kyrgyz unrest

The West seems to finally be taking notice of Central Asia again for the first time since the United States went into Afghanistan in 2001. This time the focus is on the unrest in Kyrgyzstan following the February parliamentary elections. The opposition claims that the government of Kyrgyz President Askar Akayev is corrupt and rigged the elections. They say that the election of two of his children to parliament is an attempt to secure his legacy. People have taken to the streets and it appears that they have taken control in the southern cities of Jalal-Abad and Osh. In the capital of Bishkek, protests where violently put to an end after Akayev appointed a hardliner as the head of security.

In the BBC's article on why Kyrgyzstan matters, author Leonid Ragozin states accurately that:

The outside world has been watching events unfolding in Kyrgyzstan with a mixture of excitement and fear. Excitement because this could be the beginning of another "velvet revolution" in a former Soviet country. Fear because in such a poor and volatile region as Central Asia, it may not be as non-violent or democratic as those in Ukraine or Georgia.

Kyrgyzstan's Central Asian neighbors have all taken notice. The authoritarian leaders fear the Kyrgyz contagion will spill across their borders and threaten their regimes. The Uzbek Foreign Ministry in Bishkek issued a statement on the events taking place in Kyrgyzstan that expressed their 'concern' and called for a 'peaceful' solution without 'external interference'.

In this part of the Ferghana Valley, things are calm. People are starting to talk about what is taking place across the border in Osh (where the majority are ethnic Uzbek). One person did ask me jokingly if I felt like taking a trip to Osh. Security was no different than usual at the Tashkent and Ferghana airports this morning.