Demining around Uzbek enclaves brings hope to impoverished villagers

//Att. Subscribers, this report is part of a comprehensive set of features, background reports, interviews and other resources on landmine-related issues titled 'IRIN Web Special on Humanitarian Mine Action, published ahead of the 2004 Nairobi Summit on a Mine Free World.'// Demining of the Kyrgyz-Uzbek border is bringing hope to parts of the local population, hope of a new life without fear, along with economic benefits that have been denied them since 1999, when the area was first mined. "It is good to walk on the ground without any fear," Nishanbai, a resident of Suu-Bashi village in the southern Kyrgyz province of Batken, bordering Uzbekistan, told IRIN, explaining the feelings of the local inhabitants. "In fact, until now our people were afraid to make a step towards the border as they were scared of being blown up." "At last, we will graze our cattle on meadows again; look how high the grass is, nobody has touched it, hay-making awaits us," Aidarbai Kasymbaev, an elderly local resident, echoed. Aidarbai is also happy to have the opportunity to visit his relatives living in the village of Sharqabad in neighbouring Uzbekistan via the shortest route, rather than wasting time to circumvent the mine fields. "Most of all I am glad for our children," Salima Ergesheva, a mother of four, said. "Now they can play and have fun as long as they like." Earlier in August, units of the Uzbek army started demining work around the Sokh and Shakhimardan enclaves located on the territory of Kyrgyzstan. Enclaves are islands of territory completely surrounded by land from a neighbouring country - a legacy of the Soviet era when borders were simply administrative. Valery Kolesov, an official at the Batken governor's office responsible for law enforcement and defence issues, told IRIN that the Uzbek military had almost cleared mines around the Shakhimardan enclave, while demining efforts around the Sokh enclave were expected to be completed by 1 December 2004. According to the Uzbek Defence Ministry, Tashkent began planting mines in 1999 in some mountainous parts of its Kyrgyz and Tajik borders which were difficult to control in an effort to stave off incursions by the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) and to prevent drug trafficking and weapons smuggling through the area. Since then, more then 10 people have been killed by mines with several others injured. Furthermore, mine blasts killed around 100 head of livestock. The officials of the Batken governorship estimated the cost of the damage at US $166,000. The Uzbek government announced its readiness to demine its Kyrgyz border earlier in June in Vienna at a session of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), a move welcomed by Bishkek. "The climate on the border with the beginning of demining has become warmer right away," Shadybek Bakybekov, Batken's deputy governor, told IRIN. "Now people have more trust in the neighbouring country as well as in local government structures. It was the problem of mine fields which noticeably darkened our relations with the adjacent region of Uzbekistan. Now with our colleagues from Ferghana [province], the neighbouring region of Uzbekistan, we will be able to focus on other issues." Zulpukar Markaev, head of one of the local rural municipalities, pointed out the economic benefit which demining of the frontier belt was expected to bring. "There is an opportunity to use hundreds of hectares of land for agriculture, on both sides of the border, which have not been cultivated for the past four or five years," Markaev told IRIN. "It will remarkably improve the well-being of the local population. Arable land has a worth like gold here." There is a scarcity of arable land in Batken, amounting to only 0.1 hectares per capita in the province, while in other parts of the country that figure is much higher. More than 95 percent of Kyrgyzstan's territory is mountainous and a lack of irrigated land and water is a real problem in Batken, the most underdeveloped part of the country. As for local NGOs working on the issue of border relations, civic groups note the importance of publicity and the transparency of mine clearance operations implemented by the Uzbek side. "The mine clearing commission includes representative of the Kyrgyz border service. It would be good to have representatives of Kyrgyz local communities in it as well," Robert Abazbekov, head of the Batken office of the local NGO For International Tolerance, told IRIN. "It is important in terms of providing the local population with impartial information. It is expedient to hold a couple of demonstrations on the elimination of mines, having invited representatives of the border communities." But some people still have concerns that some of these deadly weapons can remain undetected, noting the need for a clear statement from the authorities on this point. "Of course, guarantees are needed that there is no longer a danger, and these guarantees should be provided by the Uzbek authorities as well as by ourselves," Manas Shaidullaev, a farmer from the Kojo farm located in the border area, said. "I lost my 13-year-old son to mines. I do not want this to happen to anybody else." Sharing that view, children of the late Ulukbek Tolebaev from Chon-Gara village, another landmine victim, said: "Three years ago mines took away the life of our father. Grief and poverty came into our family. Neither our neighbours [in Uzbekistan] nor our authorities provided compensation for our losses. The pain is still there, but it is impossible to live with it constantly. We want to believe in tomorrow and in the common sense of the authorities." Karim Tashbaltaev, head of the Batken association of war and labour veterans, told IRIN that people on both sides of the border were hoping for new prospects - reviving the cross-border trade. "Why not open border markets and resume bus routes with Uzbekistan?" Tashbaltaev asked. Local observers say border trade would contribute to boosting economic activities in the area and reducing poverty. Meanwhile, some Kyrgyz military analysts see the beginning of mine clearing of the Kyrgyz -Uzbek border as a step on the way to joining the Ottawa Convention - the 1997 convention on the prohibition of the use, stockpiling, production and transfer or anti-personnel mines and on their destruction. "Until now, both Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan had a poor image in the eyes of the world community, maintaining anti-personnel mines for the protection of their borders," Colonel Leonid Bondarets, an analyst at the Bishkek-based International Centre for Strategic Research, told IRIN. "The process of mine clearing of the borders can also be considered as a kind of gesture on demilitarisation of the Ferghana valley. The most important thing is that people will not be killed anymore." According to Bondarets, Central Asia's densely populated Ferghana Valley shared by Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan was used excessively by the three countries' military bodies following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and was full of weapons and munitions. The danger of accidental explosions remained, he maintained. A local scrap metal dealer was killed by UXO (unexploded ordnance) in Batken while loading an artillery shell on a truck to ship it to China as scrap metal. "Our people have suffered enough to say 'No!' to these deadly things," Altynbek Syrymbetov, a teacher in Batken, said firmly.