Protests Over OSCE Police Plan for Kyrgyz South

Demonstrations were held in July against plans to deploy 50 police officers from OSCE states to monitor the situation in southern Kyrgyzstan, following ethnic violence the previous month.

Critics say the police presence could last longer than the four months currently envisaged. Some believe the police will be divisive, supporting the interests of ethnic Uzbeks over those of Kyrgyz.

OSCE officials are trying to explain that the police team will be small, unarmed and with no mandate to investigate the recent violence.

In the second report in this programme, we looked at one side-effect of the violence on the labour market in southern Kyrgyzstan, where building firms are hiring more locals because the workers they usually us, from over the border in Uzbekistan, have stopped coming.

The audio programme, in Russian and Kyrgyz, went out on national radio stations in Kyrgyzstan, as part of IWPR project work funded by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.