Thread: Kyrgyz ex-leader Kurmanbek Bakiyev 'facing charges'

Kyrgyz ex-leader Kurmanbek Bakiyev 'facing charges'


Bakiyev's administration is accused of ordering troops to shoot protesters


Ousted Kyrgyz leader Kurmanbek Bakiyev has been charged in absentia with organising mass killings, a leader of the interim government says. Interim legal chief Azimbek Beknazarov said Kyrgyzstan would seek Mr Bakiyev's extradition from Belarus to face trial.
Mr Bakiyev was ousted in violent protests on 7 April in which more than 80 people died.
The interim government says his administration ordered troops to open fire on protesters.
"We will seek extradition of Bakiyev to Bishkek and bringing him to criminal responsibility " Mr Beknazarov said.

BBC News - Kyrgyz ex-leader Kurmanbek Bakiyev 'facing charges'


Might make interesting reading for Aphisit.

This sounds a little bit familier. Someone gets ousted in street protests. The new head honchos accuse the person they ousted of mass killings and seek to extradite him. Later they go on to order the troops to open fire on protesters.
Not much new in politics these days

Kyrgyzstan violence: Uzbekistan closes border to refugees

Uzbekistan has closed its border to refugees fleeing the deadly violence in Kyrgyzstan, some of whom have accused government forces of helping armed gangs slaughter ethnic Uzbeks.

Published: 7:00AM BST 15 Jun 2010

Bodies littered the streets of the southern Kyrgyzstan city of Osh where fresh gunfire rang out, and more fighting was reported in the nearby city of Jalalabad. The official death toll from the ethnic violence is 124 but the Red Cross estimates the real toll to be far higher.

With estimates of up to 100,000 refugees already inside Uzbekistan, the Central Asian state's Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Aripov said the border would be shut, despite pleas from aid groups and the UN to leave it open.

"Today we will stop accepting refugees from the Kyrgyz side because we have no place to accommodate them and no capacity to cope with them," he said.
Uzbekistan needed international humanitarian aid to cope, he said.
"If we have the ability to help them and to treat them of course we will open the border" again, he added.
Mr Aripov said Uzbekistan had registered 45,000 adults from Kyrgyzstan, while another official said there were 65,000 adults in Uzbekistan's Andijan region alone. The UN's refugee agency said it was sending aid for 75,000.
Ethnic Uzbeks and Tajiks have flooded into Uzbekistan in the four days of bloodshed around Osh and Jalalabad, which has left more than 120 people dead and 1,762 wounded.
The violence exploded on Friday in Osh when ethnic Kyrgyz gangs began attacking the shops and homes of ethnic Uzbeks, igniting tensions between the two dominant groups in the region that have simmered for a generation.
The unrest comes barely two months after President Kurmanbek Bakiyev was overthrown in a popular uprising. Mr Bakiyev's stronghold is in southern Kyrgyzstan.
Ethnic Uzbeks have accused government forces of helping Kyrgyz mobs in their deadly rampage.
Charred corpses lay unattended in a burned out ethnic Uzbek shop in Osh and the streets were strewn with shell cases and wrecked cars.
Intermittent gunfire could be heard and new violence was reported further north in Jalalabad.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay has urged Kyrgyz authorities to act firmly.
"It seems indiscriminate killings, including of children, and rapes have been taking place on the basis of ethnicity."
The violence appeared to have been "orchestrated, targeted and well-planned," she added.
She urged both Uzbekistan and Tajikistan to accept refugees.



Kyrgyzstan violence: Uzbekistan closes border to refugees - Telegraph

Kyrgyz ethnic violence: death toll 'rises to 2,000'

Kyrgyzstan's interim president has said the death toll from the ethnic unrest that has rocked the country's south could be near 2,000.
Published: 11:18AM BST 18 Jun 2010



People argue in the streets of Osh: At least 23 people have been killed and hundreds wounded in ethnic clashes in southern Kyrgyzstan Photo: AFP

Interim Kyrgyz leader Roza Otunbayeva Photo: REUTERS


The country's health ministry figures place the number of killed in the rampages led mainly by ethnic Kyrgyz at 191.

"I would increase by ten times the official data on the number of people killed," said Roza Otunbayeva, the interim president, according to her spokesman, Farid Niyazov. She said current figures did not take into account those buried before sundown on the day of death, in keeping with Muslim tradition, according to the spokesman.

