[44] IRANIAN LEGISLATORS THREATEN TO END NUCLEAR COOPERATION

[45] DISSIDENT IRANIAN CLERIC'S AIDE DETAINED

[46] PRIME MINISTER SAYS SADDAM HUSSEIN TO BE HANDED OVER TO IRAQIS

[47] PURPORTED AL-ZARQAWI LETTER CLAIMS U.S. CLOSING IN ON MILITANTS

[48] CLERIC'S SPOKESMAN ARRESTED IN IRAQ

[49] OIC DRAFT RESOLUTION ENDORSES IRAQI INTERIM GOVERNMENT

[50] TWO LEBANESE KIDNAPPED IN IRAQ

[51] 400 IRAQIS RELEASED FROM ABU GHURAYB PRISON

End Note

[52] UZBEKISTAN IGNORES IMPACT OF ITS POLICIES ON NEIGHBORING KYRGYZSTAN, TAJIKISTAN

The traumatic events of the summer of 1990, when tensions between southern Kyrgyzstan's two main ethnic groups, the Kyrgyz and Uzbeks, erupted in a spree of killing and property destruction, are still a frequent source of reminiscence when inhabitants of the city of Osh and the surrounding areas are conversing with visitors. The shock caused by the interethnic fighting that left at least 200 people dead (according to official figures at the time -- the actual number was probably much higher) has helped to prevent a repetition of the "Osh events." Moreover, since independence, the Kyrgyz authorities, local nongovernmental groups committed to promoting interethnic understanding, and international assistance agencies have actively sought to examine and defuse the sources of interethnic tension in Kyrgyzstan's portion of the Ferghana Valley, the most ethnically mixed part of the country.

There has been no large-scale emigration of ethnic Uzbeks from southern Kyrgyzstan since the dissolution of the USSR, so presumably the ethnic Uzbek share of the population remains as high as 50 percent in some areas. But the number of ethnic Tajiks living in southern Kyrgyzstan is increasing as Tajik citizens move from thickly populated northern Tajikistan into empty lands across the border in Kyrgyzstan. The Kyrgyz authorities are less than happy about the uncontrolled Tajik immigration, but so far have done little to restrict it. Ethnic Russians remain a presence in at least some of the southern Kyrgyz towns.

In recent years, tensions between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks in southern Kyrgyzstan have been far less visible than have problems caused by actions of the Uzbek government that negatively affect all ethnic groups in southern Kyrgyzstan. In particular, Uzbek restrictions on cross-border traffic and trade are depressing the economy of the region. Speaking to a correspondent of the Kazakh news site gazeta.kz in the first week of June, National Red Crescent Society of Kyrgyzstan official Nasira Baratbaeva noted that agricultural work in southern Kyrgyzstan's Batken Oblast is starting out the usual way -- with the detonation of land mines planted on the Kyrgyz-Uzbek border by the Uzbek military in 1999 to prevent incursions by Muslim militants who were seeking to reach Uzbekistan through Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. According to Baratbaeva, five citizens of Kyrgyzstan have been killed by the Uzbek land mines since they were planted, and five have been injured. She did not mention the ethnicity of the victims, but used a term that could suggest that not all were ethnic Kyrgyz. The Kyrgyz authorities have tried repeatedly to obtain maps of the minefields from the Uzbek government, but despite occasional promises that such maps will be provided, so far nothing has been forthcoming and the issue of the Uzbek mines remains a sore point between the two countries.

It is not only in the matter of the land mines that Uzbekistan has been a bad neighbor to Kyrgyzstan (as well as to Tajikistan, a much larger number of citizens of which have been killed or injured by Uzbek land mines). The Uzbek authorities have taken steps to restrict border crossing by citizens of both countries, regardless of ethnicity, which has affected the living standards of those inhabitants of border areas who rely on cross-border trade for their livelihood. Some Kyrgyz citizens have been drowned after falling into border streams from homemade bridges while trying to evade Uzbek border guards. In 2003, a Kyrgyz citizen was shot and killed by Uzbek border guards in an incident that caused a cooling of relations between the two countries. The Uzbek authorities insist that they are justified in allowing their border troops to use firearms to prevent illegal border crossing in the name of national self-defense, an argument that the Kyrgyz side rejects.

The official Uzbek rationale for restricting cross-border traffic is that in the absence of strict border controls, Muslim extremists could slip into Uzbekistan. After the terrorist explosions and attacks on the police in Tashkent at the end of March, the Uzbek-Kyrgyz border was closed to prevent the penetration of Uzbek territory by members of the extremist Hizb ut-Tahrir party or the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU). The closure seems to have been an intensification of restrictions already in place since the IMU incursions in 1999 and 2000. Uzbek officialdom cannot be happy that the Kyrgyz authorities have been less inclined than they to persecute members of Hizb ut-Tahrir, which is considered a terrorist organization in Uzbekistan but not in Kyrgyzstan.

While Kyrgyz law enforcement officials insist the group is dangerous, Kyrgyzstan's Ombudsman Tursunbai Bakir-uulu has argued that Hizb ut-Tahrir rejects the use of violence to achieve its goal of an Islamic caliphate in the Ferghana Valley, and that secularists should be engaging its members in dialogue rather than seeking to simply repress it. Bakir-uluu appeared to take particular pleasure in recounting an incident on 14 May, in which Hizb ut-Tahrir members in the town of Kara-suu on the Kyrgyz side of the Kyrgyz-Uzbek border rescued Kyrgyz and Uzbek security officers from an angry mob who discovered the officers were secretly filming a mosque congregation. According to Almaz Ismanov of the Media Resource Center in Osh, the Uzbek authorities are irritated that members of the religious opposition in Uzbekistan are being allowed to use southern Kyrgyzstan as a refuge from oppression at home, particularly since the March incidents in Tashkent.

It seems highly unlikely that the Uzbek authorities realize, or care, that their actions toward Kyrgyzstan may give rise to anti-Uzbek feelings that unite citizens of southern Kyrgyzstan, regardless of their ethnicity. The evidence indicates that official Uzbekistan has little interest in the effect of its policies on its eastern neighbor, despite the presence in the Kyrgyz Republic of a significant number of ethnic Uzbeks. Nor does Uzbekistan seem inclined to stop its provocative behavior toward Kyrgyzstan: in mid-May the Uzbek authorities began building a border fence 60 meters inside Kyrgyz territory, in a section of the common border that had only recently been delimited by an intergovernmental commission. Construction was stopped after the Kyrgyz Foreign Ministry protested, but such actions by the Uzbek side are sure to continue.

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