Kyrgyzstan’s War With Itself

Civil war escalates as groups fight for power

Clashes between Kyrgyz and Uzbek residents in the cities of Osh and Jalalabad began on the 10th June and escalated over the weekend. The number of refugees fleeing the ‘ethnic violence’ may soon rise to 100,000, a US envoy said on Tuesday.

Tens of thousands of ethnic Uzbeks have fled their homes in Kyrgyzstan and crossed the border into Uzbekistan after violence which has claimed many lives. [Image: BBC]

A brief history

Kyrgyzstan is an ex-Soviet Republic, a smallish country bordering Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and China. The country has a history maimed by the Russians since the early 1900s, and 1990, when Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev sent troops to Osh after hundreds of people were killed in a dispute that started over land ownership.

The ex-president did it, but he says he did not

The former president Bakiyev, who is in self-imposed exile in Belarus, has denied any role in the turmoil. Uzbeks have mostly backed the interim government, while many Kyrgyz in the south have supported Bakiyev.

The interim president, Roza Otunbayeva, insisted that Bakiyev's supporters had stoked the conflict. "Many instigators are giving evidence… No one has doubts that he is involved," she said. This is an allegation Bakiyev denied in a statement on Sunday (13/07). Speaking on Monday in Belarus, to where he had fled, Bakiyev called on the CSTO*to send in troops and urged "brotherly" Kyrgyz and Uzbeks to make peace, saying the leaders who had replaced him were incapable of restoring order.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who said the allegations of instigation needed to be taken seriously, did not rule out that Bakiyev's supporters were to blame. "Certainly the ouster of President Bakiyev some months ago left behind those who are still his loyalists and very much against the provisional government," she said last week.

Kyrgyzstan has demanded the extradition of Maxim Bakiyev, accusing him of fomenting the ethnic violence in the south of the country. The 33-year-old son of the ex-president was arrested by UK Border Agency officials on Sunday, minutes after landing in Hampshire, in a private jet.

Bakiyev Jr was a key figure in the ousted regime, and had been holding talks with the Obama administration in Washington when mass protests overthrew his father's government.

Rupert Collie, a spokesman for Navi Pillay, the UN high commissioner for human rights, told reporters in Geneva there was evidence that the violence "appears to be orchestrated, targeted and well-planned" and began with five simultaneous attacks in the southern city of Osh by men wearing balaclavas.

The refugee number grows

Many sections of Osh, which has a population of 250,000, were burned to the ground, and the violence has spread into surrounding towns and regions.

As the death toll from the clashes rose to 171, with 1,800 people injured, the UN agency for children, Unicef, said six trucks had left from Uzbekistan’s capital Tashkent, heading for camps near the border between the two countries with aid. The UN is upholding the 27th June vote on a new constitution and the parliamentary elections in October.

Witnesses said gangs with automatic rifles, iron bars and machetes set fire to houses and shot fleeing residents. The violence is the deadliest in southern Kyrgyzstan. The increasing death toll has fuelled concern in Russia and the United States, both of whom operate military air bases in the very strategic nation, west of China.

Did anyone say Taliban?

"Moscow greatly fears instability in this region," Eurasia Group analysts said in a note. Deep concern about wayward Islamic terrorism surfaced: "The violence poses (…) lawlessness in the south of Kyrgyzstan that could eventually provide safe harbour to Islamic militants and ease the operating environment for organised crime." Of course it could, pockets of Muslim radicals wait under bus shelters and rubble for the opportune moment to explode, do they not?

Washington uses its air base at Manas in the north of the Kyrgyzstan, to supply forces fighting the Taliban in nearby Afghanistan. Analysts say if Kyrgyzstan, which shares its southern border with Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, descends into chaos, it could foster militant Islam financed by drugs including the al Qaida-linked IMU** (CT POST).

Apparently it’s a war of threesomes – the Bakiyevs no doubt seek to reclaim their power over wealth, criminal groups will find open paths for narco-trafficking, while ‘Islamic militants want to expand their influence and overthrow secular governments’ (Duishebayev, security chief).

Getting aid in

The interim government said it had helped evacuate foreign citizens including Chinese, Indians and citizens of Turkey, Pakistan, European Union, Afghanistan and Turkmenistan.

Pakistan and Germany sent aid to the region, and China was expected to send food and medical supplies on Tuesday.
Tens of thousands of Uzbeks are in makeshift accommodation in 30 camps in Uzbekistan. The Uzbek government has opened schools and colleges to accommodate refugees who have floodd out of Osh and Jalalabad.

The Unicef representative in Uzbekistan, Jean-Michel Delmotte, described the situation as chaotic as Uzbeks fled the violence: "Ninety-five per cent of them were women and children. The pressure was extremely high, and people were fleeing very rapidly."

He said the most urgent problem in the refugee camps was a lack of safe water and sanitation, adding: "I think the facilities that have been provided are not enough."

Kyrgyztan is riddled with heroin smuggling accusations, civil turmoil and dependency on more powerful nations. Philosophically speaking the current war could be an inevitable event for all Middle Eastern countries to take as part of a larger global plan by other certain global powers. Or perhaps the UN, international leaders and men with an ounce of decency should step forward, demand aid to get in and to put an end to all war, whether in Kyrgyztan or elsewhere.
See recent photos from Kyrgyztan on The Big Picture.

* Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO)
** Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan

Your thoughts: The war in Kyrgyzstan cannot be undo, it is not the result of one action but rather the consequence of conflicting powers. Muslims in England may not always prioritise foreign wars in need of their dua’, but aren’t we still human? What now?