Osh, and lessons in ethnic violence

The return to Osh brought a welcome increase in temperature. Where the daily highs in the Alay valley were about 5°C, down in Osh—some 2,400 meters lower—the daily highs were right around 20°C.

2010  Osh Riots and ethnic tensions

Back at the Taj Mahal hotel I was joined in the dorm by a couple of journalists from Bishkek. One was a French guy who had come to Bishkek to help set up a French-language newspaper, and the other was a Kyrgyz girl who was working with him at the paper. I was surprised there was enough of a market for a French-language paper in Kyrgyzstan, but he said there was.

Anyway, they were in the Osh to write about the 2010 ethnic violence in the area. Lonely Planet had a little bit of information about this—which was somewhat surprising given that the guidebook was published in 2010 and most of their stuff seems to be written a year in advance of actually publishing it—but the journalists told me that the widespread and severe, and that the interim Kyrgystani government had commissioned an independent report on the violence, and then totally disavowed the report once its highly-critical findings were published. Somewhat strangely, the 2014 edition of LP is even less helpful on the issue, merely saying that the issue was controversial.

I downloaded and began to read the Report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry into the events in Southern Kyrgyzstan in June 2010, and I also spoke with the guys at the Osh Guesthouse while reading the 104-page report. At the beginning, some of the things they told me seemed far-fetched, and I suspected they were exaggerating. It turns out their claims were pretty plausible, and I was more surprised after reading the report that their accounts of what happened in 2010 weren't filled with more rancor.

Pretty much everyone agrees that at least 400 people died, and that over two-thirds of those killed were ethnic Uzbeks (others suggest these total represent only a fraction of the actual deaths, given that those buried quickly in accordance with Muslim beliefs were not counted at all). They also agree that over 100,000 international refugees were created, as Uzbeks crossed the border to Uzbekistan en masse. An additional 300,000 people were internally displaced within Kyrgyzstan—again, almost all of whom were Uzbeks fleeing the violence.

The immediate backdrop for this violence was the overthrow of President Bakiyev in April 2010, but the longstanding tensions between ethnic Kyrgyz and Uzbeks in southern Kyrgyzstan and the Ferghana valley also played a large role: Uzbeks had been marginalized from participation in civil society and employment in governmental positions for a long time, and there was significant resentment of prosperous, urban, Uzbek businessmen from the mountain-dwelling Kyrgyz in southern Kyrgyzstan.

Now in the aftermath of Bakiyev's overthrow, there is widespread belief that Bakiyev and his supporters wanted to foment racial violence in order to demonstrate the need for a strongman-style leader in Kyrgyzstan (as in neighboring CIS countries) who could effectively and ruthlessly control the country. Under this theory, Bakiyev's allies and relatives in the region began to spread rumors about Uzbeks intended to create violence, and Bakiyev thugs may have initiated the violence. We do know that in May, after his April overthrow and exile, Bakiyev supporters took control of government buildings in Osh, Jala-Abad, and Batken, although control of these buildings were quickly recovered.

We once again see that tales of inter-ethnic rape is always a reliable way to incite violence. We saw it in the violence targeting Uyghurs in the Shaoguan Incident in 2009 (which helped spark the Urumqi riots), and it seems to have been the most effective rumor used in June 2010 in southern Kyrgyzstan. After some small skirmishes on June 10, rumors spread of Uzbeks raping Kyrgyz girls at a university dormitory, and it seems that this rumor was spread to Kyrgyz communities in the mountains in an organized manner, prompting numerous Kyrgyz to come down to Osh and Jala-Abad from their mountain communities.

What seems to have happened after this is that Kyrgyz streamed into Osh and Jalal-Abad, and that the Uzbeks largely barricaded themselves into their districts in order to protect themselves. The arriving Kyrgyz then raided police stations and security vehicles that had been deployed by the police, seizing weapons and ammunition from these forces, who did not attempt to prevent them from doing so. Apparently a few Armed Personnel Carriers were also taken from the complicit police, and used to help break into Uzbek areas: direct military involvement seems probable.

