REPORTER: Geoff Parish

KURANDA SEYIT:  The thing that struck me probably most was the streets were almost empty. As we got closer into the city, I started to notice the burnt buildings, a lot of burnt shops and cafes.

Kuranda Seyit and his brother Yusef travelled to Osh in southern Kyrgyzstan. They went representing Muslim Aid, a non-government organisation that provides emergency relief. The brothers felt that the international response to the violence in June had been poor.

KURANDA SEYIT:  We raised some money and, um, we talked to people at Muslim Aid in Sydney and we decided to go to the country and see what we could do and discover, as much as possible - the causes behind the conflict. Around the central city area there was a lot of graffiti identifying Uzbek shops and homes and some of them, for example, read, "Kill the Uzbeks," "Uzbeks live here," or the opposite to that, they would say, "Don't burn this house, Kyrgyz live here." Or, "Russians live here."

Two months earlier, in April, a public uprising in Kyrgyzstan led to the overthrow of the president, 76 people died in the ensuing riots. The interim government of President Roza Otunbayeva oversaw a tense and unstable period, especially in the country's south where there are long-held grievances over land and power-sharing.

KURANDA SEYIT:  I've picked up from some Kyrgyz people that they believe that the Uzbeks are a threat to, I suppose, the Kyrgyz identity. The Uzbeks, on the other hand, see themselves as the original inhabitants of the area.

These images are from Human Rights Watch. In a detailed report, they say that on the night of June 10, a large group of ethnic Uzbeks gathered in the centre of Osh. Clashes between Uzbeks and Kyrgyz broke out, which quickly escalated. From early in the morning on June 11, crowds of ethnic Kyrgyz from surrounded villages joined locals in Osh in looting and torching Uzbek shops and neighbourhoods and sometimes killing Uzbeks they encountered.

KURANDA SEYIT:  What we ascertained was that, although the initial violence was between two groups, Uzbek youth and Kyrgyz youth, the overall violence was much, much, much worse and was perpetrated against Uzbeks. It was clear that it was systematic. It was planned.

The United Nations declared on June 15 that the violence was "orchestrated, targeted and well-planned."

KURANDA SEYIT:  We spoke to a lot of people, and every single person said that, um, there were military amongst the civilian people who were usually masked armed with either guns or knives.

In their detailed report, Human Rights Watch notes there are "serious concerns that some government forces either actively participated in, or facilitated, attacks on Uzbek neighbourhoods by knowingly or unwittingly giving cover to violent mobs". Locals claim this smuggled footage shows they were fired at from military vehicles.

MAN (Translation):  They shot Yakub in the head. The soldiers are firing – don’t leave the car.

WOMAN (Translation):  Uzbeks, take a look at this – look at what has happened – look at our humiliation. The Kyrgyz… I can’t find words for what they have done. We are all mortal, what do they want? Take anything, just don’t kill us.  Want to burn the houses down?  Do it, but why are you killing us?

WOMAN 2 (Translation):  This is my husband, they shot him in the head, he was completely burned all over, he was unrecognisable.

WOMAN 3 (Translation):  We agree to leave everything and go, open a corridor and we will go if they don’t touch us. 

KURANDA SEYIT:  A lot of the men were afraid to be - to come forward and speak, and those who spoke only did so under the proviso that their faces would not be shown on camera, basically because they were fearful of being arrested.

Here Kuranda Seyit is filmed gathering more information.

MAN 2 (Translation):   I spoke to a girl at the school in Cheryomushki, she says that first they took her father away and then five men raped her.

Although the great majority of the violence was targeted at Uzbeks, it's clear Uzbeks were also responsible for terrible crimes. On a recent visit to the southern region, President Otunbayeva hears from Kyrgyz who blame Uzbeks for the violence.

MAN (Translation):  Whoever was involved - Kyrgyz or Uzbek...we have to find those responsible and punish them. If the Kyrgyz tried to expel Uzbeks from their homes we would find them responsible.  But it’s not like that at all. The Uzbeks started this and organised it.

In this smuggled video from the June violence, a doctor at an Osh hospital describes her experience.

DOCTOR (Translation): I was the doctor on duty on the day of the attacks. I have been here since then

and I cannot leave.  Can ordinary people shoot like this?   Only snipers or professionals can.  See this? An ordinary person might hit a leg, an arm...he might hit the stomach area... But only a professional sniper

could hit the brain. I think so. I can’t handle this anymore. That’s it.

Two days after the violence broke out, the Kyrgyzstan Government requested international help. Russia refused to intervene and, more than a month later, Europe pledged a mere 52 unarmed police, and they have yet to arrive. The Kyrgyzstan President was left to plead.

PRESIDENT OTUNBAYEVA (Translation): We’re asking for help from the international community. We’ve been asking all the time but if we had the money we wouldn’t have to ask. We’re 1 billion dollars short and we were pledged 1.1 billion dollars.

HANS SCHRODER, UN HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR REFUGEES:  UNHCR on the ground is focusing on two areas - protection and emergency shelter.

Hans Schroder is the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’s representative in southernKyrgyzstan.

HANS SCHRODER:  UNHCR is looking at certain areas like restoration of documentation and other urgent protection issues. You might have seen there is a lot of tents that were put up for emergency shelter for the displaced people, preferably in their homes, and now the next step is, of course, to provide some transitional shelter before the winter comes for the displaced to be able to have a roof over their head again. 

KURANDA SEYIT:  Both communities share the same form of Islam, Sunni Islam. It struck me as very sad, I suppose, or tragic that these two communities who had, you know, share the same faith were actually at each others' throats.

An election held last month has failed to produce any clear winner, so instability remains a threat to the region. There are also concerns about ongoing human rights violations, including arbitrary arrests and torture in detention. Human Rights Watch and others have repeatedly called on the Kyrgyz government to request an international investigation into the June violence.

KURANDA SEYIT:  I think that, um, an independent investigation is really the only way to not just ascertain what happened, clearly ascertain, but also to give the victims a sense of, um, a feeling of justice and that someone cares.  

WOMAN (Translation):  Aren’t we citizens of Kyrgyzstan too? Our last hope is for the conflict to be investigated by an independent foreign commission that will find the facts and throw light on the truth.

GEORGE NEGUS:  Largely unreported, as I said, and most of that footage of smuggled out. That report was produced by Angus Llewellyn. And there's a fact file with more background to the - as I say - largely unreported troubles in Kyrgyzstan on our website.

Camera

KURANDA SEYIT

Producer

ANGUS LLEWELLYN

Editor

NICK O’BRIEN

Translation/Subtitling

BAHRAM AHMEDOV

Original Music composed by

VICKI HANSEN 

7th November 2010