Historical background to the current conflict in Kyrgyzstan

BBC News - Death toll in Kyrgyzstan clashes could be 'much higher'

www.reliefweb.int/mapc/cis/reg/cau/caucia.html

Kyrgyzstan is a country in Central Asia. It and its four neighbouring countries (Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan & Uzbekistan) were all Soviet Republics within the USSR until they became abruptly independent late in 1991 as the Soviet Union collapsed.

The region is a borderland and crossing-point between powerful neighbours and close to several flash-points in international affairs at this time: Russia to the north; China to the east; Afghanistan to the south; Pakistan & India to the south-east, including especially Kashmir, which is a subject of ongoing dispute between those two countries; Iran to the south-west; Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan & Turkey to the west, on the other side of the Caspian Sea.

Kyrgystan itself is host to major military bases for both Russia & the USA; the American one is the primary supply base for men & supplies for NATO operations in Afghanistan.

At the moment in the south of Kyrgyzstan, around the cities of Osh & Jalalabad, some of the Kyrgyz, who are the majority population (c.70%), are persecuting & driving out the Uzbeks, who are a minority in the country (c.14%), in a manner all too familiar to us from around the world over the last 20 years; one need only list Kenya, Sudan, Rwanda, Iraq, former Yugoslavia.

The problem is - unfortunately again a familiar one - that the borders in the region do not correspond to & in fact cut across the distribution of the different ethnicities. All of the Central Asian republics have significant minorities of one or more nationalities from the neighbouring states: Uzbeks in Kyrgyzstan, as outlined above; Tajiks (c.5%) in Uzbekistan; Uzbeks in Tajikistan; Uzbeks (c.3%) in Kazakhstan; and so on.

There are also significant populations of Tajiks (c.27%) & Uzbeks (c.9%) in the north of Afghanistan, among the more than 12 different nationalities which inhabit that country.

From this, the complexity of allegiance (clan / ethnicity / nation) & the potential for conflict in the region is evident.

What is the background to this situation of extreme confusion ? The borders between the Central Asian republics are not ancient, nor did they arise by accident or by evolution. They were set by Stalin himself in a series of decisions from 1927 to 1936. They were not the product of carelessness or indifference, or lack of detailed knowledge of the region; on the contrary, the confusion was created by deliberate policy, to disrupt & disunite the ethnic communities in order to forestall them becoming centres of organised resistance to the central government in Moscow. This was after the Bolsheviks had fought for 10 years to re-establish control over the region.

It was a case of the classic Imperial tactic of divide in order to rule, as practiced by us (I mean, the British) & the French all over Africa, the Far East & the Middle East in the 19th & 20th centuries. But the tensions & conflicts remain long after the original need (Imperial domination) for which those boundaries were drawn has disappeared; as we can see in Nigeria, Lebanon, Congo; the list goes on & on & on.