Muslim Kyrgyzstan
Mobs burn villages, slaughter Uzbeks in Kyrgyzstan
By SASHA MERKUSHEV and LEILA SARALAYEVA (AP)
June 13, 2010
OSH, Kyrgyzstan — Kyrgyz mobs burned Uzbek villages and slaughtered their residents Sunday as ethnic rioting engulfed southern Kyrgyzstan. The government ordered troops to shoot rioters dead but even that measure failed to stop the spiraling violence.
More than 100 people have been killed and over 1,000 wounded in the impoverished Central Asian nation since the violence began Thursday night. Doctors say that death toll is low, because wounded Uzbeks are too afraid of being attacked again to seek treatment in hospitals.
Thousands of Uzbeks have fled in panic to the border with Uzbekistan after their homes were torched by roving mobs of Kyrgyz men. Uzbek women and children were gunned down as they tried to escape, witnesses said.
Fires set by rioters have destroyed most of Osh, a city of 250,000, and looters have stolen most of its food. Triumphant crowds of Kyrgyz men took control of most of Osh on Sunday while the few Uzbeks still in the city barricaded themselves in their neighborhoods.
The riots are the worst violence since former President Kurmanbek Bakiyev was ousted in a bloody uprising in April and fled the country. The Uzbeks have backed the interim government, while many Kyrgyz in the south had supported the toppled president.
Interim President Roza Otunbayeva blamed Bakiyev's family for instigating the unrest in Osh, saying they aimed to derail a constitutional referendum to be held June 27 and new elections scheduled for October. A local southern official said Bakiyev supporters attacked both Kyrgyz and Uzbeks to ignite the rioting.
Otunbayeva asked Russia for military help to quell the violence, but the Kremlin refused, saying it would not meddle in an internal conflict. Russia did send a plane to deliver humanitarian supplies and evacuate some victims.
Kyrgyzstan hosts both U.S. and Russian military air bases, but they are in the north, away from the fighting.
The U.S. Manas air base in the capital, Bishkek, is a crucial supply hub for the coalition fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan. A Pentagon spokesman in Washington said Saturday that the interim government had not asked for any U.S. military help.
Bakiyev was propelled to power in 2005 on a wave of street protests, but his authority collapsed amid growing corruption allegations, worsening living conditions and political repression.
Gunfire rang out Sunday in another major southern city, Jalal-Abad, where the day before a rampaging mob burned a university, besieged a police station and seized an armored vehicle and weapons from a local military unit. Thousands of Kyrgyz men brandishing sticks, metals bars and hunting rifles gathered at the city's horse racing track, shouting anti-Uzbek slogans while frightened police stayed away.
Kyrgyz mobs killed about 30 Uzbeks Sunday in the village of Suzak in the Jalal-Abad region, Talaaibek Myrzabayev, the chief military conscription officer in Bishkek told The Associated Press. Another Uzbek village, Dostuk, was burned by Kyrgyz assailants, but the number of casualties there was unclear, he said.
Ethnic Uzbeks also ambushed about 100 Kyrgyz men Sunday on a road near Jalal-Abad and took them hostage, he said.
In the nearby village of Bazar-Kurgan, a mob of 400 Uzbeks overturned cars and killed a police captain, local political activist Asyl Tekebayev said. Residents said armed Kyrgyz men were flooding into the village to retaliate.
In 1990, hundreds of people were killed in a violent land dispute between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks in Osh, and only the quick deployment of Soviet troops quelled the fighting. With no Russian troops in sight, the interim government late Saturday announced a partial mobilization, calling up military reservists up to 50 years old.
"No one is rushing to help us, so we need to establish order ourselves," said Talaaibek Adibayev, a 39-year old army veteran who showed up at Bishkek's military conscription office.
The official casualty toll Sunday rose to at least 80 people dead and 1,066 wounded, with more than 600 hospitalized, the Health Ministry said. The figure didn't include the 30 Uzbeks killed near Jalal-Abad,
Witnesses said bodies were lying in the streets of Osh on Saturday and more were scattered inside its many burned buildings. As Uzbek refugees, mostly women and children, fled the city toward the border witness said many were shot at and killed.
