UZBEKS AGAINST THE WALL

The former Soviet republic known as Kyrgyzstan has recently been making headlines. Following a historic change to long established Scrabble rules allowing proper nouns, Kyrgyzstan stands out as the highest scoring word on the board. They also had a revolution recently; a popular uprising that deposed the corrupt, self-serving and incompetent Kurmanbek Bakiyev, who himself came to power on the back of the last revolution-but-one, the so-called ‘Tulip Revolution’.

Waves of revulsion following Bakiyev’s massacre of protesters back in April led to his exile and a hastily assembled interim government led by Roza Otunbayeva. The new leaders immediately promised elections and, again, that a new leaf had been turned in Central Asian politics away from authoritarianism towards a democratic future. If only. The Bakiyev family, who controlled lucrative smuggling, transport and energy interests, have been not only sulking but also plotting in exile.

Bakiyev’s son, Maksim, has been sowing chaos and destruction across the country as a ploy to bring the family back in from the cold.

And with 400,000 refugees and internally displaced persons and perhaps 2,000 dead in inter-ethnic violence between Kyrgyz and Uzbek communities, it looks like Bakiyev junior’s plan has come to fruition. Much of the city of Osh and surrounding areas have been burned and ransacked. Fleeing civilians speak of mass rape and pogroms organised by paramilitary groups.

This widespread destruction has left the interim government looking weak and rudderless. The president asked for (and was refused) Russian military assistance to quell the violence. Despite such a large section of the population’s absence the government is still insisting that the referendum/election is the most pressing priority. Meanwhile groups as disparate as the International Crisis Group and the Anarchist International Embassy are urging the Kyrgyz government to put their efforts into establishing some peace and stability in the country first.

Having belatedly sent in the security forces, they seem to be concentrating more on policing the Uzbek communities (that have already suffered the worst) than stemming the violence. Just how much attention the security forces, reformed under Bakiyev, pay to the new government is an unknown quantity. Under Bakiyev, the elite, US trained anti-narcotics force was integrated into the country’s internal security, their US-honed skills turned on an unarmed civilian population.

Kyrgyzstan is at the centre of the ‘new great game’ played out in Central Asia between the USA and Russia. Kyrgyzstan is the unfortunate host to both a US and a Russian base at opposite ends of the country, and both have used fair means and foul to force Kyrgyzstan into their respective orbits. The country is one of the main routes to Europe for Afghan opiates, and with the Taliban’s attacks on the US’ Pakistani transit routes into Afghanistan, it has become central to the US Afghan war effort.