"45 killed, hundreds wounded in ethnic riots in Kyrgyzstan; Violence casts doubt on acting government" by Leila Saralayeva and Peter Leonard, Associated Press | June 12, 2010
BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan — Mobs of armed men torched Uzbek neighborhoods in Kyrgyzstan yesterday in ethnic clashes that officials said left at least 45 people dead and 637 wounded in a Central Asian nation that hosts US and Russian military bases.
The rioting in Osh, the country’s second-largest city, is the heaviest violence since former President Kurmanbek Bakiyev was toppled in a bloody uprising in April and fled the country. The unrest also spread to the capital, where armed mobs clashed with police and volunteer militia, according to witnesses.
Related: CIA Stands By Its Man in Kyrgyzstan
Also see: Photos from the Kyrgyz city of Osh
Kyrgyzstan Govt. Begins Draft, All Men Under 50 Inducted Into National Service
Bakiev brothers are behind unrests in Osh region of Kyrgyzstan
And that would lead you back to....
The intensity of the conflict, which pits ethnic Kyrgyz against minority Uzbeks, seemed to take authorities by surprise and cast doubt on the fragile interim government’s chances for survival.
Certain forces can only hope, huh?
Quelling the violence will prove a decisive test of the government’s ability to control the country, hold a June 27 vote on a new constitution, and go ahead with new parliamentary elections scheduled for October.
It's called DESTABILIZATION!
Dozens of buildings across Osh were ablaze yesterday after witnesses reported sustained gunfire beginning late Thursday. Gangs of young men armed with metal bars and stones attacked shops and set cars alight.
The interim government declared a state of emergency in Osh and some nearby areas and dispatched armored vehicles, troops, and helicopters to pacify the situation. Soldiers were posted at routes into the city and at major intersections, but the fighting did not abate. Authorities imposed a curfew from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. until June 20.
Bakyt Omorkulov, a member of the Coalition for Democracy and Civil Society, a nongovernmental organization, said he was patrolling the streets with other volunteers to try to prevent further clashes. He said the troops’ presence didn’t help stabilize the situation, and more buildings were set ablaze as night fell.
“We don’t feel the authorities’ presence,’’ he told the Associated Press in a telephone interview. “The military are driving around, but it has no effect whatsoever.’’
Ikram Abdumalitov, who lives in Osh, said earlier in the day that he saw about 1,000 young and armed Kyrgyz men marching toward Uzbek neighborhoods in eastern Osh.
“The Uzbeks are in turn chopping down trees and blocking the road to their neighborhood,’’ Abdumalitov said.
Smaller-scale ethnic violence also broke out late yesterday in the capital, Bishkek, where a mob of Kyrgyz men attacked and robbed ethnic Uzbeks at a popular bazaar.
Tensions have long simmered between ethnic Kyrgyz and Uzbek — both Sunni Muslim groups — in Kyrgyzstan’s south. In 1990, hundreds were killed in a violent land dispute between the two communities.
Then SOMEONE is STIRRING S*** UP, aren't they?
Kyrgyzstan also hosts the Manas US military air base in Bishkek, a crucial support center supplying forces fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan.
And we want our man back so it isn't closed and AmeriKa kicked out.
--more--"
And like Thailand, I become suspicious of constant coverage by the Globe.
Also see: Tidying Up in Thailand
It was them there, too, yup.
"Ethnic riots spread in Kyrgyzstan; Death toll rises to at least 77; hundreds hurt" by Sasha Merkushev and Leila Saralayeva, Associated Press | June 13, 2010
Ethnic Uzbeks gathered near the Kyrgyz-Uzbek border in southern Kyrgyzstan yesterday to seek refuge from mobs of Kyrgyz men attacking the minority Uzbek community. (D. Dalton Bennett/Associated Press)
OSH, Kyrgyzstan — Ethnic riots spread in southern Kyrgyzstan yesterday, forcing thousands of Uzbeks to flee as their homes were torched by roving mobs of Kyrgyz men. The interim government begged Russia for troops to stop the violence, but the Kremlin offered only humanitarian assistance.
Related:
[It is not in Russia's interests at this time, to intervene militarily in Kyrgyzstan. Russia's allies, the Uzbeks have been the target of ethnic cleansing, but that apparently is no reason to help-out. Russia's allies, the Uzbek govt., has stopped the flow of US materiel to Afghanistan. The world is getting sick and tired of American and Russian mind games.] -- Russia won’t immediately send troops to Kyrgyzstan
Also see: Russia deploys hundreds of extra soldiers to Kyrgyz military base
At least 77 people were reported killed and more than 1,000 wounded in the violence spreading across the impoverished Central Asian nation that hosts US and Russian air bases.
