More From Alder's Ledge

January 12, 2011

Uzbeks Blamed For Violence Against Them

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Blame the Victim... Spare the Killers
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It has been some time since I have received any news about the Uzbek victims in Kyrgyzstan. Even the European news seemed to have dropped the story for almost six months now. But today I happened to read story after story about how the Uzbeks were to blame for the ethnic violence the Kyrgyz perpetrated against them.
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The government in Kyrgyzstan has recently issued a report that claims "due to violence" against Kyrgyz in the "recent ethnic violence" the Uzbeks were to blame. This government seems to ignore the fact that the victims only attacked their attackers in defense. Instead it claims that the victims were attacking the Kyrgyz without just cause.
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To think that a victim has no right to defense shows just how the government looks upon the victimized ethnic group. They have no right to fight back. They have no right to flee. The only right awarded to the Uzbeks was the sole right to stay put and die with the supposed dignity of a defeated man (or woman, or child).
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"Militant campaigning for community rights by Uzbek leaders had stoked up tension between the two communities," Abdygany Erkebayev, chief investigator of the national inquiry. "All these meetings, rallies, and efforts to achieve special status irritated the indigenous Kyrgyz population, and eventually led to the first conflict"
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The desire for equality in their "indigenous" homeland was motive, and justified motive, for the Kyrgyz attacks according to Abdygany. Uzbeks have no right to defense and no right to social equality in Kyrgyzstan according to Abdygany. They do however have the right to die and die without struggle according to Abdygany.
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Like most people around the world, Abdygany seems to have forgotten what happened on June 10Th, 2010. So let me refresh his and the rest of our memories.
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Kyrgyz teens took to the streets with improvised weapons while more illicitly violent mobs gathered with AK-47s. The targets of their attacks were the Uzbeks neighborhoods. They were so efficient in their attacks that after a mere five day assault thousands of homes were destroyed. Hundreds of Uzbeks were caught in the attacks and killed or maimed by their assailants.
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After the shock of the first day wore off some Uzbeks rallied in their attempts to defend their homes and families. They pushed back the children warriors the Kyrgyz had first sent in. This then prompted more organized attacks. Attacks that the Kyrgyz police joined in on.
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Letters and phone calls trickled across the border into Uzbekistan. The Uzbeks that refused to forced over the border were being pinned down. Police and military officials were ordering grenade attacks on those the Kyrgyz civilian militias had pinned. This was now officially an organized attempt to "ethnically cleanse" Osh, Kyrgyzstan.
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By the end of the attacks the Uzbeks had suffered two times the amount of deaths than the Kyrgyz (most of the dead Kyrgyz appeared to have been noncombatants who had gotten caught in the crossfire). Uzbek men, women, children... all targeted for execution... lay dead in burnt out homes and in bloody streets. Kyrgyz however celebrated the "Uzbek defeat".
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However, in the opinion of a Kyrgyzstan government official, the Uzbek victims were to blame for the violence they suffered. They should have simply laid down and taken a bullet in the back of their heads like good victims. After all, defending themselves is not a human right that Uzbeks have been awarded by Kyrgyzstan's governing body.
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Source Documents for this Post.
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The Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/kyrgyzstan/8252745/Victims-of-Kyrgyzstan-massacre-are-blamed-for-the-violence.html
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BBC News Online
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12162570
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/11/AR2011011101125.html

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