Kyrgyz ethnic pogroms leave 2,000 dead, 400,000 homeless

Interim Kyrgyz President Roza Otunbayeva declared a state of emergency in southern Kyrgyzstan this weekend, after admitting that ethnic pogroms carried out between June 10 and June 14 had claimed 2,000 victims—10 times the previous official death toll. These deaths largely took place when ethnic Kyrgyz mobs attacked minority Uzbek communities in parts of southern Kyrgyzstan, including the cities of Osh and Jalalabad.

On June 17, the UN Humanitarian Office estimated over 400,000 people, or 8 percent of Kyrgyzstan’s population, had fled their homes. This included 300,000 refugees inside Kyrgyzstan, and 100,000 people (not counting children) who left for neighbouring Uzbekistan. Prior to the fighting, the ethnic-Uzbek population of Kyrgyzstan was roughly 700,000, concentrated in the south of the country...

Violence continued yesterday in Kyrgyzstan, as Kyrgyz soldiers with heavy machinery pulled down makeshift barricades that Uzbeks had erected around their neighbourhoods. Two Uzbeks were killed and 25 wounded when police raided the village of Nariman, after dismantling its barricades...

The ethnic violence erupted two months after the overthrow of the regime of President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, following mass protests in the capital, Bishkek, against government corruption and a sharp rise in utility rates. After initial attempts to put down the protestors, the Kyrgyz armed forces split, with sections of the army joining protestors in an assault on the presidential palace and other government buildings. Bakiyev was succeeded by an interim government led by Otunbayeva, a Soviet-trained Kyrgyz diplomat with extensive ties to the West...

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/jun2010/kyrg-j22.shtml

I live in Beijing where most Asia correspondents are headquartered. I know a few of them and many have been told "Don't bother no one cares" when they suggest to their bosses that they should be in Osh. So, again, we'll just wait until its over, then make movies about the few people from the west who stayed and tried to help people (glorifying them) and we'll curse our people for not caring when it happened to make ourselves feel good. It's such a pathetic fucking cycle.

> So, again, we'll just wait until its over, then make movies about the few people
> from the west who stayed and tried to help people (glorifying them) and we'll
> curse our people for not caring when it happened to make ourselves feel good.
> It's such a pathetic fucking cycle.

You are right.

Sports figures, movie stars, politicians making arseholes of themselves,
the "Let's nuke the Gulf" crowd, all of the usual crap gets thread after
duplicate thread but genocide? Nah ... not worth mentioning.

This is a true tree falls in a forest situation. Unfortunately except shunning those responsible there really is nothing the United States and it people should do about this. We have no right to get involved in other cultures. Even if those cultures engage in barbaric practices.

like the Balkan regions.

This is a large country surrounded by even larger neighbors. They are all adults and capable of self determination. If they choose to go down a path of ethnic hatred and destruction I truly weep for them. As a matter of policy it is not in the interest of our country to interfere militarily. We can cut off aid to all sides and embargo weapons and even humanitarian aid that may inadvertently fuel the conflict. It is otherwise simply not our business.

every country on Earth.

:(

will Uzbekistan retaliate?