No comments yet, Claig?

Allow me to be the first. I’ll post the same one I posted on your previous report on Kyrgyzstan. It goes like this.

Noon, 14 June 2010

The BBC reports at least 117 people have been killed in three days of fighting between Kyrgyz and ethnic Uzbeks. Tens of thousands of Uzbeks have fled to Uzbekistan. Some have accused security forces of failing to stop – or joining in – the attacks.

No units of Hamas are reported to be in the area.

The government of Kyrgyzstan was not condemned at the United Nations for its disproportionate use of force, and no emergency meeting of the Security Council has been convened.

In Turkey, Prime Minister Erdogan did not warn Kyrgyztan that it risked losing Turkey’s friendship for its illegal acts of force against innocent civilians. In several cities of the Middle East, not so much as a single f***ing mouse was seen on the streets burning the Kyrgyz flag and calling for the destruction of Kyrgystan.

Meanwhile, the Turkish organisation IHH did not comment on whether a humanitarian aid convoy would be sent to give any assistance to the beleaguered Uzbeks.

However, our correspondent was able to speak to celebrity journalist Borat Sagdiev at his home in neighbouring Kazakhstan. Denying that he had any connection with Jewish comedian Sascha Baron Cohen, he said, “In my country we do not give two-kopeck toss about Uzbeks and Kyrgyz. We only pick on yids and kikes because they are children of apes and pigs.”

Oh for God’s sake Michael Petek will you stop hijacking every thread in this blog with your provocative nonsense!Or at least go post this rubbish on the Israel topics.

MS, iz you disrespectin’ me humour becoz it iz black?

When people did condemn it Micheal Petek and the other Zionist Nazi bastards didn’t shout Antisemitism!!!!

Or should that be, AntiKyrgyzism?

There were other threads where this was mentioned, But because you and the other Nazis didn’t invade, it was about the country at hand and not the Nazi state of Israel.

Re. Craig’s post:

I actually look forward to your opinion on these Central Asian issues,since as you said no on else seems to be talking about it with any real inside knowledge – so thanks for that.

You don’t mention Khazakhstan,I wonder what role it has in the region,in connection with the other countries.

There was an article on some tabloid the other day about some billionaire Khazak socialite called Goga something,have you heard about her?Would she be the Khazak equivalent of a Russian oligarch or would she be a power player in the region?Or not!

It is amazing how this part of the world, and central and eastern Russia too, is seen almost as a blank space on the map from a western media perspective. They might as well report ‘here be dragons’ and have done with it.

For example, until a year or so ago I had never heard of the Sakha (Yakutia) Republic. Yet its land area is only a little bit less than India. (Admittedly its population is less than Wales.)

I originally bought ‘Murder in Samarkand’ for that reason: it was about a part of the world you seldom hear about.

I also found this on the web some time ago – about endangered peoples, cultures and languages that came under the control of the former USSR:

‘The Red Book of the Peoples of the Russian Empire’

http://www.eki.ee/books/redbook/index1.shtml

Craig,

I suspect the problem is the global noise and the incredibly complicated relationships between the Central Eastern countries. Most of the public only has an attention span able to deal with a couple of newsworthy items per week. So when they hear of soldiers being killed in Afghanistan then the Israelis up to something then the latest twists and turns of the global downturn, elections, condemnation of nulabour etc. by the time something comes on the TV about Central Asia or they stumble across a few column inches in a broadsheet, they are swamped with information already.

Craig, maybe you can answer me this.

How close ethnically and linguistically are the Kyrgyz and the Uzbeks?

China

http://atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/KL24Ag04.html

Cheers Craig

Kyrgyzstan: Hundreds Dead

“The sad fact is that any posting about Central Asia sees my visitor figures plummet…”

Crikey, Craig. There was me thinking that THE sad fact was the number of people who have died….?

I second MS, I welcome your knowledge of these things; especially since it is stuff that, as you say, not many people want to go into. Partly because … well, it seems odd. Afghanistan is so vital to the UK that we send our armed forces there to kill & be killed, and yet just over the border is back-of-beyond, no possible connection to us, who cares ? And partly just because it’s a pleasure to read people talking sensibly about what they actually know. It’s interesting, and aids understanding.