Mrs Otumbayeva arrived early on Friday by helicopter in the central square of Osh, a city of 250,000 where the violence began late last week. Parts of the city have been reduced to rubble by roving mobs of young Kyrgyz men who burned down Uzbek homes and attacked Uzbek-owned businesses.

About 400,000 people have been displaced by the unrest, according to UN estimates, with up to 100,000 Uzbeks fleeing into Uzbekistan.
Kyrgyz authorities have said the violence was sparked deliberately by associates of Kurmanbek Bakiyev, the president who was toppled in April in a bloody uprising. The UN has said the unrest appeared orchestrated but has stopped short of apportioning blame.
Ethnic Uzbeks on Thursday accused security forces of standing by or even helping ethnic-majority Kyrgyz mobs as they slaughtered people and burned down neighbourhoods.
Col. Iskander Ikramov, the chief of the Kyrgyz military in the south, rejected allegations of troop involvement in the riots but said the army didn't interfere in the conflict because it was not supposed to play the role of a police force.

Kyrgyz ethnic violence: death toll 'rises to 2,000' - Telegraph

Ah well......time to turn the clock back and look at how this current situation has arisen. A good synopsis from Craig Murray :


Kyrgyzstan: Death, dictators and the Soviet legacy

As Kyrgyzstan descends into chaos, Craig Murray explains the background to the violence – and why Central Asia demands our attention.



By Craig Murray
Published: 8:48AM BST 17 Jun 2010
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An Uzbek woman who fled the Kyrgyz city of Osh stands at the Uzbekistan border Photo: AP


It is arguable that the wave of ethnic killings in southern Kyrgyzstan that started last Saturday – which has left hundreds of Uzbeks dead and tens of thousands homeless – is, at root, the fault of Joseph Stalin. The Soviet Union was in theory just that – a union of Soviet socialist republics. Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan were three of them. But whatever the theory, Stalin had no intention of allowing the republics to become viable entities or potential power bases for rivals. So he intervened personally and the republics were deliberately messed up with boundaries that cut across natural economic units and severed cultural and ethnic links.

The names Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan might give the impression that these Central Asian states are the ethnic home of the Kyrgyz, Tajiks and Uzbeks. They are quite deliberately not that. For example, the major Uzbek town of Osh, in the Ferghana Valley, which is at the centre of this week's violence, is over the border in Kyrgyzstan. The great centres of Tajik culture, Samarkand and Bokhara, are not in Tajikistan but in Uzbekistan, even though 90 per cent of the population of those cities remain Tajik- speaking – and are now subject to Uzbek government attempts to choke the language.



