11 killed in violence in Karachi

July 22, 2011 By

KARACHI: At least 11 people were killed and 15 others were wounded in a fresh wave of violence in Karachi, Pakistan's biggest city, officials said on Friday.

Last week Pakistan ordered hundreds of extra paramilitary policemen onto the streets of the Arabian Sea port to try to quell the violence.

Political and ethnic violence in Karachi is blamed on supporters of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), based among the Urdu-speaking majority, and the rival Awami National Party (ANP), which represents based migrant Pashtuns from the northwest.

“At least 11 people were killed and 15 others were wounded since last night,” home ministry official Sharafuddin Memon said, but declined to comment whether they were ethnically-motivated killings.

Local police officials confirmed the death tol

l but did not give details.

The MQM last month quit the coalitions led by the main ruling Pakistan People's Party (PPP) that govern the country and the southern province of Sindh, of which Karachi is the capital. The ANP remains part of both coalitions.

The previous wave of violence erupted after provincial minister Zulfiqar Mirza, from the PPP, criticised the MQM and its exiled leader Altaf Hussain.

Mirza later apologised for remarks that he said were his “personal opinion” and from London, Hussain asked his supporters to “end their peaceful protest and go back to their homes”.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan says 490 people were killed in targeted killings in Karachi in the first half of the year, compared to 748 for the whole of 2010, which was the worst since 1995.

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China’s far-west city held in check on bloody anniversary

July 6, 2010 By Leave a Comment

URUMQI, China, July 5 (Reuters) – Chinese security forces kept a wary watch on Monday on a far-western city that erupted in deadly ethnic violence a year ago, flooding the streets with paramilitary police, some armed and others in riot gear.

On July 5 last year, mobs of Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking people who have called Xinjiang their homeland, attacked hundreds of Han Chinese after a demonstration by Uighurs was broken up. At least 197 people died in the violence.

In the following days Uighurs were hunted by Han gangs shouting for vengeance. It was unclear how many people may have died in those attacks.

The streets of Urumqi were slightly quieter than on a usual, but a steady stream of people still headed to work in the city centre. Most said the memory of last year still weighed but not enough to stop them coming out.

“I’m actually very happy today because its my first day of work,” said 20 year-old Dou Huanying, heading around the city’s closed-off central square, where last year’s unrest began.

“I am not worried because I believe in China. You can see all the extra measures that the government has taken.”

Commuters in taxis, buses and on foot came under the watchful eye of thousands of new security cameras and regular patrols by riot police, armed with guns, loudspeakers, shields and helmets.

Dilxat Raxit, a spokesman for the exiled World Uyghur Congress, said they were planning protests around the world to mark the day, and repeated a call for Beijing to allow an independent probe of the riots.

“There is too big a gap between the numbers of dead China has announced and the reports we have received,” he said by telephone. “There must be an independent investigation.”

A DAY OFF

A propaganda effort to keep emotions in check matched the massive security drive, with state media promoting a push to boost economic growth that would ensure control in the restive but resource-rich and strategically-located region.

The anniversary appeared to have been kept out of regional television, radio and print news, which featured stories on ethnic unity and local issues like flooding and a new airport.

Some Uighurs in Urumqi said they had been told to stay off the streets, and taxi drivers said customers were scarcer than usual with several government offices closing.

“We’ve been given the day off, to rest at home,” said one physical education student on the eve of the anniversary.

But on the morning of the anniversary, small businesses in a Uighur neighbourhood near some of the worst rioting opened up as usual, saying they couldn’t afford to take a day off work.

Beijing has pledged faster development to ease tensions in the strategically vital area, which has rich energy deposits, borders several central Asian nations and accounts for around one-sixth of the country’s territory.

New jobs should be created within three months for about 16,000 families struggling to secure work, the region’s Communist Party boss was quoted saying in the official People’s Daily.

Urumqi city will also invest 3.5 billion yuan ($517 million) moving 200,000 families into new and renovated homes, the paper added. It did not say how the apartments or jobs would be split between Han and Uighur.

The English-language China Daily carried a more graphic account of lingering sorrow, among Han victims of the violence and their relatives, and confirmed that the government is increasing networks of informants in Uighur areas.

“Ethnic officers communicate with local residents better and can be sent into ethnic areas undercover so we can obtain intelligence,” the report quoted Li Shenhui, chief director of the city’s special police force, saying.

Around 70 percent of his expanded force of 530 officers are non-Han, the paper added. ($1 = 6.770 Yuan) (Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in Beijing)

(Editing by Sugita Katyal)

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China says breaks up “terrorist” cell in Xinjiang

June 25, 2010 By Leave a Comment

(Reuters) – Chinese security forces have broken up a “terrorist” cell in the restive far western region of Xinjiang, an official said on Thursday, nearly a year after ethnic violence in the regional capital left around 200 dead.

