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).