By Bruno DE CORDIER, Conflict Research Group in Gand
Shortly after the communal violence in Osh and Jalalabad which left, according to source, 300 to 800 dead, Kyrgyzstan's intelligence chief Keneshbek Duishebayev claimed that relatives of deposed president Kurmanbek Bakiyev met in Dubai with Islamist militants of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and the Islamic Jihad Union (1) and paid the latter up to 30 million dollars to destabilize southern Kyrgyzstan. Later warnings about the threat of extremism by UN Special Envoy Miroslav Jenca and US Assistant Secretary of State Robert Blake suggest that at least part of the international community implicitly endorses the line an ‘Islamist hand' in the unrest. This, at once, reconfirms that the specter of ‘extremism' remains a prime alibi for foreign governments and organizations to maintain a high degree of influence and presence in Kyrgyzstan.
On the grounds though, few people really buy into the line or remain cynical, not in the least because the intelligence agencies did not come up with the evidence they pretended to have. Besides, practices like fabricated evidence, forced confessions and the reflex to bring any violence back to an extremist plot even if they later show to be of common criminal rather than of political nature, are prevalent in the region's law enforcement and intelligence agencies. The Tajik- and then Afghan-based Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan first made headlines when its fighters appeared in Batken, along the Kyrgyz-Tajik border, in 1999 and 2000. After the death of its leader Juma Namangani and the demise of Taliban rule in Afghanistan, where it had its bases, in 2001, remnants of the group moved to the tribal areas on the Afghan-Pakistani border where they and its offshoot, the Islamic Jihad Union, are still based and operate as part of a wider Taliban network. Recently, a number of IMU and IJU guerrillas have relocated to the Afghan provinces of Zabul and Kunduz.
For all they have done at other times, fanning or using ethnic hatred has been neither an ideological line nor a shown practice of either the IMU or the IJU. Both groups are largely anti-nationalist and, though numerically dominated by Uzbeks, have a multi-ethnic composition that also includes Tatars, Uighurs, Kyrgyz, Kazakhs and Turkmens. Even at it zenith in 1999 and 2000 when the IMU appeared in Batken and held some territory there for a number of weeks, there is no credible evidence that its fighters ever raped, looted or committed any atrocities against a particular ethnic group. The question is also to what extent present IMU leader Tahir Yuldash still has real designs in Kyrgyzstan and the wider Ferghana area at all. At present, he and his group are mainly involved in fighting the American occupation forces and their proxies in Afghanistan, which is a much bigger and much more prestigious cause in global Jihadi circles.
The IMU did posted an audio and text message in Uzbek about the unrest on its portal (2) . In this communication, IMU spokesman Abdulfatoh Ahmadi condemns ethnic nationalism and ethnic violence as un-Islamic and expresses condolences to the families of the victims and to ‘the oppressed Muslims of southern Kyrgyzstan'. The message, supported by several Quranic verses, does not call for revenge or for Jihad against certain ethnic groups or against fellow Muslims, but rather stresses unity in faith. It blames the upheaval on ‘the dirty manipulations and intrigues of America, Russia and the little Pharaohs of the region's puppet regimes'. Finally, it calls ‘the Muslims of Mawara'un-Nahr' (the Arab-Islamic name for Central Asia) not to expect any help or salvation from any foreign power or from the UN, but to find true salvation by living according to the rules of Islam and stand for Islam.
Over the last one and a half decade, nationalism became both a reaction among part of the people and the intelligentsia against the dislocations caused by neoliberal, donor-driven reforms, and something promoted by power elites for self-legitimizing and to counter the influence of Islam.
Bakiev's rule was characterized by increasing repression against practicing Muslims, starting with the dubious murder of popular imam Muhammad Rafik Kamalov in Karasu in mid-2006, further arrests of real and more often alleged members of the pan-Islamist party Hizb Ut-Tahrir, and the crackdown on a public celebration of Eid Al-Fitr in the southern town of Naukat in 2008. It is doubtful that the Bakievs and their entourage, who are mostly atheists or nominal Muslims at best, could find common cause or have any workable contacts with the same foreign-based Islamic extremists that they pretended to fight no so long ago, all when the criminal networks in southern Kyrgyzstan have enough rank-and-file to do the dirty work. Rather, the accusations that 'Islamists', be it or not in collaboration with the Bakievs, are behind the violence is not only an ideological reflex of anti-Islamic security cadres and certain media, but also a pernicious rethorical maneuver to shift the blame to certain communities and justify any post-riot arrests and crackdowns internationally.
Bruno De Cordier
Notes
(1) http://www.caucaz.com/home_eng/breve_contenu.php?id=344
(2) http://www.furqon.com/Maqolalar/ahmadiy06.2010.html
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