World

Ministry of Public Security spokesman Wu Heping told a brief news conference that more than 10 members of a “terrorist” group had been rounded up who were planning attacks across Xinjiang, and explosives, knives and other equipment seized.

“The breaking up of this large terrorist group once again proves that the East Turkestan Islamic Movement is the major terror threat facing China at present and henceforward,” Wu said.

Exile groups and many Uighurs, a Muslin people native to the region, refer to Xinjiang as East Turkestan. Energy-rich Xinjiang is strategically located on China’s borders of Afghanistan, Pakistan and several Central Asian states.

Wu identified the two ringleaders as Abudourexiti Abulaiti, 42, and Yiming Semaier, 33.

“China’s public security bodies will resolutely support and put into effect U.N. Security Council resolutions, will strike severely against terrorist activities, and earnestly maintain social stability,” Wu added. He did not take questions.

The group had been planning a series of attacks in the Xinjiang cities of Kashgar, Hotan and Aksu, but their plans were thwarted and some of them fled, Wu said, reading from a prepared statement.

But Dilxat Raxit, a spokesman for the exiled World Uyghur Congress, said the timing of the announcement was suspicious, coming so soon before the one-year anniversary of violent unrest in Xinjiang’s regional capital Urumqi.

“China has a political motive in choosing the period before the July 5 anniversary to publicize this. The purpose is to raise pressure on Uighurs,” he said by telephone.

“The evidence given by the Chinese is all one-sided, with no independent verification and no credible proof,” he added.

REPATRIATED

At least two of the group had smuggled themselves out of China and were repatriated last December, Wu said.

Though he did not say where they had been extradited from, Cambodia repatriated to China a group of 20 Uighurs in December who they said had illegally entered the country.

China is Cambodia’s biggest investor, having poured more than $4 billion in foreign direct investment into the country.

While overseas, these men swore allegiance to the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, listed by the United Nations in 2002 as a “terrorist” organization with links to al Qaeda, and received financial support and other aid from the group, Wu said.

Beijing often blames what it calls violent separatist groups in Xinjiang for attacks on police or other government targets, saying they work with al Qaeda or Central Asian militants to bring about an independent state called East Turkestan.

Uighur exiles accuse China of whipping up the threat posed by armed separatists to justify harsh crackdowns in the region.

Next month marks the one-year anniversary of violent unrest in Xinjiang’s regional capital Urumqi, in which Uighurs attacked Han Chinese who sought revenge days later. The unrest left around 200 dead, mostly Hans.

Many Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking ethnic group, chafe under Chinese rule and resent an influx of Han Chinese workers from eastern and central China.

China’s replaced its top official in Xinjiang, the hardline Wang Lequan, in April.

While the Olympic Games were held in Beijing in 2008, there were at least three attacks against police and paramilitary troops near Xinjiang’s southern frontier city of Kashgar, which China attributed to Uighur separatists.

(Additional reporting by Lucy Hornby; Editing by Benjamin Kang Lim and Sanjeev Miglani)

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U.S. urges Kygyzstan on crisis

June 21, 2010 By Leave a Comment

June 19 – The U.S. envoy for Central Asia urges Kyrgyzstan to create conditions for a safe return of hundreds of thousands of refugees uprooted by last week’s outburst of ethnic violence.

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Kyrgyz turmoil could breed Islamist militancy – U.N.

June 18, 2010 By Leave a Comment

BISHKEK, June 17 (Reuters) – Turmoil in Kyrgyzstan offers an ideal breeding ground for Islamist militancy in the Muslim region north of Afghanistan and the government must act quickly to curb any further violence, a U.N. envoy said.

Kyrgyzstan’s ethnically divided south has been turbulent since a revolt in April toppled its president, Kurmanbek Bakiyev, and brought an interim government to power.

Russia and the West fear that instability in the ex-Soviet republic, which lies on a major drug trafficking route out of Afghanistan, could produce a safe haven to militants, particularly in the over-populated Ferghana valley.

“There is a threat of extremism in Ferghana valley and, more broadly, in Central Asia as a whole, in the sense that Central Asia borders Afghanistan,” United Nations Special Envoy Miroslav Jenca told Reuters in an interview late on Wednesday.

“There are various extremist organisations … And of course in these circumstances they are finding a fertile ground to filfil their plans.”

At least 191 people have been killed since June 10 in Kyrgyzstan’s south in an outburst of ethnic violence between its two main ethnic groups, Kyrgyz and Uzbeks.

The violence has subsided in the last few days in a country where Russia and the United States have military air bases.

Up to 100,000 people have fled their homes and set up camps in Ferghana valley where Kyrgyzstan borders Uzbekistan.

Humanitarian aid has been flowing to the south but obvservers say it is not reaching many neighourhoods that have barricaded themselves in fear of further violence.

Islamist extremism is rare in Central Asia, a secular region ruled from Moscow until the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991.

