In memoriam: Aksy
As Scott Radnitz noted in his December 2005 article published in Central Asian Survey, “Before the was the Tulip Revolution, there was Aksy.”
Today marks the fourth anniversary of the Aksy tragedy that resulted in the death of 6 people in 2002. In the Aksy region of Jalalabad oblast a day of remembrance is being held, as Ferghana AKIpress among others reports.
Edil Baisalov is planning on travelling to Aksy to take part in the memorial meeting, and I look forward to reading his impressions of the day once he’s returned.
The events of Aksy were largely triggered by the arrest of local deputy Azimbek Beknazarov in January 2002and although there was a formal investigation held by a state commission, no charges were ever brought for the shooting of 6 protestors - although the government, headed at that time by current President Kurmanbek Bakiev, did resign, bringing Bakiev’s time as Prime Minister under Askar Akaev to an end.
Aksy in many ways marked the beginning of the end for the Akaev regime with the start of calls for Akaev’s resignation, with protests continuing even after the government’s resignation and becoming an increasingly common occurrance from 2002 onwards, as this RFE/RL timeline shows.
on March 22nd, 2006 at 3:24 pm
For those who can find the Central Asian Survey journal, I would recommend to read Scott Radnitz’ paper on Aksy/Kerben. Through a social-geographic portrait of the area, he does not only succeeds to outline what went on there at the ‘grassroots level’ but also ably describes modern-day Kyrgyz society *as it is for a majority of the country’s population*. BTW, Scott also noticed the emergence of something like ‘grassroots elites’.