It's About More Water: Natural Resource Conflicts in Central Asia
Publisher: Swiss Peace
Author(s): Christine Bichsel
Date: 2007
Topics: Conflict Causes, Conflict Prevention, Governance, Renewable Resources
Countries: Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan
A body of academic and policy-oriented literature began to focus on the danger of conflict in Central Asia as of the late 1990s. While differing in details, the authors concurred that the Ferghana Valley has a high potential for violent conflict. They base this potential on evidence of past violent episodes and/or present tensions that may yield in violence. In other words, these writings depict the Ferghana Valley as a ‘host of crises’ (Slim 2002) or a ‘flashpoint of conflict’ (Tabyshalieva 1999:vii). The literature argues in general lines that the potential for conflict is constituted by a broad array of interlinked conflictive factors, including social, political, economic, religious, demographic, military, and criminal ones. A core concern of this literature is inter-ethnic conflict over natural resources, aptly summarised by Slim (2002:511): ‘In the short term, they [aid agencies] must focus on the localities where water-based conflicts have taken on an ethnic character and which, if not addressed, might provide the spark for region-wide interethnic violence’. This literature on conflict in the Ferghana Valley stressed the need for interventions by international aid to avert widespread violence resulting form this potential.