Barbara: Yes.
Person: I think for those people who have little information about the region I thin k you should make a clear distinction between Uzbeks in Uzbekistan and Uzbeks in Kyrgyzstan. Because Uzbeks in Kyrgyzstan although they have some connection to Uzbeks in Uzbekistan they have always felt that Kyrgyzstan was their country, they were Kyrgyz citizens and for example some of my relatives live [IB] also in southern Kyrgyzstan they never spoke of [IB] as their president. They always spoke of Askar Akayev, Kurmanbek Bakiyev. And that’s also because Uzbeks in southern Kyrgyzstan have always lived there before even Kyrgyzstan was made a republic, before you could even find Kyrgyz in the south and this goes back to your question because historically you could only find Uzbeks in this area then Stalin brought, actually Lenin when they were making the republic, because you had to have a certain amount of population to make a Soviet republic. And because Kyrgyz didn’t have enough people and enough land so they gave the southern part to make it a Kyrgyz republic. That’s why Uzbeks feel that this is there land. And then again this goes back to your occupation phrase which I think is not correct, they’re not really occupying they’re living in their own land and this is there land and also Kevin I think you didn’t talk about brutalities and violence, the level of violence because there were reports by western journalists and Russian journalists who admitted that they had never seen the level of brutality even in Chechnya or elsewhere that they saw in [IB], primarily in [IB]. And some people are now claiming there was genocide, ethnic cleansing against Uzbeks because you don’t see a Kyrgyz house burnt down only Uzbeks, and then you see signs across [IB] all about death to Uzbeks or leave back to Uzbekistan as if they came from Uzbekistan. So do you think there are signs of genocide or ethnic cleansing in this place?
Kevin DeWitt: First of all your first point I completely agree with you, you make an excellent point and I have no disagreement. There is a distinction between the Uzbeks that are living in Kyrgyzstan and their perception and you raise a good point, their perception has always been a part of Kyrgyzstan, I 100% agree with you on that. And in many ways they were often better off and could live better, they were freer than their Uzbek relatives or Uzbek neighbors that were across the border and so there has always been that, you would often have day laborers that came across the border and went back and forth in the shuttle train. But I completely agree with you it’s perceived as the land that was there and they did see themselves as part of the country of Kyrgyzstan. It’s an excellent point.
On the second point of the brutality again I don’t disagree at all it was extremely violent and it was extremely brutal and there were extreme atrocities that took place that I still we’re still going to be figuring out the depths of over the next few months and years and I think this is, I didn’t mention it I had it in my notes as kind of the next steps but there does need to be an international commission, there needs to be an investigation, it has to happen. It may not happen with the government, it may or may not it may be up to the human rights watchers, the international groups. They may have to lead that on this that may be where it comes from. But there’s no question there were severe atrocities. The only comment I would make on genocide is genocide is generally, it’s more of a political term, usually to have genocide you have to have a action by a government or someone in control to actually make that occur. Was there ethnic attacks and was ethnically motivated? 100% agree. Whether it reaches that status I think it probably doesn’t from a political analysis.
But that doesn’t diminish by any means the level of atrocities and I think it’s important that we understand what did occur and exactly why and who was doing it and that people are held accountable for it. I think the sad part is that it’s going to be very difficult for the local government with the amount of control they have to lead any impartial open investigation and I think that’s the reality. It’s not in their interest quite simply to do that, to have any kind of truth, reconciliation. So I think this is going to be a difficult challenge for the international community of how do we work with a weak local government to help them in really two things that need to occur: you need to have some sense of what occurred and you need to have some sense of fact finding, but you also need to have some sense of reconciliation. And there needs to be looking forward, people are going to be living here together, how do we move forward from this? And some type of justice. And that balance between the kind of justice sense of holding people responsible and that truth commission reconciliation, there’s a tension there and that’s going to be the difficult question going forward.