But deepening problems such as poverty, illiteracy and people’s growing frustration with their governments have made them more susceptible to Islamist ideas, emboldening radical groups to gain strength in Central Asia.

Those include the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and the less radical Hizb ut-Tahrir group but there have been no signs of increased militant activity since the April revolt.

The new leadership plans to hold a referendum on June 27 to vote on constitutional changes. Some officials have suggested Kyrgyzstan delay the poll until the situation stabilises.

“If they (elections) are organised incorrectly then of course that would lead to big problems,” Jenca said.

“The government has to assess whether it can organise the referendum in a way that would be legitimate, so it could be recognised.”

(For more on Kyrgyzstan click on [ID:nLDE65A145])

(Writing by Maria Golovnina; Editing by Michael Roddy)

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UPDATE 1-Chaarat Gold says unaffected by Kyrgyz clashes

June 16, 2010 By Leave a Comment

June 15 (Reuters) – Chaarat Gold Holdings Ltd (CGH.L), a gold exploration company in Kyrgyzstan, said its operations in Bishkek and at site in the north west of the country have been unaffected by the ethnic violence in the south.

Shares in London-listed Charaat fell 7.1 percent on Monday as the number of people killed in ethnic clashes in the former Soviet republic rose to at least 124.

- For more on Kyrgyzstan click on [ID:nLDE65A145]

(Reporting by Julie Crust; editing by James Davey)

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Chaarat Gold says unaffected by Kyrgyz clashes

June 16, 2010 By Leave a Comment

LONDON, June 15 (Reuters) – Chaarat Gold Holdings Ltd (CGH.L), a gold exploration company in Kyrgyzstan, said its operations in Bishkek and at site in the north west of the country have been unaffected by the ethnic violence in the south.

Shares in London-listed Charaat fell 7.1 percent on Monday as the number of people killed in ethnic clashes in the former Soviet republic rose to at least 124.

- For more on Kyrgyzstan click on [ID:nLDE65A145]

(Reporting by Julie Crust; editing by James Davey)

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PRESS DIGEST – Wall Street Journal – June 14

June 15, 2010 By Leave a Comment

(Reuters) – The following were the top stories in The Wall Street Journal on Monday. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.

Stocks | Global Markets

* Ethnic violence flared out of control in Kyrgyzstan, threatening to destabilize what has been a conduit for troops and supplies for the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan.

* The race to profit from Asia’s growing appetite for corn, soybeans and other crops is resurrecting once-dormant disputes between two mainstays of the nation’s economy: Farmers and railroads.

* Economic woes in Europe and the accompanying decline in the euro are already digging into the profits of Asia’s manufacturers. The worry is that the pain will spread more broadly if European demand for Asian exports falters.

* Settlement talks between Dell Inc (DELL.O), its CEO and the SEC may help illuminate what role rebates from Intel Corp (INTC.O) played in the computer maker’s finances.

* AT&T Inc (T.N), reaching out to iPad users Sunday to explain why their email addresses were released last week, blamed the incident on “computer hackers” who “maliciously exploited” an attempt by the carrier to speed the process of logging in to its website.

* French and German banks continued to hold the greatest exposure to euro-zone countries facing market pressures at the end of last year, underscoring their interest in restoring investor confidence in the region.

* Investors are ignoring warning signs in the $2.8 trillion municipal-bond market, raising the risk of a reckoning, according to some market specialists.

* Some workers at a Honda Motor Co (7267.T) plant in southern China pressed ahead with a strike Sunday as part of a wave of labor unrest that poses a political challenge for the Communist Party, whose authority in the workplace is being undermined by independent labor activists.

* European Central Bank governor Athanasios Orphanides indicated in an interview with Dow Jones Newswires that interest rates in the euro zone will remain on hold for many months, urging European politicians to tackle yawning inefficiencies in fiscal governance.

* Chinese wind-turbine maker Xinjiang Goldwind Science & Technology Co has decided to shelve its $1.2 billion Hong Kong initial public offering because of volatile market conditions, a person familiar with the situation said Sunday.

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Ethnic Uzbeks tell of slaughter in Kyrgyz city

June 14, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Kyrgyzstan (Reuters) – Ethnic Uzbeks said Kyrgyz gangs were carrying out genocide on Sunday in besieged neighborhoods of Kyrgyzstan’s second city Osh, burning residents out of their homes and shooting them as they fled.

World | Kyrgyzstan

Thousands of women and children have fled Osh for the border with Uzbekistan to escape gangs armed with assault rifles, machetes and iron bars. Those that remain blockaded the entrances to their neighborhoods with trucks.

“We are standing at the barricade waiting for them to attack again,” said Bakhram Magrafimov, 45, a taxi driver in the mainly Uzbek area of Pyanny Bazar. Residents complained their hunting rifles were no match for the automatic weapons of their enemies.

