UYGHUR LANGUAGE AND CULTURE UNDER THREAT IN XINJIANG
By Michael Dillon (8/14/2002 issue of the CACI Analyst)
BACKGROUND: Uyghur, the language of the largest ethnic group in Xinjiang, is a Turkic language closely related to Uzbek and less closely to Kazakh and Kyrgyz. It is written in a modified Arabic script which helps to identify its speakers as Muslims, although a Latin script also exists and was used during the 1970s and 1980s. It has been the main language of instruction in many schools in Xinjiang alongside Chinese which has increasingly become predominant.
KYRGYZ GOVERNMENT UNABLE TO PRODUCE NEW NATIONAL IDEOLOGY
By Erica Marat (2/22/2006 issue of the CACI Analyst)
BACKGROUND: To stand the double pressure of increased nationalist feelings among the traditional public and alleviate the nervousness of the Russian population in the early 1990s, Akayev designed three broad national concepts based both on ethnic and civic ideals. The ideology based on the Kyrgyz epic “Manas” targeted the revival of Kyrgyz traditions. The epic’s seven maxims promoted the core values of peaceful coexistence, respect for the elder, and help to the poor.LAND SWAP IN NAGORNO-KARABAKH: MUCH NOISE OVER AN UNREALISTIC OPTION
By Tigran Martirosyan (8/14/2002 issue of the CACI Analyst)
BACKGROUND: Azerbaijan\'s President Heydar Aliyev recently mentioned that during peace talks in Paris in March 2001, he and Armenian President Robert Kocharian reached a deal that envisaged an equal exchange of territories between the two countries as part of a broader framework agreement to solve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Aliyev hence admitted for the first time the existence of so-called \"Paris principles\" of a settlement to the conflict, and accused Armenia of backtracking on the deal during the subsequent talks in Key West, Florida, in April 2001. The Azerbaijani interpretation of the deal entailed that Armenia would surrender a strip over its southern district of Meghri, offering Azerbaijan direct access to Nakhichevan and from there to Turkey, in return for Armenia\'s sovereignty over the Lachin corridor connecting Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia.
ABUSING THE "WAR ON TERRORISM" IN CENTRAL ASIA
By Hooman Peimani (8/14/2002 issue of the CACI Analyst)
BACKGROUND: Sudden independence in 1991 imposed on the five Central Asian countries a transitional process from the Soviet command economy to a type of market economy. Today, their economic systems have all the negative characteristics of the two systems while lacking most of their positive ones. They suffer from numerous problems with a direct social impact, including declining living standards, high unemployment and increasing poverty.
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