Maksat Zheinbekov, the acting mayor of Jalal-Abad, said in a telephone interview that Bakiyev's supporters triggered the riots by attacking both Uzbek and Kyrgyz people. The rampaging mob quickly grew several hundred to thousands, he said.
The fertile Ferghana Valley where Osh is located once belonged to a single feudal lord, but it was split by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin among Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. The Stalinist borders rekindled old rivalries and fomented ethnic tensions.
Both ethnic groups are predominantly Sunni Muslim. Uzbeks are generally better off economically, but they have few representatives in positions of power and have pushed for broader political and cultural rights.
Kyrgyz residents interviewed by Associated Press Television News in Osh blamed the Uzbeks for starting the rioting late Thursday with attacks on students and Kyrgyz women. The crowds of ethnic Kyrgyz from neighboring villages then streamed into the city to strike back, they said.
"Why have them Uzbeks become so brazen?" said one Osh resident, who gave only her first name, Aigulia, because she feared for her safety. "Why do they burn my house?"
Aigulia said her house was destroyed by Uzbeks overnight and all her Kyrgyz neighbors had to run for their safety. She said the area was still unsafe, claiming Uzbek snipers were shooting at them.
A Kyrgyz man, Iskander, said he and others burned Uzbek property to avenge their attacks.
"Whatever you see over there — all the burnt restaurants and cafeterias were owned by them and we destroyed them on purpose," he told APTN. "Why didn't they want to live in peace?"
Leila Saralayeva reported from Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Associated Press Writer Yuras Karmanau in Bishkek contributed to this report.
Mullahs to Sit Religious Tests
17-Sep-07
NBCentralAsia analysts have
broadly welcomed plans to test Muslim clerics and teachers in Kyrgyzstan on
their knowledge of the faith, arguing that this will improve the mosques and
help contain extremism.
On September 10, Toygonbek Kalmatov, the director of the government’s State
Agency for Religious Affairs, announced that plans were under way to test
clerics and teachers at Islamic religious schools or madrassahs. Those who pass
will receive official certification, while anyone who fails will be banned from
teaching and preaching.
Kalmatov said that around 70 per cent of Kyrgyzstan’s 12,000 practising Muslims
have never studied at formal religious schools.
He also announced that a recent meeting of Kyrgyzstan’s Security Council decided
to reform the legislation concerning faith organisations. At the moment, the
regulatory framework consists of presidential decrees, five law codes and seven
government orders, creating a situation which Kalmatov said “does not meet the
requirements of the present day”.
Around 80 per cent of Kyrgyzstan’s population is Muslim, and the country has
more than 2,000 mosques and about 50 madrassahs.
Most of the commentators interviewed by NBCentralAsia welcomed the tests, saying
it would help stamp out ignorance and give both mosques and madrassahs a better
reputation.
“It’s high time Islamic clerics were given certification. It’s no secret that
most of our mullahs have only completed the first two or three years of [primary
school] education,” said Aldayar Ajy, the deputy head of the Religious Board of
Muslims.
Political scientist Mars Sariev believes there is a great need to educate
clerics better, first because of the learning gap created by 70 years of Soviet
rule in which religious activity was frowned on, and secondly because in recent
years a variety of forms of Islam have emerged, and clerics in Kyrgyzstan now
offer differing interpretations of the Koran.
“The poor standard of education of Islamic clerics allows extremist ideas to
take hold, and young people can drift towards religious organisations that use
Islam for political purposes,” he said.
Religious affairs expert Kasym Amanov agrees, saying that mosque-goers will be
more inclined to trust radical interpretations of Islamic theory or the Koran if
their usual preacher cannot answer their questions properly.
“The inadequate level to which clerics are educated in our country is one of the
reasons why support for Hizb-ut-Tahrir is growing,” he said, referring to an
extremist group banned in Kyrgyzstan.
(NBCentralAsia draws comment and analysis from a broad range of political
observers across the region)