“They said: ‘Go back to Uzbekistan.’ They are attacking our women and children,” said Magrafimov.

But residents said armed troops had refused to escort Uzbeks to the border, only 10 km (6 miles) away in a region where the borders drawn by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin intertwine the two countries in the volatile Fergana valley.

Kholbek, an ethnic Uzbek who gave only his first name, said residents were afraid to leave: “There are snipers out there.”

Kyrgyzstan’s worst ethnic clashes in two decades have spread across the south of the impoverished Central Asian state, which hosts U.S. and Russian military bases.

At least 97 people have been killed and more than 1,200 wounded in three days of violence.

The interim government of Kyrgyzstan, which assumed power in April after a popular revolt toppled the president, has ordered a shoot-to-kill policy for its troops in the south.

But Roza Otunbayeva’s government has only limited control in the south, which is separated by mountains from the capital Bishkek, about 300 km (190 miles) away.

Otunbayeva has accused the ousted president, Kurmanbek Bakiyev, of stoking ethnic violence in his southern stronghold. Bakiyev, exiled in Belarus, has denied this.

Several witnesses told Reuters that the military was also shooting Uzbeks. Takhir Maksitov of human rights group Citizens Against Corruption, barricaded into his home, said he believed there could be a political dimension to the slaughter.

“This is genocide, because there are many Uzbeks here and if we were to create our own party and go to the polls…” He did not finish the sentence.

“Send in the peacekeepers, Russia, the U.N., whoever. The most important thing is to the stop the slaughter,” he said.

Habibullah Khurulayev, a 69-year old retired builder, said the police were doing nothing to stop the massacre.

“They are killing us with impunity,” he said.

Residents said the gunfire had subsided toward the evening and that some of the attackers had retreated.

“There was gunfire from the morning. It stopped three or four hours ago,” said Magrafimov. “They are people too. They have to rest, to drink tea.

“But they are well organised. They know what they are doing.”

(Reporting by Olga Dzyubenko in Bishkek, Robin Paxton in Almaty and Conor Humphries in Moscow; writing by Robin Paxton; editing by Noah Barkin)

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Ethnic Uzbeks tell of slaughter in Kyrgyz city

June 14, 2010 By Leave a Comment

OSH, Kyrgyzstan, June 13 (Reuters) – Ethnic Uzbeks said Kyrgyz gangs were carrying out genocide on Sunday in besieged neighbourhoods of Kyrgyzstan’s second city Osh, burning residents out of their homes and shooting them as they fled.

Thousands of women and children have fled Osh for the border with Uzbekistan to escape gangs armed with assault rifles, machetes and iron bars. Those that remain blockaded the entrances to their neighbourhoods with trucks. “We are standing at the barricade waiting for them to attack again,” said Bakhram Magrafimov, 45, a taxi driver in the mainly Uzbek area of Pyanny Bazar. Residents complained their hunting rifles were no match for the automatic weapons of their enemies.

“They said: ‘Go back to Uzbekistan.’ They are attacking our women and children,” said Magrafimov.

But residents said armed troops had refused to escort Uzbeks to the border, only 10 km (6 miles) away in a region where the borders drawn by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin intertwine the two countries in the volatile Fergana valley. Kholbek, an ethnic Uzbek who gave only his first name, said residents were afraid to leave: “There are snipers out there.”

Kyrgyzstan’s worst ethnic clashes in two decades have spread across the south of the impoverished Central Asian state, which hosts U.S. and Russian military bases.

At least 97 people have been killed and more than 1,200 wounded in three days of violence. [ID:nLDE65C03K]

The interim government of Kyrgyzstan, which assumed power in April after a popular revolt toppled the president, has ordered a shoot-to-kill policy for its troops in the south.

But Roza Otunbayeva’s government has only limited control in the south, which is separated by mountains from the capital Bishkek, about 300 km (190 miles) away.

Otunbayeva has accused the ousted president, Kurmanbek Bakiyev, of stoking ethnic violence in his southern stronghold. Bakiyev, exiled in Belarus, has denied this.

Several witnesses told Reuters that the military was also shooting Uzbeks. Takhir Maksitov of human rights group Citizens Against Corruption, barricaded into his home, said he believed there could be a political dimension to the slaughter.

“This is genocide, because there are many Uzbeks here and if we were to create our own party and go to the polls…” He did not finish the sentence.

“Send in the peacekeepers, Russia, the U.N., whoever. The most important thing is to the stop the slaughter,” he said.

Habibullah Khurulayev, a 69-year old retired builder, said the police were doing nothing to stop the massacre.

“They are killing us with impunity,” he said.

Residents said the gunfire had subsided toward the evening and that some of the attackers had retreated.

“There was gunfire from the morning. It stopped three or four hours ago,” said Magrafimov. “They are people too. They have to rest, to drink tea.

