WINDOW ON HEARTLAND: Karakalpakstan: Uzbekistan’s latent conflict
I doubt they ever go independent or try to leave unless there is an extreme regional destabilization.
It will most likely Occur between Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan since there were some ethnic conflicts already in the south. Btw Kyrgyz, Kazakh, and Karakalpaks are essentially the same ethnic group more or less.
Kyrgyzstan News | Ethnic Conflict | Racial Violence
From two years ago...
Uzbekistan also has a large Tajik minority that they simply pretend is Uzbeks for the sake of political expedience but I am sure there are undercurrents in this area as well.
Ethnically everyone is different, Tajiks are Iranian speaking, Uzbeks Turkic and Kyrgyz are ethnically different. Maps have areas of each where large ethnic overruns occur.
What is interesting is the pressure food and economic matter are having on the region. Extremely overrun by Chinese goods and to a large degree in competition with one another for every basic necessity, food, water, land, energy, heat, you name it.
Andijan Massacre Linked to Local Power Struggle -- Source | EurasiaNet.org
This is about Andijan massacre and close to what really happened instead of Islamic insurgency.
Uzbekistan is on the verge of transition of power and it will most likely be very destabilizing. The reasons for this is that Karimov is unlikely to pass his power to his daughters and someone from within will have to be chosen. This could create two camps of potential and may in some way allow more than that since a lot of province heads could go de-facto warlord and recognize nobody except themselves.
Uzbekistan: Tashkent
This is why I think it won't go to his daughter. Also notice the extreme money and business grabbing by authorities almost a free for all for any assets for the coming potential power struggle.
Post Afghanistan Pullout there will be a very large ethnic element that is armed in Afghanistan both Uzbeks and Tajiks and Afghans. Some of those will most likely try to gain some measure of "safety" realtive to Afghanistan in the stans. Bear in mind that for someone poor in the middle of a civil war a country next door that is slightly less corrupt and stable does look better even if to us here in the west both look like sht holes.
Russia fears that the coming pressure on these societies due to migration within the region simply overloads them and everything from Syria through Iran through Central Asia goes apesht and we have these massive ethnic disturbances where "terrorists" and non terrorists go at it with each other and anyone else they deem at fault for their problems which could be everyone. Radicalization of migrant communities which have millions of people in Russia would be the worst possible thing. I actually think redrawing of some maps is inevitable and not all of them will be the way we think. Have no idea how it goes in the Tajik/Kyrgyz/Uzbek border. Since each can get help from outside in essence.
Last week, the Russian oil company Lukoil announced to have coaxed the first natural gas out of its South West Gissar development in Uzbekistan. The production came from the Dzharkuduk-Yangi Kyzylcha field, part of the Kashkadarya Region in the southern part of the country. Like Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan is a dry but energy-rich country: export of hydrocarbons provided about 40% of foreign exchange earnings in 2009. One of the regions with the largest estimated reserves of fossil fuels is the autonomous republic of Karakalpakstan, which occupies the western part of Uzbekistan.
The discovery of major Karakalpak gas fields on the central U’stirt plateau and under the bed of the Aral Sea during the 1990’s has led the Uzbek government to the recognition of the region as the number one national priority for future investment in gas field development and production. According to some estimates, Karakalpakstan’s natural-resources wealth could amount to 1.7 trillion cubic metres of natural gas and 1.7 billion tonnes of oil. Nevertheless, such developments may soon pose a threat to Uzbekistan’s national unity, as they are actually fuelling a revival of separatist sentiments among Karakalpaks.
The discovery of major Karakalpak gas fields on the central U’stirt plateau and under the bed of the Aral Sea during the 1990’s has led the Uzbek government to the recognition of the region as the number one national priority for future investment in gas field development and production. According to some estimates, Karakalpakstan’s natural-resources wealth could amount to 1.7 trillion cubic metres of natural gas and 1.7 billion tonnes of oil. Nevertheless, such developments may soon pose a threat to Uzbekistan’s national unity, as they are actually fuelling a revival of separatist sentiments among Karakalpaks.
It will most likely Occur between Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan since there were some ethnic conflicts already in the south. Btw Kyrgyz, Kazakh, and Karakalpaks are essentially the same ethnic group more or less.
Kyrgyzstan News | Ethnic Conflict | Racial Violence
From two years ago...
OSH, Kyrgyzstan — In Osh last weekend, entire streets and neighborhoods went up in flames, sometimes incinerating families inside them, in an outbreak of racial violence. The official death toll is reaching 200, but many observers believe that this figure may climb higher. The United Nations says that 400,000 people have now fled the hostilities.
Friendships abound and many neighborhoods are mixed, but tensions between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks have been building for years. In 1990, similar violence between the two groups resulted in hundreds dead. Before this most recent outbreak, Uzbeks could be heard complaining that Kyrgyz held all political power and did not respect their ethnic rights. Kyrgyz for their part said that all the main businesses belonged to Uzbeks and that they were always pushing for extra influence.
“It’s been simmering and simmering for a long time now,” said Mukhabat Kurbanalieva, a Kyrgyz trader at a local bazaar. “All the owners are Uzbek, and all the workers are Kyrgyz,”
“We live in Kyrgyzstan, but the Uzbeks behave obnoxiously — they want this to be an autonomous part of Uzbekistan,” she added.
“It’s been simmering and simmering for a long time now,” said Mukhabat Kurbanalieva, a Kyrgyz trader at a local bazaar. “All the owners are Uzbek, and all the workers are Kyrgyz,”
“We live in Kyrgyzstan, but the Uzbeks behave obnoxiously — they want this to be an autonomous part of Uzbekistan,” she added.
