The evidence is mounting that Kyrgyzstan's military played a significant role in the ethnic violence against Uzbeks in Osh. Reports The Guardian:
"It started on Friday lunchtime," said Rustam, an Uzbek lawyer. "It came in three distinct waves. The Kyrgyz entered Cheremushki district driving an armoured personnel carrier. This paved the way. Several of them were wearing army uniforms. At first we felt relieved. Someone had come to rescue us, we thought! Then the BKR opened fire and started shooting people randomly.
The New York Times has a similar story from a different neighborhood:
As the armored personnel carrier rumbled down the street, men in Kyrgyz military uniforms clinging to its sides, residents of an ethnic Uzbek neighborhood here felt a surge of relief. The peacekeepers, it seemed, had finally arrived.
But then the men in uniforms jumped down and began firing automatic weapons into homes while shouting anti-Uzbek slurs, more than a dozen residents of the neighborhood, Shai-Tubeh, said in interviews on Wednesday. They spoke of the terrifying moments last week when they realized that they were under attack from what appeared to be their own nation’s military. They said the assailants killed several people, wounded many others and set fire to buildings.
“We believed that they had come to protect us,” said Avaz Abdukadyrov, 48. “But instead, they came to kill us.”
Human Rights Watch had a researcher in Osh when the violence happened, and she talked to Australian radio:
This source told me seeing how Kyrgyz military were firing indiscriminately at Uzbek neighbourhoods. It also told me that she saw how Kyrgyz military would hand over weapons to Kyrgyz gangs, this was on Saturday afternoon. She also saw how these Kyrgyz gangs would ride the tanks together with the Kyrgyz military.
The Kyrgyzstan authorities have denied that their troops were involved in the violence, but this is a lot of contrary evidence. The question remains: who was giving the military their orders? There also is increasing evidence that "shadowy outside groups" were behind the violence. Is it former president Kurmanbek Bakiyev, or the Russians, or militant Islamists, or drug gangs, as variously been claimed? So far the preponderance of evidence seems to suggest that it was Bakiyev, but it would be pretty bad news if any of these groups were exerting significant control over the military. And that is what appears to be the case.
Joshua Kucera, a senior correspondent, is Eurasianet's former Turkey/Caucasus editor and has written for the site since 2007.
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