“But they are well organised. They know what they are doing.” (Reporting by Olga Dzyubenko in Bishkek, Robin Paxton in Almaty and Conor Humphries in Moscow; writing by Robin Paxton; editing by Noah Barkin)

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One Pakistani killed and 15 abducted in Kyrgyzstan

June 14, 2010 By Leave a Comment

(Reuters) – One Pakistani student has been killed and around 15 reportedly taken hostage in Kyrgyzstan’s riot-stricken southern city of Osh, Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said on Sunday.

At least 83 people have been killed — 72 in Osh alone — in gun battles over the past three days in the Central Asian state’s worst ethnic violence in two decades.

“One student has been killed and there are reports that 15 have been taken hostage for ransom. We are trying to confirm these reports,” Qureshi told Reuters.

“Our first priority is to ensure the safety of our brethren stranded there. We are trying to establish contact with Kyrgyz authorities,” he said.

Around 1,200 Pakistanis, mostly students, live in Kyrgyzstan, although many of them have returned to Pakistan for summer vacations, Qureshi said. Universities in the former Soviet states are attractive to many Pakistanis for their cheaper training in medical and engineering fields.

Obaid Ansari, who studies medicine in Osh, said he fled the city and returned to Pakistan shortly after riots broke out.

“I am receiving text messages from my colleagues and friends that have taken refuge in basements. They informed me that 15 have been abducted,” Ansari said by telephone from his home town of Jacobabad in southern Pakistan.

“I and four of my friends managed to flee as we were outside Osh when trouble started. When we returned, there was fire all over,” he said, adding the situation in Osh was “very dangerous.”

The interim government of Kyrgyzstan, an ex-Soviet republic hosting U.S. and Russian military bases, gave its security forces shoot-to-kill powers after deadly riots between ethnic Uzbeks and Kyrgyz in Osh and Jalalabad.

Osh is a stronghold of former President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, who was toppled in riots in April. Interim government leader Roza Otunbayeva has accused supporters of Bakiyev, who is in exile in Belarus, of stoking ethnic conflict.

Bakiyev has denied any role in the riots.

(Additional reporting by Asim Tanvir in Multan; Editing by Chris Allbritton and Paul Tait)

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One Pakistani killed, 15 abducted in Kyrgyzstan

June 14, 2010 By Leave a Comment

ISLAMABAD, June 13 (Reuters) – One Pakistani student has been killed and around 15 reportedly taken hostage in Kyrgyzstan’s riot-stricken southern city of Osh, Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said on Sunday.

At least 83 people have been killed — 72 in Osh alone — in gun battles over the past three days in the Central Asian state’s worst ethnic violence in two decades.

“One student has been killed and there are reports that 15 have been taken hostage for ransom. We are trying to confirm these reports,” Qureshi told Reuters.

“Our first priority is to ensure the safety of our brethren stranded there. We are trying to establish contact with Kyrgyz authorities,” he said.

Around 1,200 Pakistanis, mostly students, live in Kyrgyzstan, although many of them have returned to Pakistan for summer vacations, Qureshi said. Universities in the former Soviet states are attractive to many Pakistanis for their cheaper training in medical and engineering fields.

Obaid Ansari, who studies medicine in Osh, said he fled the city and returned to Pakistan shortly after riots broke out.

“I am receiving text messages from my colleagues and friends that have taken refuge in basements. They informed me that 15 have been abducted,” Ansari said by telephone from his home town of Jacobabad in southern Pakistan.

“I and four of my friends managed to flee as we were outside Osh when trouble started. When we returned, there was fire all over,” he said, adding the situation in Osh was “very dangerous”.

The interim government of Kyrgyzstan, an ex-Soviet republic hosting U.S. and Russian military bases, gave its security forces shoot-to-kill powers after deadly riots between ethnic Uzbeks and Kyrgyz in Osh and Jalalabad.

Osh is a stronghold of former President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, who was toppled in riots in April. Interim government leader Roza Otunbayeva has accused supporters of Bakiyev, who is in exile in Belarus, of stoking ethnic conflict.

Bakiyev has denied any role in the riots.

(Additional reporting by Asim Tanvir in Multan; Editing by Chris Allbritton and Paul Tait) (For more Reuters coverage of Afghanistan and Pakistan, see: here)

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Exiled Kyrgyz leader Bakiyev denies role in riots

June 14, 2010 By Leave a Comment

June 13 (Reuters) – Exiled former Kyrgyz president Kurmanbek Bakiyev denied on Sunday any involvement in a wave of ethnic violence in the south of Kyrgyzstan that has killed at least 82 people.

Bakiyev said in a statement that reports of his involvement were “shameless lies” and that the interim government that replaced him after an uprising in April were proving incapable of quelling the unrest.