Much of its second-largest city, Osh, was on fire yesterday and the sky overhead was black with smoke. Roving mobs of young Kyrgyz men armed with firearms and metal bars marched on minority Uzbek neighborhoods and set homes on fire, forcing thousands of Uzbeks to flee. Stores were looted and the city was running out of food.
Kyrgyzstan’s third straight day of rioting also engulfed another major southern city, Jalal-Abad, where a rampaging mob burned a university, besieged a police station, and seized an armored vehicle and other weapons from a local military unit.
“It’s a real war,’’ said local political leader Omurbek Suvanaliyev. “Everything is burning, and bodies are lying on the streets.’’
Those driven from their homes rushed toward the border with Uzbekistan, and children were trampled to death in the panicky stampede.
Crowds of frightened women and children made flimsy bridges out of planks and ladders to cross the ditches marking the border.
Interim President Roza Otunbayeva acknowledged that her government has lost control over Osh, a city of 250,000, even though it sent troops, armor and helicopters to quell the riots. Violence spread to the nearby city of Jalal-Abad later yesterday.
“The situation in the Osh region has spun out of control,’’ Otunbayeva told reporters. “Attempts to establish a dialogue have failed, and fighting and rampages are continuing. We need outside forces to quell confrontation.’’
Otunbayeva asked Russia early yesterday to send in troops, but the Kremlin said it would not meddle into what it described as Kyrgyzstan’s internal conflict.
“It’s a domestic conflict, and Russia now doesn’t see conditions for taking part in its settlement,’’ Kremlin spokeswoman Natalya Timakova said in Moscow.
She added that Russia will discuss with other members of a security pact of ex-Soviet nations about the possibility of sending a joint peacekeeping force to Kyrgyzstan.
Better get moving on it then.
Timakova said Russia would send a plane to Kyrgyzstan to deliver humanitarian supplies and help evacuate victims of the violence.
Russia has about 500 troops at a base in Kyrgyzstan, mostly air force personnel. The United States has the Manas air base in the capital, Bishkek, a crucial supply hub for the coalition fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Kyrgyzstan’s interim government spokesman, Farid Niyazov, refused to say whether the country would turn to the United States for military help after Russia had refused. “Russia is our main strategic partner,’’ he said.
In Washington, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said he was unaware of any requests for help by Kyrgyzstan.
The riots are the worst violence since former President Kurmanbek Bakiyev was toppled in a bloody uprising in April and fled the country.
The violence is a crucial test of the interim government’s ability to control the country, hold a June 27 vote on a new constitution and go ahead with new parliamentary elections scheduled for October.
Otunbayeva yesterday blamed Bakiyev’s family for instigating the unrest in Osh, saying they aimed to derail the constitutional referendum.
Oh, I CERTAINLY THINK SO!
Maksat Zheinbekov, the acting mayor of Jalal-Abad, said in a telephone interview that Bakiyev’s supporters in his home region started the riots by attacking both Uzbek and Kyrgyz.
That is how you try to SET PEOPLE AGAINST EACH OTHER!
Ethnic tensions have long simmered in the Ferghana Valley, split by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin’s whimsically carved borders among Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan.
WTF?
They are both Sunni Muslim and that was decades ago!
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. Both ethnic groups are predominantly Sunni Muslim.
Oh, like in Georgia.
I'm wondering where the real tension is there, especially with the agenda-pushing, war-promoting CIA MSM pushing the "ethnic" conflict.
The CIA man's men attacking both?
Moscow has competed with Washington for influence in strategically placed Central Asia and pushed for the withdrawal of the US base in Kyrgyzstan.
It is what they call the Great Game, ugh!
But the Kremlin’s refusal to send troops indicated that it’s much more reluctant to get involved in the turbulent region’s affairs than its assertive policy statements had suggested....
Certainly the U.S. hasn't reluctantly suggested it's policies.
Yeah, they even wrote them down.
--more--"
And just what the world needs: more refugee camps.
"Uzbekistan sets up camps for Kyrgyz refugees; Rights groups urge UN to act vs. ethnic riots" by Philip P. Pan, Washington Post | June 14, 2010
MOSCOW — Uzbekistan began setting up camps yesterday for tens of thousands of refugees fleeing ethnic rioting in southern Kyrgyzstan, as armed Kyrgyz gangs continued to rampage through Uzbek villages and human rights groups called on the United Nations to intervene.
The fragile interim government of Kyrgyzstan announced the death toll in the nation’s worst ethnic clashes in two decades had climbed to 97, with more than 1,200 others wounded. But officials said the actual casualties are far higher because many people are too frightened to go to hospitals.
