A Moscow-led security group said today it would consider sending a military force to southern Kyrgyzstan to quell ethnic clashes that have killed at least 124 people in the impoverished Central Asian state.
The clashes between Kyrgyz and Uzbek residents in the cities of Osh and Jalalabad began late on Thursday and escalated over the weekend. Witnesses said gangs with automatic rifles, iron bars and machetes set fire to houses and shot fleeing residents.
The Moscow-led security bloc of ex-Soviet republics, known as the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), met today to discuss the situation in the Central Asian state.
"The CSTO has at its disposal everything needed to act in such situations, including a peace-keeping contingent ... collective rapid reaction forces and collective rapid deployment forces of the Central Asian region," Russian media quoted CSTO Secretary General Nikolai Bordyuzha as saying.
"But one should think it over well before using these means, and the most important thing is to use them as part of a complex of measures," he said. He did not specify the measures.
The CSTO comprises Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyztan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
The latest clashes are the worst ethnic violence in southern Kyrgyzstan since 1990, when then-Kremlin leader Mikhail Gorbachev sent Soviet troops into Osh after hundreds of people were killed in a dispute that started over land ownership.
The turmoil has fueled concern in Russia, the United States and neighbor China. Washington uses an air base at Manas in the north of the ex-Soviet state, about 300 km (190 miles) from Osh, to supply forces in Afghanistan. Russia also has an air base.
Kyrgyzstan's interim government, which assumed power after president Kurmanbek Bakiyev was overthrown in April, has accused supporters of the deposed leader of stoking ethnic conflict - an allegation Bakiyev denied in a statement issued yesterday.
The interim government, led by Roza Otunbayeva, said today that authorities in Jalalabad had arrested a "well-known person" on suspicion of fomenting the riots.
Kubatbek Baibolov, commandant in Jalalabad, said in televised comments: "This is nothing other than an attempt by Bakiyev's supporters and relatives to seize power."
Thousands of ethnic Uzbeks have fled to the nearby border with Uzbekistan or sought refuge in local villages to escape the deadly fighting. Many said they were being targeted by Kyrgyz gangs in a "genocide" backed by local police and troops.
"Crowds of Kyrgyz are roaming around. They set our homes on fire and kill Uzbeks right in their houses," ethnic Uzbek Muhammed Askerov, a Jalalabad businessman, told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed village.
Some ethnic Kyrgyz retort by blaming the bloodshed on Uzbeks or criminal gangs vying for influence in the region.
"The people who are talking about genocide are the same people who started this war," Khimiya Suyerkulova, an ethnic Kyrgyz UN volunteer living in Osh, said by telephone.
"We have relatives who are Uzbeks. We have friends. We live in the same houses," she said. She added that aid sacks of flour and potatoes had been delivered to feed residents who had feared starvation, as shops had been burned to the ground.
Azimbek Beknazarov, deputy head of Kyrgyzstan's interim government, said the situation in Jalalabad had stabilised this afternoon after the mediation of Kyrgyz and Uzbek elders.
"There are no more crowds in the streets. We have resolved it by our popular methods," he said by telephone from Jalalabad.
But he said many houses, including that of local Uzbek leader Kadyrzhan Batyrov, were still on fire.
Uzbeks who fled Jalalabad accused authorities appointed by the interim government of participating in the killings.
"Their slogan is 'Kyrgyzstan for the Kyrgyz', and officials and police act hand-in-glove with them," Askerov said. "But our ancestors were born here. Where should we go?"
Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan intertwine in the Fergana Valley. While Uzbeks make up 14.5 percent of the Kyrgyz population, the two groups are roughly equal in the Osh and Jalalabad regions.
The ethnic violence raises the risk of a civil war or even a full-blown conflict between Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. If the interim government loses control, Kyrgyzstan could disintegrate and cease to exist as a single independent country.
The interim government has been unable to gain full control of the country's south, separated from the north by mountains.
It appealed to Russia at the weekend to send in troops, but Moscow has said it will not send in peacekeepers alone. Moscow sent at least 150 paratroopers to protect its own military facilities, servicemen and members of their families.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he was alarmed by the scale of the clashes and ordered a special envoy to travel to the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek, his office said in a statement.
The Red Cross said yesterday the humanitarian situation in southern Kyrgyzstan was becoming "critical."
Bread had been delivered to some residents of Osh, who were fearing starvation after grocery stores burned to the ground, a Reuters reporter said. Ethnic Uzbeks trapped in one neighborhood of Osh gathered to share stockpiled food.
The interim government has sent two planes, each loaded with 50 tonnes of food, clothing and medical supplies, to the south. Residents of northern Kyrgyzstan have donated humanitarian supplies and some residents are giving blood in Bishkek.
Reuters