Pogroms or Political Violence? As Stories Diverge, Victims Lost in the Middle
Kyrgyzstan’s interim government is trying to influence coverage of the recent violence to promote its version of events. Such behavior is unsurprising anywhere. But something very similar has been going on in international media coverage since the start, only with a different bias and a degree of conformity (collusion even?) that gives the illusion of authoritativeness.
The rough narratives are as follows.
Kyrgyz Interim Government: “It is clear that the roots of the conflict are the provocations organized by armed militants and criminal elements to promote the interests of the political forces that support them.”
(Read: "See, the previous regime is made up of devils intent on destroying Kyrgyzstan at any cost. We are building a new nation and this will be an essential verse in our foundation myth.")
International media parachuting in: “This is an old-fashioned Central Asian pogrom, genocide, a brutal act of ethnic-cleansing, the slaughter and rape of Uzbeks by rampaging Kyrgyz mobs.”
Is this a deliberate editorial policy? An “if in doubt, exaggerate” approach born from guilt over previous failures to recognize and prevent genocide, most obviously in Rwanda? Or simple sensationalism and lazy journalism from editors that don’t understand Kyrgyzstan, but know their readers don’t either? Either way, it is hard to defend.
Britain's The Guardian newspaper reported Uzbek accounts of attempted genocide by the Kyrgyz population, but without quoting a single Kyrgyz witness, government official, or international observer. They don’t want to complicate their simple shocking narrative with any counter-rumors, uncertainty, confusion, or complexity. More surprisingly, the respected Central Asian website Ferghana.ru reprinted a EurasiaNet photograph of a woman and her children crushed to death in a panic on the Uzbek border, but added a provocative and erroneous caption: “the victims of ethnic cleansing: this Uzbek woman and her children were shot down in Kyrgyzstan while trying to escape to neighboring Uzbekistan.”
Such simplified, opposing explanations -- the government’s “bogeyman” behind everything and the international media’s “ethnic-cleansing” by the Kyrgyz population -- leave the people of Osh and Jalal-Abad lost in the messy middle. At the moment the grieving families, the armed and frightened men still barricaded in their homes, and the women isolated in Uzbek camps probably don’t care much what the outside world writes or reads. But when they emerge to try to make sense of what happened, they are going to need all the outside help they can get: the interim government has already reportedly been dropping leaflets from helicopters with the slogan “forget!”, and the Kyrgyz media has a poor record in investigative journalism.
A more responsible, critical approach to the events of the last week by the international media would avoid enflaming more violence now, and could leave Kyrgyzstan better placed to start the difficult task of reconciliation after the journalists are long gone.
Sign up for Eurasianet's free weekly newsletter. Support Eurasianet: Help keep our journalism open to all, and influenced by none.