(Reporting by Andrei Makhovsky; Writing by Conor Humphries;

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Kyrgyz govt to reinforce south, ethnic riots kill 80

June 14, 2010 By Leave a Comment

OSH, Kyrgyzstan, June 13 (Reuters) – Kyrgyzstan will send reserve forces and volunteers to its troubled south on Sunday after a third night of gun battles took the death toll to 80 in the Central Asian state’s worst ethnic violence in two decades.

The interim government of Kyrgyzstan, an ex-Soviet republic hosting U.S. and Russian military bases, granted shoot-to-kill powers to its security forces after deadly riots between ethnic Uzbeks and Kyrgyz in the southern cities of Osh and Jalalabad.

The Interior Ministry said in a statement it would send a volunteer force to the south because the situation in Osh and Jalalabad regions — strongholds of ousted president Kurmanbek Bakiyev — remained “complex and tense”.

A Reuters correspondent said gunfire could be heard from an Uzbek neighbourhood of Osh, Kyrgyzstan’s second-largest city, where homes and businesses have been burned to the ground, but the shootouts had become less frequent than 24 hours ago.

Renewed turmoil in Kyrgyzstan has fuelled concern in Russia, the United States and neighbour China. Washington uses an air base at Manas in the north of the country, about 300 km (190 miles) from Osh, to supply its forces in Afghanistan.

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Facts on south Kyrgyz ethnic tinderbox [ID:nLDE65A0Q3]

Facts on Kyrgyzstan's second city of Osh [ID:nLDE65A1RA]

Political risks in Kyrgyzstan, click on [ID:nLDE64O01A]

Timeline on the new clashes, click on [ID:nLDE65A0LM]

here

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The violence is the worst since Bakiyev was toppled in riots in April. Interim government leader Roza Otunbayeva has accused supports of Bakiyev, who is in exile in Belarus, of stoking ethnic conflict in the former president’s southern base.

Supporters of Bakiyev briefly seized government buildings in the south on May 13, defying central authorities. The Otunbayeva government has only limited control over the south, which is separated from the northern capital Bishkek by mountains.

The latest clashes are the worst ethnic violence since 1990, when then-Kremlin leader Mikhail Gorbachev sent in Soviet troops after hundreds of people were killed in and around Osh.

Kyrgyzstan appealed on Saturday for Russian help in quelling the riots, which the Health Ministry says have killed 80 people — 72 in Osh and eight in Jalalabad — and wounded 1,066.

Russia said it would not send in peacekeepers alone but would discuss the situation on Monday within a Moscow-led security bloc of former Soviet republics known as the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO).

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev was following the situation closely and had discussed it with the leaders of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, the two powers bordering Kyrgyzstan, the Kremlin said.

The United States said it supported “efforts coordinated by the United Nations and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe to facilitate peace and order”, and said it urged its citizens in the country to maintain contact with the U.S. embassy.

REFUGEES

Kyrgyzstan, which won independence with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, has been in turmoil since the revolt that toppled Bakiyev on April 7, kindling fears of civil war.

Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan intertwine in the Fergana Valley. While Uzbeks make up 14.5 percent of the Kyrgyz population, the two groups are roughly equal in the Osh and Jalalabad regions.

Gas has been shut off to Osh and some neighbourhoods are without electricity. Otunbayeva also warned of a humanitarian crisis as food supplies in besieged regions are running out.

Residents of Osh have fled to the nearby border with Uzbekistan. Local media reports said at least 1,000 people, mainly women and children, had made it across the border.

The Uzbek Foreign Ministry has expressed “great concern” about the events in Osh, saying there were “reasons to conclude that such events are organised, managed and provocational”.

Russia offered humanitarian aid and sent in a helicopter with doctors to fly out some of the wounded, the Kremlin said. The European Union said it was sending its special representative for Central Asia, Pierre Morel. (Additional reporting by Olga Dzyubenko in Bishkek, Writing by Robin Paxton)

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Tanzania naturalises 162,000 refugees

April 17, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Tanzania has naturalised 162,000 refugees from Burundi in what the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR said on Friday was a historic move that other countries should copy.

A UNHCR spokeswoman said Tanzania’s move was the most generous naturalisation anywhere.

Tanzania’s act gives citizenship to the bulk of the Burundians who fled to Tanzania in 1972, and their children.

Most of them — Hutus who fled ethnic violence in Burundi — were no longer confined to refugee camps and were already largely integrated into Tanzania’s society and economy, she said.

U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres, who was in the East African country for the announcement, described Tanzania’s move as a “historic action” and called on donor countries to respond by helping Tanzania integrate its new citizens.

“The High Commissioner urged other countries with long-staying refugee populations to emulate Tanzania’s unprecedented decision,” the agency said in a statement.

As recently as 2000 Tanzania had the largest refugee population in Africa, with over 680,000 refugees from Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Most of them were Burundians who fled civil war in the 1990s, but since the peace process started in 2002, some 500,000 Burundians have returned home, including 360,000 from Tanzania, UNHCR said.

