Kyrgyz government will not drop poll

KYRGYZSTAN’S EMBATTLED interim government insists that it will not postpone a referendum on a new constitution despite ethnic riots that have killed hundreds of people and driven some 400,000 from their homes.

Attacks on ethnic Uzbek areas of southern Kyrgyzstan have officially claimed about 200 lives and injured around 2,000 people. Aid agencies believe many more people have died however, and the UN humanitarian affairs office said yesterday that about 100,000 people had fled to Uzbekistan and 300,000 were internally displaced within Kyrgyzstan.

Despite the chaos and continuing tension in southern cities like Osh and Jalalabad, interim president Roza Otunbayeva and her government insist that a June 27th referendum on a new constitution must go ahead, two months after a bloody uprising ousted former president Kurmanbek Bakiyev. Ms Otunbayeva accuses his family and allies of starting the fighting to force postponement of the vote.

“The situation in Osh is stabilising. We have enough forces,” said deputy prime minister Azimbek Beknazarov. “We have to hold and enter a legal field. We need this like air. Everyone who calls themselves a Kyrgyz citizen must vote in the referendum.”

The well-respected International Crisis Group has warned that failure to hold a free and fair vote could further undermine faith in the provisional government and fuel dissent in ethnically mixed southern Kyrgyzstan, which includes part of the traditionally volatile Ferghana Valley.

“If they are organised incorrectly then of course that would lead to big problems. The government has to assess whether it can organise the referendum in a way that would be legitimate, so it could be recognised,” said Miroslav Jenca, a UN special envoy.

“There is a threat of extremism in the Ferghana Valley and, more broadly, in Central Asia as a whole, in the sense that Central Asia borders Afghanistan,” he added. “There are various extremist organisations . . . And, of course, in these circumstances they are finding a fertile ground to fulfil their plans.”

International aid is gradually reaching the squalid refugee camps on Uzbekistan’s border with Kyrgyzstan. But people in cities like Osh and Jalalabad complain that emergency supplies are being stolen by gunmen and that Uzbeks are too scared to seek food and medical help.

“It’s extremely tense. It’s highly flammable. Uzbeks and Kyrgyz are completely separated,” said Ole Solvang, a Human Rights Watch observer in Osh.