I know the way that anyone who runs a website naturally feels concerned to have people want to read it, but, as you say, you can please yourself. You don’t actually need to compete with the commercial interests, only cover what they consider commercially worthwhile. To be talking about things that few others are, can be an advantage as well ? Certainly it’s one of the things I come here for.

(Arsalan, *please* don’t let yourself be so easily tempted ? Anyone who feels like derailing the conversation only has to get up your nose and you do their work for them).

Craig, thanks for these articles. By and large I read them with interest and not a little despondency but as I am in no position to add anything useful I say nothing. But please don’t stop: you’re one of the few sources where more we can see than the shallowest of news.

Agreed, Richard.

Thanks for the post Craig. Regarding the relative number of comments depending on the topic, I have noticed this before. Issues to do with Israel/Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan are hot-button topics perhaps, in part at least, because progressives in the West feel responsible for them, insofar as they have some theoretical connection to their violent governments; the resultant critical commentary then sets up a vacuum that their ideological counterparts try to counteract.

But on issues such as this one, “we” the West have less connection to, and (as far as is generally known) our governments are not directly responsible for the violence. We are less connected to the situation, and sadly, we have had our fill of bad news already. That’s not to excuse ignorance – just a reflection of the human condition, I think.

But thanks for posting it. It is good to learn.

Thanks Craig – most people don’t know where anywhere is until it has been inavaded by USA or 100′s die in anatural or other disaster – they then forget what they”learned” within 4 weeks.

Sad but true

Also, perhaps – number of comments in a thread isn’t necessarily a measure of how worthwhile they are. The ‘hot-button’ topics attract a lot of distraction & gibberish.

Back in the late 1990s, a friend of mine spent 6 weeks in Andijian on an IESC assignment. The people were incredibly kind to him, and his stories are the most fascinating of any of his international assignments. The company he was consulting for has disappeared, and there is no longer any way for him to find out what happened to his friends.

The physical isolation of the Fergana Valley seems to have bred a very independent people. The people he met were mostly Muslim–but they drank alcohol! They practiced the sort of courtesy to visitors that is rarely seen anymore: complete strangers would insist that my friend share their meal at restaurants, even though these were people with very little for themselves.

My friend described a remarkable culture, so, personally, I’m fascinated by what you have to write on the subject, Craig.

Democracy Now! has a piece on Kyrgyzstan.

An interview with Scott Horton, “contributing editor at Harper’s Magazine. He is also a founding Trustee of the American University in Central Asia in Bishkek and just returned from a trip to Kyrgyzstan”.

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/6/14/at_least_117_people_killed_in

craig, you are right on the money. it is so true what you said and it is very unfortunate that we as humanity not what we try to show. I am completely disgusted with the fact that IA Karimov has not shown a tidbit of compassion to his own kind. it is completely unacceptable.

Thanks for explaining the relationship of Bakiyev to all this. It was evident that as the disturbances emerged in his area, he must have something to do with it. Presumably the Uzbeks are supporting Otunbayeva precisely because she is not Bakiyev.

Just because we don’t comment on a topic doesn’t mean we’re less interested – just less informed (speaking for myself at least) and that’s what you’re trying to correct, n’est-ce pas?. Continue – silence means we’re listening.

http://www.registan.net/ has some coverage … there appear to be reports of lots of people crossing the ‘officially-closed’ border into Uzbekistan, and then seemingly that U’stan has opened the border. Dated yesterday (13th), but hard to be sure because it’s in Russian, which I don’t understand.

Craig. The reason why I never comment on your posts about Central Asia is because I know so little about it. In this way you kind of have the final word.

Whenever something happens in that region, I always turn to your blog for some insightful comment. So please don’t worry about the lack of comments, and please carry on posting about this fascinating region.

The situation is becoming very ugly, with talk of axes and bodies in the streets. Russia needs to step in.

Another thanks for your posting on these issues.

If it weren’t for your blogging I wouldn’t be aware of these issues at all, which is a sorry state of affairs as you say, but at least there are voices.

