Kyrgyzstan was once seen as a model of democracy in Central Asia. Now it appears to have become ungovernable, with tens of thousands of residents fleeing the country after deadly ethnic clashes. Is this the end of democracy in the region?
Young Uzbeks, Tajiks, Turkmen and Kyrgyzstanis study at the Kyrgyzstan campus of the University of Central Asia, which is housed in an attractive new building with a red-tiled roof. The university brings together people from a region plagued by sharp ethnic differences, where borders sometimes bisect villages in such a way that local farmers have their house in one country and their plots of land in another.
The university is in Tokmak, a peaceful city in northern Kyrgyzstan, near the border with Kazakhstan. Tokmak is an island of ethnic harmony in this explosive region between the Caspian Sea and the Tian Shan mountains. Russia, China and the United States have been competing for influence in the region for the last 20 years. Drug barons use the region as a supply route for Western Europe, while Islamist underground movements are seeking to establish a Taliban-style caliphate there. The region has oil, gas, gold and uranium. It also has a time bomb that has been ticking for a long time, in the form of the fertile Fergana Valley, which Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin arbitrarily carved up among Uzbeks, Kyrgyzs and Tajiks.
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