ISLAMIC MOVEMENT GROWS STRONGER IN KYRGYZSTAN
There has been an increase in Hizb ut-Tahrir members operating in northern Kyrgyzstan after the ethnic clashes in southern Kyrgyzstan in April 2010 between ethnic Kyrgyz and Uzbeks. This can be attributed to the high numbers of displaced persons who fled from the southern cities of Osh and Jalalabad to Bishkek, the dissatisfaction of ethnic Uzbeks with Kyrgyzstan’s government for its failure to protect ethnic Uzbeks, and Hizb ut-Tahrir’s effective recruiting methods. These developments do not imply an Islamist political change in Kyrgyzstan; it is one of the factors that are widening the country’s divide between the Kyrgyz and Uzbek ethnic groups, and between religiously conservative and secular segments of society.
BACKGROUND: Hizb ut-Tahrir (Party of Liberation) is a Salafist movement that was founded by Diaspora Palestinians in 1952. Although Hizb ut-Tahrir’s membership extends throughout North Africa, Great Britain, the Middle East, and South Asia, the party only became popular in Central Asia in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan in the late 1990s and in Kyrgyzstan in the 2000s. Hizb ut-Tahrir’s main goal is to reestablish the Islamic Caliphate, which the party believes will cure all of the problems facing the Muslim World. After the U.S.’ wars in Iraq in 2003 and Afghanistan in 2001, the party declared that it was haram, or forbidden, to seek the protection of the U.S., including cooperating with the U.S. in the Northern Distribution Network (NDN) or at Manas Air Base in Kyrgyzstan, and anti-American and anti-Israeli rhetoric has been a core component of Hizb ut-Tahrir ideology.Hizb ut-Tahrir is banned in every Central Asian country and in Russia, and crackdowns on the party in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan have reduced it in those countries. In Kyrgyzstan, however, where internal security is weaker than Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, the party remains active, with an estimated 20,000 to 100,000 members, according to the Institute of War and Peace Reporting. Kyrgyzstan’s authorities believe that many members have either studied in other Islamic countries and been influenced by Salafism or studied under Salafist preachers in Kyrgyzstan. Typically, Hizb ut-Tahrir members in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan have been ethnic Uzbeks, who are traditionally more sedentary and religiously conservative than the traditionally nomadic ethnic Kyrgyz and Kazakhs, whose practice of Islam has always incorporated strong pre-Islamic practices. As a result, Hizb ut-Tahrir’s influence in Kyrgyzstan has been most pronounced in areas where there are large concentrations of ethnic Uzbeks, such as Osh and Jalalabad in the Fergana Valley, where a plurality of the population is Uzbek. Only after the ethnic clashes in April 2010 were a series of Hizb ut-Tahrir cells uncovered in northern Kyrgyzstan, with members often found in possession of CD, DVDs, and pamphlets and, in some instances, weapons stockpiled at their homes. Hizb ut-Tahrir has embraced modern technology, especially the Internet, to recruit new members and is unique among salafist movements in that it focuses on recruiting women, who it believes are the center of Central Asian families, and hence capable of effectively encouraging family members to join, especially after their husbands or sons are placed under stand. Hizb ut-Tahrir’s strategy has worked, and the movement has emerged as one of the leading political movements in Central Asia, despite the ban imposed on Hizb ut-Tahrir membership across the region.
IMPLICATIONS: Kyrgyzstan is a religiously moderate country, especially in Bishkek and other towns in northern Kyrgyzstan. However, the ethnic clashes in Osh and Jalalabad had a lasting impact on the country and sowed the seeds of mistrust between the minority Uzbek population and the Kyrgyz population. Kyrgyzstan’s government has yet to regain the trust of the Uzbek minority, and the border clashes with Uzbekistan in the first week of January 2013, which involved the temporary kidnappings of more than a dozen Kyrgyz citizens, has only furthered deteriorated inter-ethnic relations. A majority of the displaced persons in southern Kyrgyzstan have been ethnic Uzbeks, who may be among those who have relocated to Bishkek and spread their influence. For example, in October 2010, months after the Osh clashes, a Hizb ut-Tahrir publishing center in Bishkek was uncovered. The coordinator of the center alleged that he recruited thousands of new members after the ethnic clashes. In the following months and continuing into 2012, dozens of Hizb ut-Tahrir members have been arrested in Chuy oblast and Issyk Kul and other towns along the border with Kazakhstan.Due to their lack of faith in Kyrgyzstan’s government, which many ethnic Uzbeks blame for provoking the April 2010 clashes, Uzbeks will continue to look for avenues to express their political discontent outside of government channels. Hizb ut-Tahrir is one of the most likely beneficiaries. Hizb ut-Tahrir proselytizers are aggressive in their efforts to convince ethnic Uzbeks that Hizb ut-Tahrir’s vision of an Islamic State would provide more protection for the ethnic Uzbeks, as all Muslims would be united under Islam, not divided by ethnic differences. A single Islamic State in Central Asia would also mean that the Uzbeks of Kyrgyzstan would no longer be a minority in Kyrgyzstan, but that that they would be united with the Uzbeks of Uzbekistan and become the largest ethnic group in the desired Caliphate. One of the unintended consequences of the increasing success of Hizb ut-Tahrir among the Uzbek population in southern Kyrgyzstan is that they carried their discontent with them to northern Kyrgyzstan following the ethnic clashes, and their ideology may be affecting both Uzbeks and Kyrgyz in the region.There are even reported cases of ethnic Uzbeks from Kyrgyzstan who fled to Afghanistan and Pakistan and trained in insurgency after the ethnic clashes in 2010. These reports would seem to explain why Kyrgyzstan also saw an unprecedented level of militant activity in 2011. On January 4, 2011, for example four militants shot and killed three policemen during a routine document check. Then, in January 2013, two suspected Islamic Jihad Union members, who reportedly trained in Pakistan and Afghanistan, were killed and one was captured in a shooting in Bishkek. Kyrgyzstan’s authorities then carried out a large-scale special operation against militants and other extremists in Osh and Kyrgyzstan’s border with Tajikistan, which also experienced a rise in militant activity at that time.
CONCLUSIONS: The rising number of Hizb ut-Tahrir supporters in Kyrgyzstan and incidents of militant activity in the country are far from becoming the norm. However, the growing discontent of the Uzbek minority has created a more conducive operational environment within which groups like Hizb ut-Tahrir can operate and recruit. While Hizb ut-Tahrir’s targets may be among the ethnic Uzbek population, the ideology could spread among the Kyrgyz population. The cyclical violence between the Kyrgyz and Uzbeks, which occurred in April 2010 and in the first weeks of January 2013, will continue to be a destabilizing factor in the areas where violence takes place, but the instability is beginning to have long-term effects on the minority Uzbek population’s identification with the government of Kyrgyzstan. As the local ethnic issues affecting ethnic Uzbeks of southern Kyrgyzstan remain unresolved, the rest of the country is beginning to feel the effects of the instability in southern Kyrgyzstan.
AUTHOR’S BIO: Jacob Zenn is an analyst for Eurasian and African affairs at the Jamestown Foundation, a Non-Resident Research Fellow of the Center of Shanghai Cooperation Organization Studies (COSCOS) in Shanghai, China, and a legal adviser specializing in the international law and best practices related the freedom of association in Washington D.C.