‘Topic:Kyrgyzstan after ousting President Kurmanbek Bakiyev’

http://en.rian.ru/infographics/20100409/158499590.html

‘Participants in the talks, which will involve Kyrgyz representatives, will discuss the “possibility of using procedures and mechanisms envisaged by the CSTO charter” to resolve the conflict, she said.’

http://en.rian.ru/exsoviet/20100613/159412629.html

Its all about oil and gas pipelines.

I also read your pieces on Central Asian topics with interest but very little up-to-date knowledge. I grew up with various Soviet people, including Central Asian ones, mostly soldiers (riding along for practice runs in Soviet Army tanks, that sort of thing), and read the classics detailing the brutal conquest of non-Russian peoples under the tzars, but their continuing oppression within the USSR was not part of my education. On the contrary, the Soviet Union was presented as the perfect example of many different peoples striving towards a common goal of happiness and wealth (or some such).

I come here to get not just the bare facts that I was never taught, but also connections and backgrounds, motivations and reasons for what goes on. Main stream media traditionally ignores conflicts outwith our area and culture and continues to do so today unless some European/ American connection is found, and until I know more there is nothing much I can say yet, I mean who are the bad guys? Why are they killing? Is it a repeat of Yugoslavia’s self-destruct? Do they hate each other? All the time? Why is Russia not interested? As you see, I have more questions than answers let alone opinions on this topic. So write on, please, Craig, and trust that your words reach more people than you know about.

Another one who enjoys reading these posts but doesn’t comment because I don’t have anything to say. Although being a slight C. Asia nerd (albeit to count as a Central Asia nerd pretty much all you need to be able to do is identify all the countries on maps!). But really enjoy the posts! Got some questions on this one though:

- Don’t the Americans have a bunch of bases in Kyrgyzstan? How does that affect things there and are they getting involved at all?

- Why do the southern Kyrgyz like Bakiyev so much? Has he been channeling patronage to the region?

On the clans though, I wonder if people really don’t know which clan people put them in. They might not put it in so many words, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there – it may just take regional form or be known but not talked of until it becomes a split – similar to how in many of Africa’s ‘ethnic’ wars, people say they didn’t know they were of a different ethnicity until someone showed up at their door with a machete. I think it’ll take a while and some research before we really know the answer on this one.

Another point worth making is that although Central Asia is generally a blur on the map, the same is true of a lot of Africa – but because a few countries get covered, and people assume it’s all the same, people don’t notice – but the number of people who could tell you anything about Chad, Niger or Burundi is probably fairly similar to the number who could tell you about Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan or Tajikistan. We need to look at Tajikstan more though – that’s where the drugs come through.

Also: with June on the pipelines!

‘Why is Russia not interested?’

They are very interested. A big part is keeping the EU under their control, (all to do with another pipeline you could say).

I second what Rob said above.

I read every post and appreciate your information & point of view on almost any topic, but on ones like this I don’t have much to say back.

I also tend to read your posts in an RSS reader without actually visiting the site unless I want to read or write comments. So if I don’t say anything or don’t feel like seeing what other people said then you won’t see a page hit from me even though I read the whole article. I bet others using RSS readers are the same.

Of course, there’s also the effect of which articles people share.

Anyway, ignore the page hits and just write about what you know and what you want to say. I’m sure enough of us read everything even if it doesn’t look like it.

I appreciate finding out about things I didn’t know about and it’s good to build up knowledge of all the places that fit our supposed reasons for invading Iraq/Afghanistan and yet get ignored because the humanitarian/terrorism reasons are just covers and excuses for wars about regional control and resources.

The Zionists are trying to destabilize the entire area. I can very, very easily post a picture to “prove” it.

Neil Barker you are right.

Islom Karimov is a rabid Zionist and he does destabilise the entire area.

The Zionist Islom Karimov boiling people to death regulerly causes Uzbecks to go to naughbering countries. This causes ethnic strife.

The solution is to remove the Zionist Islom Karimov who boils people alive, while we are at it we may as well remove the other nasty dictators who use more humane ways of killing people than boiling people alive. Then reunite central Asia, as it should be, because those countries were created by the russians to dvide and rule.

