Source: Refugees International (RI)The official mourning period for the dead and wounded in southern Kyrgyzstan has ended, but inter-ethnic tensions, fears and human rights abuses haunt this area, particularly its Uzbek citizens. Some 75,000 people remain displaced. Thousands of Uzbeks have sought refuge in neighboring countries or have migrated to Russia. Kyrgyzstan's interim government must act to ensure physical and legal security for all citizens and end impunity for those responsible for attacks, arbitrary arrests, detention, kidnappings, extortion and intimidation. The government must restore justice and tolerance for all or risk its economic, social and political development as central Asia's leading democracy.
Brutality and Bloodshed
In mid-June 2010, attacks by unknown assailants triggered violence between majority Kyrgyz and minority Uzbek communities, particularly in Osh, Jalal-Abad and Bazarkorgon. Multiple explanations for the origin of bloodletting and widespread destruction (including almost 3,000 buildings) include a variety of causes or conspiracy theories: a power vacuum and weak national governance; revenge by deposed President Bakiyev and followers; ethnic discrimination; entrenched rural poverty vs. urban success; economic disparities between ethnicities; corruption; out of control drug cartels/criminal gangs; weak civil society institutions; external geo-political actors; and religious extremists.
Whatever the catalyst, there was little official effort to stop the carnage. Witnesses repeatedly pointed to elements of security and military forces as participating in the violence, citing evidence of advance planning, availability of weapons, and the presence of armored personnel carriers, trucks, snipers and teams of looters and arsonists. Refugees International heard numerous accounts of unprovoked killings, shootings, stabbings, looting and burning. Brutal gender-based violence enflamed tensions in a culture of traditional family and religious views.
"For four days people came to kill us," said M. "They burned our houses and if they returned and something remained, they burned it again. Our cattle were taken and burned." "They robbed our houses… and at the border we saw with our own eyes men who had been burned and we met girls who had been violated," A. said. One wife, still in shock, witnessed her husband going outside to protect his property then being attacked, repeatedly stabbed and finally murdered with an axe blow. Such sights now haunt her and her community.
In the Shark area of Karasuu, a group of twelve women told how the violence affected them. One husband who went to the bazaar was told, "You shouldn't come here. You are Uzbek." One woman's son had been covered with gasoline and burned, while another's son was shot by a sniper. A third woman's husband was kidnapped and is still missing. The women want their sons and husbands to hide because they are at risk of false arrest, kidnapping or attack. Many women from destroyed Uzbek mahalas are afraid to go to the market or to a hospital fearing the presence of armed men or hostile attendants.
At a mahala in Osh's Ak-Tilek area, a mother explained that her family had built their home on an open field more than 50 years ago. Stepping through mounds of ash and broken glass toward the only standing wall, she cried, "My 12-year-old daughter who witnessed these events cannot speak. Please tell the world about discrimination in Kyrgyzstan."
A weary 90-year-old woman sitting outside her burned farm home near Basarkorgon told us, "The tents are very hot. My three sons had houses and now we all live here in tents. They are afraid to go out and water their crops… I know a woman whose sons were taken to prison without evidence. First our houses were damaged. Now they are taking our children. When we hear any noise, we are afraid."
Displaced Kyrgyz women are also fearful. Some were attacked or witnessed violence and burning. They live in government buildings or temporary shelters with security, but they prefer to travel in groups fearing Uzbek taunts or even attacks. Some were resisting returning to neighborhoods where they were the minority and they wanted help to move.
