The Maevka incident
People were genuinely surprised on Monday when the city witnessed a march by crowds of young people demanding that they be allocated land in order to build houses. It’s funny that people don’t remember that we faced the same sort of incidents back in 2005. The incident got reported in the Russian press and we took messages on Skype asking what was going on. I haven’t seen much detail about it in the Western media, however, so I’ll take a bit of time to describe it.
The authorities have said that they will not support land seizures and no-one will be allowed to build houses on land that they have occupied illegally. At one point the Acting Mayor went to see the protestors and was surrounded by demonstrators brandishing batons and sticks. According to reports in the local press, at one point there were apparently about 1000-1500 people involved.
Eventually the crowds dispersed, many of them making their way to Maevka, one of the villages on the outskirts of the city, with the intention of marking out plots of land on which to build houses. At this stage I wasn’t too concerned. These things happen, and a protest is a protest, although sometimes they do get out of hand. At the end of the working day, however, I went outside to lock the gates and the police had closed our street, Kievskaya, to traffic in one direction. Traffic was still going in the other, and the drivers were sounding their horns in a frantic way. There were a lot of people hurrying this way and that, including a group of three armed with massive cameras, whom I took to be press photographers. There had been stories, rumours, that the crowd were going up to ethnic Russians telling them to “get out”, but I can’t verify that. There were similar rumours in 2005. As it happens, the people in Maevka tend to be of Turkic origins, (Meskhetian Turks, descendants of an ethnic group deported from Soviet Georgia in 1944), not Russian or Slavic.
Ethnic tension, conflict and unrest, unfortunately, rears its ugly head here from time to time. I suppose it is understandable when you consider that there are over eighty different nationalities here, (the result of sitting astride important historical trade routes, migration patterns over the centuries and, of course, internal exiles being dispatched to a remote corner of both the Tsarist Empire and the former Soviet Union.Sometimes the tension that leads to unrest is between Kyrgyz and Uzbek, or Kyrgyz and Dungan (Chinese), and sometimes between Kyrgyz and Russians. Sometimes it arises out of historical roots, and sometimes from a particular issue such as the provision of housing or employment. In this particular case, as in 2005, it seems that the issue wasn’t really one of ethnic conflict but rather the availability of housing and the allocation of land. The Kyrgyz are a very proud people with a strong affinity for the land they inhabit, even if their origins can be traced back to the Enesei region, far away in Siberia.
We are not exactly free of such prejudices and problems in the UK, either.
Now, there is still some suspicion that if the 2005 Tulip Revolution can be blamed on the Americans, (and some people do assign responsibility there, even in the face of denials from all official sources), then the 2010 events can be attributed, (again in the face of denials from all quarters), to Russian influence. Their motivation? … Dissatisfaction, in that having got the Kyrgyz to announce the eviction of the American air base at Manas airport, probably in exchange for massive financial support – the Kyrgyz authorities then backtracked when the Americans agreed to pay a higher price. There were other issues as well, including the accountability for the use of that financial support and the suggestion that Kyrgyzstan was importing “cheap”, subsidized, Russian oil only to resell it on the world market – at world prices, making a huge profit as a result.
Later, however, no less a person than Russian President, Dmitry Medvedyev, was to weigh in with the assertion that there was no “anti-Russian” nature to the troubles in Kyrgyzstan. Despite this statement, he also instructed the Russian Defence Ministry to ensure the safety of Russian citizens in Kyrgyzstan, and a diplomatic note was sent to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs here in Bishkek by the embassy. The Russian
President Medvedyev isn’t the only one to say that the incident was not ethnically motivated … leaders of both, various ethnic Turkic groups and representatives of the authorities here, have stated that there is no ethnic tension behind these events. This despite that, according to one newspaper report in the UK, cries of “Kill the Turks” were heard coming from the demonstrators. I don’t question the validity of this report, it may well be true, but I haven’t seen any similar report here, although there were reports of gates being daubed with words like: “Turks”, “Kyrgyzs”, “Russians” – describing the nationality of the inhabitants.
So, can we place any trust in the denials of an ethnic element? They could, of course, be simply because there is a vested interest in playing down the question of ethnic tension.
Anyway, back to Monday. Faced with these scenes, I thought to myself: “Hmmm, maybe I had better go and check the internet again for news.” Apparently about 200 of the protestors had stayed in the city center and were picketing the Mayor’s office. One of the members of the Interim Government came to talk to them, but they wouldn’t listen to him, simply repeating the mantra: “We need land, give us land!”
Now 200 people isn’t 2000, and they don’t seem to have a lot of support, so I still wasn’t too worried, but all the same I decided that “discretion was the better part of valour” and that it was “better to be safe than sorry”, and together with Andrei, moved the computers out of the office once again. Even before we had finished moving them, Kievskaya was open once again, and traffic was passing normally. They were fewer people in the street and they weren’t hurrying here and there any more. Still, I was glad that we had taken precautions.
The action moved from the city center out to Maevka. Some of the villagers were intent on defending themselves, and some started to remove pegs from the plots of land that people had marked out for themselves. The fire department received lots of calls asking for assistance, apparently six houses had been set on fire, but the road had been blocked by protestors who refused to let them through. They also refused to let ambulances through. In the morning, it was reported that about 500 people were involved in the riots; seven people had been injured in the “mass unrest”, (although that was later revised to forty people who were hospitalized – 10 of whom were from the police); that there had been one fatality, (and later reports said two had died in the fires and two from gunshot wounds … making five altogether); looters had rampaged through homes, slicing up mattresses looking for secret stashes of cash and stealing household appliances; apparently a horse stolen; some cars had been overturned – six were burnt out, including three police cars; about 1000 bales of hay had been burnt in the fires and the authorities had dispatched some 600 police officers to maintain order and they had blocked the roads leading to the village who arrested some 130 rioters.
Bishkek, itself, remained quiet and peaceful … apart, that is, from the expressions of shock, outrage, and even anger, that people would do this so soon after the violence of April 7th. We all hoped that it would prove to be “a flash in the pan”.
However, protests continued on Tuesday … and so, apparently, some 10,000 residents joined a “civil guard” to patrol the streets and maintain order on Tuesday night.
I suppose that, now that the legality and status of the interim government has been settled, it is natural that different groups will try to present their demands to the new authorities, and so rallies, demonstrations and “meetings” are to be expected. It is unfortunate and disappointing; however, that they have grown used to turning to violence rather than debate to do so … especially as it has cost further lives.
Bishkek