Thanks for this post – I’d be interested in hearing more. When these reports began to appear on the news, they were extremely vague about what was going on and even more so about why. At the time, I hoped your blog would be discussing it.

I still don’t understand why this has turned so violent, so quickly. Why is there such tension between the groups – old feuds? Is poverty being blamed on the Uzbeks as a convenient scapegoat?

I concur with your transliteration of the short ‘i’ in ??????????, but why the ‘gh’ instead of just ‘g’? Is ? pronounced akin to the Arabic ghayn there?

These events are being reported on Radio 5Live right now – will be on Listen Again shortly. Shall I post a link?

‘President of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov to India’

http://en.fondsk.ru/article.php?id=3068

Just found this very interesting link posted by someone on CiF:

http://orientalreview.org/2010/04/18/kyrgyzstan-destined-to-become-another-narco-state/

Thanks, Craig, for the overview. That was very helpful. It looks as though it’s the usual story with rich, powerful corrupt oligarchs sowing discord and provocateur incidents in order to construct a convenient scapegoat.

As with Yugoslavia (1940s and 1990s) and South Asia (1947, 1971 and since, in waves in various places) and many other such fratricidal blood-letting orgies, these leaders and their henchmen set it up and light the touch-paper but in the end, one has to face the truth that most of the time it’s ordinary people who pull the axe off the wall and kill. Neighbours killing neighbours for greed, in madness, in lust, for land, for power. The worst aspects of the human condition, manifest.

Meanwhile, like the gods of Olympus, the bastard oligarchs are laughing and whoring in Moscow-London-Minsk-wherever and are sipping cognac as they nudge their chess-pieces from one square to the next.

“Bravo!” they shout, “Bravo!”

‘Moscow-London-Minsk-wherever’

Hotel Dolce, Sitges, Spain.

Craig, son of a crooked Bakiev is arrested at Farnborough Airport.

Keep posting those articles. Some articles which fall outwith people’s ability to comment will receive a lesser discussion. I see what is happening is important, and we should follow events, and the near term outcome. Matters like this in that region are very serious indeed.

Thanks for this Craig. Over the weekend I had naively blogged my surprise at Russia’s failure to jump at the chance to send “fraternal assistance” in the form of peacekeeping troops. You’ve explained that nicely.

Spelling: My guess is that, being heavily Russified, ???? ????????? is happy to have her name rendered in Latin script as Roza Otunbayeva. She was personally tweeting during the April revolution, so we could check how she signed her tweets.

Der Spiegel Online reports that Kyrgyzstan’s army has arrested several snipers and agents provocateur who had targeted and murdered both Kirghiz and Uzbeks, thereby successfully increasing the existing tensions between the two peoples to breaking point and beyond.

http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/0,1518,700560,00.html

(link is in German, not yet available in English)

Good find, Jon.

The Sun seems to scoop with arrest of Maksim Bakiyev today at Farnborough.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3013615/Interpol-fugitive-held-in-UK.html

Exactly, Mae. That’s what they do, that’s how it works in most of these engineered inter-communal conflicts.

Not immediately relevant, but echoing a thought that appears in almost every thread here (especially from writerman): why aren’t we doing anything, or is there nothing we can do?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/jun/14/tea-party-has-lot-teach-left

Vronsky: Monbiot’s article is interesting, but not entirely accurate. The tea-baggers did not start with that shill Santelli – that was just the first public call of an operation that had been planned for some time. Look at Dick Armey with his “Freedomworks” organisation, which is entirely about making corporate aims appear to be grass-roots movements. “Astro-turfing” is the phrase which describes this phenomenon.

The idea that teabaggers are on the whole better educated and more wealthy than the average citizen is a highly dubious claim. Polls apparently provide this “fact”. Far more likely is that teabaggers lie when asked such questions.

Monbiot fails to mention the sheer racism at the heart of the teabaggers’ apparent popularity. You do not find many outside the podgy, white and generally retired in the crowds. They are outraged that a black man is in the Whitehouse. The teabaggers are basically semi house-trained Klan members.