Applying its evidentiary standard to the evidence, the KIC considers that there was some military involvement in these attacks. This arises from presence of expertly driven APCs carrying men in military uniform, the apparent readiness with which the military surrendered APCs, weapons and ammunition, the repeated system and order to the attacks and the evidence of planning in the specific targeting of neighbourhoods, people and property. Such discipline and order is not commensurate with the normal actions of spontaneously rioting civilian crowds.

Women were seized and raped, while men were tortured and killed. Police sniper rifles were also used against Uzbeks, though it's not certain if these were from civilians who had seized the weapons or from actual police or army officers. Those Uzbeks who could sought refuge across the border in Uzbekistan, while others fled their homes to seek refuge elsewhere in Kyrgyzstan.

Once the situation stabilized and peace returned to the area, almost all of those who were investigated and charged with violence were Uzbeks, and police failed to protect those Uzbeks from physical assault during their trials. It's clear that ethnic tensions continue to percolate in the region.

This happened only two years before I was in Osh and Jalal-Abad. Although many buildings had been burned out, I had failed to notice any, and if I did notice any I certainly didn't connect them to the violence. For someone coming from a stable and diverse country like Canada, it was really difficult for me to understand this level of ethnic strife, and to understand how people could continue to function as a society in the knowledge that there was so much widespread ethnic hatred which could be re-ignited at any moment. It was difficult to understand why there wasn't more anger from the Uzbeks. I'm sure that part of it is that as a tourist you simply aren't able to access and understand the tensions that simmer beneath the surface in most societies (I'm not sure that most tourists to the US really feel the the tense state of race relations there, even though events continually pop up that hint just how bad they are), but even accounting for this there simply seems to be a greater acceptance of—or resignation to—tremendous injustice, discrimination, and unfairness.

Urumqi and Xinjiang—Han colonialism and Uyghur resistance

Urumqi offers little for the traveler. Its a large and relatively anonymous Han-dominated Chinese city, full of modern buildings. Although there is a substantial Uyghur population, traditional Uyghers live in what are effectively ghettos, under the careful watch of Chinese security forces. Much of the security is in response to Uyghur-Han tensions and isolated Uyghur acts of violence.

As a whole, Xinjiang is 43% Uyghur and 41% Han, with the Han proportion growing as a result of governmental efforts to encourage migration (including, reportedly, granting prisoners early release conditional on them moving there): as in Tibet and Inner Mongolia, the two other autonomous regions in China, they're trying to marginalize the indigenous ethnic populations by flooding their territory with Han. In 1945, for example, Xinjiang was just 6% Han and 83% Uyghur.

On the other hand, Urumqi—the capital city of Xinjiang and its economic powerhouse—is about 75% Han and 13% Uyghur. Although Urumqi has been a Han city for a long time, the major difference is that it's now a city of over 3 million people, while in 1949 it had only 100,000 people (of which 62% were Han). 

Urumqi demographics

Year	Total	Uyghur	%Uyghur	Han	%Han
1949	100,710	18,310	16.99	67,588	62.29
1950	121,746	21,074	17.30	77,554	63.70
1951	125,275	21,955	17.52	78,902	62.98
1955	171,897	31,769	18.48	109,842	63.89
1960	634,844	76,496	12.04	477,321	75.18
1965	615,189	62,439	10.14	463,804	75.39
1968	679,165	72,339	10.65	511,547	75.31
1972	765,788	73,265	9.56	587,813	76.75
1975	930,430	91,708	9.85	716,550	77.01
1980	1,060,502	108,239	10.20	812,557	76.62
1985	1,172,335	138,546	11.81	868,789	74.10
1990	1,384,300	173,200	12.51	1,007,355	73.30
1996	1,478,922	188,327	12.73	1,076,319	72.77
2000	2,081,834	266,475	12.80	1,567,621	75.30

Urumqi is the capital city of Xinjiang, and in many ways it's a pretty good representation of what the government wants to turn Xinjiang into: predominantly Han, visually similar to other bland, large cities in China, with materialistic Han culture as dominant, and with minorities relegated to what are functionally ghettoes, and doing all this while maintaining sanitized versions of minority culture as tourist attractions for the Han. The Uyghur are well aware of what the government has done in Inner Mongolia and Tibet, and are aware that their culture and way of life are under threat, and in many ways Urumqi has become ground zero in the battle for Xinjiang—although there have been tensions and incidents throughout Xinjiang, and even in Kunming and Beijing, Urumqi remains the most identifiable source of ongoing tension.

