As reports continue to crowd the international headlines concerning the plight of hundreds of thousands of Uzbek refugees fleeing the catastrophic devastation of Osh in which thousands have apparently been killed in the "ethnic violence" prompting the U.N. secretary general Ban Ky Moon to call for upwards of $13 million in "humanitarian aid" for the region, the Central Asian playground of superpower geopolitical brinksmanship has once again come to the fore in yet another apocalyptic human tragedy. With Uzbekistan massing troops on the border and "interim president" Rosa Otunbayeva touring the scene of the massive bloodletting and calling for the intervention of Soviet troops, Kyrgyzstan along with neighboring Afghanistan is once again increasingly becoming the focal point of the political and economic destabilization of the region. Otunbayeva, protected by a bullet proof vest and surrounded by a phalanx of heavily armed security personnel and bodyguards, neglected to set foot in the Uzbek enclaves of Osh that were the scene of the carnage, testifying to the still precarious and extremely unstable situation. Some sources attributed the latest chaos to the recently deposed Kurmanbek Basiev clan attempting to foment violence to destabilize the caretaker regime of Otnbayeva. Eyewitnesses testified to security forces themselves, manning Armed Personnel Carriers, and randomly firing into the Uzbek enclaves as the source of many of the fatalities, a fact which alone points to deep divisions in the security and armed forces raising the specter of an all out civil war. Immensely rich natural resources and strategic significance have made all of Central Asia a no mans land in the international struggle for energy and mineral resources between East and West with Krgyszstan the flash piont of a powder keg which could set off a much wider conflict throughout the former CIS members bordering Russia's strategic southwestern flank.(continued)
No comments:
Post a Comment