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).