There several stories (NY Times) about ethnic upheaval taking place in Kyrgyzstan between the country’s ethnic Kyrgyz majority and its Uzbek minority. But I lack the knowledge and background of the region to fully understand the articles or put them in context. Can someone here briefly summarize what’s going on or point to a link with general background?
Back in April, the president of Kyrgyzstan, a guy named Bakiyev, was overthrown after a bunch of riots in the capital, after his government shot some protestors. The riots/protests were caused by a bunch of reasons, but basically, it was a combination of high fuel prices and blatant Russian meddling (the Russians didn’t like Bakiyev). He fled into exile in Kazakhstan, and a provisional government took over.
Bakiyev’s support was and still is strongest in the southern part of the country, where the violence is happening. The Kyrgyz population in the south mostly supports Bakiyev, and the Uzbek population in the south mostly supports the new government. Add to that that there have been tensions between the two groups anyway…
Bakiev is currently in exile in Minsk, Belarus. I think he may have changed flights in Kazakhstan on the way there though (or stopped to refuel or something, I do remember reports at the time of him arriving in Kazakhstan at some point).
I haven’t been following the events of the last few days in Osh as closely as I’d like, not sure the best source of info for getting the gist of what’s going on there. I’ve mostly been reading any stuff coming out on Registan and neweurasia - don’t know if there’s a single post that would make a good jumping off point for you, but those seem to have a few posts with info, pictures or analysis of what’s going on.
Basically though there’s been a spate of violence between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks in Osh over these last few days, and as best I can tell it’s still pretty murky as to exactly what started it (apart from some general underlying ethnic tension). There’s a lot of speculation and conspiracy theories about what’s happened, whether blaming things on Bakiev stirring up trouble, or just blaming crminal gangs, but I think it’s still a bit fuzzy as to what actually kicked things off (heard a few reports that it started as a relatively small fight or brawl which has just snowballed massively - I think I saw it attributed somewhere to an argument over a bill or something along those lines?)
I gather that most of the violence has been Kyrgyz attacking Uzbeks, hence the large flow of refugees spilling out into Uzbekistan (though that’s not to say that there hasn’t been violence going the other way as well). Check out these photos from the other day - there’s one with a car where they’ve spray-painted ‘Kyrgyz’ on the side of their car so nobody attacks them thinking they’re Uzbek.
The interim government has asked for outside military assistance from Russia to help take control of the situation, though they haven’t yet agreed to intervene. Uzbekistan’s allowing Uzbek refugees across its border, though I did see one report that some elements of the Uzbek military are itching to do something more.
Edit: this post has a few links to other various places with more info (and video/photo links). It also links to this timeline from the Kyrgyz press agency.