Failure to Prevent and Stop the Violence

With a few exceptions, the authorities failed to contain or stop the violence once it had erupted. They can reasonably claim to have been overwhelmed by the scale of the violence and the size of the mobs, and the security forces had old equipment, poor training, and were demoralized by serious criticism of their use of force in past conflicts.

However, the security forces seemed to respond differently to acts of violence depending on the ethnicity of the perpetrators, raising concerns that capacity was not the only reason for their failure to protect the population. By and large, the security forces seemed to focus resources on disarming the Uzbek population, even after Kyrgyz mobs started to systematically attack Uzbek neighborhoods on June 11 (see above), posing an obvious and imminent danger.

The authorities took several steps to contain the violence once it had erupted. At 2 a.m. on June 11, the government announced a state of emergency in Osh city, Uzgen city, and in the districts of Kara-Suu and Aravan outside of Osh city, and imposed a curfew from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m.,[106] which was later extended to 12 hours, from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m.[107] Curfews were also imposed in the Jalal-Abad region.[108]

In a public address shortly after the violence erupted, Kyrgyz President Otunbaeva said:

The Interim Government has [authorized the] commandants of Osh and Uzgen, Kara-Suu and Aravan [districts], as well as law enforcement agencies across Kyrgyzstan, to suppress any attempts aimed to destabilize the situation, [and] to take lawful actions against those who call for violence and foment hatred between citizens. All guilty will be detained and punished to the full force of the law.[109]

The authorities also sent reinforcements from Bishkek, Jalal-Abad and Batken.[110] In a few places, local law enforcement agencies did manage to prevent the outbreak of violence. In Aravan district, OSCE-trained riot police dispatched from Osh managed to maintain calm and prevented hundreds of ethnic Kyrgyz from going to Osh through intensive negotiations with both ethnic communities.[111] Local authorities in some Kyrgyz villages, such as in Kara-Kulja, were also reportedly successful in preventing villagers from going to Osh by talking them out of it.[112]

For the most part, however, the authorities failed to stop the violence. In interviews with Human Rights Watch, law enforcement officials blamed their lack of capacity and members of law enforcement agencies and civilian ethnic Kyrgyz pointed out the poor condition of the government’s military equipment. One member of a law enforcement agency told Human Rights Watch that only a handful of his APCs worked at any given point. “They were constantly breaking down,” he said.[113] Two ethnic Kyrgyz from the town of Gulcha recounted to Human Rights Watch that they had seen military vehicles attempt operations while broken down. One of them said: “At some point, three infantry fighting vehicles arrived in the Furkat district, where we were standing. One was towing another. The third didn’t really work either.”[114]  

In addition to the lack of capacity, several law enforcement officers told Human Rights Watch that the security forces were demoralized and reluctant to use force because they had been made scapegoats on several occasions in the past. Police officers from Osh who had been dispatched to Talas during the protests there in April told Human Rights Watch that they had been reluctant to use force in Osh because they had come under fierce criticism for their response to the violence in Talas (see also Background section).[115]

Several law enforcement officers told Human Rights Watch that they did not employ more force because they did not have orders to use lethal force to stop people engaging in violence.“Ruslan R.” (not his real name), who was on patrol on an APC in the Cheremushki district on June 12, told Human Rights Watch:

In one of the houses in Cheremushki, we watched as Kyrgyz looters took a car. They caught the owner of the car. First, they beat him with metal rods, then they tied him to the bed in his house, which they burned down with the man inside. We fired in the air, but they did not pay any attention to us. We could not do anything else because we did not have orders to shoot directly at people.[116]

Under international law, authorities may use force, including firearms, with restraint, when strictly necessary. Firearms may be used with lethal intent only as a last resort in order to protect life. However, during the violence from June 10 to 12, it is unclear whether law enforcement officers used the maximum force available to them short of lethal force to prevent Kyrgyz attacks on the Uzbeks and their property. Instead, the evidence suggests that the authorities focused on disarming the Uzbeks, paying less attention to stopping the violence committed by the Kyrgyz, or to the danger posed by thousands of Kyrgyz flooding into the city from nearby villages.

On June 12, the authorities took a step beyond granting the security forces the right to use firearms to control the mobs, as permitted under international law, and reportedly issued a shoot-to-kill policy. [117] Yet it is unclear to what extent lethal force was used under the shoot-to-kill authority, suggesting that a reluctance to intervene where there was imminent danger or lives at risk was based less on concern about explicit orders than on other factors. 

