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09/9/2010

News/ POLITICAL NEWS

Political news

by 2007-06-28

* 1..10 *

2007-06-28

PROPERTY DISPUTES FUEL UZBEK-KYRGYZ TENSION IN SOUTHERN KYRGYZSTAN [08:50:00]

Inter-ethnic tension in southern Kyrgyzstan, a flashpoint of conflict during the Soviet era, is again approaching worrisome levels. The sizable Uzbek population in the Osh and Jalal-Abad regions has long felt aggrieved over perceived second-class-citizen treatment at the hands of Kyrgyz authorities in Bishkek. [For background see the Eurasia insight archive]. However, the mood of alienation and exasperation within the Uzbek community has deepened noticeably over the past year. The catalyst for rising discontent appears to be court cases involving property rights. The high-profile cases concern Kadyrjan Batyrov, a member of parliament and fabulously wealthy entrepreneur, who has been leading the effort to foster Uzbek political cohesion, while also serving as the patron of Uzbek-oriented social initiatives. Batyrov, for example, endowed Peoples’ Friendship University in his native city of Jalal-Abad. He also was the driving force behind a protest initiative in June, 2006, to secure broader civil rights for Kyrgyzstan’s Uzbeks, including recognition of Uzbek as an official language. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Last July, a farm owned by Batyrov, along with two buildings constructed with funds he provided, were spontaneously seized by Kyrgyz squatters. A representative of the squatters depicted the incidents as spontaneous actions aimed at redistributing resources to poor residents of the Jalal-Abad region. Batyrov, meanwhile, said the actions were politically motivated -- intended to punish him for his efforts to promote Uzbek rights. The fact that the court cases he initiated have dragged out has reinforced the notion in his mind that politics was, is and will remain the deciding factor. "It took me six months to win a case against those who illegally seized my land. In particular, speaking about my farmland, we lost the case in both district and regional courts. We won the suit only in the Supreme Court. Six months have already passed since the Supreme Court rendered its verdict, but my lands and houses remain in the hands of the squatters," Batyrov told EurasiaNet. Some observers have angry words for local law-enforcement agencies, alleging that the police have been negligent. "When the culprits seized the lands in Jalal-Abad, senior law enforcement officials didn’t intervene, and [instead] told Batyrov that he should bring his case before the court, which is a bit like calling for police when robbers break into your house, and, in response, them telling you that you should take legal action," a Jalal-Abad lawyer told EurasiaNet. Batyrov’s experience has left many Uzbeks in southern Kyrgyzstan convinced that national leaders employ double standards when it comes to matters involving ethnicity. "The Batyrov case that drags on for almost a year is a clear indication of discrimination against the Uzbeks. When Uzbeks seize Kyrgyz-owned lands, the authorities respond very quickly. For instance, in the village of Arslonbob in the Jalal-Abad region local Uzbeks seized an abandoned camp owned by a Kyrgyz businessman. However, the lands were soon returned to their owner, and the court ordered squatter leaders to pay significant fines," said Azimzhon Askarov, a human rights activist in Jalal-Abad. Batyrov has not remained idle while he waits for closure in the squatter cases. He has intensified his activities to politically mobilize the Uzbek community. For most of the post-Soviet era, Kyrgyz leaders in Bishkek have been able to exploit the lack of cohesion among Uzbeks, a minority that comprises roughly 13 percent of Kyrgyzstan’s population. But Batyrov is determined to change the dynamic. In January, he helped engineer the creation of a movement called Vatan, which is Uzbek for homeland. Five out of the seven ethnic Uzbeks sitting in the Kyrgyz parliament are affiliated with Vatan, which evolved out of a National Unity and Accord Party. Overall, the movement is roughly 80 percent Uzbek, with various other minorities comprising the remaining 20 percent of the membership. Vatan’s emergence has been an alarming development for Kyrgyz nationalists. Many see the choice of the name Vatan as a provocation, an act that implies that southern Kyrgyzstan is Uzbek territory. "They (Uzbeks) have some nerve to publicly declare a part of Kyrgyzstan to be native Uzbek soil," a Kyrgyz resident of Jalal-Abad complained. Officials have so far declined to official register Vatan on a technicality, saying that any party name has to be in either Kyrgyz or Russian, the two state languages. "Vatan means homeland not only in the Uzbek, but also in the Kurdish, Uighur, and Tajik languages. The new name was to emphasize that we intend to stand for all national minorities," Batyrov told EurasiaNet. Meanwhile, 200 squatter families are now living on the farm expropriated from Batyrov, and they show no sign of leaving peacefully, no matter what the Supreme Court says. A few families have over the past year built homes on the disputed land, and some squatters vowed to meet any effort to forcefully evict them with force of their own. "We will not give back the lands; we have spent much money on their development. We will fight. Many of us have hoes, but some will be able to get guns," one said. Given that the Osh region was the scene of violent rioting in 1990 between Uzbeks and Kyrgyz, such declarations of intent to resort to arms cannot be lightly dismissed. Editor-s Note: Igor Rotar is the Central Asian correspondent for EurasiaNet

