Kyrgyzstan–Uzbekistan barrier

The fence, unilaterally erected in disputed territory[1] has caused economic hardships in the poor agricultural areas of the Ferghana Valley and has separated many families in this traditionally integrated border region.

Uzbekistan's efforts in 1999 and 2000 to secure its previously porous boundaries the Ferghana Valley have shown that any neat division of territory on the basis of ethnic mix or economic activity is almost impossible, and the complicated history of integrated use of border land makes it hard to determine ownership.

However, neither the land ownership considerations or the daily difficulties being experienced by ordinary inhabitants of the valley discouraged the Uzbek state from demarcating and militarizing its border as quickly as possible in order to prevent possible attacks.

In 1990, at the start of the barriers construction, tensions in the region between the Uzbeks and the Kyrgyz majority flared into bitter inter-communal violence leaving 170 people dead.

Being the year leading up to parliamentary and presidential elections, the government avoided almost all mention of the dispute, emphasizing instead President Askar Akayev's "Silk Road diplomacy" of regional co-operation, which, it said, would solve all border problems in the long term by re-opening the ancient trade routes to Europe and China.

The opposition dismissed these as empty words, and pointed to the government's perceived failure to prevent Uzbekistan from advancing border posts into Kyrgyz territory as indicative of the presidential administration's weakness.