Why did ethnic riots between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks suddenly erupt in Osh and Jalalabad in southern Kyrgyzstan, driving almost half a million people from their homes, leaving nearly 200 dead, and injuring thousands?

Ethnic fighting is almost never spontaneous, and usually expresses either long-suppressed resentment or a deliberate policy of incitement.  The sudden riots in Osh and Jalalabad last week had, for experienced observers of the region and of other countries with a Soviet legacy, the unmistakable air of “provocation” – the long established tsarist and communist tactic of enabling bloodshed as a pretext for repression or external intervention.