The naturalisation leaves Tanzania with some 97,000 refugees in camps and settlements, mostly from Burundi or DR Congo, a UNHCR spokeswoman said.

(Reporting by Jonathan Lynn)

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NEWSMAKER – Workaholic ICC prosecutor hunts war criminals

April 1, 2010 By Leave a Comment

A track record of championing victims’ rights and a disregard for politics are hallmarks of the hard-talking International Criminal Court prosecutor who is now opening an investigation into ethnic killings in Kenya.

“My duty is to apply the law without political considerations,” Luis Moreno-Ocampo said in a speech in 2007. “Law is the only efficient way to prevent recurrent violence and atrocities.”

That approach has earned the Argentine national both admiration and criticism.

Some legal observers have argued the court’s actions risk prolonging conflict by jeopardising peace deals, such as in Sudan’s Darfur region or in Uganda, where charges have been made against Joseph Kony, the leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army.

But Moreno-Ocampo, 57, has pushed ahead, not only expanding the number of ICC cases, but also winning a ruling in February opening up the possibility of Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir being charged with genocide in Darfur.

In an interview after that ruling in his office in The Hague, Moreno-Ocampo warned Bashir had better “get a lawyer”.

“He will just totally ignore the political considerations, so it is very stimulating and reassuring to work for a very independent prosecutor,” said one of Moreno-Ocampo’s associates at the ICC.

A tall, imposing man with a greying beard and hair, Moreno-Ocampo has helped thrust the world’s first permanent war crimes court into the international limelight.

On Wednesday, he won the right to open an investigation in a fifth African nation: to find and bring to the ICC’s courtroom those most responsible for the killing of 1,220 people, the rape of hundreds and forced displacement of more than 350,000 in ethnic violence after Kenyan elections in late 2007.

Appointed as the ICC’s first prosecutor in April 2003, he is also conducting preliminary examinations in Guinea, Gaza, Georgia, Ivory Coast, Afghanistan and Colombia.

WORKAHOLIC

Prior to his ICC appointment, Moreno-Ocampo was involved between 1984 and 1992 in Argentina in the prosecutions of military commanders for mass killings and other human rights abuses during the country’s “dirty war”.

He also worked as the legal representative in 2001 of victims in the extradition of former Nazi Erich Priebke to Italy and during the 2002 trial of the chief of the Chilean secret police for the murder of General Carlos Prats.

Those who know him describe Moreno-Ocampo as a driven man, determined to place victims at the centre of justice.

“He is totally exhausting to work with because he works all the time. He works 24 hours a day, he works eight days a week,” said his ICC associate.

But there have also been setbacks, with lengthy delays to the ICC’s first case against Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga in a dispute over withheld evidence. The court has also dismissed charges against a Sudanese rebel.

Moreno-Ocampo’s empathy with victims is a recurring theme. The case against Lubanga concentrated solely on child soldiers — a narrow focus which also sparked criticism that crimes of sexual violence were not included.

His job has also made him a prime target for death threats, but he shrugs aside such concerns.

“Life is risky. It’s OK — it’s my work,” he told Reuters.

(Additional reporting by Ben Berkowitz in The Hague; editing by Mark Trevelyan)
Aaron Gray-Block

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U.S. fears rifts in Afghanistan if presidential vote heads for runoff

August 22, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Kabul, Aug.22 (ANI): Western officials here have expressed relief that many Afghans defied Taliban threats of reprisals and came out to vote, but they were clearly concerned on Friday that a second round of voting could extend the paralysis of a government that already barely functions and deepen ethnic tensions, in the worst case, to the point of a north-south civil war.

A runoff, according to the New York Times, would also leave many of the Obama administration’s Afghanistan policy initiatives up in the air- like fighting corruption and improving distribution of aid.

The new uncertainties come on top of the stiff military challenges facing the Obama administration as it sends thousands more troops to southern Afghanistan, where Taliban attacks and very low turnout on election day made clear the insurgents’ influence.

Privately, however, American officials have set out a number of possible ways that the election aftermath could affect their operations.

During a meeting on Thursday, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the leader of American and NATO combat operations here, discussed how the military would have to adapt to each.

Particularly worrisome was the specter of a divisive ethnic presidential runoff between Karzai, whose power base is in the Pashtun south, and Abdullah, whose main support resides in the Tajik and Uzbek north, officials said.

Karzai himself has in the past raised the specter of ethnic violence, telling officials that if there was a runoff it could lead to a civil war, Western officials said.

For all of their worry about the problems that a runoff could bring, administration officials have also made clear they are not enamored of the Karzai government, and the president’s re-election would not be risk-free, either.

Should Karzai win, either outright or in a second round, Obama administration officials could find themselves with a president who has engaged in so much deal-making that he may well be even more beholden to warlords than before.

