Kyrgyzstan: Bishkek Worried About Tashkent's Information Dominance in Southern Regions

Officials in Kyrgyzstan are unsettled by what they perceive as Uzbekistan's encroachment into their country's information space. At the same time, observers say President Kurmanbek Bakiyev's administration lacks the resources to better project Bishkek's message in southern Kyrgyzstan.

Ethnic Uzbeks comprise roughly 15 percent of Kyrgyzstan's population, with most living in southern provinces that are separated from the rest of the country by the Tien Shan Mountain Range. Broad swathes of territory in southern Kyrgyzstan are unable to pick up a signal from the state broadcaster - commonly known by the acronym KTR. In addition, many ethnic Uzbeks in Kyrgyzstan who can watch KTR are unhappy with the content and quality of broadcasts. Thus, many are tuning in to programming originating in neighboring Uzbekistan, where the larger economy is spawning an explosion of Uzbek-language media.

At least 69 villages in southern Kyrgyzstan do not have access to any Kyrgyz broadcasts according to one official. Uzbek media, meanwhile, is tightly controlled by President Islam Karimov's government, according to the US State Department's most recent human rights report on Uzbekistan. The Uzbek government "suppressed any criticism," the State Department report noted. [To see the full report, click here].

Kyrgyz legislators say they are fearful of their powerful neighbor's influence in the ethnically diverse Ferghana Valley. Officials in Bishkek have long worried about the possibility that ethnic Uzbeks in southern Kyrgyzstan could develop divided loyalties. Helping to exacerbate tension, the governments of Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan have been feuding over Bishkek's plans to construct hydropower facilities on the upstream Naryn River, a tributary of the Syr Darya. Uzbekistan is adamantly opposed to dam projects that might diminish water supplies needed for Tashkent's all-important cotton sector. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

The situation is reaching a point that some Kyrgyz MPs and officials are concerned about the national security implications. "It is necessary to admit the cultural, information and language influence of Uzbekistan on the Uzbek-language audience of southern Kyrgyzstan," MP Ibragim Junusov told EurasiaNet. Without a media foothold there, Kyrgyzstan cannot "adequately react to information challenges and external threats."

Melis Aidarkulov, the head of information policy at Kyrgyzstan's Ministry of Culture and Information, believes Tashkent is actively attempting to fill an information vacuum. "The programs of Uzbekistan's broadcasting companies are more attractive in terms of quality and content. As a result, the southern regions of our country are exposed to active broadcasting expansionism," Aidarkulov told EurasiaNet.

The area is within easy reach of Uzbekistan's National Broadcasting channels UzTV-1 and UzTV-2, as well as local Uzbek programming. Already, programming from Russia is widely popular in the region.

"Our family practically always watches Uzbekistani channels," said 37-year-old Nasiba Izatullaeva, an ethnic Uzbek living in Osh's Karasuu District. As a result, "small children think that their president is Islam Karimov."

In 2001, the Kyrgyz Security Council officially classified Uzbekistan's dominance of the airwaves and Bishkek's inability to reach southern communities as a national security threat, a source at the National Security Committee told EurasiaNet on condition of anonymity.

According to the source, a confidential study warns that foreign-initiated information operations could negatively influence populations within Kyrgyzstan. Kyrgyz security agencies would have trouble countering such threats because of "insufficient information supplies delivered by the domestic mass media to the local population."

Local observers agree that, given its current economic troubles, Kyrgyzstan cannot prevent Uzbekistan from dominating southern Kyrgyzstan's information sector.

At the same time, ethnic Uzbek media consumers in Kyrgyzstan tell EurasiaNet that there is no need to worry, that they are simply tuning into Uzbek programming because the quality is appealing and the programming is in their native language. They assert that political messages emanating from Tashkent tend to fall on deaf ears in Kyrgyzstan.

Some local residents also point out that the use of Uzbek textbooks in Uzbek-language schools in southern Kyrgyzstan is helping to sow confusion among pupils about the country's political leadership. The texts tend to paint a paternal image of Karimov, and leave many children with the impression that the capital of their country is Tashkent.

Mamyrjan Shakirov, the head of DDD, an Osh-based private Uzbek language television station, said that the majority of ethnic Uzbeks in Kyrgyzstan are more familiar with Uzbek politicians and celebrities than they are with their Kyrgyz counterparts. "There are more than 700,000 ethnic Uzbeks in our country, and if we had good Uzbek language TV channels here in Kyrgyzstan, we would watch them more often than the TV channels of Uzbekistan," Shakirov said. "But now local Uzbek language TV channels cannot compete with ones in Uzbekistan in terms of quality."

Mass media legislation in Kyrgyzstan could complicate any effort to alter existing trends. Kyrgyz broadcasters complain that recently adopted laws prevent them from fulfilling popular demand. A law introduced in 2008 stipulates that 50 percent of all programming in Kyrgyzstan must be in Kyrgyz and 60 percent of programming must be locally produced. Recent estimates suggest 60 percent of broadcasting is still in Russian, much of it produced abroad.

While Kyrgyz broadcasters struggle to meet unrealistic quotas, authorities appear more concerned with enforcement than helping indigenous broadcasters reach local populations.