ACT Alliance

The actions of charismatic Maharam Tilavaldieva and other Kyrgyz and Uzbek leaders to quell anger meant her district witnessed little violence in the recent Kyrgyzstan upheaval. On the night of June 10, residents in the mostly Uzbek-populated city of Aravan heard from relatives 25km west in Osh that violence had broken out in Osh. Many Aravan young people studying in Osh called their parents that night saying they were unable to leave and were trapped behind barricades.

At 5am the next morning, Maharam Tilavaldieva, director of ACT partner organisation Mehar Shavkat, started getting calls from Kyrgyz political leaders in Aravan worried that the fire of conflict would catch in Aravan. Maharam Tilavaldieva is Uzbek but the Kyrgyz leaders were among her friends.

After morning prayer, at around 8am, relatives of the young people trapped in Osh gave local government an ultimatum: either negotiate the release of their children or they themselves would take them to safety. Maharam Tilavaldieva was with the local authorities and tried to explain that it was impossible to bring the young people back from Osh at that moment. “When a woman in the crowd lost conscientiousness after hearing that, men started attacking the militia and national security offices with stones,” Maharam Tilavaldieva said. By 5pm, nobady was left at the state administration. Only Uzbek youth were with Maharam Tilavaldieva, together with another local Kyrgyz-Uzbek leader named Jalaladin.

Tensions, misunderstandings escalate
At the same time, the Kyrgyz people of Aravan were gathering in another part of town. “It was a big misunderstanding,” Maharam Tilavaldieva said. “The Kyrgyz feared that the Uzbeks would gather to attack them. However the Uzbek intention was different. The fear was the two nations would enter conflict because of misunderstanding."

In the meantime, some Uzbeks had attached two shops. When they tried to enter the police office, the police started shooting at them. “They came back to me and asked: ‘What should we do? They are shooting at us.’ I told them: ‘Of course they shoot at you if you attack the police,” she told them. She assured them that there were Kyrgyz people trying to calm others down and that they would not attack the Uzbeks.

Maharam Tilavaldieva and Jalaladin gathered the elderly leaders on both sides to talk. However, they could not find male leaders among her own group, the Uzbeks, willing to go over and talk to the Kyrgyz.  She decided to go over herself, ignoring pleas not to. “They were afraid the Kyrgyz would take me hostage but I was not afraid. These Kyrgyz were my friends, colleagues. I could simply not imagine that they would do me harm.” She went to meet the Kyrgyz, accompanied by the wife of an Uzbek leader.

When they arrived on the Kyrgyz side, they discovered that the Kyrgyz leaders had prevented the Kyrgyz men fighting the Uzbeks. “When they saw us they started crying and said that they wanted peace. Of course, they had expected Uzbek men to come but in the end they were also happy with us.”

Two ethnicities, one push for peace
With the Kyrgyzs, they established a co-ordination committee which replaced the local administration that fled in the first night. On the night of June 11, when Uzbek people gathered in Aravan to leave for the Uzbek border, the committee convinced them to stay and to go back to their houses. This was the first of a series of successes.

When a group of Kyrgyz looters started on its way to Aravan, the committee sent our Kyrgyz colleagues to stop them. They succeeded. Then they arranged to bring their students back from Osh. “Our Kyrgyz colleagues drove to Osh with products we gathered from our Uzbek farmers. They left the products in Osh and came back with our students. By June 16-17, almost all of the students were back.”

On June 18, the local government authorities came back and started working with the committee. The two groups meet every second day and try to resolve problems, the biggest problem being efforts by the militia and national security forces to prosecute onlookers to violence against the local police station. “The youth who attached the militia did not understand what they were doing. Besides, there were people who were just watching. This issue should be investigated objectively. This needs to be solved otherwise there is a risk that this will cause a new conflict.

"The government does not control its one-sided point of view of the conflict, also held by mass media . The best way to prevent these kinds of conflict is that all nations in the Kyrgyz Republic should not be considered as being in the diaspora. The equity of all nations should be assured by law. I want peace and deveopment in Kyrgyzstan and I will give all effort and power to that."

Maharam Tilavaldieva is director of Mehar Shavkat, a local organisation funded by ACT members.

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Please follow the link below to see the ACT Alliance appeal for this response: http://www.actalliance.org/resources/appeals/KGZ101Prel.pdf

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ACT UPDATES and STATEMENTS

July 18 - Situation Report: http://www.actalliance.org/resources/alerts_and_situation_reports/KyrgyzstanSitRep16July2010.pdf/view

July 1 - ACT Advocacy Statement 02: ACT calls on the international community to lead impartial, independent investigations into the civil conflict in Kyrgyzstan: http://www.actalliance.org/resources/alerts_and_situation_reports/ACT%20Alliancejuly %20statement_call%20for%20independent%20conflict%20Investigation_01July2010.pdf/view

July 7 - Situation Report: http://www.actalliance.org/resources/alerts_and_situation_reports/SitRep%2006-2010%20Kyrg.pdf

July 2 - ACT Alliance Rapid Needs Assessment (conducted June 23-28): http://bit.ly/bJiuWC

June 30 - Situation Report: http://bit.ly/b15VX9

June 27 - Situation Report: http://www.actalliance.org/resources/alerts_and_situation_reports/Kyrgyzstan_ACT%20SitRep_27June2010m.pdf/view

June 25 - Situation Report: http://www.actalliance.org/resources/alerts_and_situation_reports/SitRep%2003_2010_Kyrg.pdf/view

June 22 - Situation Report: http://www.actalliance.org/resources/alerts_and_situation_reports/publications?b_start:int=20&-C=

June 21 - Story: ACT distributing food aid to Osh and Jalal-Abad: http://bit.ly/cXLyTU

June 18 - Situation Report: http://bit.ly/9TT0Y3

June 17: ACT Advocacy Statement 01: Immediate protection and humanitarian access needed for conflict-affected and displaced persons in Kyrgyzstan: http://www.actalliance.org/resources/alerts_and_situation_reports/ACT%20Kyrgyzstan%20advocacy%20statement_humanitarian%20access_17062010.pdf/view

June 14 - Alert: http://www.actalliance.org/resources/alerts_and_situation_reports/ALERT%2018_2010_Kyrgystan%20-%20conflict_140610.pdf/view