This is our land!

Crowds of yesterday's revolutionaries in Kyrgyzstan demand that the interim government legalize their rights to land taken from citizens of "non-titular" nations

Some lull, established in Kyrgyzstan over the weekend, turned into new pogroms. There is no longer any political background: the looters and squatters are opposed by the militias. The Provisional Government is occupied with a more important matter: it writes...

Some lull, established in Kyrgyzstan over the weekend, turned into new pogroms. There is no longer any political background: the looters and squatters are opposed by the militias. The Provisional Government is occupied with a more important matter: writing a constitution.

On Monday morning, a crowd of people armed with rebar and firearms entered Bishkek. They tried to arrange riots, demanded to legalize the squatting of land they had committed in the suburbs of the capital of Kyrgyzstan. Closer to dinner, law enforcement forces and vigilantes managed to squeeze them out to the outskirts, where pogroms and looting began.

At about three o'clock in the afternoon, as a result of negotiations with acting. Mayor of Bishkek, they were promised that the land would be legalized. Then the rebels moved to the village of Mayevka, inhabited by national minorities: Russians, Meskhetian Turks, Uzbeks, Tatars. The interim government brought in armed units, but they did not guard the local residents, but the market, which is traded mainly by people from the south of Kyrgyzstan.

The demands of the invaders: to transfer the lands and property of the Dungans (immigrants from China, who have long lived in Kyrgyzstan. - Ed.) and representatives of other non-indigenous nationalities to immigrants from the north of Kyrgyzstan.

A crowd of people is gathering near the Russian consulate. This is the local population, mostly Kyrgyz, who want to leave for Russia. Russians at this time are sitting in their apartments, afraid to go out into the streets, but they call the embassy with the question: “What to do next?”

In the evening, the Kyrgyz-Slavonic University was evacuated in five minutes, when a crowd of angry people was already approaching it. People from the university jumped out into the streets in horror and ran in all directions.

At this time, the invaders settled on foreign lands and began to rob the local population, which, naturally, began to resist.

Throughout the night from Monday to Tuesday, Bishkek was restless, and the slaughter continued in the suburbs.

Tuesday morning. Ivan Rogov, a resident of the Leninskoye village, says on the phone: “I am now walking along with a crowd of people, we have teamed up with residents of several villages. All with cobblestones and sticks, we are all in the same column, we are going to express our dissatisfaction with the fact that the mayor of Bishkek yesterday said that he was giving land to these squatters.”

At this time, a man named Kuran, a Turk by origin, snatches out a pipe from Ivan: “The entire Alamedin district has risen here, we - Turks, Russians, Kyrgyz, Uzbeks - are all going to expel the invaders together. Someone sponsors them, someone feeds and waters them.”

At the time of signing the issue, according to our competent sources in Bishkek, as a result of the riots, 8 people had already died and 60 were injured.

Pogroms in Kyrgyzstan: eyewitnesses and officials speak

Society split into looters and militias

Larisa Khoperskaya , Professor of the Department of State Building, Academy of Public Administration under the President of the Kyrgyz Republic (now in Bishkek) :

— Throughout the past week, squatting of land took place around Bishkek and other cities of Kyrgyzstan. Hundreds, if not thousands, of invaders. And they all demand that the land they have seized be legalized by the interim government. The provisional government said that this land would not be given to them.

On Monday, in the suburban village of Leninskoye, residents took to a peaceful rally against squatting. And serious clashes began. After a skirmish with the use of weapons, the invaders called for help. Initially, the crowd was about 300 people, and now it reaches 2 thousand. Armed with sticks and stones. We were informed that there were even burning torches, they were thrown into residential buildings.

From the village, the squatters came to Bishkek itself and began to demand that the government secure land for them. According to the latest information, Mayor Burkulov promised to legalize squatting, and the crowd, satisfied with this promise, went to protect "their" lands. Therefore, I can predict that collisions will continue.

