The Burning of Osh

63.6% percent of Kazakhstan is made up of a Turkic, Islamic people – the Kazakhs – who write in either an Arabic or Cyrillic script; they even have a certain look: “Fair to light-brown skin tends to be the norm. Among physical traits are aquiline noses, epicanthic fold and high cheekbones. Hair colour among Kazakhs varies from prevalent jet black to red and sandy brown. Hazel, green and blue eyes are not uncommon. These nomads roamed in the Altai Mountains (and thus are known as Altaic peoples) in northern Mongolia and on the steppes of Central Asia.” Wikipedia. While the Kazakh language is making resurgence, Russian is still the primary language, particularly in the northern regions. The next largest ethnic group in this sparsely-populated vast country of just over 16 million is Russian (over 23%), and one of the smallest minorities are another Turkic peoples – who write in a Latin script, are more religious, speak a different tongue, dress differently and are more closely related to the Chinese Uyghurs – are the Uzbeks with less than 15% of the population. Uzbekistan borders on the south, and the second largest city in Kazakhstan is Osh (also a southern town), which has a significant Uzbek presence.

There is no love lost between the ethnic Kazakhs and their Uzbek minorities. In 1990, ethnic riots broke out between these factions and then stabilized into an uneasy truce. The government has been playing a dangerous game, trying to cozy up to the West while not completely alienating its former Russian master. They game hasn’t worked. Kazakhstan is the only country in the world that has military bases from both Russia and the United States, but the country’s political future is anything but clear.

Kazakhstan is ostensibly a democracy, but political instability and authoritarian rule have marked most of this nation’s short post-Soviet Union history. When Kazakhstan President Kurminek Bakiyev recently renewed the lease on an American base – a critical support system for the Afghan war – against the wishes of those in Moscow, Russians seemed to lend increasing support to local protests that led to a coup that toppled Bakiyev in April of this year. A fragile interim government, led by the former foreign minister Roza Otunbayeva, has tried to walk the narrow line between those favoring Russia versus those seeking closer ties with the West and has tried to steer this struggling nation into a new governmental structure.

In the second week of June, the country seemed to split apart at the seams as ethnic rioting in Osh – where Kazakh gangs rooted out Uzbeks and engaged in killings and burning of their homes and commercial buildings until vast sections (Uzbek neighborhoods) of the city were set ablaze – shattered any semblance of a functioning government. The death toll was anything but certain, low end three figures were reported; even the stampede that crushed children as Uzbekistan opened their northern border to allow ethnic Uzbeks to find sanctuary against the Kazakh storm added to growing list of fatalities. Tens of thousands have purportedly crossed the border to safety.

The Russians watched as seemingly pro-Russian gangs pushed back against this ethnic minority. On June 12^th, Otunbayeva begged the Russians to send forces to stop the violence: “The situation in the Osh region has spun out of control… Attempts to establish a dialogue have failed, and fighting and rampages are continuing. We need outside forces to quell confrontation,” she said. Ash from the burning city rained down on the entire region. The Russians held back: “A spokeswoman for President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia said that no decision on providing military aid would be made until at least [June 14^th], when Russia will consult with other members of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, a regional security alliance of former Soviet republics…. ‘A decision about deploying peacekeeping forces to Kyrgyzstan can only be made collectively with all members of the [Cooperation and Security Treaty Organization – a regional coalition of former Soviet nations] the spokeswoman, Natalya Timakova, said Saturday evening. She also said that Russia was continuing to ship humanitarian assistance, including medicine, to Kyrgyzstan.” New York Times (June 13^th). The rioting and burning continued unabated.

Clearly, the deployment of Russian forces in a country with a significant American military base isn’t exactly a scenario that favors U.S. policy. A strong Russian presence not only makes operating in this theater difficult but also suggests that the new government may reconsider the American lease retroactively. This would give the United States a very difficult choice: leave or insist that the earlier lease was and remains legally binding and stay despite local opposition. But U.S. forces cannot force a peace, the local government has already requested Russian help, and while neighboring Uzbekistan is deeply concerned and embroiled in the diplomacy of it all, it cannot intervene either if this effort might bring Uzbek and Russian forces into a thoroughly unpleasant zone of confrontation. But genocide has once again reared its ugly head, and however this must be accomplished, the lives of innocents must be spared and the violence stopped.

I’m Peter Dekom, and as we read of this distant violence, how many of us actually see how any of this is truly connected to our own choices and political realities?