Russians Caused Disaster In Kyrgyzstan: Creating The
Rioting And The Massacres For Its Own Agenda
19 June 2010 By Daniel Greenfield
The violence unleashed in Kyrgyzstan is being spun
as ethnic rioting. The reality is a good deal more
complex, and the blame can be laid directly at
Russia's door.
Russia's coup against the Bakiyev government which
took power in the Tulip Revolution leveraged Uzbek
separatists in the Osh Province to suppress Kyrgiz
nationalist supporters of Bakiyev.
Russia had been trying for a while to force out
Manas Air Base, a US air force base that serves as a
vital link to US forces in Afghanistan . Russia
tolerated Bakiyev, so long as he was against the US
base. But once Bakiyev made a deal with the United
States, and began exploring an energy deal with China
that might have ended Russian leverage over the
country, Putin pulled off a coup during Obama's
nuclear arms reduction treaty signing with Medvedev, a
true "Godfather" moment.
People like Uzbek nationalist leader Kadyrjan
Batyrov were used to stage riots, and suppress
counter-riots, in order to remove Bakiyev from power,
and replace him with Roza Otunbayeva. Otunbayeva was a
former Soviet diplomat at the UN, Marxist academic and
local Communist party official. This completed a
series of Russian reversals of "Revolutions" in former
Republics and Warsaw Pact nations, with only Georgia
still in the way. But the Kyrgyzstan coup left behind
a lot of unfinished business.
A Russian coup usually comes in several stages.
First a wave of propaganda thunders forth from Russian
media outlets, which are government controlled,
blasting the government of the country they want to
overthrow as corrupt and repressive. This is followed
by a domestic uprising staged by organizations tied to
Russia. If this uprising fails, a new wave of
propaganda follows aimed more at the West, which
brands the target government as repressive and
contributing to regional instability (a coded threat
which warns Western countries that if they attempt to
intervene, it could lead to a regional conflict) and
that leads to an invasion by Russian "peacekeepers".
In Kyrgyzstan, Russia's coup succeeded, but at the
cost of severely exasperating existing ethnic tensions
In Kyrgyzstan, Russia's coup succeeded, but at the
cost of severely exasperating existing ethnic
tensions. By leveraging Uzbek separatists like
Kadyrjan Batyrov, Putin had managed to light the fuel
dump of ethnic tensions that had been constantly
simmering in Osh already. This was not entirely
unplanned.
In the Soviet era, Russian policy took a Divide and
Conquer approach to the Republics, often transplanting
ethnic populations or drawing borders so as to create
multicultural tensions that would prevent the locals
from uniting against them. This approach however leads
to long term disastrous consequences, as it did when
the British utilized it in Israel, importing Arabs to
balance out Jewish immigration, resulting in decades
of terrorism and war. In Kyrgyzstan, the toxic mix of
Uzbeks, ethnic Russian settlers and others among the
dominant Kyrgyz ethnic group means that Russia always
has plenty of levers when it wants to destabilize the
country, but that instability may not always end when
Russia says it does.
Uzbek separatism has been the explosive issue in
the Osh Province because of its sizable number of
Uzbeks. Which in turn has meant a region polarized
between Kyrgyz nationalists determined to keep Osh and
Uzbek nationalists who want secession or at least
cultural autonomy. Former President Bakiyev who won
solidly in the Osh Province with 2/3rds of the vote
made some effort to defuse it, but because he was from
Osh himself, he couldn't do so without alienating his
own base, which due to Uzbek separatism, was both
Kyrgyz and nationalist. This made Kadyrjan Batyrov and
his Uzbek nationalists a handy tool for Moscow when
they wanted to remove Bakiyev and replace him with
their own puppet. But it also meant that Putin had lit
a fire that couldn't easily be put out.
By using Batyrov to enforce a takeover in a region
ripe with Kyrgyz nationalists, Putin stoked fears of
Uzbek separatism that would be backed by the full
might of Mother Russia. Much as Putin had done for
Abkhazians and Ossetians in Georgia. And indeed had
Bakiyev managed to remain in power, the way that
Saakashvili had-there is little doubt that Russia
would have backed Uzbek secession and used that as a
pretext for invading Kyrgyzstan. Just as they did in
Georgia.
