Kara-Koyun chase
The Kara-Koyun chase was the campaign in the summer of 2009 in which El-Choro riders, on the orders of Bektur Zhumabek uulu, hunted down the irreconcilables, riders of the Popular Front of Irad who had rejected the Bishkek ceasefire and raided across the line from the Kara-Koyun Valley. Nine men were killed on both sides. Their commander, Imanaly Tashtan uulu, surrendered in March 2010. The chase is remembered in the tribal regions as the moment the clans' own riders were turned on Front men, and it is the root of the Kamchylar.[1]
The irreconcilables
A few hundred Front riders, many from emptied Aulie-Ata and the Kara-Buura villages, rejected the ceasefire in September 2007 with the words "Bishkek sold our houses". Their commander, Imanaly Tashtan uulu, born in Aulie-Ata in 1966, had led a Front company at the Aulie-Ata junction, and his family's house stood on the city side of the line. From the Kara-Koyun Valley they raided convoys of the State Defense Corps and posts on the line. They caused most of the roughly 400 incidents that the United Nations Mission in Irad (UNMI) counted on the line in 2008, a year in which twelve ISEZ soldiers and police were killed.[1][2]
The chase
In April and May 2009 the ISEZ closed the Qara-Chik Border Checkpoint to Chatkal trade for six weeks, and UNMI warned that the ceasefire was at risk. That summer Bektur had the El-Choro hunt the irreconcilables down. Nine men were killed in the chase. Imanaly surrendered to Tanıp elders in March 2010. An IAC court of biys, having no prisons, sentenced him to pay blood money (kun) to the families of the dead and to exile at a summer camp in the headwaters of the Chatkal, where he still lives. The rest of his men went home or into livestock raiding and the diesel trade across the line.[1]
Demobilization
The chase closed the demobilization of the Front. At its peak the Front had about 25,000 men under arms. About 15,000 joined the El-Choro, and the rest went home under clan quotas set at the 2007 Kurultai, keeping their registered rifles as the wardens of the Range Warden Service had done.[3]
Legacy
Elders and Front veterans resented the sight of El-Choro riders hunting Front men "to please Talas". With the protocol on the Toktogul basin approved the same year, the chase led to the walkout of hardline elders from the August 2009 Kurultai, the origin of the Kamchylar. Riders of the chase were among the banner's targets in 2010–2013.[1]
References
- ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2020). 'Whips without a Hand: The Kamchylar and the Limits of Clan Authority.' Vol. 27, Iss. 1, pp. 55–79.
- ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2009). Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Mission in Irad. New York.
- ^ Talas State University Press (2018). Clan and Kurultai: Governance in the Autonomous Tribal Regions. Talas, pp. 15–64.