Kyrgyz Islamists eye chaos with eager eyes

focus

04/22/2010

KARA-SUU — Lazily fingering a string of prayer beads outside a mosque in southern Kyrgyzstan, Ayubkhan smiles when asked about the violence which wracked his country earlier this month.

A member of Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir, he said he had no doubt of what the violent images flashing across his television screen meant for him and for his group’s vision of a pan-Central Asian Islamic caliphate.

“I thought to myself: so, it has begun,” he said.

Amid the power vacuum which has followed the violence Hizb ut-Tahrir, effectively banned in Kyrgyzstan and most Central Asian countries, is waiting to reap the long-term benefits the turbulence will bring to its cause.

Ayubkhan agreed to speak with AFP on condition the interview be conducted in a car to avoid police surveillance.

He said he was confident that the interim government that took over from ousted President Kurmanbek Bakiyev would continue to alienate the Kyrgyz people and deliver him more converts.

“What is good for us is that (interim leader Roza Otunbayeva) and the interim government are going to repeat the mistakes of Bakiyev and break the hopes of the people and make them desperate,” he said.

“This will make them more receptive to our ideas.”

Thousands of protestors took to the streets of this strategically vital former Soviet state earlier this month in bloody clashes that forced out Bakiyev, leaving at least 84 dead and nearly 2,000 injured.

While the interim government formed by former foreign minister Otunbayeva has restored order to the Russian-leaning north, it has so far struggled to assert its authority in the religiously conservative south.

“So far, there is no clear indication that (Hizb ut-Tahrir) benefited from this revolution,” said Alisher Khamidov, a Washington-based analyst and expert on the group.

“However, it is clear that the disarray in the government structures, in particular in the security services, means that harsh treatment of religious dissent has slowed down and this can potentially provide (them) a breathing space,” he added.

In the race to capture the hearts and minds of Muslims in Central Asia which followed the collapse of the Soviet Union nearly two decades ago, perhaps no Islamist group has made further inroads than Hizb ut-Tahrir.

Founded in the Middle East in 1953 by judge Taqiuddin al-Nabhani, the group’s message of Muslim unity found strong resonance in the region’s Fergana Valley, the scene of bloody ethnic clashes in the last days of the Soviet empire.

Although legal in the United States, Britain and other European countries, Hizb ut-Tahrir is proscribed in Central Asia and Russia.

Bakiyev took a hard line against the group — which does not advocate violence — portraying it as a violent terrorist organization.

“The old line was just hunt down (Hizb ut-Tahrir), put them in prison and it’s a great way of reporting to your bosses that you’ve got rid of these people,” Paul Quinn-Judge, a Bishkek-based analyst with the International Crisis Group, told AFP.

But the new government, which has pledged to hold power for only six months, may now find itself needing to reach out to the group in order to establish a dialog with the alienated Muslim population in the south.

“We’re hoping they’ll start a dialog with observant Muslims, with Islamists who would specifically repudiate violence,” said Quinn-Judge.

“There’s just a chance that this is a new regime and that they have very little time and so they have to reach out to this community.”

There are already signs the government is actively rethinking its policy toward the group.

An influential faction within the new government — including Otunbayeva and her deputy Edil Baisalov — would prefer a softer approach to the group, said Khamidov, the US-based analyst.

But for Ayubkhan, the prospect of dealing with the interim government does not seem to hold much appeal.

“There are also officials who would be more willing to continue the previous regime’s repressive policy on religious dissent,” the Islamist warned.

“(Bakiyev) beat us. He imprisoned us. But Hizb ut-Tahrir didn’t suffer at all. Now Roza Otunbayeva’s people are following the steps of Bakiyev. They will make the same mistakes,” he said.

For now, with the situation here still in flux, Ayubkhan says he is not interested in engaging with his country’s leaders, but he had a message for the foreign governments he says dictate policy here.

“The only thing I want to say to the people of Europe and the West is that only when a caliphate is established in Central Asia will they be able to live in peace. Only then will they have no reason to fear Islam,” he said. AFP

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