And since Kadyrjan Batyrov's Uzbek nationalists had
used armed force to suppress pro-Bakiyev protesters,
and with clan vendettas a major factor in the region,
Osh was bound to be a tinderbox for some time to come.
Russia's Otunbayeva puppet regime could not turn its
back on Batyrov, because he had helped it secure
power. But alienating a regional majority already
afraid that they were about to become the next Kosovo
or Georgia, was extremely unwise. For Otunbayeva
anyway, less so for Russia, which might actually have
been waiting all along for the chance to send in its
"peacekeepers".
The Kyrgyzstan armed forces had not proven useful
to Bakiyev, but as they are in the vast majority
Kyrgyz. They might not have been willing to back
Bakiyev, but they would be even less willing to defend
Batyrov and his followers. Batyrov's Uzbek group had
warned that any attempt to arrest him for his armed
suppression of protesters would be an attack on all
Uzbeks. This insured that the formula for the rioting
would fall along ethnic lines.
Russia created the rioting and
the massacres for its own agenda
Russia's government controlled media is predictably
monopolizing the reporting, focusing on Uzbeks asking
for Russian troops. The reality however is that Russia
created the rioting and the massacres for its own
agenda. Putin wanted to drive out the US airbase in
Kyrgyzstan, even at the cost of inflaming ethnic
tensions by appearing to endorse Uzbek separatism.
Everything that followed can and should be laid at his
doorstep.
Now Putin is trying to bring in the People's
Republic of China via the Shanghai Cooperation
Organization to form a united front on Kyrgyzstan in
support of his own Otunbayeva puppet regime. With a
weak Obama Administration that was unable to respond
even to Russia pulling off the Otunbayeva coup during
an arms reduction treaty signing, as a deliberate slap
in the face, Russia has nothing to worry about in the
way of US interference. However it has a much bigger
invisible problem to worry about.
By feeding Uzbek separatism in Kyrgyzstan, Putin is
empowering a population that has increasingly come
under the sway of Islamist groups such as Hizb ut
Tahir, whose goal is to rebuild the Caliphate. While
the old Bakiyev government had cracked down on
Islamists and in particularly on Hizb ut Tahir (to the
outraged protests of European and Russian human rights
activists), the Otunbayeva government has sought their
support by giving them a pass. Including amnesty for
Hizb ut Tahir members imprisoned in what Uzbek
separatists and their human rights allies call, the
Nootak Incident. Providing amnesty for participants in
the Nootak Incident in which Hizb ut Tahir supporters
rioted during Eid al-Fitr served as a dangerous
message by the new government of open door for the
Islamists.
Hizb ut Tahir's strategy goes beyond Uzbek
nationalism, but does piggyback on it. And it can best
take advantage of the fighting in Kyrgyzstan by using
the African model that has worked so well for Islamist
groups there. While its base is still the Uzbeks near
the border with Uzbekistan, it is also moving up into
the north, and successfully recruiting Kyrgyz as well.
This is in keeping with the phased approach utilized
by Islamist groups in countries with an existing
Islamic population and an impoverished rural base. (In
Western nations however Islamists are a growth factor
in urban or suburban areas where their base of Muslim
immigrants tend to be located, while native
non-Muslims living in rural areas tend to be their key
source of opposition).
While Otunbayeva's Social Democratic Party has not
endorsed or legalized Hizb ut Tahir, the instability
in the Osh Province, where Hizb ut Tahir, is strong,
can only build support for them in the long run.
Whether Uzbek separatism gains new life or is
suppressed again, Hizb ut Tahir will begin to seem
like more of a viable alternative, by promising
traditional Islamic values as an alternative to the
corruption of secular political parties. And while for
now, religious parties have been banned, Hizb ut Tahir
has financial backing built on oil money and a great
deal of patience. While Putin tries to dominate
Kyrgyzstan, Islamist groups know that they are the
ones who will win in the end.
Daniel Greenfield, a New York City based writer
and freelance commentator. "Daniel comments on
political affairs with a special focus on the War on
Terror and the rising threat to Western Civilization.
He maintains a blog at Sultanknish.blogspot.com.
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