Violence on the Tajikistan-Kyrgyzstan Border: Causes and Consequences

Grunge flags of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan divided by barb wire illustration, concept of tense relations between two countries

Violence on the Tajikistan-Kyrgyzstan Border: Causes and Consequences

In the past 18 months, we have seen unprecedented levels of violence on the Kyrgyzstan-Tajikistan border. What marks recent incidents from the past is the involvement of increasing use of heavy weapons, mass civilian casualties and the role of central governments in driving the conflict to levels previously unseen.

Speakers

Dr. Asel Doolotkeldieva is a Senior Lecturer at the OSCE Academy in Bishkek. She earned her PhD from the University of Exeter (UK) in Politics and previously worked as a Visiting Fellow at College Mondial, FMSH (Paris, France) and ZMO (Berlin, Germany). Her academic interests include revolts and politics of populism, mobilizations and protests, as well as political economy of resource extraction in Central Asia. Presently, she is leading a research project on protests and mass revolts in Central Asia.

Madeleine Reeves is Professor in the Anthropology of Migration at the University of Oxford. She has published extensively on mobility, space and power along the borders of Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan; on debt, migration and documentary strategies among Kyrgyzstani migrant workers in Moscow; and on ethnicity, conflict and infrastructure in southern Kyrgyzstan.

Parviz Mullojonov, Ph.D., a political scientist, historian, and senior adviser to the International Alert office in Central Asia. He is a former visiting researcher at the University of Uppsala (Sweden), visiting professor at Whitman College (USA), visiting scholar at the University of Exeter (UK), University of Heidelberg (Germany), and School of Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences – EHESS (Paris), and research fellow at the Kettering Foundation (USA). He is a former Chairman of the Board of the Tajik branch of the Open Society Institute (Soros Foundation); and a former member of the EUCAM (EU and Central Asia Monitoring) research group.

Moderator:

Sebastien Peyrouse. Research Professor, Central Asia Program, IERES, George Washington University and a Senior Fellow with the George H. W. Bush Foundation for U.S.-China relations. His main areas of expertise are political systems in Central Asia, economic and social issues, Islam and religious minorities, and Central Asia’s geopolitical positioning toward China, India and South Asia.