Russia and Eurasia Programme paper: 2012/02
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- Bu səhifədəki naviqasiya:
- The potential for further violence
REP Programme Paper: Averting Violence in Kyrgyzstan: Understanding and Responding to Nationalism www.chathamhouse.org 9 politicians claim that ‘peace’ has returned to Osh, its Uzbek residents generally feel themselves to be a relatively powerless group that has been denied justice in the wake of a fierce backlash. The potential for further violence For the reasons described above, the sense of bitterness and injustice among Uzbeks is very great, and many Kyrgyz likewise fear that Uzbeks remain disloyal to the state. This situation of mistrust and resentment, combined with a range of other factors, means that the danger of further violence is not inconsiderable. Following the 1990 violence, the police worked hard to bring perpetrators to justice, 24 and the government moved to reassure the Uzbek population of their place in Kyrgyzstan through, for example, the opening of higher education institutes in the Uzbek language. Following 2010 the opposite happened: in spite of the rhetoric, justice has been routinely denied and opportunities reduced. There is a burning sense of anger that, Amnesty International argues, has been compounded by ‘repeated official endorsement of an ethnically biased version of events’. 25 In turn many Kyrgyz feel that the world’s media and the ‘international community’ are against them. Uzbeks also fear further violence because the flight of large numbers of males abroad for safety, and stringent searches for weapons, have reduced the potential ability of Uzbek neighbourhoods to defend themselves. At the same time, there is a sense that perpetrators have impunity. Many of those who looted shops and homes in June 2010, and who have subsequently forced Uzbeks to sell businesses, homes and property at token prices, or simply taken them by threatening violence, have appeared to benefit from their crimes. There has been a lack of accountability among police and local and national politicians for failing to respond better to the violence and its aftermath. Given this combination of bitterness among victims and impunity among perpetrators, it is possible that future violence would be more intense. The role of Uzbekistan needs considering in this regard. In June 2010 it did not intervene militarily, but rather sealed its borders – apart from accepting a temporary refugee movement. Subsequently, it did little to pressure the Kyrgyz government for better treatment of Osh’s Uzbeks. Although this has been praised in Kyrgyzstan for preventing an inter-state escalation, many Osh Uzbeks hoped that Uzbekistan would intervene on their behalf. Many Kyrgyz feared this would happen, especially given the perceived geopolitical threat of Uzbekistan to Kyrgyzstan (see below). Indeed, it appears that rumours of an Uzbek military incursion helped stop attacks on Uzbek neighbourhoods. That this did not occur could embolden more sustained attacks in any subsequent violence, particularly if there is no visible change of policy by Uzbekistan towards its co-ethnics in neighbouring states. 26
were killed or injured, or lost property, in the June fighting. Many Kyrgyz remain angry at Uzbek atrocities against them in what they believe was an Uzbek plot to separate Osh from Kyrgyzstan, and regard international aid in reconstructing burnt-out Uzbek homes as tantamount to rewarding their disloyalty. Media and politicians have led them to believe that this threat continues. Thus further violence would occur in a context of bitterness on both sides. Another pertinent factor is experience. Despite rumours and claims to the contrary by both Uzbeks and Kyrgyz, there is little concrete evidence of preparation or coordination by either ‘side’ before the violence began. When it did, strategies of defence (for example, blockading neighbourhoods and armour-plating trucks) and attack (coordinated methods of breaking into neighbourhoods, looting, and the ferrying of males from outside Osh to participate in the fighting) became increasingly organized during the course of the violence. The young Kyrgyz men who came in from
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Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 32, No 2.
25 Amnesty International, ‘Still Waiting for Justice’, p. 2.
26
Unlike the governments of Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, that of Uzbekistan has not actively supported its co-ethnics abroad. See Fumagalli, Matteo (2007), ‘Ethnicity, state formation and foreign policy: Uzbekistan and ‘Uzbeks abroad’’, Central Asian Survey, Vol. 26, No 1. REP Programme Paper: Averting Violence in Kyrgyzstan: Understanding and Responding to Nationalism www.chathamhouse.org 10 the villages to participate in the fighting once rumours and news started being transmitted by mobile phones are celebrated by many as saviours of Kyrgyzstan from the Uzbek threat. Given these experiences, such organization may happen more quickly and on a greater scale on a subsequent occasion. The changing composition of the city’s Kyrgyz population might also have a role, albeit a minor one. Since the violence of 2010, many educated, professional, middle-aged Kyrgyz who were raised in the city have migrated to Bishkek or elsewhere. These ‘shaardyk kyrgyz’ (urban Kyrgyz), who grew up in a Soviet milieu characterized by close inter-ethnic friendships, feel less comfortable and less safe in a city increasingly populated by recent migrants from mono-ethnic rural areas who have little sense of the city’s earlier cosmopolitanism. There are thus fewer Kyrgyz in the city who could play a role in calming tensions. An important unknown here would be the role of the Kyrgyz security forces. As Paul Brass argues in the context of Indian Muslim-Hindu violence, communal riots (like that in Osh) are produced by precipitating events such as the killing of a prominent public person or an attack on a place of worship: ‘One reaction then leads to another, generating a chain, which if not immediately contained will lead to a major conflagration.’ 27 Could the security forces stop such a development? On the one hand, Kyrgyzstan has conducted at least three internal investigations, one of which was for the use of the security and police forces. It would be hoped that lessons have been learnt and that the security forces and police would move more quickly to contain violence and block the entrances to the city to turn back young men from rural areas, be better trained in crowd control techniques and be less likely to surrender weapons to groups of young men. However, it is also possible that, under the influence of propaganda in the media and from local politicians, rather than seeing themselves a neutral force between two groups of citizenry, they might understand their primary role as aligning with co-ethnics in defence of the territorial integrity of the state against separatists. It would be foolish to attempt to predict the course of events in Osh with any certainty. However, on the balance of evidence it is reasonable to conclude that a further incidence of massive Uzbek- Kyrgyz violence in the city in the coming years is a possibility, especially if another power vacuum or national crisis like that of April 2010 should recur. Further violence could be more destructive with greater loss of life and property, and lead to greater refugee flows, than in either 1990 or 2010. Therefore averting such a development should be high on the agendas of the Bishkek and Osh authorities, Kyrgyzstan’s Uzbek communities, Uzbekistan, and foreign governments and agencies.
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Brass, Paul (1997), Theft of an Idol: Text and Context in the Representation of Collective Violence (Princeton: Princeton University Press), p. 257. See also Brass, Paul (2003), The Production of Hindu-Muslim Violence in Contemporary India (London: University of Washington Press). Yüklə 0,74 Mb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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