Subject: Independence declared by villages along the Kazakh-Uzbek border. (long)
Date: Jan 11, 2002 @ 14:27
Author: Christian Berghänel (=?iso-8859-1?Q?Christian_Bergh=E4nel?= <christian.berghanel@...>)
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Here is a quote from RFE/RL Central Asia Report.
Anyone know of any flag? Do any of you BoundaryPoint-people have detailed map(s)?
 
 
 
RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY, PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC
________________________________________________________
RFE/RL Central Asia Report
Vol. 2, No. 2, 10 January 2002
http://www.rferl.org/centralasia/
 
TALE OF TWO VILLAGES TURNS POLITICAL IN KAZAKHSTAN.
Protesting the long delay by Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan in finalizing
their border demarcation, the villages of Baghys and Turkestanets,
whose national status remains uncertain, symbolically declared
sovereignty just before the New Year
, AFP and Interfax reported on 4
January. About 500 of the 2,000 inhabitants of the two villages,
which are predominantly ethnically Kazakh, rallied to announce their
independence, elect a 10-strong parliament, and choose an elderly
schoolmaster as president.
This exercise in local democracy was
quickly broken up by Uzbek police, AFP said. A curfew has since been
imposed on both villages.
According to a 4 January press release by Kazakhstan's United
Democratic Party (UDP) -- a coalition of the opposition Azamat Party,
the People's Congress, and the Republican People's Party -- there had
been no mention of the villagers' actions and arrests by Kazakh
media, with the single exception of a special correspondent of Radio
Azattyk ("Freedom"). But Kazakh TV on the same day said that the
Foreign Ministry in the nation's capital, Astana, in response to
press reports about the incident, issued a statement that border
negotiations with Tashkent were proceeding smoothly and warned that
stunts like the one at Baghys/Turkestanets could only hinder progress
with the Uzbek side.
A treaty of 16 November 2001 established 96 percent of the
border between the two countries. Three sections of the frontier
totaling 60 kilometers have been left in limbo -- the two villages
and the Arnasai region -- on which officials have said that agreement
should be reached by this summer. According to some local Kazakh news
sources, the villagers' publicity-grabbing protests were prompted
less by vague frustration at the slow pace of talks on border
delineation than by a very real fear that they might become a part of
Uzbekistan. The UDP press release of 4 January tried to explain why
this border delineation was such an emotive issue. It noted that in
1956 Nikita Khrushchev awarded Uzbekistan a large slice of southern
Kazakhstan as a gift, amounting to 200,000 hectares and including the
two disputed villages, which the Uzbeks used as a military training
ground. That act of caprice would be matched by a similarly
irresponsible act, UDP suggested, if Kazakh President Nursultan
Nazarbaev decided to let the Uzbeks keep the disputed territory
without any public discussion or transparency in decision-making.
Consequently, the UDP called on the Kazakh parliament and
international organizations such as the Organization for Security and
Cooperation in Europe to participate in the negotiations.
The mass gathering at Baghys and Turkestanets on 28 December
was organized by Oral Saulebay, one of the leaders of Kazakhstan's
Azat movement and chairman of Committee on Protection of Kazakh Land.
He used the occasion to publicly criticize the Kazakh and Uzbek
presidents, saying the border demarcation should have been completed
long before. He was duly arrested on 30 December by Uzbek police,
held in the Tashkent Region Internal Affairs Department jail, and
charged with "organizing an unsanctioned mass gathering" under
Chapter 154 of the Uzbek Criminal Code. To this was later added the
charge of insulting the dignity and honor of the Kazakh and Uzbek
presidents. Interrogated by Uzbek officials, Saulebay began a hunger
strike on 1 January to demand that Kazakh representatives be present
at the interrogations.
On 4 January, leaders of Kazakhstan's UDP gave a press
conference at which they urged the Uzbek authorities to release
Saulebay and demanded a meeting between Presidents Karimov and
Nazarbaev to resolve the border issue as quickly as possible. The
previous evening, a group of about 20 persons calling themselves the
Committee for the Release of Oral Saulebay picketed the Uzbek Embassy
in Almaty.
Saulebay was finally extradited to Kazakhstan on 4 January, AP
reported the following day. But instead of being released, as
expected, he was being held in custody in an undisclosed location by
officers of the Kazakh National Security Committee (formerly KGB). As
of 8 January, his precise whereabouts were unknown (see "RFE/RL
Kazakh Report," 2-4, 8 January 2002).
Saulebay's saga is curiously and depressingly similar to the
parallel, ongoing case in Kyrgyzstan against detained parliament
Deputy Azimbek Beknazarov, who has criticized Kyrgyz President Askar
Akaev for trying to force through an unpopular border delimitation
treaty with China (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 9 January 2002).