Uzbekistan said more than 75,000 refugees — most of them elderly people, women, and children, some suffering gunshot wounds — had already crossed the border into the country, according to a statement carried by Russia’s official RIA Novosti news agency.
Witnesses described seeing uncollected bodies in the streets of Osh, the country’s second-largest city, where the violence began Thursday night. Fires set by rioters raged across the city of 250,000, and food was scarce after widespread looting. Police or troops were nowhere to be seen.
A local official told the Associated Press that 30 Uzbeks were killed yesterday in the village of Suzak outside the southern city of Jalal-Abad, about 45 miles from Osh. Another Uzbek village, Dostuk, was burned by Kyrgyz assailants, but it was not known how many people were killed. Ethnic Uzbeks ambushed about 100 Kyrgyz men yesterday on a road near Jalal-Abad and took them hostage, according to the report. In the nearby village of Bazar-Kurgan, 400 Uzbeks overturned cars and killed a police captain.
Human Rights Watch urged the United Nations Security Council to take swift measures to help the Kyrgyz government and called for the deployment of a UN-mandated force to the region. Russia turned down an appeal from Kyrgyz President Roza Otunbayeva to send peacekeeping troops Saturday, describing the situation as a domestic matter. But the Kremlin is scheduled to consult with regional allies today about a joint response.
Related:
[The US must be getting frantic, clawing at the last resort option, to call for international intervention. This should only come from what is left of the real government. Notice that Rosa asked for Russian troops?] -- "U.S. Urges ‘International Response’ to Kyrgyzstan Unrest
"[The secret hand behind the riots belongs to the voice calling for international intervention. The fascist tactics being followed to bring-about "civil war" belong to our government, heirs to the Third Reich.] -- “False Flag” Attack Tactics Being Deployed in S. Kyrgyz.
And we know who they are using, even if the paper is obfuscating the fact.
Otunbayeva has acknowledged losing control of Osh, and the government’s security forces appeared to be on the defensive again yesterday as young men continued setting fires and storming police stations for weapons after a third straight night of looting and gun battles.
The US Embassy in Bishkek issued a statement expressing deep concern about the violence and said it was in discussions about providing humanitarian assistance. Kyrgyz officials have said the government has not approached Washington about sending a peacekeeping force to the region.
Kyrgyzstan hosts an important American air base as well as a small Russian one, but both facilities are located in the country’s north, far from the violence. The US Manas air base in the capital, Bishkek, is a crucial supply hub for the coalition fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan. Manas is working with the US State Department and interim government to help deliver food and medical supplies to the refugees, said Air Force Major John A. Elolf, a spokesman at the base.
Local authorities have said the violence was touched off by a brawl in a restaurant over a dinner bill.
They don't expect us to believe that pile of horse shit, do they?
But Otunbayeva accused supporters of the recently ousted former president, Kurmanbek Bakiyev, of fanning unrest to undermine her government before a referendum this month on a new constitution.
You know, the CIA's man.
The region is a Bakiyev stronghold and a cauldron of ethnic and religious tensions, part of a densely populated, fertile valley divided among Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan along Soviet-era borders. As many as 1 million Uzbeks live in Kyrgyzstan, many of them recent migrants.
And if you hadn't read the previous day's articles you would actually believe that MSM lie.
Tensions in the south have been running high since Bakiyev was ousted in a bloody uprising April 7, with Uzbeks seeking a greater role in the new political order and many Kyrgyz there continuing to back the deposed president. Local media broadcast images of Uzbek families streaming from burning villages and massing near the border.
“Fighting and rampages are continuing,’’ Otunbayeva told reporters, warning of a humanitarian crisis as food supplies in the region dwindled. Kremlin spokeswoman Natalya Timakova said Russia is sending humanitarian aid and helping to evacuate the wounded. She added that a decision to send peacekeepers would be made by the Collective Security Treaty Organization, a regional alliance that scheduled an emergency meeting for today.
--more--"And you can always gauge the protests and whether they are supported and approved by the agenda-pushing MSM press.
CALL FOR HELP — Demonstrators gathered in front of the White House yesterday to raise awareness of the events taking place in Osh, Kyrgyzstan. Ethnic violence is spreading across southern Kyrgyzstan. Thousands of Uzbeks have fled their homes in Osh, and much of the city has been burned. (Haraz N. Ghanbari/ Associated Press)."
No printed article so it must be CIA behind it.
Also see: Shame Over Western Blindness To Kyrgyz Reality
Related: Russian soldiers accused of theft after crash
Also see: No Polish Joke
I wasn't laughing.
