Kyrgyzstan On the Brink

Two months after ethnic riots rocked southern Kyrgyzstan, the Central Asian nation that hosts an important U.S. air base, tensions between minority Uzbeks and Kyrgyz remain tense. Arriving in the 3,000-year-old city of Osh late last month, I found the international distress signal ''SOS'' scrawled in chalk on the streets of Uzbek neighborhoods, an eerie remnant of the deadly violence that took the lives of over 300 people last month and led to the displacement of some 400,000. (Click here for a narrated photo essay of my recent trip to the region.) Almost immediately after the riots broke out, interim president Roza Otunbayeva conceded that her government did not have control in the south and appealed for outside intervention. Aside from a handful of international aid organizations and a small United Nations contingent, no such assistance has come to southern Kyrgyzstan, and that failure has allowed a culture of violence and impunity to deepen. Unless the international community intervenes soon, the situation here will undoubtedly worsen, with consequences far deadlier than what occurred in June.