The “Osh Events”: Kyrgyz-Uzbek Conflict
In May 1990, the economic collapse in Kyrgyzstan reached its nadir, and general
political uncertainty prevailed at both the local and national levels. The waning
of the Soviet supra-national ideology left people scrambling to protect their rights
by affirming their national identities. With neither the imperial center nor national
elites able to protect their rights, citizens turned to spontaneous protests to defend
themselves.
In June 1990, inter-ethnic strife between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks exploded in Kyr-
gyzstan’s Osh province. The sources of this strife were not dissimilar to those we
have explored in the case of the “Ferghana events” between Uzbeks and Meskhetian
Turks in June 1989, and in the case of the confrontation between Tajiks from Isfara
and Kyrgyz from Batken in July of that year. Once again the question of national
identity is at the core of the issue, in this case specifically the revival and preserva-
tion of cultural traditions, language especially. The expanding claims of the titular
nationalities allowed little room in the typical citizen’s worldview for other ethnic
groups. In Kyrgyzstan’s sector of the Ferghana Valley, many impoverished rural
Kyrgyz youths lacked farming skills and, discontented, migrated to the cities in
search of jobs and housing. Unable to afford apartments in Osh, they squatted on
municipal land on its outskirts, area being used mainly by Uzbek cotton farmers.
Soon both there and in similar developments on the fringe of Bishkek one heard
political slogans critical of the pace of reform in the waning communist era.
Meanwhile, within Osh city an informal Uzbek cultural association, Adolat
(Justice), began calling for the protection of the Uzbek language and Uzbek tradi-
tions. Concurrently, the Kyrgyz formed their own national association, Osh Aimagy
(Residents of Osh), to defend the national interests of the Kyrgyz living in the
Ferghana Valley. Its program called for the granting of land to Kyrgyz to construct
houses, and also for the protection of human rights.
Adolat leaders leaned toward
ethnic separatism, while their counterparts from Osh Aimagy proved unable to
engage in dialogue and compromise. In May 1990, Uzbeks from the Ferghana Val-
ley city of Jalalabad appealed to the waning Soviet leadership in Moscow to grant
autonomy to Uzbeks throughout the south of Kyrgyzstan.
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They addressed their
plea to the Uzbek Rafik Nishanov, now chairman of the Supreme Soviet’s Council
THE FERGHANA VALLEY DURING PERESTROIKA 195
of Nationalities, and to the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Com-
munist Party of Kyrgyzia, Masaliev. They argued that the indigenous population
of Osh province was in fact Uzbek, and that the 560,000 Uzbeks there constituted
half the population of Osh province. Given this, it was unacceptable to them that
Kyrgyz had been declared the official language of the new Kyrgyz Republic and
Russian the language of inter-ethnic communication, with no place for Uzbek. All
the records of Osh now had to be translated into Kyrgyz.
It will be recalled that the Kyrgyz and Uzbek people of the Kyrgyz sector of
Ferghana, thanks to centuries of cohabitation, shared a common way of life, tradi-
tions, and even dialects, not to mention intertwined households. Understandably,
Kyrgyz from the north sneered that their southern Kyrgyz cousins had become
Sarts and were indistinguishable from the Uzbeks.
Many Uzbek secondary-school graduates chose to pursue their university stud-
ies outside the Kyrgyz Republic. This gradually shifted the ethnic balance in the
Osh region in favor of the Kyrgyz. This was reinforced by the fact that, except-
ing a single hour-long radio broadcast in Uzbek, radio, TV, textbooks, or other
publications did not serve Uzbek speakers. Hence the Uzbeks had no recourse but
to seek these from across the border in Uzbekistan. Thanks to the indifference of
the Kyrgyz leadership, there were few, if any, Uzbek members of the Kyrgyzstan
Academy of Sciences, and almost no indigenous Uzbek artists or writers. The
Kyrgyz were favored in every sphere, leaving the Uzbeks feeling themselves to
be an alien ethnic group within Kyrgyzia. Biased hiring practices meant there was
not a single Uzbek first secretary in the Osh or national Party committees, few
Uzbeks on district Executive Committees, and few in other major enterprises. In
the new language law, Kyrgyz found a tool with which to harass the few Uzbeks
in medicine, education, commerce, and agencies of local self-government.
This, in summary, was the Uzbeks’ appeal to the higher authorities. Their
petition concluded with a plea to create an “Osh Autonomous Soviet Socialist
Republic” within the framework of the Kyrgyz Soviet Republic.
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This statement
was issued on March 2, 1990, and by May the situation was slipping out of the
government’s control. After a series of mass protests by Kyrgyz organized by Osh
Aimagy on May 27 in the “Lenin” kolkhoz, a rally of 5,000 people took place near
Osh. Following long discussions, it was decided to allocate the collective farm’s
cotton land for housing construction. The Uzbeks who farmed those lands were
furious, and retaliated with a large rally of their own. This ended with the issuance
of many new demands, including the designation of Uzbek as a state language in
the Republic.
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On June 4 more than 12,000 Uzbeks assembled at one end of a field at the
Lenin kolkhoz, with 1,500 Kyrgyz on the opposite end. Most of those killed in the
ensuing battle were Kyrgyz, but on the following days the situation was reversed.
In all, some 600 people were killed, the majority of them Uzbeks, with unofficial
estimates of the total as high as 1,500. Thousands of Uzbeks from the Uzbek sector
of the valley were marching toward Osh when a strict curfew sent them home. Only
196 SHOZIMOV, BESHIMOV, YUNUSOVA
the involvement of the army and the pleadings of religious and traditional leaders
prevented the outburst from spreading across the entire Ferghana Valley.
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