EurasiaNet
October 10

> Frustration is simmering among the large Uzbek community in southern Kyrgyzstan. Amid the country’s ongoing political turmoil, Uzbek agitation for broader civil rights has largely met with government indifference, if not hostility. Some local non-governmental activists express concern that Bishkek’s lack of response to Uzbek complaints is adding an element of inter-ethnic volatility to an already combustible political environment.

Uzbeks comprise an estimated 13 percent of Kyrgyzstan’s 4.8 million population, most of them concentrated in the southern regions of Osh and Jalalabad. Those areas are also where anti-government sentiment among Kyrgyz is the strongest. Since June, ethnic Uzbek leaders in Kyrgyzstan’s Jalalabad region have pressed for recognition by President Askar Akayev’s administration of an 11-point program that calls for government guarantees of basic rights.

Five of the 11 points deal specifically with cultural issues, including a call for the recognition of Uzbek as a state language. The program, which was adopted June 20 during a meeting sponsored by the Uzbek Cultural Center in Jalalabad, also expresses a need for greater Uzbek representation in government bodies. In addition, the document seeks an expansion of Uzbek-language television programming, better resources for Uzbek-language schools and the establishment of an Uzbek-language theater. The other points in the program concern broader political issues, such as the composition of the regional election commission.

Azam Akbarov, a board member of the Uzbek Cultural Center, said many of the civil rights concerns outlined in the program are long-standing. He adds that officials have largely ignored the Uzbek community’s various pleas touching on civil rights. "We didn’t just start this year to call attention to the fact that if the Kyrgyz government doesn’t provide Uzbek schools with textbooks, the Uzbeks in Kyrgyzstan cannot receive [an adequate] education," Akbarov said. "Uzbekistan has adopted Latin script … and has stopped printing textbooks in Cyrillic," so Kyrgyzstan must print its own Uzbek-language textbooks in Cyrillic for its Uzbek students, according to Akbarov.

Akbarov also complained that Bishkek had manipulated electoral districts in order to dilute Uzbek representation on the local, regional and national levels. He cited the Jalalabad electoral district map as an example: remote villages with large Kyrgyz populations have been attached to the Jalalabad city district, which has a heavy concentration of Uzbeks. At the same time, predominantly Uzbek villages that are actually located within Jalalabad’s jurisdiction are attached to neighboring electoral districts with large numbers of Kyrgyz.

Many Uzbeks are additionally dissatisfied with the lack of Uzbek-language television programming in southern Kyrgyzstan. While state-controlled media from neighboring Uzbekistan is easily accessible in southern Kyrgyzstan, such programming, Uzbeks in Jalalabad and elsewhere point out, examines issues purely from Tashkent’s perspective. They add that Tashkent-controlled media outlets do not cover many significant events in Kyrgyzstan, including the Ak-Sui rioting and its aftermath.

Officials in Bishkek tend to downplay Uzbek civil rights complaints, while local government appointees are somewhat more sympathetic. For example, Jalalabad Oblast Governor Jusupbek Sharipov, who was appointed following the Ak-Sui events, has stated publicly that the government should pay closer attention to Uzbek rights concerns. "Undoubtedly, there are problems. They have to be solved," Sharipov said.

In sharp contrast to Sharipov’s conciliatory stance, some Kyrgyz mass media outlets have vilified Uzbeks, alleging that they harbor a separatist agenda. Under the separatist scenario, if Uzbeks succeed in winning broader language rights, they will then begin agitating for political autonomy and perhaps even seek to secede from Kyrgyzstan and unite with Uzbekistan.

Many Kyrgyz, from all political camps, view the Uzbek civil rights agitation warily and worry that expanding the Uzbeks’ rights would undermine Kyrgyz statehood. Some believe that the Uzbek community is trying to take advantage of the current political turmoil to press its own cultural and political agendas. One recent article published in the opposition newspaper Tribuna attempted to equate Uzbeks in Kyrgyzstan with the radical Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. Member of Parliament Baiaman Erkinbaev, during a legislative debate in August, reportedly said, "Let Uzbeks in our republic leave our country if they do not like our policy towards them."

Ethnic Uzbek MP Davran Sabirov, who also heads the Society of Uzbeks in Kyrgyzstan, described Erkinbaev’s comments as "reckless." Uzbeks in Kyrgyzstan "did not come here from elsewhere, they were born here and grew up here," Sabirov wrote in a commentary published by the Osh Sadosi newspaper August 3. "If Uzbeks … should abandon their native land, as Deputy Baiaman Erkinbaev demands, will this not place a bright stain on the state, the head of state and the government?"

In general, many Uzbeks have felt alienated by the nationalist undercurrents in the Kyrgyz political opposition, and have generally avoided participating in anti-Akayev protests in southern Kyrgyzstan, local political observers say. Akbarov stressed that Uzbeks are loyal citizens who remain willing to engage the government in a dialogue. "We will solve our problems exclusively within the limits of the law," he said.

Local observers worry that the government’s reluctance to engage Uzbeks could, given the current political instability in Kyrgyzstan, lead to a repeat of inter-ethnic rioting. The Osh region was the scene of fierce Kyrgyz-Uzbek clashes in 1990 in which dozens reportedly died. According to Valery Uleev, a leader of the Jalalabad-based human rights organization Spravedlivost, mass media is shaping public opinion to view Uzbeks as a potential "Fifth Column." Under one scenario discussed by some political analysts, a dramatic increase in the government-opposition confrontation could prompt officials to stoke inter-ethnic tension in an attempt to deflect the pressure on Akayev’s administration. As it stands today, Uleev asserted, "All talk about civil peace and inter-ethnic harmony in Kyrgyzstan is hypocritical."

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