Kyrgyzstan State of Emergency

[Watchman]

Kyrgyzstan declares state of emergency as 45 killed

Soldiers sent in as clashes spark fears of worsening ethnic conflict

Servicemen drive armoured vehicles in the city of Osh in southern Kyrgyzstan Armoured vehicles arrive in Osh, in southern Kyrgyzstan, after rioting in the city. Photograph: Reuters

Kyrgyzstan today sent soldiers and armoured troop carriers on to the streets of the second city, Osh, after clashes between two ethnic groups killed at least 45 people and left at least 637 injured.

The transitional government – which took power in April after the president, Kurmanbek Bakiyev, was ousted in a popular revolt – declared a state of emergency in four southern areas after youths armed with guns, steel bars and rocks clashed across the city.

The violent clashes threatened worsening ethnic conflict across the region. The streets echoed with gunfire and gangs built barricades, looting and burning shops, cafes and boutiques.

The disturbances were the most serious since the government, led by the former diplomat Roza Otunbayeva, took power.

Both the US and Russia, which have military bases in the central Asian country, expressed concern amid fears the disturbances could spill over into nearby Uzbekistan.

"Regrettably for us, we're clearly talking about a standoff between two ethnicities," Otunbayeva, speaking in the capital, Bishkek, said.

"We need [to muster] forces and means to stop and calm these people down, and that is what we are doing right now."

Witnesses said Osh resembled a war zone today, with gangs roaming the streets, with the university and Cheremushki district tense flashpoints. Groups of up to 300 Kyrgyz youths went on the rampage in districts populated by ethnic Uzbeks. No police were to be seen, the witnesses added.

"Periodically, one can hear gunshots here. Helicopters are flying over the city, armoured vehicles are moving on the roads. But people are not dispersing," Dzhamilya Kaparov, who chairs an Osh human rights group, told the Russian Interfax news agency. She added: "There are many young people with assault rifles. They are not letting cars and people in there."

Osh and southern Kyrgyzstan represents Bakiyev's powerbase. He fled the country after his troops killed at least 85 demonstrators. His supporters briefly seized government buildings in the south on 13 May, defying the central authorities in Bishkek.

Today, Miroslav Niyazov, the former head of the country's security council, blamed the interim government for failing to quell the disturbances and said the country was edging towards all-out war.

"The government isn't in control. There is no political stability. We are seeing anarchy and criminal lawlessness," he told the Guardian, adding: "This is very dangerous for society and could flare up into civil war." Niyazov said similar clashes had taken place in the early 1990s, when hundreds of people were killed shortly before the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Ethnic unrest between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks is a concern in the Fergana valley, where Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan intertwine.

"There are several factors in play here. It's crime, money, and of course Bakiyev's supporters also play a role," Niyazov said.

Renewed turmoil in the poor former Soviet republic will fuel concern among regional players Russia, China and the US, which uses its Manas airbase near Bishkek – 186 miles from Osh – as an Afghan supply route.

The Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, told a regional security summit in Uzbekistan's capital, Tashkent, that Moscow wanted a swift end to the unrest. The Chinese leader, Hu Jintao, echoed him, saying: "China continues to help Kyrgyzstan as much as it can."

 

[Watchman]

Thousands Flee Kyrgyzstan Violence
By KADYR TOKTOGULOV And ALAN CULLISON

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan—Ethnic violence flared out of control in
this strategically important Central Asian country on Sunday,
threatening to destabilize what has been a conduit for troops
and supplies for the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan.
Thousands Flee Kyrgyzstan

Images from the city of Osh, the border with Uzbekistan

Kyrgyzstan's government, for the first time since the country declared independence in 1991, appealed to Russia for help in restoring order. The Kremlin responded by saying it was sending 300 paratroopers—but only to protect its own military base near Bishkek, far from the fighting in the country's south.

Kyrgyzstan's own security forces have failed to contain a rising tide of ethnic violence in the south, where more than 100 people have been killed since fighting began Thursday night, according to the country's health ministry. The officials say the death toll could be considerably higher, as the current count includes only the dead at hospitals and morgues.

Around 75,000 people have now fled fighting into neighboring Uzbekistan, Russia's official news agency said, citing the Uzbek government.

Ethnic clashes—mainly of Kyrgyz attacking Uzbek minorities—spread Sunday through Kyrgyzstan's second-largest province, Jalal-Abad, government officials said. Crowds were setting fire to Uzbek homes and businesses, according to local news reports.

The ferocity of the fighting heightens fears of wider havoc in Central Asia, whose hitherto peaceful former Soviet republics have been a base for resupply of the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan. The State Department Sunday called for a quick restoration of peace and order, and endorsed efforts by the United Nations and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to find a solution.

For nine years the U.S. has maintained an air base in Kyrgyzstan, known for its picturesque mountains and high meadows. Lately the country been the scene of civil strife: In April mobs toppled its autocratic president after protests over his alleged corruption and utility rate hikes. Now ethnic strife has sprung up in the vacuum left behind.

Leaders in Bishkek's interim government have blamed the ousted president, Kurmanbek Bakiyev, for inciting unrest in the south in an effort to regain power. Mr. Bakiyev issued a denial Sunday, saying that Kyrgyzstan was on the verge of losing its statehood. "Instead of mobilizing all the resources to contain this conflict, the government is giving interviews and lying about me and my relatives," he said, according to the Interfax news agency.

