[lg policy] Kyrgyz Riots Spread in Apparent Ethnic Violence against Uzbeks

[Harold Schiffman]

Kyrgyz Riots Spread in Apparent Ethnic Violence against Uzbeks
By MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ
Published: June 13, 2010



Zarip Toroyev/Associated Press


Related
Times Topic: Kyrgyzstan The official death toll from four days of
clashes neared 100 people, though the unrest seemed so widespread that
the figure is likely to go far higher. Reports from the region said
bands of ethnic Kyrgyz were seeking out Uzbeks, setting fire to their
homes and killing them.

Thousands of Uzbeks have fled to the nearby border with Uzbekistan,
and the authorities were said to have lost control of Osh,
Kyrgyzstan’s second largest city.

On Saturday, the fragile Kyrgyz provisional government asked
neighboring Russia to send in peacekeeping troops, but Russia, which
has a small military base in the north and has been a political patron
of this former Soviet republic, said only that it would consider the
request.

.

“The situation in the Osh region has spun out of control,”
Kyrgyzstan’s acting president, Roza Otunbayeva, said Saturday.
“Attempts to establish a dialogue have failed, and fighting and
rampages are continuing. We need outside forces to quell
confrontation.”

A spokeswoman for President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia said that no
decision on providing military aid would be made until at least
Monday, when Russia will consult with other members of the Collective
Security Treaty Organization, a regional security alliance of former
Soviet republics.

“A decision about deploying peacekeeping forces to Kyrgyzstan can only
be made collectively with all members of the C.S.T.O.,” the
spokeswoman, Natalya Timakova, said Saturday evening. She also said
that Russia was continuing to ship humanitarian assistance, including
medicine, to Kyrgyzstan.

It remained unclear what started the violence, which threatens to
undermine the already fragile provisional government that took power
in April after rioting deposed the country’s president. The interim
government has never fully established control in parts of the south,
where supporters of the ousted president, Kurmanbek S. Bakiyev, have
frequently clashed with those loyal to the new government.

The country is host to an important United States military base on the
outskirts of the capital, Bishkek, that is used to support the NATO
mission in Afghanistan.

On Saturday, heavily armed gangs battled on the streets of Osh,
burning and looting as they rampaged through the city.

“It was raining ash the whole afternoon, big pieces of black and white
ash,” said Andrea Berg, a Human Rights Watch employee holed up her
apartment in the city. “The city is just burning. It’s totally out of
control.”

The rioters at one point commandeered two armored personnel carriers
from troops stationed in the city, said Timur Sharshenaliyev, a
spokesman for the government there. Soldiers were able to take only
one back.

The provisional government passed a decree giving the police and
soldiers permission to open fire on rioters to prevent attacks on
civilians and government buildings, according to a statement on the
government’s Web site.

The authorities also ordered a partial mobilization of military forces
throughout the country, suggesting the government feared the spread of
violence to other regions. Soldiers with automatic weapons gathered at
the Bishkek airport early Sunday morning awaiting transport to Osh,
some downing a few vodka shots before they set off.

Yelena K. Bayalinova, a spokeswoman for the Kyrgyz Health Ministry,
said Saturday that in addition to the killings, nearly 1,000 people
had been wounded, most with gunshot wounds.

The recent politically inspired clashes in the region have reopened a
historic ethnic fault line, with gangs of heavily armed Kyrgyz youths
clashing with members of the region’s sizeable Uzbek minority. Much of
Mr. Bakiyev’s base in the region, his ancestral home, is Kyrgyz, while
many Uzbeks support the new government.

Mr. Sharshenaliyev, the government spokesman in Osh, said on Saturday
that the military had opened a corridor to allow Uzbek women, children
and the elderly to escape across the border, though he said he did not
know whether Uzbekistan was prepared to receive them. The Associated
Press reported that several children were killed in a stampede at one
border crossing.

Uzbekistan said it was “extremely alarmed and concerned” about the
situation. The Uzbek Foreign Ministry said in a statement that
violence against Uzbeks was being carried out in a manner calculated
to provoke ethnic conflict.

The Kremlin said that Mr. Medvedev spoke Saturday with the presidents
of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan about the violence. Russia also sent a
plane to Kyrgyzstan to provide humanitarian aid and medical
assistance, as well as to evacuate the wounded.

Russia and the United States have in recent years been jockeying for
influence in Kyrgyzstan, and deploying soldiers there could help
solidify Russia’s foothold. Russia has frequently chafed at the
American military presence in what it considers its sphere of
influence.

Russia appeared to support the protest movement that led to Mr.
Bakiyev’s ouster, and it has sought closer relations with Kyrgyzstan’s
new authorities.

Officials of the provisional government frequently travel to Moscow
for talks with high-ranking Russians, including Mr. Medvedev and Prime
Minister Vladimir V. Putin.

Under Mr. Bakiyev, the Kyrgyz government appeared to favor the United
States. Mr. Bakiyev incensed the Kremlin when he reneged on a tacit
agreement to close the American base in exchange for more Russian aid.

The provisional government took control after riots forced Mr. Bakiyev
from power on April 7. In those riots more than 80 people were killed
when the police and presidential guards opened fire on demonstrators,
who had gathered in Bishkek to protest government corruption and
rising utility prices.

The new government, though unelected and made up of an uneasy alliance
of political forces, quickly established control over the capital and
the north of the country, but not in the south.

The south of Kyrgyzstan is part of the Ferghana Valley, a fertile
strip of land that has a long history of interethnic strife and
includes parts of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. Similar violence between
Kyrgyz and Uzbeks in Osh in 1990 left hundreds dead and only abated
when the Soviet government sent in troops.


Clifford J. Levy contributed reporting from Moscow.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/14/world/asia/14kyrgyz.html?hp

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