Obviously, the pivotal incident in the recent history of these tensions is the 2009 Urumqi riots, which themselves were a response to an incident in eastern China in which Uyghur workers were killed after false rumors circulated that Uyghurs had raped a Han woman.

Whatever the genesis of the recent tensions, it seems clear to me that the Uyghur have learned from the experience of Tibet and seen how ineffective the Tibetan passive resistance and self-immolation has been, and instead adopted a more aggressive approach. Instead of punishing themselves as a way of drawing attention to their disagreement and unhappiness with Han domination, the Uyghur instead have acted in a way to make the Han feel unwelcome and unsafe in Xinjiang. This seems to have had the desired effect: while Tibet has been overrun with Han migrants and tourists (so much so that even some Han will admit there are too many tourists), Xinjiang enjoys a reputation among the Han as being too dangerous to visit and a relatively unattractive migration destination.

To the extent that the Uyghur really don't want Han in their homeland—even as tourists—I think that the Western media gets a lot of the story wrong. A recent NY Times article, for example, lamented the decline in tourism in Xinjiang as though this was a blow to people living in Xinjiang, and not an actual goal of not only the terrorists but of many Uyghurs. (Also, it seems as if any English-language article on Xinjiang must describe it as 'restive.') A drop in tourism is unlikely to affect that many Uyghurs, especially since it seems like most travel agencies, hotels, etc., are run by Han, and not Uyghurs. This extends everywhere, from the big travel agents to hotels, and even to hostels (typically run by young Han migrants, even if they do tend to be very sympathetic to the Uyghur). The Han dominance in this industry merely reflects Han dominance of all lucrative industry: even though Uyghur benefit from quotas that make it easier to attend university (and are exempt from the one-child policy), almost all jobs seem to be filled by Han, and most Uyghur seem to work in the traditional farming and animal husbandry sector, while it's Han migrants who are employed in newer industrial projects.

The government response to the threat of Uyghur terrorism is to institute a police state. There are license plate cameras everywhere, including on highways in the middle of nowhere. Police checkpoints where they scan the RFID micro-chip equipped ID cards of all passengers are also common, and are located between major cities. The government keeps track of where everyone is, at all time, where they stay (you scan your ID card when checking in at a hotel, just as you do when purchasing a train or bus ticket), and what you're looking at on the internet (you scan your ID card at internet cafes and you need a government permit in order to have an open internet hotspot). Indeed, for almost a year after the 2009 riots the government totally disabled the internet in Urumqi: no one could access anything more than about 100 local sites. Luggage must be X-rayed when taking both the train and bus. Gas stations are barricaded and all passengers must get out before the barricades are lifted and cars allowed onto the premises. Security guards in riot gear patrol potential flashpoints. The fear and paranoia is palpable.

Pagoda on the western edge of Hong Shan (Red Rock) park. Unsurprisingly, all of the parks are Han style. You can see lots of tourists taking pictures by the pagoda, which is the highest point in the park and city centre. I saw a Uyghur man stand in front of a Han Chinese family so their picture couldn't be taken, then pretend not to understand Mandarin when they rather politely asked him to move.

Chinese signs of this nature are often quite poetic, but I wonder about their efficacy since empathy doesn't seem to be a Han strength.

Looking southeast from Hong Shan park. Urumqi is on the northern edge of the Tian Shan mountain range that runs from Kyrgyzstan all the way through north-central Xinjiang to the edge of Gansu.