Considering that in the vicinity of Bishkek there are places of compact residence of the Russian and Turkish population, this may develop into inter-ethnic clashes. The fact is that land is seized primarily not from the Kyrgyz population. Russians, Turks and Chinese are attacked not only because of xenophobia. It's just that the Kyrgyz have blood-related clan ties. When you attack a clan representative, you will be answered. And if you attack a Russian or a Turk, then who will answer?

There were seizures in boarding houses in Issyk-Kul too. But there they are organized by non-poor people who themselves claim to appropriate this property, typical raiders.

And land plots near cities are seized by poor people who have neither housing nor property. As a rule, these are people from distant provinces.

And they are ready to set up mud huts on this territory so that they have at least some kind of housing in the vicinity of Bishkek.

The situation in Bishkek is unmanageable. Squads and squads are formed. There are people who go to capture, and there are people who go to protect property, and not only their own. This is a split in society. If earlier they talked about the split of Kyrgyzstan into north and south, today it is divided into militias and marauders.

The situation is much worse now than it was during the Tulip Revolution in 2005. There was no blood then. Now the people who defended their property are dead.

And the provisional government is busy preparing a new version of the constitution. State television broadcasts their meetings. That is, they do not control the internal situation, they exist in some kind of parallel space.

Those who seize the land helped the opposition to come to power

Viktor Kharchenko , press secretary of the Russian Embassy in Kyrgyzstan :

- The invaders moved in the direction of two settlements, and there was a collision with local residents. In the center of Bishkek, the situation is normal. The life of the city is not disturbed. The invaders settled on collective farm lands in the suburbs. It's already traditional. The same thing happened in 2005. They have hope that they will build a house here and find a job. There is already such an experience. To the north of Bishkek, there is an adobe settlement built by self-capture back in 2001. The mayor's office offered its residents money for the construction of apartments, but everything is still the same.

I want to clarify the situation. There are no anti-Russian sentiments. It's just that the villages whose lands are being seized are inhabited by people of different nationalities, including Russians.

The problem is that the people who are taking over the land today helped the interim government come to power. Therefore, it is difficult for members of the provisional government to negotiate with those with whom they stood together at the barricades yesterday. It turns out a split: some took a place in power, shared appointments, while others, as they came with nothing, were left with nothing. As one resident said on the news, if she doesn't know what to do again, she will go to the square again. Such are the sentiments.

These are all Bakiyevites

Edil Baisalov , chief of staff of the head of the provisional government of Kyrgyzstan :

— Terrifying events are taking place in Kyrgyzstan now. Certain forces are trying to stir up the situation, turn everything into an ethnic conflict, they want us to have unrest, they want us to have a war now. These are all Bakievites, people from the villages of the Bakiev family, in which literally millions of dollars are invested. There are also drug lords, in whose interests all this is also started. Because the law enforcement reforms that we have initiated pose a threat to drug supply channels through Kyrgyzstan. These are criminal structures, which also worked very easily and well with those who were in the service of the Bakiyevs. And these are also political forces, the third, fourth, fifth forces, which are also, of course, interested in discrediting the interim government, which are interested in adding fuel to the fire and in the fall of the interim government.

The provisional government recognizes some demoralization in the ranks of the police officers, recognizes a certain softness of some of our security officials. We intend to take tough measures to restore order and ensure the safety of citizens.

In the vast majority of Kyrgyzstan, the interim government controls the situation, pursues its policy, is recognized by the population, local authorities work on behalf of the interim government and are loyal to it. There are certain problems in the Jalal-Abad region - there are a number of villages where Bakiyev's supporters live, his closest relatives, members of the Bakiyev clan, who, having large funds, are trying to mobilize supporters, arrange extras and rallies. Self-invaders are our typical problem. This has been constantly repeated since the beginning of the 90s, but for the most part these are commercially oriented people, because they receive land for free, and then sell it for 20-30 thousand dollars. We will deal with them, but the fact that someone directed them to a violent, bloody path is, of course, something provocative.