Ethnically everyone is different, Tajiks are Iranian speaking, Uzbeks Turkic and Kyrgyz are ethnically different. Maps have areas of each where large ethnic overruns occur.
What is interesting is the pressure food and economic matter are having on the region. Extremely overrun by Chinese goods and to a large degree in competition with one another for every basic necessity, food, water, land, energy, heat, you name it.
Andijan Massacre Linked to Local Power Struggle -- Source | EurasiaNet.org
This is about Andijan massacre and close to what really happened instead of Islamic insurgency.
Uzbekistan is on the verge of transition of power and it will most likely be very destabilizing. The reasons for this is that Karimov is unlikely to pass his power to his daughters and someone from within will have to be chosen. This could create two camps of potential and may in some way allow more than that since a lot of province heads could go de-facto warlord and recognize nobody except themselves.
Uzbekistan: Tashkent
This is why I think it won't go to his daughter. Also notice the extreme money and business grabbing by authorities almost a free for all for any assets for the coming potential power struggle.
Five managers – including Russian citizen Radik Dautov, who was appointed Uzdunrobita’s acting head after director Bekzod Akhmedov fled Uzbekistan – are under arrest. On July 25, Russian officials said they had voiced their “concern” to Tashkent about Dautov’s detention. Six days later, Moscow urged a resolution to an “ever more acute” dispute.
MTS (owned by Russian oligarch Vladimir Yevtushenkov) denies being in breach of the law and is fighting back, condemning “the use of the tactic of intimidation and arrest of Uzdunrobita staff,” and assailing the “ungrounded attacks on a Russian investor’s business.”
MTS (owned by Russian oligarch Vladimir Yevtushenkov) denies being in breach of the law and is fighting back, condemning “the use of the tactic of intimidation and arrest of Uzdunrobita staff,” and assailing the “ungrounded attacks on a Russian investor’s business.”
Leaked US diplomatic cables have detailed the sway of the well-connected over Uzbekistan’s economy. One 2008 cable memorably described the rush for assets as “a fairly brazen, at times seemingly desperate grab by [Uzbekistan’s] elites for portions of the Uzbek economic pie.”
It also spoke of “a steady drumbeat of complaints from foreign investors” – and four years on, the list of disappointed investors continues to grow, encompassing Western, Turkish, and Asian firms, as well as Russian ones like MTS.
The case of UK-based company Oxus Gold illustrates the risks faced by bold investors venturing into Uzbekistan’s high-stakes economy. Following sustained pressure (including the imprisonment of a company metallurgist for 12 years on espionage charges), Oxus agreed to sell its 50-percent stake in the Amantaytau Goldfields mining operation to its Uzbek partners last year – but its troubles did not end there.
Oxus accused the buyers of understating the value of its share and remains locked in litigation, seeking $400 million at international arbitration over what company lawyer Robert Amsterdam has bitterly described as “an ongoing campaign to fabricate a reason to steal the last foreign assets in the mining industry in Uzbekistan.”
Turkish-owned businesses have also come to grief. The once popular Demir supermarket in downtown Tashkent stands shuttered after its owners quit Uzbekistan amid disagreements with authorities; investors in another Tashkent store, Turkuaz, fared worse: one is serving a three-year jail sentence on tax evasion charges, seven other Turks were convicted on the charge, but deported, and Turkuaz (renamed Toshkent) is doing a roaring trade under Uzbek management.
The list goes on: Indian textile firm Spentex Industries this spring lodged a $100-million compensation claim with Tashkent after “bankruptcy was thrust upon it;” Denmark’s Carlsberg suspended operations this year over what it described as a “shortage of raw materials.”
It also spoke of “a steady drumbeat of complaints from foreign investors” – and four years on, the list of disappointed investors continues to grow, encompassing Western, Turkish, and Asian firms, as well as Russian ones like MTS.
The case of UK-based company Oxus Gold illustrates the risks faced by bold investors venturing into Uzbekistan’s high-stakes economy. Following sustained pressure (including the imprisonment of a company metallurgist for 12 years on espionage charges), Oxus agreed to sell its 50-percent stake in the Amantaytau Goldfields mining operation to its Uzbek partners last year – but its troubles did not end there.
Oxus accused the buyers of understating the value of its share and remains locked in litigation, seeking $400 million at international arbitration over what company lawyer Robert Amsterdam has bitterly described as “an ongoing campaign to fabricate a reason to steal the last foreign assets in the mining industry in Uzbekistan.”
Turkish-owned businesses have also come to grief. The once popular Demir supermarket in downtown Tashkent stands shuttered after its owners quit Uzbekistan amid disagreements with authorities; investors in another Tashkent store, Turkuaz, fared worse: one is serving a three-year jail sentence on tax evasion charges, seven other Turks were convicted on the charge, but deported, and Turkuaz (renamed Toshkent) is doing a roaring trade under Uzbek management.
The list goes on: Indian textile firm Spentex Industries this spring lodged a $100-million compensation claim with Tashkent after “bankruptcy was thrust upon it;” Denmark’s Carlsberg suspended operations this year over what it described as a “shortage of raw materials.”
Russia fears that the coming pressure on these societies due to migration within the region simply overloads them and everything from Syria through Iran through Central Asia goes apesht and we have these massive ethnic disturbances where "terrorists" and non terrorists go at it with each other and anyone else they deem at fault for their problems which could be everyone. Radicalization of migrant communities which have millions of people in Russia would be the worst possible thing. I actually think redrawing of some maps is inevitable and not all of them will be the way we think. Have no idea how it goes in the Tajik/Kyrgyz/Uzbek border. Since each can get help from outside in essence.
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