APRIL 28 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – At least three soldiers and one civilian have died in gunfights over the past week between Azerbaijani and Armenian fighters in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, media reported. Earlier this month, the worst fighting for over decade killed several dozen people and tipped the two neighbours towards all-out war.
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(News report from Issue No. 278, published on April 29 2016)
APRIL 22 2016, DUSHANBE (The Conway Bulletin) — A 22-year-old Tajik army recruit has died after an alleged beating from more senior soldiers, media reported, highlighting what it said was a degrading Soviet-era culture of bullying and hazing in Tajikistan’s military.
Bakhtiyor Kurmonmadov died on April 19, five days after signing up to join the army.
His relatives said that there were bruises all over Kurmonmadov’s body. This was contested by an official report which said he died from a heart attack during an exercise.
To many, Kurmonmadov’s death was an indication of just how institutionalised bullying is in the Tajik army.
The system of informal beatings and bullying of young recruits by more senior soldiers even has a name, ‘dedovshina’ which literally means ‘grandfatherism’.
It’s a system that is spread across the armies of the former Soviet Union. A handful of recruits are killed or badly injured every year.
Last month, another conscript in Kurmonmadov’s unit was taken to hospital after a severe beating from older soldiers.
Amridin is a 24-year-old graduate,who was conscripted into the Tajik army two-years-ago. He described to a Conway Bulletin correspondent how he ended up in the army and severity of his treatment there.
“I was literally kidnapped in the streets and sent to the army. When we were new recruits, older soldiers beat, tortured, and harassed us in whatever way they wanted,” he said. “You cannot avoid getting beaten up because beating new conscripts is like an unwritten rule in the army.”
He coughed and complained about his health. He said that some of his colleagues had been beaten so badly that they would now be no use on a battlefield.
“If it continues in this way, we cannot defend our country if an enemy attacks us,” he said.
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(News report from Issue No. 278, published on April 29 2016)
APRIL 26 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbekistan’s President Islam Karimov flew to Russia to hold high- level talks with his counterpart Vladimir Putin focused on security along Central Asia’s southern border with Afghanistan.
Just weeks after Russia ratified an agreement to pardon most of Uzbekistan’s debt, Mr Karimov’s visit looked like a show of support for Mr Putin.
“There are certain attempts to find a solution to the Afghan issue without Russia. I believe this is wrong,” Mr Karimov told the press after meeting Mr Putin.
On trade, Mr Karimov said a row between Russia and Turkey over the shooting down of a fighter jet over Syria last year may allow Uzbekistan to boost trade with Russia.
“Turkey today can not provide [fruits and vegetables] because of well known reasons. Now tell me, does Uzbekistan produce less fruit and vegetables?” Mr Karimov said, hinting that Uzbekistan might be the perfect substitute for Turkish goods.
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(News report from Issue No. 278, published on April 29 2016)
APRIL 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia’s security services said they had arrested six men, three Georgians and three Armenians, who were trying to sell uranium on the Black Market. Police found a container with an undisclosed amount of uranium in a Tbilisi home where one of the alleged smugglers lived. Authorities in the South Caucasus often have to grapple with smugglers of radioactive materials.
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(News report from Issue No. 277, published on April 22 2016)
APRIL 15 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev flew to Tashkent to meet with his Uzbek counterpart Islam Karimov to discuss regional security and economic ties. Both leaders emphasised good relations between the two countries. Mr Karimov told Mr Nazarbayev that “we need to synchronise our watches and go in the right direction”, a reference to working more closely together.
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(News report from Issue No. 277, published on April 22 2016)
APRIL 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev signed into law a deal with member states of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) to facilitate the transit of army units. The deal will allow soldiers and equipment to be transferred more quickly across CSTO member states. The CSTO is a Russia-led security group.
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(News report from Issue No. 277, published on April 22 2016)
SHUSHI/Azerbaijan, APRIL 22 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The high mountains, steep cliffs and green landscapes are a pleasure to the eye, but Nagorno Karabakh feels empty, quiet and sad.
From the Armenian border to Shushi, one of the disputed region’s larger towns, several ghost-like settlements hug the road.
Shushi itself is strewn with rubble but not from fighting that sparked earlier this month, the worst since a UN brokered ceasefire was imposed in 1994. This rubble was from fighting in the early 1990s when Christian Armenian-backed fighters took the town from Muslim Azerbaijani soldiers. The abandoned mosques lie testament to that.
Saro Saryan, an ethnic Armenian originally from Baku, brought out a bottle of vodka and insisted that it must be finished before morning was out. He fled Baku in 1990.
His son sat beside him, silent, eyes glued to his iPad. He was back from fighting against Azerbaijani forces.
Saryan, now flush with vodka, chipped in. “I’m extremely proud of my son for volunteering to fight on the front lines. Karabakh is a proud country and we’ll fight till the end for our historical right,” he said.
In contrast to Shushi’s emptiness, the streets of Stepanakert, the Armenian capital of Nagorno-Karabakh, are clean and filled with people. Military convoys rumble past, children ride bikes, a lady walks her dog.
The locals may flash a friendly smile but the stress of war is never far away. “Many families left Karabakh once the conflict resumed, it’s sad. But what can they do?” said 30-year-old Zara.
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(News report from Issue No. 277, published on April 22 2016)
APRIL 9 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Russia said that it will continue to sell weapons to both Armenia and Azerbaijan, Russian PM Dmitri Medvedev told Russian media, despite the worst outbreak in violence earlier this month between the two neighbours since 1994. Mr Medvedev said that if Russia stopped selling weapons to Armenia and Azerbaijan, they would simply buy them from another country which would, potentially, by more dangerous.
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(News report from Issue No. 276, published on April 15 2016)
APRIL 12 2016, DUSHANBE (The Conway Bulletin) — Working groups of the Tajik and Kyrgyz governments met in Dushanbe to decide on the demarcation of the disputed borders between the two countries ahead of a meeting between two two presidents in May.
Both sides have talked up the new round of negotiations as a potential breakthrough deal. Of the 970-kilometre border Tajikistan shares with Kyrgyzstan, 451km remain disputed.
Most of the contested areas are fertile lands, which are a key assets for the rural population in a region still marred with conflict.
In one of the latest clashes, last July, a Tajik civilian was killed during a shootout between Tajik and Kyrgyz border-guards.
A Dushanbe-based analyst who wished to remain anonymous said governments had only now sat down seriously to discuss the border row because of heightened tension.
“The conflict has now escalated and both sides have started using weapons. Both governments realised that they can no longer ignore the problem,” the analyst said.
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(News report from Issue No. 276, published on April 15 2016)
APRIL 11 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan’s government blocked the blogging platform Tumblr because of concerns it was being used by Islamic extremists to recruit and groom young men to join the radical IS group in Syria and Iraq. Kazakh media quoted security forces as saying that IS used Tumblr to build its various propaganda websites. Governments in Central Asia have been accused of being a soft-touch for IS recruiters.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 276, published on April 15 2016)
