An OSCE police advisory mission had been expected to be deployed in strife-torn southern Kyrgyzstan by the end of August. But given the Central Asian nation’s muddled political situation, it now looks like the deployment won’t happen until late October, if at all.
Sultan Madrakhimov is desperate to sell his potatoes, even at a considerable loss. That would be better than watching his pile of spuds slowly rot in his yard.
A new opinion poll offers good news for Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev: his approval ratings remain in the stratosphere as the country’s economy perks up after two years of doom and gloom.
Uniformed security forces aided and may have participated in June’s interethnic violence in southern Kyrgyzstan, Human Rights Watch said on August 16. In a detailed new report, the prominent New York-based advocacy group chronicles the violence and its aftermath, including extrajudicial detentions of Uzbeks, widespread police torture and denial of due process.
Alisher Suleimanov, an Uzbek, has been married to a Kyrgyz woman for 10 years. Together they have a 9-year-old son, but he hasn't seen either since southern Kyrgyzstan was rocked by interethnic violence in mid-June.
A leading independent refugee advocacy organization has called on Washington to cooperate better with the international effort to help those displaced by ethnic violence in southern Kyrgyzstan.
After surmounting months of political hurdles, Kyrgyzstan’s interim government faced a new test on August 5 as demonstrators clashed with security forces in a Bishkek suburb.
Tens of thousands of Uzbeks, seeking relief from lingering insecurity, are leaving southern Kyrgyzstan. Some unscrupulous officials are profiting from the Uzbek exodus by making it bureaucratically difficult, and therefore expensive, to leave.
Many of southern Kyrgyzstan’s ethnic Uzbeks, facing continued harassment from local authorities, are pondering their future in the Kyrgyz Republic. Thousands are packing their bags, perhaps for good.
Criminal networks have long maintained a strong presence in southern Kyrgyzstan, given the region’s status as a trade hub. In the weeks since inter-ethnic violence in the region left hundreds dead, observers have been wondering about what role, if any, criminal groups played in stoking the violence?
