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unemployment as well as narcotics trafficking. The radical Islamic groups
concentrate their activities in the south as well (Kort, 2004; Sarı, 2010).
This division is reflected in the political arena too: northern and southern
elites compete with each other in order to have access to resources and
political positions (Lewis, 2010). The elites from the north and the south
have been acting differently since 1991, based on their regional interests
(Luong, 2002). This has been given as one of the main reasons behind
Akaev's and Bakiev's fall (Ryabkov, 2010).
Another important problem is related to the ethnic tensions and bloody
ethnic conflicts in Kyrgyzstan, some of which took place even during the
Soviet era despite the fact that centralized state power at the hands of Moscow
would prevent most ethnic tensions to escalate into full-fledged violence.
The Osh conflict between the Kyrgyz and the Uzbeks in June 1990, how-
ever, was an exception, as it was “one of the largest and most violent riot-
type conflicts on the territory of the former USSR” (Roudnik, 2007).
The Osh conflict had both economic and political reasons. The Kyrgyz
in Osh resented the Uzbeks who lived in relative wealth and controlled
about 80% of the city's trade (Huskey, 1993). They believed that the
Uzbeks were taking “all of the best jobs in the retail and consumer sector”
(Anderson, 1999). A severe shortage of land in Osh also contributed to the
rise of tensions between the two groups. The city is “squeezed between
mountains” and the available land that can be used for agricultural, indus-
trial and housing purposes “have been in a perpetual zero-sum deadlock”
(Liu, 2007). The Uzbeks in the city, on the other hand, felt that they were
underrepresented in the local governmental institutions in Osh, despite
the fact that demographically and economically they were the dominant
group (Huskey, 1993; Kort, 2004). The Uzbeks also resented the rejection
of their demand about their language to be given the same official status
alongside Kyrgyz and Russian in Osh and Jalalabad (Anderson, 1999).
The event, which triggered the conflict, was the decision of the lo-
cal authorities to allocate some land from an Uzbek collective farm to
the Kyrgyz rural migrant families in Osh to be used for housing purposes
(Anderson, 1999; Liu, 2007). The Uzbeks in the city severely opposed this
decision and called for “the incorporation of predominantly Uzbek ter-
ritories [in Kyrgyzstan] into Uzbekistan” (Anderson, 1999). The tensions
would soon escalate into violent clashes that lasted for about a week. The
riots could be stopped by the troops of the Interior Ministry and the Soviet
Army (Anderson, 1999). During the conflict, 120 Uzbek, 50 Kyrgyz and
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