Taken Aback: International Commission on June 2010 Osh Violence Issues Stunning Report

::This is the first in a 3-part series on the continuing fallout of the June 2010 violence in Southern Kyrgyzstan. We begin with a report published on April 1, 2011 by an international commission on the June 2010 violence in Southern Kyrgyzstan, and future posts will cover the Government's official response to that report, and finally a panel discussion hosted by the National Democratic Institute in Washington, DC on May 24, 2011 including several members of the Kyrgyz administration and parliament. ::

Just two months after the political upheaval that swept former President of Kyrgyzstan Kurmanbek Bakiev out of power in April 2010, the new so-called 'Provisional Government' was faced with its own violent crisis in the Southern regions of Osh and Jalalabad. The exact account of what took place June 10-14 remains a hot topic in international circles, and is practically radioactive in a domestic environment of increasing ethno-nationalism and regional tension.

To address the ferocious and conflicting accusations that circulated in Kyrgyzstan following the violence, then-Interim President Roza Otunbayeva requested the formation of a special international commission to thoroughly investigate, document, and analyze the conflict in a manner that would be unbiased, transparent, and - she hoped - reconciliatory. She chose Dr. Kimmo Kiljunen, Special Representative to Central Asia from OECD to head the resulting "Independent International Commission of Inquiry in the Events in Southern Kyrgyzstan in June 2010" - more commonly referred to as the Kyrgyzstan Inquiry Commission, or just KIC.

Just 13 months after the new Government was formed, on May 3 the KIC issued its official report, which included scathing critiques of the government's role and response to the events. (full report, author bios, and other information)

In specific, the KIC report noted the following issues:

• The final count of 470 deaths, 1,900 people requiring medical assistance, and the total displacement of over 400,000 citizens of Kyrgyzstan, "of which the majority of victims [for each figure] were ethnic Uzbeks."
• Citizen mobs were able to gain access to police and military weapons, ammunition, equipment (such as armored personnel carriers), and uniforms with such speed and lack of obstruction as "raise questions of complicity."
• The events ultimately did not fit established international definitions of War Crimes or acts of Genocide, however preliminary indicators suggest some acts - murder, rape, assault - were conducted on such a wide scale that, if any evidence comes forward to show it was condoned, would constitute Crimes Against Humanity.
• During (and possibly after) the June10-14 riots, state law enforcement officers repeatedly employed harsh tactics and torture of detained citizens in pursuit of information (and possibly in the coercion of false testimony).
• There is a clear bias in targeting of ethnic Uzbeks by the state judiciary apparatus in prosecutions for crimes committed during the violence (when, to the contrary, the majority of documented victims were Uzbeks).
• Specific local and national government officials were either negligent in the speed or method of response to limit the violence (Gen. Ismail Isakov), willfully inactive (Police Commissioners Bakyt Alymbekov and Kubatbek Baybolov), or in the case of Osh Mayor Melis Myrzakmatov, contributed to the escalation of inter-ethnic tensions.

While appreciative of the delicate situation the Provisional Government found itself in so soon after assuming power, and lauding President Otunbayeva's intention to provide a transparent investigation through the KIC, the report was ultimately a crushing blow. Not only did itdirectly refute many of the government's standing claims about the mutual violence between the ethnic Kyrgyz majority and the minority Uzbeks it generally confirmed earlier implications that Kyrgyz police and military may have contributed, at least indirectly, to the violence. Most surprisingly, it even specifically named a stalwart member of the new administration, Isakov, as a contributor to the ultimately tragic results.