Spectre of Ethnic Violence in Kyrgyzstan

Residents of Jalalabad in southern Kyrgyzstan braced themselves for more trouble following an outbreak of violence pitting ethnic Kyrgyz against Uzbeks that left two people dead and dozens injured.

Crowds of young Kyrgyz men surged towards a university associated with the Uzbek community on May 19. They got past a police cordon ringing the entrance gates, but were prevented from entering the university building after security guards put up stiff resistance.

Shots were fired at this point, although it was unclear whether by one or both sides.

An eyewitness on the scene told IWPR that this prompted the crowds to fall back. “When the first casualties happened, the crowd came out of the gate,” he said.

Kyrgyzstan’s interim government declared a state of emergency and a night-time curfew in Jalalabad city and the nearby Suzak district, and accused allies of former president Kurmanbek Bakiev, ousted during mass protests last month, of masterminding the disturbances.

Bakiev is in exile in Belarus, but the authorities who replaced him believe his supporters are still trying to stage a coup. They have charged a number of Bakiev-era officials for disturbances late last week, when protesters briefly seized control of local government buildings in Jalalabad and Osh, the south’s biggest urban centre.

“The interim government will not allow civil war,” said government member Temir Sariev, in remarks quoted by the online news agency 24.kg. Referring to Bakiev supporters, he said, “At first they tried to confront the interim government, but when we resisted them, they began employing inter-ethnic conflict.”

Events in Jalalabad represent a dangerous shift towards trouble between ethnic Kyrgyz and the sizeable Uzbek community.

There were signs of trouble brewing on the morning of May 19, as thousands of people gathered at a race-track a couple of kilometres from the city.

Among the eyewitnesses interviewed by IWPR, a local man said most of the people at the race-track were young, of Kyrgyz ethnicity, and as far as he knew, not local to the area. A correspondent with RFE/RL said protesters were chanting slogans directed against Kadirjan Batirov, a businessman and politician regarded as the Uzbek community’s uncrowned leader, and an ally of the new government.

Police did not break up the demonstration, but blocked the road when the crowd started heading towards Jalalabad. However, the protestors evaded the blockade, and by midday some 5,000 had regrouped on the city’s main square.

With few police in evidence on the square, a column set off towards the People’s Friendship University.

The private university was set up by Batirov, and the site also has an Uzbek cultural centre, a newspaper office, a printing house and a private school. Batirov’s offices are there, as well.

By the time the crowds approached, an eyewitness said, riot police had set up a cordon round the university. He said the police fired shots into the air to try to deter the protesters, but were overwhelmed.

Abdumalik Sharipov, head of the human rights group Spravedlivost, agreed that the police were too few in number.

“These guys attacked the university with stones. There weren’t many policemen there – about 50 – and they couldn’t stand up to this large crowd,” he told IWPR.

After getting into the grounds, the crowds were unable to get past university security guards, and moved back outside. By late afternoon, less than 1,000 had returned to the main city square.

In an interview to IWPR, Batirov alleged that the trouble was caused by criminals incited by Bakiev supporters.

“Unfortunately, the police weren’t interested when we provided them with information about the organisers of these disturbances,” he said. “They [ringleaders] gathered men from the Cherny Aybek crime gang, plied them with alcohol and incited them against the Uzbeks.”

During last week’s anti-government protests in Jalalabad, Batyrov came out in support of the interim authorities, making it clear the Uzbek community would have no part in the trouble.

Pavel Dyatlenko, a political analyst with the Polis Asia think-tank in Bishkek, sees ethnic conflict as a worrying addition to the turbulence in Kyrgyzstan.

“If someone wants to destabilise the situation, they’ve made a very dangerous choice,” he said.

Ethnic relations are already fragile, he said, as a legacy of years of poor policies and lack of inclusion that have left resentment simmering beneath the surface.

“What happened today isn’t the outcome of accidental circumstance,” he said. “The political elite doesn’t reflect the multi-ethnic composition of this republic.”

Dyatlenko believes the solution to the immediate crisis lies in finding reputable negotiators who command respect among both Kyrgyz and Uzbeks and can rebuild relations.

He recalled the bloodshed of 1990 in southern Kyrgyzstan, when around 150 people died and hundreds were injured in clashes between Uzbeks and Kyrgyz, triggered by a land dispute.

In a year that marks the 20^th anniversary of that tragedy, Dyatlenko said, “People still remember those events. There are many people who recall them in every detail.”

Ilya Lukashov is a freelance journalist in Kyrgyzstan and Dina Tokbaeva is IWPR editor for Kyrgyzstan.

This article was produced jointly under two IWPR projects: Building Central Asian Human Rights Protection & Education Through the Media, funded by the European Commission; and the Human Rights Reporting, Confidence Building and Conflict Information Programme, funded by the Foreign Ministry of Norway.

The contents of this article are the sole responsibility of IWPR and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of either the European Union or the Foreign Ministry of Norway.