Anyway, the “success” of the teabaggers is that they get enormous coverage, with Faux News leading the effort. The media will lie shamelessly about the popularity of their rallies, with multi-millionaire news anchors showing pictures of entirely different rallies in order to claim a great turnout.

A fleet of $500K buses pick up teabaggers to whip them off to a rally. Most are unemployed or retired, and have nothing better to do. None question who is paying for it all. All are too stupid to realise who’s interests they serve, and spout idiocies such as “Keep your government hands off my [government provided] Medicare!”

Since it is in the corporate interest to do so, MSM, republicans and lobbyists will pretend this is a groundswell of opinion that must be listened to. A successful movement? No – it’s simply a bunch of useful idiots for corporations and the very wealthy.

*

Now – imagine that another group had the same set of tactics, but this time they didn’t happen to be demanding the interests of corporate America be met in full. This article gives a good contrast to the “success” of the teabaggers, should it be tried:

http://ephphatha-poetry.blogspot.com/2010/04/imagine-if-tea-party-was-black-tim-wise.html

Thanks for the background information Craig.

Suddenly it becomes clearer why it makes, to use a big word well beyond my own comprehension, strategic sense to the US and UK to entrench themselves in Afghanistan. These US bases in Kyrghistan wouldn’t be useful for stirring up ethnic tensions, as in Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, would they?

Bitch-erection Tony Blair is posing tonight as herald of an Israeli lifting of the Gaza blockade. The MSM have smelt the hormones, but when the terms and conditions in the small print start to emerge, we will see that TB’s position is just: ‘Gaza, are you ready to give up Hamas and give in, yet, or do we have to launch another round of phosphor bombs?’

He’ll put his wages for wafting his swollen doggy hormones to a good cause, promoting the work of God, which I seem to remember from last time was launching overwhelming lethal force against Islam and Muslims. New Labour needed only to assist in his prosecution for war crimes to have won the last general election. Now they are forever tainted by his blood.

Thanks once again for the expert briefing on an much-neglected region of the world, Craig. I agree that most people switch off when they hear about events in Central Asia: they just can’t relate to it.

As it happens, I found it near impossible to get politically-minded activists to read Murder in Samarkand, even though they would have been appalled and fascinated by the contents – I think the main problem was the obscurity of the title. Murders happen everywhere and nobody I’d met had ever heard of Samarkand (few had even heard of Uzbekistan!). They failed to pick up on the relevance to their cause; the implicit response was “Why should I care?”. And yet in that book you exposed New Labour’s complicity in torture and offered hard evidence of their reprehensible smear tactics. Fascinating stuff, astutely presented.

The same problem afflicted the Radio play. The name ‘David Tennant’ was the principal hook – as indeed you were well aware.

I thought that “Dirty Diplomacy” was in some ways a catchier title, but it was a little too generic. I’m sure there could have been a more pertinent label.

I look forward to your next book, because you are a fabulous writer: gripping, honest and always incisive. But next time, I hope the marketing angle will be considered more closely. It would help to march under a banner that people can relate to.

anno – and closer to home, thanks to him and his pals, we have a new blasphemy law that makes sentencing a guy to six months in prison possible for the heinous crime of leaving mild anti-religious cartoons in an airport chapel at John Lennon airport in Liverpool.

(It doesn’t make it any better that the sentence was commuted to a two year suspended one – the cartoons were from Private Eye, for goodness sake…)

Craig, your take is often spot-on, but your use of the concept “democracy” is just a waste of time. There’s no point in identifying this faction as more democratic than that. I’m not saying they’re all the same. Relative to their rivals, some factions certainly aim to establish, or already possess, regimes that are in a different brutality league altogether.

What I am saying is that politics is always about one thing first and foremost. Money.

On the Murray seven-year rule, I immediately thought of Bernie Ecclestone and Tony Blair in 1997.

Interesting what you say about Kirghiz people not being as “clannish” as “western universities” think. (That’s a funny way of spelling SIS’s little place down at SOAS by the way!)

