Although there were no human causalities, seven houses, one vehicle, and 250 kilograms of hay stacks owned by Dungans were burned down as a result of these violent clashes. The crowd tried to hamper the firemen’s efforts to extinguish the fire. A special envoy of the security forces had to break up the aggressive mob.

The scope and intensity of the conflict between Kyrgyzs and Dungans in Iskra village is unprecedented for both ethnic groups living in Kyrgyzstan. Skirmishes between small gangs of Russian and Kyrgyz teenagers living in rural areas are frequent. Everyday street showdowns occur between school students, unemployed, and alcoholics. Kyrgyzs and Dungans, however, have never clashed before.

There are 50,000 Dungans living in Kyrgyzstan. Dungans form the majority of Iskra’s population, representing over 1,400 households out of a total of 2,353. Iskra is one of the few villages in northern Kyrgyzstan where ethnic Kyrgyz are still a minority.

Dungans are ethnic Chinese from northwestern China and practice Hanafi Sunni Islam. They live in a number of other former Soviet states as well. In the mid-nineteenth century, thousands of Dungans fled to Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Uzbek and Russian-inhabited territories following a failed revolt against the Chinese Emperor. The Dungans speak Mandarin Chinese, but it was converted to the Cyrillic script in the 1920s and significantly influenced by Turkic and Slavic languages. In addition to Dungan, many Dungans speak Russian and Kyrgyz.

Despite intensive russification during Soviet times, the Dungans preserved a strong religious identity and live in distinct communities and collective farms, mostly in rural areas. Dungans also kept primordial traditions of peasantry up to the present day. In Kyrgyzstan, they are known as hard-working peasants who grow high quality rice, fruits and vegetables. Dungan agricultural products dominate in many local food markets. Because of farming and peasantry, Dungans are among the wealthiest rural dwellers, but also the most conservative in terms of inter-ethnic integration. Most Dungans still value intra-ethnic marriages. The Kyrgyzs adopted some features of the Dungan culture, too. Especially Dungan cuisine and farming skills were incorporated in daily life throughout northern Kyrgyzstan.

The reaction of the Kyrgyz public to the ethnic confrontation in Iskra was mixed. The level of aggressiveness between Kyrgyzs and Dungans was surprising to many Bishkek residents, where both ethnicities lived peacefully for decades. Many rushed to compare Kyrgyz-Dungan tensions with the Kyrgyz-Uzbek conflict in the early 1990s in southern Kyrgyzstan. The local newspaper Vechernyi Bishkek commented that the fight between Kyrgyz and Dungan teenagers was a tipping point of the tensions accumulated throughout the past few years. The newspaper also blames the village administration for taking the side of ethnic Kyrgyz and participating in violence against Dungans.

The Kyrgyz NGO Coalition for Democracy and Civil Society sees the violence to be a result of the weak performance of law enforcement agencies, widespread corruption, and the government’s ties with criminal groups. This viewpoint coincides with the recent criticism expressed by Kyrgyz Prime Minister Felix Kulov against the National Security Service for its failure to stop organized crime, contract murders and racketeering. Kulov implicitly pointed at the government’s inability to prosecute a well-known mafia boss, Rysbek Akmatbayev, who announced his intention to run for a parliamentary seat.

Another explanation of the Kyrgyz-Dungan conflict is the lack of education facilities, and high levels of unemployment, alcoholism, and drug addiction in Kyrgyz villages. Teenagers in rural areas are unable to receive basic school training and find jobs, they are therefore often involved in racketeering and stealing. Ethnic divisions only exacerbate the level of aggressiveness between young people.

A minority of observers think that the Kyrgyz-Dungan conflict was inspired by some “third forces” interested in destabilizing domestic security. Similar clashes, according to this view, might soon be intentionally instigated between local Uighurs, Koreans, and Uzbeks. The definition of the “third forces”, however, varies between drug barons, state officials, and members of the former government.

As the situation remains worrisome, the Kyrgyz Security Service had to toughen controls on the Kyrgyz-Kazakh border. Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev and Prime Minister Kulov formed a special committee to investigate the case more thoroughly. In his public address, Kulov stated that the government will not allow the escalation of the conflict in Iskra into an inter-ethnic confrontation. He tried to assure that the conflict took place because of a routine brawl between teenagers, who did not presume any ethnic discrimination.