The brunt of the violence has been borne by ethnic Uzbeks, who are a sizeable minority in Kyrgyzstan, mainly concentrated in the country's south. Uzbek officials say that thousands of Uzbeks, many of them women and children, have fled over the Kyrgyz border into neighboring Uzbekistan, after ethnic Kyrgyz began burning Uzbek homes and looting shops in the southern Kyrgyz city of Osh. Uzbekistan's Emergencies Ministry said it was setting up refugee camps for the victims in border areas, according to Russia's RIA Novosti news agency.

Embattled Kyrgyzstan Appeals to Russia
1:45

<object id="wsj_fp" width="512" height="363"><param name="movie" value="http://s.wsj.net/media/swf/main.swf"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><param name="flashvars" value="videoGUID={B8F418C7-D7BE-416F-81E8-DFD5C2FFD859}&playerid=1000&plyMediaEnabled=1&configURL=http://wsj.vo.llnwd.net/o28/players/&autoStart=false" base="http://s.wsj.net/media/swf/"name="flashPlayer"></param><embed src="http://s.wsj.net/media/swf/main.swf" bgcolor="#FFFFFF"flashVars="videoGUID={B8F418C7-D7BE-416F-81E8-DFD5C2FFD859}&playerid=1000&plyMediaEnabled=1&configURL=http://wsj.vo.llnwd.net/o28/players/&autoStart=false" base="http://s.wsj.net/media/swf/" name="flashPlayer" width="512" height="363" seamlesstabbing="false" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" swLiveConnect="true" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash"></embed></object>

Kyrgyzstan appeals for Russia's help to stop ethnic fighting. Courtesy of Reuters.

The Kyrgyz government dispatched troops to the city over the weekend, but that has done little to stop the fighting. On Sunday Kyrgyz officials declared a state of emergency throughout Jalal-Abad province, which borders on Uzbekistan.

Uzbeks gathered near the Kyrgyz-Uzbek border over the weekend trying to seek refuge in Uzbekistan.

Members of the ethnic Uzbek community tried to protect their property armed with sticks and Molotov cocktails near Osh Saturday.


Ethnic Kyrgyz mobs killed about 30 Uzbeks Sunday in the village of Suzak in the Jalal-Abad region, the Associated Press reported, citing Taalaibek Myrzabayev, the chief military conscription officer in Bishkek. Another ethnic Uzbek village, Dostuk, was burned by Kyrgyz assailants, but the casualties there were not known, the AP reported. Ethnic Uzbeks also ambushed about 100 ethnic Kyrgyz men Sunday near Jalal-Abad and took them hostage, he said, according to the AP. Vehicles on the main highway near Jalal-Abad repeatedly came under fire from unidentified gunmen.

Witnesses in Osh said Sunday that fires set by rioters have destroyed swaths of the city, and that crowds of triumphant Kyrgyz men roamed the street while remaining Uzbeks barricaded themselves in their neighborhoods, arming themselves with sticks and knives. Gunfire was audible in the city, and security forces were unable or unwilling to restore order.

Ethnic tensions have long simmered between Kyrgyzstan's ethnic communities since the collapse of the Soviet Union, but have seldom broken above the surface. Hundreds were killed during rioting in 1990 that was eventually put to a stop when Soviet troops intervened.

Kyrgyzstan's government has appealed for Russian help in stopping the latest fighting, but so far the Kremlin has waffled. Russia on Sunday sent a battalion of paratroopers—about 300 people—to reinforce security at its air base in near Bishkek, and on Saturday said it would discuss the possibility of sending troops with members of the Collective Security Treaty Organization—a group of former Soviet states that includes Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. But those consultations appeared to be a delay tactic while Moscow mulls over whether to commit forces.

Russia has been jealous of the U.S. presence in Kyrgyzstan, which it considers to be part of its traditional sphere of influence, and has over the years lobbied the government to push the U.S. off its military base near Bishkek. But the Kremlin is nevertheless wary about any open-ended peacekeeping role in the region, said Ivan Safranchuk, a Moscow-based analyst and expert on Central Asia at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations.

"There are already some statements coming from a high level that this is what they are going to do," he said.The Kremlin, he said, fears that by sending troops into Kyrgyzstan, Russia could get pulled into a quagmire. "But there is also the feeling that Russia cannot afford this unrest to continue. Because its not clear where it will end."
Related

* Ethnic Clashes Rekindle Kyrgyz Strife
* Germany Probes Russian Shipments to Iran

Russia has been ambivalent about its support for the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan. While it does not want the U.S. to grow too strong in the region, it doesn't want the U.S. to lose the war, either, as disorder in Afghanistan would likely spill over into other Central Asian states of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan and perhaps Russia itself.

Any serious disorder in Kyrgyzstan would not just disrupt NATO supply lines into the combat zone, but also possibly provide a new stomping ground for Islamist insurgents who have in the past been active in Kyrgyzstan's south and in Tajikistan, which also shares borders with both Kyrgyzstan and northern Afghanistan.

Taliban insurgents have already taken control of formerly safe provinces of northern Afghanistan, and appear to be infiltrating Tajikistan. "In a worst-case scenario, we could see a safe haven for them in Kyrgyzstan," said Mr. Safranchuk. "Its not a very far distance to Afghanistan from there."

 

[Watchman]