REP Programme Paper: Averting Violence in Kyrgyzstan: Understanding and
Responding to Nationalism
www.chathamhouse.org
8
trying to make Uzbek equal to Russian as a state language. Only Kyrgyz speakers should be
allowed to work in state jobs, suggested the author.
This sentiment, that Uzbeks had had it too good for too long and that Kyrgyz generosity allowed
them to become disloyal, received widespread expression. In the immediate months following the
violence, Uzbeks routinely reported verbal and physical abuse on the streets. There have been
numerous reports of arbitrary arrest, kidnapping, extortion, and theft of property by police and
groups of ‘heavies’ (‘sportsmen’).
17
Other forms of exclusion have been commonplace, for example
forcing Uzbeks to quit their positions in state employment, and the
seizure or closure of Uzbek-
language television stations. Official government figures shows that while Uzbeks 67 per cent of
those killed were Uzbeks, 73 per cent of those prosecuted in relation to the events were Uzbek.
18
Far from being a recourse to justice, many Uzbeks see the legal system as a chief tool of their
abuse. This has been acknowledged by Ombudsman Tursubek Akun, who is reported to have said
that in southern Kyrgyzstan residential and commercial property belonging to ethnic minorities is
taken by force, and that the ‘Uzbek population undergoes tortures and biased attitude from judicial
authorities. Cases’ consideration is being protracted; judges and law enforcement officers commit
lawlessness.’
19
As a result, many Uzbek men fled or were sent abroad by families for their own
protection.
20
Education has been severely affected. The
Kyrgyz-Uzbek University, created in the 1990s to allow
higher education in the Uzbek language, changed its name to the Osh State Social University.
(However, as a state university’s name change can only be sanctioned by the Ministry of Education
in Bishkek, this was a de facto rather than de jure change). In some departments most Uzbek staff
have quit or been forced out, and many Uzbek students have stopped studying. Likewise Osh
State University’s Uzbek Pedagogical-Humanities Faculty has been downgraded to a department
of the university’s philology faculty, with many staff leaving and a significant proportion of students
abandoning their studies. In 2011 the of Osh, Melis Myrzakmatov, reportedly announced his desire
to see an end to most Uzbek-language schooling in the city; and neighbouring Kara-Suu’s regional
educational administration instructed all Uzbek schools to convert one incoming September class
from Uzbek- to Kyrgyz-language instruction.
21
One must be cautious not to misrepresent this as one-sided. Life for many Kyrgyz in Osh too has
deteriorated since the June 2010 violence, with the economy fractured and a fear of Uzbek
reprisals affecting their use of public space. Endemic corruption means that relatively poorer
Kyrgyz, too, are frequently subject to police and judicial abuse.
22
In June 2012, President Almazbek
Atambaev acknowledged that systematic failures in the court system mean that they ‘do
not protect
the rights, freedoms and lawful interests of citizen.’
23
National and local politicians, although fuelling
anti-Uzbek sentiment by their explanations of what happened, have publicly at least striven to
promote values of ‘tolerance’ and have stressed that the ‘ordinary people’ are not responsible and
that Uzbeks have a future in Kyrgyzstan as near kinsfolk from the same cultural roots. The situation
gradually improved into 2011, with Uzbeks becoming more visible again in public space, and
finding strategies to tentatively begin re-establishing economic activities. Nonetheless while Kyrgyz
17
Amnesty International, ‘Still Waiting for Justice: One Year on From the Violence in Southern Kyrgyzstan’. (London:
Amnesty International, 2011). This is corroborated by the author’s observations in Osh, and by numerous informal
conversations with non-elites in the city.
18
Asker Sultanov, ‘Kyrgyz ethnic clashes prompted by Bakiyevs, drug criminals’, Central Asia Online, 8 June 2012,
http://centralasiaonline.com/en_GB/articles/caii/newsbriefs/2012/06/08/newsbrief-03.
19
Makhinur Niyazova, ‘Ombudsman: Uzbek population suffers from lawlessness in S. Kyrgyzstan,’ 24.kg, 8 June 2012.
http://eng.24.kg/community/2012/06/08/24655.html.
20
It appears to be true that a year afterwards, some of these were returning.
21
The material in this paragraph is derived from personal observation and interviews with three senior anonymous Uzbek
educationalists in Osh in October and November 2011, and some details have been verified by discussion with
representatives of branches of the Kyrgyz government.
22
In November 2010 I asked an activist in the influential Kyrgyz hardline nationalist Ata-Jurt party: ‘Uzbeks say that the
police here will arrest them, torture them, demand money, etc. Do you know about this, is it true?’ She replied: ‘After the
war, the police probably took revenge on the Uzbeks for what they did to us, for trying to take our country from us. But they
do those sorts of things to the Kyrgyz, too, they find an excuse to extort money – they are thugs [mykaachy].’
23
‘The President of Kyrgyzstan acknowledges that today’s courts as before
do not protect the rights, freedoms and lawful
interests of citizens,’ 24.kg, 19 2012 http://eng.24kg.org/community/2012/06/19/24812.html.