Although the authorities announced that they would post forces at entry points to Osh city,[118] Kyrgyz villagers told Human Rights Watch that they saw few, if any, government forces on their way into the city. “UIan U.” and “Melis M.” told Human Rights Watch that they saw very few police or military forces during the fighting from June 11 to 14. and that the few they saw did little to stop them[119] As noted above, on June 11, the crowd at Furkat quickly outmanned 13 soldiers who arrived on military vehicles. Ulan and Melis told Human Rights Watch that while they were fighting in the city during the day, they went home to Gulcha at night to sleep. The fact that these villagers were able to freely move in and out of the city not only on June 11, when the violence had just started, but also on June 12, 13, and 14, when it was well underway, raises serious questions as to whether government forces made any real efforts to prevent Kyrgyz villagers from entering the city. 

When a Human Rights Watch researcher left the city on June 13, she did not see a single police or military vehicle on the road between the city and airport. The three checkpoints on the road were manned by young Kyrgyz civilians.

In Jalal-Abad, ethnic Uzbeks also told Human Rights Watch that their efforts to get help and protection from law enforcement and other officials proved largely futile. One witness, for example, said that at around 7.30 p.m. on June 12, a group of men in camouflage clothing and helmets attacked the car in which he was traveling with his wife and daughter, beat him, and took the car away. When the man went to the city police department asking for police officers to come, because he knew where ethnic Kyrgyz were gathering, the police, according to the man, said, “No, we won’t go—they are all armed, they would just shoot us all.”[120]

Uzbek witnesses in different neighborhood consistently told Human Rights Watch that when attacked by mobs, they tried to call the police and other security forces, as well as fire brigades and ambulances, but the authorities did not respond to their requests for help.

While it is possible that in many cases, the authorities did not respond to these calls because they were overwhelmed by the number of incoming requests, one case documented by Human Rights Watch raises concerns that some government services might have discriminated based on ethnicity, refusing to respond to calls for help when they came from Uzbeks. Forty-nine-year old ”Feruza F.” (not her real name), who is Uzbek, told Human Rights Watch that when the violence erupted she decided to stay home with her two daughters and her niece in their predominantly Kyrgyz neighborhood. On June 14, several ethnic Kyrgyz young men started kicking on her door, demanding that she come out. Feruza called the police and the mayor’s office, but they told her not to panic and that nothing would happen to her. At that point Feruza asked her neighbor, an ethnic Kyrgyz with a Kyrgyz-sounding name, to call the same number, saying that she was in danger. Feruza told Human Rights Watch:

Within 10 minutes after my neighbor called, two police officers showed up at her door. By the time that we explained the situation to them, I guess it was impossible for them to not do anything since the call had already been registered.[121]

The policemen took Feruza and her relatives away in their car, but stopped at a nearby field demanded that she get out, and forced her to pay them about 500 som (US$11) “for the lift.”[122] 

Kyrgyz authorities faced difficult challenges posed by the scale and intensity of the violence. Yet there is a need to establish whether the government breached its duty to protect its citizens by failing to prevent and stop the violence that resulted in numerous casualties and large-scale destruction of civilian property. The degree to which the authorities’ response was selective or partial is also an issue that must be further investigated.

The rights to life, liberty and security of person, and to protection from unlawful interference with one’s home are all guaranteed under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which also imposes a positive obligation on state parties to respect and ensure these rights for all individuals without discrimination, and to ensure an effective remedy for violations.[123]

The UN Human Rights Committee, which monitors the compliance of states that are party to the ICCPR, further established that this obligation applies not only to violations by state agents, but also to “acts committed by private persons or entities that would impair the enjoyment of Covenant rights.”[124]

Additionally, according to the Human Rights Committee, “A failure by a State Party to investigate allegations of violations could in and of itself give rise to a separate breach of the Covenant. Cessation of an ongoing violation is an essential element of the right to an effective remedy.”[125]

The Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy and Reparation, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2005, further call upon states to “[i]nvestigate violations effectively, promptly, thoroughly and impartially and, where appropriate, take action against those allegedly responsible,” and “[p]rovide those who claim to be victims of a human rights ... violation with equal and effective access to justice, as described ... irrespective of who may ultimately be the bearer of responsibility for the violation.”[126]