The Ferghana Valley: A Ticking Bomb? Conflict Potential and the Role of Youth in the Ferghana Valley
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2011-11
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en
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This study analyses the conflict potential and the role of youth in the Ferghana Valley at the borders
of Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. A specific approach is taken on Kyrgyzstan and the casestudy
of Osh, where a conflict broke out in June 2010 in which the majority of the perpetrators were
young people. The Ferghana Valley and Osh specifically are analysed in this research through ethnic,
socio-economic and political theoretical lenses.
The Ferghana Valley is an interesting region because of its many ingredients which can lead to
conflict. First of all, because the valley is situated in a border region, there are cross-border issues
which increase the risk on conflict. This can be traced back to the time of the Soviet Union, in which
Stalin drew the lines of the Ferghana Valley as a “one-armed-alcoholic”: borders intertwined and
convoluted crossing ethnicities, natural resources and water sources. These artificial borders
belonged to the divide-and-rule policy: leaving ethnicities on the wrong side of the border would
cause ethnic tensions so that the Soviet Union could easily control the region.
The borders became problematic with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Tensions increased about
access to undemarcated land and water resources, which often unfolded themselves along ethnic
lines. Furthermore, the region as a whole went into decline. With the hardening of the borders,
economic exchange became difficult and cross-border collective farms had to close down. Villages
were split in half by a border fence, so that it was unable for people to visit their relatives on the
other side of the border.
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Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen