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Philip Shishkin, for the Pulitzer Center
Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan
Riot police holding off protesters the day after violent land riots in Kyrgyzstan
A few days ago outside of Bishkek, people flooded onto a field and started parceling out land for themselves according to a master list someone had drawn up. There was a problem: that land already had owners. But the land-grabbers, most of them destitute laborers, saw an opportunity in the political chaos of Kyrgyzstan. Their logic was simple. In the capital, a group of politicians seized power. So why can't we seize land?
Behind the line of riot police, I met Bahyt, a short man with a creased and tan face of someone who spends a lot of time outdoors. A 41-year-old father of five, Bahyt spoke with a lot of emotion, his voice skidding into a high pitch when he wanted to emphasize a point. "I'm penniless," he told me with a shriek. All seven of his family members live in a small rented room. "I just wanted a plot of land to build a house."
A construction worker, Bahyt said he hadn't been paid in months, and was out planting watermelons when the government fell. Bahyt saw a chance to finally score some land he couldn't otherwise afford.
Faced with the mob of land-grabbers, the interim government fumbled for a response. The mayor of Bishkek addressed the protesters and told them they should have land. The protesters took that as an invitation to grab it. The mayor left, and the protesters got down to business with measuring tapes. This caused problems with the local landowners, and an argument ensued. Though what happened next isn't entirely clear, word spread through the crowd that a man with a double-barrel shotgun had opened fire. That man, Bahyt told me, was a Turk. The Turks, with their European features, are easily distinguishable from the Asian Kyrgyz.
The Turks of Central Asia have a bitter history. They used to live in Southern Georgia, near the Turkish border. In 1944, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin decreed that they be resettled to Central Asia. Stalin was paranoid about the emergence of a fifth column among some ethnicities of the Soviet Union. One way to punish them and stifle their national spirit was to toss them around in the massive Soviet salad bowl.
In the village of Mayevka, outside Bishkek, the descendants of these refugees settled on a big collective farm, alongside the Kyrgyz and the Russians. When the land grabbing and the unrest began, the Turks sent their women and children away and waited, said Alik Aliyev, a Turk in his 50s, with a scruffy unshaved face and a mustache. "Then we saw a crowd approaching from the direction of the fields. They had clubs and rocks and they were screaming wildly," Mr. Aliyev said. "We weren't evenly matched, so we retreated deep into the village." Eventually, the Turks grouped together and were able to hold the Kyrgyz mob at a distance for about two hours. "We were calling every emergency number we could find, asking for help. Our phones were getting overheated from all the use. The cops were waiting for an order, I heard."
No help was forthcoming, and the Kyrgyz crowd, having swollen in numbers, finally charged at the Turks. There was more bone-chilling screaming, Mr. Aliyev recalled. "I don't even know how it is possible for humans to scream like this." The Turks scattered. Mr. Aliyev climbed over a fence and ran toward the next street. Behind him, smoke was rising from houses and hay stacks that were set on fire. He hid in some bushes, and waited. Then, when the cops finally arrived, Mr. Aliyev emerged from hiding and went to help his friends and relatives put out the fires. It was already dark, and a neighbor asked Mr. Aliyev to help identify a body, lying on its back in the street.
Under a flashlight, Mr. Aliyev recognized a friend of his named Kaptan Karipov. Mr. Karipov, 40, was married to Mr. Aliyev's cousin and they had two kids. "His head was bashed in with rocks. There was a hole between his eyes, and there were stab wounds on his neck." Mr. Aliyev was speaking inside a smoldering wreck that was once Mr. Karipov's house. On the tiled floor I saw broken jars of tomato preserves, the tomatoes squished and bright red; shattered tea bowls spilling out of wrapping paper; a high-heel boot, its black leather crumpled and dirty. In a burned-down shed, the charred corpse of a bull was still smoking. "What were the security forces waiting for? If they'd come in time, this wouldn't have happened."
Later, I posed that question to Keneshbek Dushebayev, the new director of the State Security Service. He said the Minister of Interior, who supervises the police, was replaced after the events in Mayevka, and assured me that the new leadership is "more decisive." In the evening after the murders — there were five that day — the interim government authorized a shoot-to-kill policy against those attacking the property or lives of others. The police rounded up 120 people who participated in the riots. The next day, protesters demanded their release, and they were all set free. The government later said six people were under criminal investigation for their role in the violence. One afternoon, I got a phone call from Bahyt. He still had no land. When I asked him about the crowd's attack on the local Turks, he told me it was the Turks who started the fight.
In the corner of Mayevka, Mr. Aliyev's house survived the riots, but his car had been stolen and was later found banged up beyond repair. As he spoke in the burned-down house of his dead friend, a big chunk of corrugated roofing material crashed down onto a blackened stove in Mr. Karipov's kitchen. Mr. Aliyev looked at it blankly, and didn't move from his bench. "I'm going to leave the village now," he said. "There's nothing here for me."