It is a remarkable feature of the latest chapter in the Great Game that the mountainous little country of Kyrgyzstan hosts major bases for both the Russian and the United States air forces. Both powers view Kyrgyzstan as occupying a strategically crucial position north of Afghanistan, on the route from Central Asia to China. But neither appears to consider that their security strategy might be enhanced not just by a military presence, but by alleviating the appalling poverty and bad government from which the people of Kyrgyzstan have suffered.
Like the other Central Asian states, newly independent Kyrgyzstan fell under the dictatorship of the local Soviet leader, but in Askar Akayev it had by far the best of an incredibly poor bunch, and the only one who was not a former member of the Politburo. Kyrgyzstan is severely disadvantaged by its geography. Distance from markets, poor communications and lack of infrastructure are a barrier even to the development of its mineral resources, but Akayev instituted the freest economy in Central Asia and undoubtedly the least oppressed society.
Sadly, time and the enjoyment of power whittled away at Akayev's democratic credentials. Censorship crept back apace. Deepening corruption centred on his children, and it was for the sake of their political futures that he eventually indulged in widespread vote rigging. When Akayev was overthrown in the 2005 "Tulip revolution", he went back to being a scientist in Moscow. This contrasted sharply with the experience of Uzbekistan a few months later. When demonstrations against President Karimov started to gather mass support in Andijan, Karimov unleashed his army and more than 700 protesters were shot dead. That effectively ended the wave of "colour revolutions" against ex-Soviet leaders.
Akayev's replacement in Kyrgyzstan, President Bakiyev, proved worse than his predecessor in precisely the same problem areas of vote rigging, media control and corruption. His old democratic allies deserted him and fought the 2009 election against him. Bakiyev's re-election in 2009 with 83 per cent of the vote was widely condemned.
Bakiyev remained close to the United States. Perhaps too close – his son Maksim was arrested on Sunday in Farnborough, having just flown to Britain. There is an Interpol arrest warrant out for him focusing on massive contracts allegedly given to him by the Pentagon for supply to the US airbase in Kyrgyzstan. This appears to be a standard Pentagon method of dealing with Central Asian dictators. In Uzbekistan, the Pentagon handed FMN Logistics, belonging to the dictator's daughter, Gulnara Karimova, a massively profitable contract for land supply to US forces in Afghanistan and structural work on US bases there.
Bakiyev was particularly unpopular in the capital Bishkek, though he apparently retained the support of rural Kyrgyz, especially in the south. But two months ago, Bakiyev was overthrown in a second popular revolution. The interim leader, Roza Otunbayeva, has announced fresh elections but her government has been overwhelmed by the gathering violence. The ultimate loyalties of the police and army are uncertain at this point.
Otunbayeva is a liberal Central Asian and, as is typical of her generation, that means she looks to Russia. Her interim government has appealed to Russia for military assistance, but received a frosty response from the Kremlin.
There had been a concerted campaign in the Russian media against Bakiyev, which undoubtedly contributed to his downfall. Such a campaign would not have been possible without Putin's nod: Bakiyev was viewed in Moscow as too friendly to America. But Otunbayeva is far too liberal for Putin's taste. Russia will be hoping for a strong pro-Russian leader to emerge, and that will be more likely if proposals gain traction for a peacekeeping force from the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, the regional security mechanism which is effectively a local dictators' club.
It would be wrong to characterise the violence in Kyrgyzstan as politically motivated. Ancient ethnic tensions and stereotypes have come to the fore, and poverty is the root cause. But at the same time it is broadly true that the Uzbeks of the south generally support Otunbayeva, while their southern Kyrgyz attackers do not. Bakiyev supporters have played some role in stirring up the violence.
To complicate things further, while Osh's Uzbeks may support Otunbayeva, President Karimov of Uzbekistan most certainly does not, seeing her as an embodiment of the dangers of democracy to dictators like him. And Karimov does not want a flood of comparatively more politically sophisticated Uzbeks from Osh entering Uzbekistan.
So for three days, tens of thousands of Uzbeks massed on the Uzbek/Kyrgyz border, on which Karimov has destroyed most of the bridges and which is mined and wired for its entire length. Eventually the Uzbek government relented but let only women and children through. They have been herded into camps and are not free to leave.
Sevara, an Uzbek woman I spoke to by phone yesterday, told me she and her family were stuck in their home in the Frunsuzkaya district of Osh. She witnessed the destruction of every building in the largely commercial street on which she lives, bar her block of flats. The shops and restaurants, like most Osh businesses, were Uzbek-owned.
She told me that she saw three distinct groups of masked young men arrive, overseen by militia in an armoured personnel carrier. The first group broke in to all the premises, and smashed doors, windows and fittings. Then a second group came and removed all the stock and furniture. An hour or so later a third group came and methodically lit fires inside each building. It was, she said, calm and organised, not a violent mob.
Sevara lives in a block inhabited mainly by Russians. She believes that is why it was not attacked. Yesterday, some Kyrgyz men entered the block saying they were registering people for humanitarian aid; Sevara did not answer the door. Her Russian neighbours said the flat was empty, and have been bringing her food.
Where is Britain in all this? The ethnic conflicts of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan are inextricably linked with what is primarily an ethnic conflict in Afghanistan. Yet our policy in Central Asia, if it can be called one, is nothing but support for the very dictators who are impoverishing their states. The answer to the growth of Islamic radicalism is not for rival great powers to strive to prop up regional dictators. That approach is already leading to the growth in the kind of radicalism we are trying to suppress. We can no longer afford a short-term policy conditioned by the tactical expediency of securing regional logistic support for the Afghan War. We continue to ignore Central Asia at our peril.
Craig Murray was British Ambassador to Uzbekistan from August 2002 to October 2004

Kyrgyzstan: Death, dictators and the Soviet legacy - Telegraph


So now you know ......... assuming you got this far.