<br clear="all"><h1 class="print-title">Kyrgyzstan: How to Rouse Ethnic Tensions</h1>
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Submitted by centralasia on April 18, 2012 - 11:11am </div><br></div><fieldset class="fieldgroup group-small-photo"><br></fieldset>
<div>Interethnic tensions between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks in southern
Kyrgyzstan have slipped out of the headlines, but analysts say the
threat of renewed violence is still a real concern. And if there’s one
Kyrgyz politician who loves to stoke the tensions, it’s Jyldyz
Joldosheva, a parliamentary deputy from the ultranationalist Ata-Jurt
party.<br></div>
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<div>Since the June 2010 ethnic violence, when approximately 450 people
died, Joldosheva has regularly traded on anti-Uzbek sentiment. She has
often claimed to have proof that members of the Uzbek “diaspora” are
plotting against their hosts, the Kyrgyz. Her language relegates Uzbeks
to outsider status, although they have lived in the area that is now
southern Kyrgyzstan for hundreds of years. </div>
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<div>Now she’s getting her supporters riled up with the newsflash that
Uzbek high school students are taking their state exams in their native
language. This displeases people, AKIpress <a href="http://kg.akipress.org/news:507631" title="" target="">cited</a> <span class="print-footnote">[6]</span> Joldosheva
as saying on April 18. She’s demanding an explanation from Education
Minister Kanat Sadykov, while other deputies, perhaps bowing to the
xenophobic climate, are falling in line behind her. One warns that his
constituents are rallying at parliament’s gates, demanding the exams be
stopped. The Education Ministry <a href="http://www.24kg.org/community/126880-minobrazovaniya-v-kyrgyzstane-dejstvuet-226-shkol.html" title="" target="">says</a> <span class="print-footnote">[7]</span>
the tests have been carried out in Kyrgyz, Russian and Uzbek since
2001; of approximately 40,000 students who took the exam last year,
about 1,000 took it in Uzbek. </div>
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<div>Joldosheva’s rhetoric is divisive in and of itself, but in a post-conflict situation it could be explosive.</div>
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<div>Ethnic Uzbeks, concentrated in the country’s south, where
Joldosheva is from, face a “steady pattern of unpleasantness in everyday
life: in public transport, at the market and in dealings with local
officials. Probably the most scarring form of harassment is still the
fear of arrest, torture and detention, often with the aim of extortion,”
said the International Crisis Group (ICG) in a <a href="http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/regions/asia/central-asia/kyrgyzstan/222-kyrgyzstan-widening-ethnic-divisions-in-the-south.aspx" title="" target="">report</a> <span class="print-footnote">[8]</span>
released last month. “The steady exclusion of Uzbeks from all walks of
life risks creating a dangerous predisposition to violence: the feeling
that the only means of redress left are illegal ones.” </div>
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<div>Last year, Joldosheva <a href="http://www.eurasianet.org/node/63339" title="" target="">claimed</a> <span class="print-footnote">[9]</span>
Uzbeks were behind an international campaign to call the ethnic
violence “genocide,” although no credible sources (sensationalist
headlines notwithstanding) have referred to the four days of violence
using the G-word. When Joldosheva went on at length about a lavishly
published book propagating the idea, called “The Hour of the Jackal,”
her office ignored EurasiaNet.org’s repeated requests to see a copy. </div>
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<div>One of her regular targets is Kadyrjan Batyrov, once a wealthy
businessman and politician from Jalal-Abad, who was handed a life
sentence in absentia for organizing the clashes, inciting ethnic hatred,
and spreading separatist propaganda. Prior to the violence, Jalal-Abad
was a center of Uzbek political activism. A few weeks ago, Joldosheva <a href="http://www.vb.kg/news/politics/2012/04/04/184535_depytat_prosit_proverit_kongress_pochetnym_prezidentom_kotorogo_stal_batyrov.html" title="" target="">suggested</a> <span class="print-footnote">[10]</span>
Batyrov and a celebrated ethnic Uzbek Kyrgyzstani astronaut were
organizing an Uzbek resistance movement in Moscow with $120 million. </div>
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<div>While it would be hard to claim that any post-Soviet businessman is
squeaky clean, European authorities seem to feel that Batyrov cannot
get a fair trial in his native country. Sweden has <a href="http://www.rferl.org/content/kyrgyz_uzbek_leader_calls_on_atambaev_to_restore_rule_of_law/24384939.html" title="" target="">reportedly</a> <span class="print-footnote">[11]</span> granted him asylum. </div>
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<div>ICG and other independent monitors have determined the vast
majority of fatalities that June were among ethnic Uzbeks and most of
the destroyed property had belonged to Uzbeks. But the vast majority of
trials have targeted ethnic Uzbeks, too, “giving support to the widely
propagated theory in Kyrgyz political circles that the Uzbeks initiated
the violence.” </div>
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<div>Joldosheva no doubt knows the relative calm in southern Kyrgyzstan
is tenuous. With Uzbeks persecuted by officials working for Osh City
Mayor Melisbek Myrzakmatov – who has at times aligned himself with
Joldosheva’s party – Uzbeks are running out of options, ICG says. </div>
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<div>The central government appears uninterested in addressing the
ongoing injustices. That’s not much of a surprise when people like
Joldosheva are running the country, and look bent on ignoring the
obvious. <br><br><a href="http://www.eurasianet.org/print/65280">http://www.eurasianet.org/print/65280</a><br></div><br>-- <br>=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+<br><br> Harold F. Schiffman<br><br>Professor Emeritus of <br>
Dravidian Linguistics and Culture <br>Dept. of South Asia Studies <br>University of Pennsylvania<br>Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305<br><br>Phone: (215) 898-7475<br>Fax: (215) 573-2138 <br>
<br>Email: <a href="mailto:haroldfs@gmail.com">haroldfs@gmail.com</a><br><a href="http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/">http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/</a> <br><br>-------------------------------------------------<br>