Osh, June 14
Russian officials refused to rule out possible intervention in Kyrgyzstan today, after days of ethnic clashes, which have killed at least 124 persons and left cities in the Central Asian state’s volatile south in flame

Russia hosts meeting to discuss possible intervention Death toll rises to 124, over 1,600 wounded

The violence between Kyrgyz and Uzbek residents in the southern cities of Osh and Jalalabad began late on Thursday and escalated later.

Witnesses said gangs with automatic rifles, iron bars and machetes had set fire to houses and shot fleeing residents. Thousands of ethnic Uzbeks have fled to the nearby border with Uzbekistan or sought refuge in local villages to escape the deadliest fighting in two decades. Many said they were being targeted by Kyrgyz gangs in what they said was a genocide backed by local police and troops.

“Crowds of Kyrgyz are roaming around, they set our homes on fire and kill Uzbeks right in their houses,” ethnic Uzbek Muhammed Askerov, a Jalalabad businessman, told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed village.

It is unclear what triggered the clashes. Some officials have pointed to a conflict at a local casino or rumours of a dispute sparked by a taxi passenger who declined to pay his fare.

Others have spoken of Kyrgyz girls being raped by Uzbeks. The ethnic violence raises the risk of a civil war or even a full-blown conflict between Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. If the interim government loses control, Kyrgyzstan could disintegrate and cease to exist as a single independent country.

Moscow sent at least 150 paratroopers to Kyrgyzstan on Sunday to protect its military facilities in the country and representatives of the Moscow-led security bloc of ex-Soviet republics, known as the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), said it did not exclude a possible intervention as it gathered on Monday to discuss further steps.

“We have not ruled out using any means that the CSTO has at its disposal,” Russia’s national security chief Nikolai Patrushev was quoted by RIA Novosti and Interfax news agencies as saying after the meeting.

“The CSTO has at its disposal everything that is needed to act in such situations, including a peace-keeping contingent ... collective rapid reaction forces and collective rapid deployment forces of the Central Asian region,” Russian media quoted CSTO Secretary General Nikolai Bordyuzha as saying.

But it should reflect carefully before getting involved and any intervention should involve a variety of measures, he said. The CSTO comprises Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

Kyrgyzstan’s interim government, which assumed power after an April revolt that overthrew president Kurmanbek Bakiyev, has been unable to gain full control of the country’s south, which is separated from the north by mountains.

It appealed to Russia at the weekend to send in troops, but Moscow has said it will not send in peacekeepers alone. The renewed turmoil in Kyrgyzstan has fuelled concern in Russia, the United States and neighbour China. Washington uses an air base at Manas in the north of the ex-Soviet state, about 300 km (190 miles) from Osh, to supply forces in Afghanistan. Russia also has a military base in the country.

The interim government, led by Roza Otunbayeva, has sent a volunteer force to the south and granted shoot-to-kill powers to its security forces in response to the deadly riots. Otunbayeva has accused supporters of Bakiyev, in exile in Belarus, of stoking ethnic conflict-an allegation Bakiyev denied in a statement on Sunday.

The Interior Ministry described the situation in Osh and Jalalabad was “tense”. It said six policemen had been killed in the conflict and that shooting continued in Jalalabad overnight. — Reuters 

Hafiz Saeed, chief of Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) who is accused by India of masterminding the Mumbai attack, made his second public appearance since his release early this month alongside leaders of country’s top religious parties at a rally in Lahore on Sunday and launched a stinging broadside against India.

The rally was ostensibly organised to protest against Israeli blockade of Gaza. But Hafiz used the occasion to establish a nexus between Israel and India in crushing Muslim resistance in Kashmir and Palestine.

Senior leaders of mainstream religious parties joined Jamaat-ud-Dawa march ni Lahore’s main boulevard, The Mall, to express solidarity with Palestinians and condemn Israeli atrocities.

Syed Munawar Hasan, the Amir of Jamaat-i-Islami, Senator Sajid Mir of Jamiat Ahl-i-Hadith, Hafiz Husain Ahmed of Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam and Hameed Gul, a former chief of the Inter-Services Intelligence, stood by Hafiz Saeed on the rostrum.

The occasion was also used to oppose the expansion of Pakistan army operations against militants and alleged attempts by some forces to divert public attention from the ‘real’ issues towards a parliament-judiciary row. It was the second public activity of Hafiz Saeed after being released from house arrest on court orders on June 3. He had taken part in a pro-farmers rally in Lahore, which blamed India of stealing Pakistan’s water to destroy its agriculture.

The two appearances suggest that Hafiz is seeking to return to the centrestage after having been kept on the margins of politics in the wake of the Nov 2008 attacks in Mumbai.

Participants of the march carried placards and banners inscribed with slogans against Israeli forces for the attack last month on the Freedom Flotilla taking aid to besieged Palestinians in Gaza.

In his speech, Hafiz said Israeli aggression was not confined to Gaza. The Israeli secret service had also set up offices in India-held Kashmir, the Jamaat-ud Dawa chief said.

“Pakistan is under siege and attempts are being made jointly by Israel and India convert it into a barren land by constructing dams on its rivers.”

He described suicide bombings as attempts at defaming jihad, alleging that the “bogey of Punjabi Taliban” had been invoked to justify an army operation in southern Punjab. But those operations could not continue for long, he warned. 

London/New Delhi, June 14
Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore's rare works will go under the hammer tomorrow in London even as suspense mounted whether India will intervene and bid for the paintings.

Twelve paintings will be presented for sale at Sotheby's South Asian Art auction. Funds raised will be used to support the Trust's ambitious new plans to expand its charitable programmes in arts, social justice and sustainability.

"The upcoming South Asian Art sale presents a selection of miniature paintings and modern and contemporary art from the subcontinent, including property from important private collections," Sotheby's said.

"Highlights from the modern section include a rare group of works by Rabindranath Tagore from the Dartington Hall Trust in the south of England. These exceptional works were gifted by the artist to Leonard and Dorothy Elmhirst of Dartington Hall in 1939 and have remained in the Trust's collection ever since," it said.

Responding to calls from various art organisations in India, the Indian government had tried to stop the auction of the rare works, but it is understood that the efforts have produced no results.

Sources said a senior Culture Ministry official was in London last week and met Sotheby's officials and discussed about the sale of the paintings.

They said the country, however, does not have any legal rights over the paintings. The government had faced the same situation when Mahatma Gandhi's personal belongings were auctioned in New York. — PTI