Calm Before Storm in Karasuu?

Burnt-out tax office, Karasuu, May 15.

An old man sweeps up after Karasuu protests.

Another wrecked official building in Karasuu. Photos: Sultan Kanazarov

An edgy mood among local leaders and the wreckage of government buildings are all that betray the weekend protests here which some fear will result in a military assault to recapture Karasuu, report journalists who got into the Uzbek border town.

Visiting the town on May 15 and 16, this reporter and other Kyrgyz colleagues found an atmosphere of normality, even though the local government had effectively been ousted.

There was little sense that Karasuu might be next in line to be stormed by Uzbek security forces, even though the town has already been cut off by a ring of troops stopping anyone getting in and out.

The Uzbek part of Karasuu (known locally as Qorasuv) – divided by a river and border defences from the Kyrgyz town of the same name – erupted in violence on May 14, a day after perhaps 500 civilians were gunned down by Uzbek security forces in nearby Andijan.

Local people set government buildings on fire and took the district government head, Malikjan Kasimov, hostage. There appeared to be no organised force behind the disturbances. And the concerns expressed by participants suggested that all they shared with the Andijan protesters was an underlying dissatisfaction with the state of Uzbekistan’s economy. Their main wish was to restore their town’s trade links with Kyrgyzstan.

This was highlighted when the protesters set about repairing one of several destroyed bridges - which used to link Karasuu with the Kyrgyz side - using a crane and welding equipment. This pedestrian bridge is now fixed, and a road bridge is being mended.

As people started going across, the Kyrgyz authorities let all of them through unhindered.

The bridges were taken down by the Uzbek authorities two years ago to stop people moving easily between the two Karasuus. The Kyrgyz side was home to a huge wholesale market where traders from all over Uzbekistan’s Fergana Valley came to buy consumer goods. The Uzbek government wanted to slash imports as part of its economic policies, so it simply blocked access to the market.

Since then the town has suffered a slump in cross border traffic, although a trickle of hardy Uzbek traders continued to make the crossing on a precarious rope bridge; with the Kyrgyz coming the other way to buy farm produce, which is cheaper in Uzbekistan.

When this reporter first arrived at the Tort Kocha border checkpoint on the Uzbek side of the frontier on May 15, I saw the governor of Kyrgyzstan’s Osh region, Anvar Artykov, in conversation with Malikjan Kasimov, the district government chief for the Qorghantepa district, in the Andijan region, where Karasuu is located. That was a surprise since Kasimov had been taken hostage by his townsmen the day before. They were clearly allowing him a long leash.

Artykov was berating Kasimov on the differences between the Kyrgyz revolution and the way the Uzbek authorities have behaved in Andijan, saying, “Look, colleague, we had more people taking part in rallies in March, but we were able to come to terms with them and persuade them not to ransack buildings.”

A downcast-looking Kasimov replied, “We’ll definitely restore order.” This reporter and other journalists went after him to get a comment, but he turned on us saying we were now on foreign – Uzbek – soil and should get out immediately.

We ignored this since as a captive, Kasimov was not really in a position to stop us, and continued into the Uzbek town to see the aftermath of the violence.

On the main street, we were surrounded by people who wanted to speak into our microphone.

We saw burnt-out government buildings including the police department, the local government premises and the offices of the tax inspectorate, customs service and the border guards. There were combat helmets and rounds of ammunition lying about everywhere, as well as some official documents.

In the buildings that had not been razed, there was nobody at work, just a few kids playing nearby – some wearing helmets they had found.

The damage was comprehensive – buildings left as blackened shells, the windows smashed in and at the tax office, a toxic smelling gas leaking from pipes that had been ripped up – which prompted us to beat a hasty retreat.

On the streets of Karasuu, there wasn’t a single member of the security forces - not even anyone in a suit who might have been a local government official.

Amid the destruction, an old man on his own was doing his best to sweep the street.

At the now repaired footbridge, we found large numbers of people with large sacks waiting to cross to the Kyrgyz side of town. “At last they’re repairing the road of life and we can visit our relatives and work at the market,” said an elderly man called Zafar.

Returning the following day, we ran into some people who appeared to be leaders or organisers of the protests. They were extremely suspicious of us journalists, fearing that we would pass on information to the Uzbek secret service, which would then find it easy to pinpoint and arrest them. They took some convincing that we were reporters from Kyrgyzstan who wanted to get the truth out to the world.

Yet these same men seemed unconcerned at the troops ringing the town and the rumours that an all-out assault could take place as early as the evening of May 16. “Who are they going to storm?” said one, suggesting that the lack of a cohesive organisation or any street protests would give the authorities no target.

As we travelled around elsewhere along the Uzbek-Kyrgyz border, we noted a stark contrast between the tense-looking Uzbek border guards clad in bullet-proof jackets and helmets - despite 30 degree temperatures - and their Kyrgyz counterparts who seemed to be going out of their way to be nice to journalists as well as incoming Uzbek refugees. “Accompany these reporter gentlemen wherever they wish,” a Kyrgyz officer told his men.

At the Dostuk checkpoint, the biggest on the border, a likely lad of 16 was offering his services as a taxi driver.

When he said he’d go anywhere, we asked if he would take us to Andijan city centre. He thought about it for a moment and said that would be 12 US dollars, inclusive of personal protection.

An elderly man who heard the exchange turned to us and said, “Don’t muck about lads – they might shoot you. No one will bother checking out who you are and why you’ve come to Andijan.”

Sultan Kanazarov is a correspondent for Azattyk, the Kyrgyz service of RFE/RL.