American officials are, however, taking pains to present a neutral public front.Our only interest was the result, fairly, accurately reflecting the will of the Afghan people,” President Obama told reporters at the White House.

Obama’s Special Envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan, Richard C. Holbrooke met privately on Friday with Karzai and Abdullah in Kabul.

Western diplomats said that if there was a runoff, it would be widely seen as a blow to Karzai and a boost for Abdullah. (ANI)

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China dumps control for subtler realm of Western spin in crisis reporting

July 11, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Beijing, July 11 (ANI): Eighteen months ago, when unrest had broken out among Tibetans in western China, the Chinese government had banned foreign reporters in the region, but in stark in contrast the administration changed their tactics to tackle the Urumqi unrest.

The Chinese propaganda officials used several Western PR tactics of media management to effectively ward off perceptions of the state’s involvement in the ethnic violence in Urumqi, the capital of China’s western Xinjiang Province, where 156 people were killed and more than 1,000 were injured in riots, the csmonitor.com reports.

The Chinese officials used a blend of tactics, which included inviting foreign journalists to visit Urumqi to report for themselves, after a clash between the Han Chinese and Uighur communities had created an atmosphere of instability and insecurity in the area.

They also censored the information available on Internet, providing the local readers with abundant reports which were however one-sided.

A press centre was also put at their disposal, and tours of the violence-stricken quarters of the city were provided.

These refined tactics helped the officials to prevail over the early impressions that the Chinese authorities were to be blamed for the carnage.

“Officials are certainly studying the media-management techniques that are practiced elsewhere in the world. And they actually don’t work too badly,” said Rebecca Mackinnon, an expert on the Chinese media at Hong Kong University.

“We’ve moved out of the realm of trying to control everything and into a more subtle realm of manipulation and spin,” Mackinnon added.(ANI)

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Certain ‘elements’ trying to damage Sino-Pak ties: FO

July 10, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Islamabad, July 10 (ANI): Pakistan has said some ‘elements’ are trying to damage its relations with China by linking Islamabad with the unrest in the northwestern Chinese city of Urumqi.

Addressing a weekly briefing here, Foreign Office Spokesman Abdul Basit said Pakistan would not allow nefarious elements to hamper ties between the two old allies.

“There are some ‘elements’ which are working against the interests of Pakistan and China and the two countries will continue to make bilateral efforts to ensure that those elements do not destabilise or damage interests of the two countries,” The Nation quoted Basit, as saying.

“Pakistan was committed not to allow any element in the country to work against the interests of China because Beijing’s interests were Islamabad’s interests,” he added.

Earlier, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang said that Beijing expects cooperation from neighboring countries to safeguard peace and stability in the region.

At least 156 people have been killed in ethnic violence in Urumqi.ore than 1,000 people have been wounded and 1,434 arrested during the unrest.

The violence forced President Hu Jintao to cut short his visit to Italy.

About 20 million, representing 47 ethnic groups, live in China’s vast Xinjiang region. The largest group is the 8.3 million ethnic Uighurs – an Islamic central Asian people. (ANI)

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Talks can happen only after shedding violence, Chidambaram tells militant groups

July 10, 2009 By Leave a Comment

New Delhi, July10 (ANI): Union Home Minister P.Chidambaram today asked the insurgent groups in the North Cachar Hill District of Assam to lay down the arms and come forward for talks.

Responding to a calling attention notice on ethnic violence in the hills district of Assam in the Rajya Sabha, Chidambaram said militant groups are welcome to lay down arms and come for talks.

Rejecting the cease-fire offer made by the militant Dima Halam Daogah (Joel group), Chidambaram said militant groups couldn’t offer ceasefire to a sovereign country. They should adopt the path of non-violence, and then only talks can happen.

He also told that they could form their own political party, contest elections, and raise issues.

The Centre has alerted the Assam, Manipur and Nagaland Governments that Naga militants are likely to take advantage of the ethnic tensions Zemi Naga tribes and Dimasas since March in North Cachar hills, Chidambaram said.

He also informed the members that the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the North Cachar Hill Council has been suspended as he was alleged to have been routing the money to the militant organisations, and the case has been transferred to the National Investigation Agency (NIA.

The Governor of Assam has been asked to look after the administration of the Council.

Chidambaram said the Union Government is ready to facilitate talks on any issue between Assam Government and DHD-J.

Rail traffic to the North East has been fully restored and trains were running under security cover. The security situation in NC Hills was periodically reviewed at various levels, and Assam government has been asked to intensify counter insurgency operations, Chidambaram informed the house.

Meanwhile two militants belonging to ULFA were shot dead in Barpeta district of Assam.

According to sources the encounter took place when security forces acting on a tip off launched an operation in Sarthebari area of the district. The two youths opened fire in a bid to escape and security forces retaliated killing them. (ANI)

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