Kyrgyzstan Diary: Trouble in Kara Suu

There are new rumblings of trouble in Kyrgyzstan and last night a group of approximately 100 armed men attacked a hotel in Osh.  But Jeff Renz and Greg Munro remain precisely where the trouble is: in Osh, Kyrgyzstan, working to save Kyrgyzstan's fledging law clinic:

We were at the local jail when the troubles broke out in Uzbekistan.  We were scheduled for a meeting with the militsia chief.  A jailbreak in Andijan, we were told.  Shootings.  Problems at the border.  Sorry, maybe another day.

Osh is 60 km. from Andijan and only a few miles from the Uzbek border.  The problems were nearby.

A few days later, we were in class.  You could hear the jet engines of helicopters in the distance.  Our interpreter looked distressed.  She was distressed.  That is Kara Suu, she said. 

Kara Suu means black water or black river.   There are two Kara Suu's, one on the Uzbek side and one on the Kyrgyz side of the border. They are both east of Osh.  (At left, a picture of military action in Kara Suu, from NOVOSTI, the Russian News & Information Agency) Refugees had fled from Uzbekistan to the Kyrgyz Kara Suu.  The Uzbek Kara Suu had "seceded" to protest the government's massacre in Andijan.  They had rebuilt a bridge over the stream that separated them from Kyrgyzstan.  We could not tell the helicopters' destination—Kara Suu, KG, or Kara Suu, UZ.  We only knew that the Kyrgyz didn't have that many helicopters.

If you kill civilians and arrest others, including human rights activists, the people will quiet down for a time.  But the underlying problem remains.  Uzbekistan is not run for its citizens.  So tension continues and grows.  Last week we pulled our Peace Corps volunteers from Uzbekistan, giving them 24 hours notice.  Greg's aunt, who he had planned to visit, was one of them.  He has cancelled his plans.

We do not know when Uzbekistan will erupt again.  We only know that it will.

        KARA SUU

What the heck they were all terrorists and Islamic terrorists,
terrorists of the sort you never want to meet and now you never will.
They were terrorists who worshiped God, but not as I told them, so they are terrorists, all of them, even those who crossed the river.
Yes, they were terrorists who obeyed God, but not me,
those who sat in the square, especially those who sat in the square to defy me.
So I shot the terrorists, even the little ones, the future terrorists,  shot with my machine guns on my BRDMs and my helicopters.
What does the world care, what do they want to know?  Only that they are terrorists.
So I tell the world, they were all terrorists, and Islamic terrorists, of the sort you never want to meet and now you never will, and the world understands.

What of the Americans?  I know the Americans.  I know them better than they know themselves.
The eager Americans, the hapless Americans, the naive Americans. They ask, who is he?  I need only answer, I am you, and they dance with me.
I know the Americans who forgave mass murderers to fight communism, who forgive mass murderers who fight Islamic extremism, who will forgive all who fight terrorism, and especially forgive those who fight Islamic terrorism,
Terrorism of the sort you never want to know and now you never will.
The Americans have a saying, borrow a thousand and the bank owns you, borrow a million and you own the bank. 

I own the Americans and their millions. In their airbase built to fight terrorism, in their soldiers brought to fight terrorism.
I, who have survived intrigues that would have brought down the princes of Khokand.

What of that little town?  Who did they think they were?  They left me. They left the nation but to what purpose if not terrorism? For what reason?  To join the Kirgiz, drunk on kumis?  To be free? 

They left to be terrorists, they left to harbor terrorists, to breed terrorists. They left because they are terrorists and Islamic terrorists, terrorists of the sort you never want to visit and now you never will.

Who cares?  The Americans have leveled towns for less.  They have destroyed cities for less, searching for terrorists, searching for arms. 

I have only reclaimed a town, I have reclaimed it from the terrorists,I have destroyed the terrorists, and brought black death down upon Kara Suu, a place of the sort you never knew, and now you never will.

Want more information?  You can learn more about Kyrgyzstan in general, see a U.S. Department of State Report on Trafficking in Persons in Kyrgyzstan, or find out more about the role law clinics are playing in the legal reform movement in Kyrgyzstan.

The Kyrgyzstan Diary is a special feature provided by Univerity of Montanta Law Professors Jeff Renz (left) and Greg Munro (right). Please use the e-mail your questions or comments to me and I'll pass them on to Jeff, Greg, and their colleagues in Osh, and post their responses.