H

Instead of blaming Russia(and Putin-) craig please think what the angloamericans would have done?in similar situation? U.S. relations with Russia have been horrendously bad ever since Putin threw out the oligarchs and decided not to take dictation from either Washington or London. the anglos who have no business to be in central asia would have jumped at the invitqation of kyrgigh president to intervene-but Russia refused to do so though Russia has everyw reason to be involved there because itis next to Russia and is part of soviet heritage. when angloamericans can jump at any chance to put their dirty nose into others business then Russia has more legitimacy to interfere in neighbours affairs-though it does nto do so much as anglos have done -in fact it has not done one thenthh of what =interfereing angloamericans have done.

now what is all this about britian being the first call of refuse by all the world dictator who want to depsoit their money in british controlled sham islandsd -but money stau=ys in london only-for ever.?

http://en.rian.ru/world/20100614/159423283.html

Kyrgyzstan says ex-president’s son detained in Britain

Topic: Political crisis in Kyrgyzstan

I wonder whether when analysing Finland, “western universities” get it the other way round with clannishness? Finnish people tend to be more conscious of belonging to one of the Finnish “tribes” (Ostrobothnians etc.) than is often believed.

H

Mild blasphemy.

Next time, I’ll put a couple of drops of pee in your pint. Cheers!

Craig ofcourse I donto know anything even one teth as well as you do and more so about the central asia-here is my two pence for what it is worth.

we know that central asdia was a centre of a great warrior king timur empire and was even before very much a rich prosperous place before gehnkhej khan destoryed a=many of kingdoms there .but even before the turks became muslims the central asia was a great centre of budhism as far early as 100 Bc and more so during king kaniska.

so it was a strange mixt of warrior like people who becamse great traders and businessmen as well. during budhist period many of the central asian people had direct concnetion with budhist India not only in religion but in familail affinity -many bussiness men of silk route were of Indian extraction.

If we go r=further then we get the expmlanation of what STAN means. In hindu India you find many places called Sthan especially holy places; even the name of India being called HIndustan meaning place of hindus .

Sthan is a sansrik word which means place(abode)similar to varta like aryavarta meaning india as a place of aryan tribes.or even ariana in afgansitan.

or hindustan as place of hindus -as understood by foreiners like muslims

so the word stahn is one of the proof-of many -that sankrit speaking Indian people had be en at that place at one time. especially if you consider that afgansitan was alwys a part of Indian culture an d the rest of central asia was culturally divided amosnt two aryan(sanskrit langauge type speakers) people -viz iran and India.(before HUn ,mongol , turkish and like people came there.

anyway coming from this origin of stan -the whole warrior like action of the people there proves one point in the spread of civilisation-that the tough warriors when in the mountains drive down the low land people and then they become soft and civilzed to be taken over by another tough minded warrior people.and so it goes on. sad.

I agree with those who’ve pointed out that paucity of comments doesn’t necessarily indicate lack of interest.

I visited this site today specifically looking for intelligent coverage of the current fracas in Kyrgyzstan.

I tend to comment on articles when I feel I know enough about a topic to make an useful contribution to the discussion. That usually requires some level of prior knowledge; my main factoid about Kyrgyzstan, until now, being its extensive natural walnut forests.

“extensive natural walnut forests.”

Hey, a new factoid ! Thanks, Syd.

All I know about non-Afghan Central Asia, besides the uprising against Karimov, is the Asia Times’ article during 2004-8 about America’s desperate attempts to funnel all of the gas and oil in these countries into the Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan pipeline by promising everyone everything even though the wars were sucking in all our money.

Now the American people have little awareness of this blatant violation of free-market principles. Until 2008 it never even occurred to most of them that Russia and the US could attempt to blackmail democratic Europe by controlling its fossil fuel imports. It is still alien to them that America’s side of this competition is hardly saintly, that the blackmail power we deny Putin will be used to keep Europe sending troops where we demand or lending money where we waste it.

But it’s irrelevant, because the whole crackpot Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan scheme required that Turkey remain its anchor. Bush bet the region on that while destroying America’s popularity among Turks. Now it’s not looking very smart. Besides, China will eventually have things of real value to trade for all the oil in Russia, Iran and the ‘Stans.