TURKEY: THE POLITICAL PROCESS EXPERIENCES A QUIET REVOLUTION [08:49:00]

There was much fanfare in early June when the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) moved into its new headquarters in Ankara district of Sogutozu. The building, 14 storeys of gleaming white marble, stands 400 meters from another occupied by the AKP’s main rival, the Republican People’s Party (CHP). The edifices are designed to create the impression that only well-oiled machines can succeed in Turkish politics. But with just over four weeks to go until special parliamentary elections, established parties are facing an unexpected threat. Hundreds of independent candidates have joined the race, and a substantial number of them stands a good chance of infiltrating a political system that many believe to be critically ill. "Turkey’s political system has never tolerated dissenting voices", says Baskin Oran, a professor who is campaigning out of a tiny office in central Istanbul. "But it only takes one voice to turn everything upside down, and we will be more than one." Most of the flaws in the system date back to 1982, when a military junta pushed through a new constitution cementing its political influence, and thereby hampering the smooth development of civil society. But it was during the elections in 2002, when just two parties won the 10 percent of the vote needed to gain representation in parliament, that questions really began to be asked. Many analysts blame the comparatively high voter threshold for parliamentary representation for the current artificial polarization of the country into secular and religious wings. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. "The constitution talks about fair representation," says Orhan Miroglu, a senior member of Turkey’s main Kurdish party, the Democratic Society Party, or DTP. "Parliament today represents barely half the votes cast." Miroglu’s party was one of the worst affected in 2002: it received 2 million votes v 6.2 percent Turkey-wide, and up to 70 percent in some majority-Kurdish districts v but that total did not translate into even one parliamentary seat. This time, DTP members are running as independents, and they expect to win at least 20 seats. A left-wing party and an ultra-nationalist party have followed DTP in taking the independent road. So have a series of candidates of the sort Turkey has never seen before. There are miners, transvestites and religious-minded human rights campaigners. Last week, at a press conference outside Istanbul’s best-known brothel, two former state-employed prostitutes announced they were joining the race too, to draw attention to the appalling conditions in which their colleagues work. "This could not have happened five years ago", Baskin Oran says. "But with the passing of EU reforms, people who before were too frightened to speak out are beginning to make their voices heard." [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Others hope independents will also be an antidote to parties that political analyst Murat Yetkin compares to "feudal states." You only have to watch a few minutes of parliamentary coverage to see what he means. At party meetings, the only one talking is the leader, often for hours. MPs, meanwhile, applaud, and hope their names will be on the list for upcoming elections. When many of them found they hadn’t been, they got little sympathy from the press. "They said nothing against their leaders’ tyranny, but rebelled when their names were crossed out," said a commentary published by the daily Radikal. "If MPs whose political futures are not trapped between their party leaders’ lips begin to speak up fearlessly, it can only be good for democracy", the newspaper’s columnist Haluk Sahin argued. It is too early to predict how successful independent candidates will be. But the signs indicate that the two major parties are nervous, particularly the DTP. Bitterly divided over secularism, the AKP and CHP cooperated in May to change a constitutional article on independent candidates. On separate pieces in the past, independent candidates’ names are now on the same voting slip as party candidates. It may sound sensible enough. But Esat Canan, a CHP deputy for the Kurdish district of Hakkari, who recently left the party in protest over its increasing nationalism, described the motivation behind the change as "pure cynicism." "Illiteracy is high in the southeast, particularly among women", he explained. "When voters fill the forms in wrong, their votes can be cancelled." For Ayhan Bilgen v the former head of the conservative human rights group Mazlum-Der, and an independent candidate in the central Anatolian city of Konya v the most troubling aspect of the vote was the alacrity with which AKP participated, barely a week after the army had threatened to intervene against it. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. He thinks the legal change is likely to backfire on the parties that pushed it through. Already, he says, people in the southeast are working hard to make sure it doesn’t affect independent candidates’ chances. "You never know, literacy levels might even rise as a result," Canan says. Editor-s Note: Nicolas Birch specializes in Turkey, Iran and the Middle East.

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News archive

2007

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