the same place for very long, he says, and he frequently changes his cellphone number.

After the killings, Uzbekistan's security services gave their counterparts in Kyrgyzstan a list of 51 wanted fugitives. Mr. Parpiyev's name and photograph appears squarely in the middle of the first page.

Fortunately for Mr. Parpiyev, it was a local journalist who discovered the rebel leader in hiding: Alisher Saipov, a freelancer based in the southern city of Osh, who has previously conducted research for The Globe and Mail.

Mr. Parpiyev initially refused to talk when called by Mr. Saipov. But after several requests, and finally a heated argument, Mr. Parpiyev relented. He agreed to meet the young journalist on June 21 in Jalalabad, near Kyrgyzstan's border with Uzbekistan.

After driving more than three hours, Mr. Saipov arrived at a tea house. Mr. Parpiyev didn't show up, and when reached by phone, the rebel leader expressed doubts about whether to go ahead with the interview.

Finally, Mr. Parpiyev told the reporter to visit a local mosque. At the mosque, Mr. Parpiyev gave more directions by telephone that took Mr. Saipov deep into the narrow side streets.

He eventually found Mr. Parpiyev walking down a road. They went to a café in the hills overlooking the city, which hadn't yet opened for the day. A friendly waiter let them onto an empty rooftop patio. During their 90-minute conversation, Mr. Parpiyev's eyes darted constantly to the door, and he kept careful watch on the movements of waiters who puttered around a nearby bar.

After the initial interview, Mr. Saipov also helped arrange a follow-up conversation by telephone for The Globe and Mail and The Times of London.

-- Graeme Smith