This might be the reason the US went to so much trouble to plant its forces in the region, but now has no plan to make them useful for any purpose but preventing the GOP from running the “Who Lost Afghanistan” chorus on Obama. In fact, the more countries the US has troops in, the fewer countries the US can have opinions about. We’re a reverse Gulliver, staking ourselves down with hundreds of our own pins.

Thanks Craig, That was an excellent post. What a blessing to get the straight dope!

Stephen, dope is on the other thread. But then, maybe it’s really on many of the threads, in different ways.

Craig,

I welcome your informed articles about Central Asia, but don’t feel knowledgeable enough to comment.

For what its worth, the world socialist website has an article about it today http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/jun2010/kyrg-j15.shtml. Whatever your political leanings, their analysis is usually better than much of the mainstream media, although I don’t know enough about the region in this case to judge.

Thanks for this ecellent resumee, I was wondering when you are going to pick up on the unrest and ethnic unrest in Osh and the wider region so it seems.

Just as the line in the sand drawings in Iraq and the wider middle east during the first half of last century has not made for adequate borders, neither has the soviet equivalent so it seems. This footnote under empirical zeal, should burn itself into any historians mind, something diplomats should take note of.

US forces in Kyrgyzstan will most likely have some of their present contingents looking after their own safety within the bases I should think.

But like so many I have no intimate knowledge of that area, merely understand that these three other ‘stans’ are neighbours of Afghanistan/Pakistan and are main transit countries for weapons and heroin.

What is an important question would be ‘What are the chances of this spreading to Uzbekistan?or Tajikistan?

How much has this got to do with re positioning of the newly installed Government and is Putin eventually going to accept Otunbaeva, he isn’t at present as it looks like.?

Craig,

Thank you for what is an excellent and knowledgeable article on the situation in Kyrgyzstan. It is refreshing to see an article that avoids the lazy journalism seen in so many other pieces on Kyrgyzstan which simply refer to the American and Russian military bases situated in the country.

I am married to a Kyrgyz citizen, and have visited the country several times, so would claim to have a little inside knowledge.

At the moment Russia and its allies are standing to watch as this terrible humanitarian situation unfolds. It is clear that the only way to prevent further escalation of the violence is a Russian intervention. However, the Russians are reluctant, perhaps because there is little political gain to be had from doing so?

Your comments on Akayev are spot on. The cuurent events stem from the so-called “Tulip Revolution” in 2005, which installed Bakiyev, an immensely corrupt leader, who only appeared concerned with plundering the assets of the country.

I understand that Maksim Bakiyev has been arrested in the UK. I can only hope that he and his father are one day forced to face trial in Kyrgyzstan for the crimes that have been committed. Asylum should not be offered for this repulsive individual.

I was especially grateful for Paul’s providing the URL for the Red Book of People’s of the Russian Empire – which I have looked at and commend to others:

http://www.eki.ee/books/redbook/index1.shtml

ian Orr-have yopu ever foun=d out about how many ethnic people have the angloamericans killed and how many cultures have they destryed?

the west did propaganda that Russian during soviet and Czarist time destryed others langauge and ulture and mosque. then how come there are so many varieties still exisiting and thriving in those earst while soviet space? carter was doing propaganda agasint Russians destroying mosque-and destroying muslim seminaries-who is destroying seminaries in afgansitan =today?

and how come there is such a rich thriving tradition even in Rusia of today of deifferent ethnic people-contrast that with MONOCLUTURE LIKE A CANCER OF THE aNGLOAMERICANS -VIZ IN ENGLAND OR IN USA OR CANADA OR ASURTRALIA.

do NOT THROW STONE WHILE LIVING IN GLASS =HOUSE.

Thank you, Craig, for the right analysis in C. Asia, please carry on.

Is not it absurd that Karimov, the butcher is now prraised by UN for his wise policy during the crisis, and he, whose hands are in blood , is now demanding the international inquiery? What about the inquiery of the Andijan events when he ordered to shoot at people (Akaev did not in the similar situation). And now he is obviously trying to get rid of the uzbek refugees, sending them back to Kyrgizstan. Is that true that he is not an Uzbek, but an Iranian? It is not relevant though, but he gives the impression that he hates his own people, even though his notorious daughter, so called the princess of Uzbeks, speaks on behalf of the nation.