Kyrgyz officials cited the ethnic riots in southern Kyrgyzstan as a key reason they need NATO help for their military. Likewise, officials said the ethnically Uzbek regions were seeing a spread of “radical Islam.” NATO envoy James Appathurai reportedly pledged support.

Exactly how deeply this will go remains to be seen, but the pledge comes just one week after the release of a high profile human rights report on Kyrgyzstan. The report detailed Kyrgyz military support for the ethnic cleansing in the southern riots.

NATO’s willingness to intervene in another messy situation in Kyrgyzstan is surprising, though the US clearly has had designs on the region for quite some time. The support for adding to the capabilities of the Kyrgyz military will likely add to concerns that NATO is making the human rights situation in Central Asia much worse.

Kyrgyzstan saw the ouster of pro-US ruler Kermanbek Bakiyev in April, 2010, after his violent crackdown against protesters in the north. He was replaced by an interim pro-Russian government which loudly condemned the crackdowns, but was in practice supportive of the crackdowns on Uzbeks in Osh and other southern cities.

Hundreds if not thousands of Uzbeks were killed in the crackdown, while over 100,000 others fled to neighboring Uzbekistan. Though interim leader Roza Otunbayeva condemned the violence, some was committed by official security forces, and the report also confirmed reports that the troops armed anti-Uzbek mobs before welcoming them into the cities.

The Otunbayeva-led government slammed the report, saying it was unfairly critical of ethnic Kyrgyz mobs for the violence while treating the slain Uzbeks as victims. They warned the report threatened to spawn new unrest.

The revelation, unveiled in a classified but leaked US document by the US Ambassador to Kyrgyzstan, who was present at the time, was followed with an animated declaration that “and this time we aim to win!”

The Great Game refers to a period in history in which the British Empire (and their rivals in Russia) attempted to dominate Central Asia, and included a number of failed British attempts to occupy Afghanistan and the rest of the region.

The US Ambassador is said to have insisted that America doesn’t have imperial designs on the region, a view which the Duke mocked, insisting that Russia, Britain and China were certainly playing it in earnest and ought to be planning to ensure their presence for “centuries.”

The story has been covered in a number of media outlets but mostly centered around the unseemly behavior of the prince, his mocking of the French and rude language (cursing the Guardian newspaper for making it hard to do business in corrupt nations). It seems the determination to plainly state Britain’s imperial ambitions in the regions would be a more serious story, particularly given the Duke’s apparent influence over the high ranking British diplomats present at his tirade.

The US Ambassador, Tatiana C. Gfoeller, confronted her Chinese counterpart Zhang Yannian at a February 13, 2009, saying she had heard the Chinese had promised $3 billion in aid (in the form of subsidized trade) to Kyrgyzstan to close Manas.

Surprisingly frank for a diplomat, Ambassador Zhang mocked the suggestion, saying China didn’t really care what happened to Manas and was only interested in economic ties. He went on to say China had to make the aid covert through trade because “if our people found out, there’d be a revolution.”

Despite denying this, Zhang appeared to confirm that China was urging Kyrgyzstan to get closer to Russia, apparently to spite the US for releasing the Gitmo Uighurs to Germany, and that it was “probably true” that Russia had tied its own $2 billion aid package to the closing of Manas.

When pressed for advice on keeping Manas, Zhang advised the US to bribe the Kyrgyz government. “This is all about money,” he insisted, saying “just give them $150 million in cash per year and you will have the base forever.” Zhang’s aide then jumped in adding “or maybe you should give them $5 billion and buy both us and the Russians out.”

The US apparently took the advise, pledging an extra $117 million in cash to the Bakiyev government and then primising another $40+ million in additional rent on the base annually. The Kyrgyz government agreed and the base remained under US control through the anti-Bakiyev coup the following year. The new interim government, though closer to Russia, also seems open to keeping the US in the base.

The vote was praised as the “fairest election ever” for a region where the norm is vote rigging and intimidation but seems poised to put the kibosh on the April uprising against Kurmanbek Bakiyev’s government and has given the largest plurality to a bloc whose leader openly calls for his return.

Indeed the public calls from Kamchibek Tashiyev, the Fatherland Party’s leader, for Bakiyev’s return led to attacks on their headquarters just days before the vote, and calls from members of the current “caretaker” government to ban them outright.

The Kyrgyz parliamentary system, a relatively new creation, has some novel consequences in a nation where 29 parties contested the vote and the Fatherland Party, despite getting more votes than anyone else, only got 8.88%. Still the partitioning of the seats meant that less than 9% of the vote was still enough to get them 23% of the seats in parliament, 28 out of 120. Getting the extra seats needed for a majority government will require an alliance with any two of the four other parties to secure seats.

Which doesn’t look to be an easy task, and could lead to another Iraq-style stalemate where the various blocs are constantly playing off one another. It is expected that if a government did emerge they would be a comparatively weak one, and it might lead to another new election (or, given Kyrgyzstan’s recent history, another series of violent revolts and counterrevolts).

A Fatherland dominated government might bode ill for the Obama Administration’s designs on keeping a military base in Kyrgyzstan, as the party has spoken out against extending the US lease on the base past 2011.

The report also shows that while the government officials blamed their political opponents for the violence against the Uzbeks, government forces contributed to the violence in a number of cases.

Notably, officials were said to have disarmed Uzbek neighborhoods and then failed to provide any sort of protection. In other cases government troops reportedly removed barricades that were supposed to keep mobs out of the neighborhoods when the rioters showed up.

The violence against the Uzbeks killed hundreds and drove large numbers across the border into Uzbekistan. The violence came just two months after the Kyrgyz “interim” government came to power in a series of violent protests.

Acting President Roza Otunbayeva defended the crackdown, insisting that the 1,000-strong protesters were an attempted coup and that weapons were seized. She vowed to see all those involved in the protest punished.

Baryktabasov had initially tried to run for president against Kermanbek Bakiyev in 2005, but was banned from doing so and fled the nation, again amid claims of attempting to orchestrate a coup. He returned to the country earlier this year, after the protests that led to Bakiyev’s ouster and Otunbayeva’s installation as the acting president.

This is the second violent crackdown by the Otunbayeva government since they took power in April. In June forces participated in a crackdown against ethnic Uzbeks which eventually left hundreds dead and enormous numbers of refugees fled to neighboring Uzbekistan.

According to rights groups, Kyrgyz soldiers launched a raid against one of the last buildings not burned to the ground in an Uzbek neighborhood, a makeshift shelter and hospital for those Uzbeks who had not been killed or chased across the border in the past two weeks.

The troops were said to have forced all the Uzbek men to lie face down on the floor and that they beat several of the men and women. One of the doctors at the site reported that the troops stole cash and other valuables from the Uzbeks.

Organized violence against the Uzbeks led many to flee across the border into Uzbekistan, and left hundreds if not thousands slain. Though the interim government initially blamed ousted Prime Minister Kurmanbek Bakiyev for the violence, rights groups say that the military participated in the attacks and also armed some of the most violent gangs.

The interim government defended the attack, claiming it was part of a “sweep” for suspected criminals and that the Uzbeks put up “violent resistance” against them.

Attacks in the region have officially left at least 200 Uzbeks dead in the past two weeks, though that toll excludes those buried according to the local custom, on the day of their death, and the overall toll could be as high as 2,000.

Most of the deaths were caused by ethnic Kyrgyz gangs, and the interim government attempted to blame the violence on the ousted Bakiyev government. At the same time, rights group say that interim government forces participated in the attacks and armed many of the gangs involved in the worst of the violence.

According to Otunbayeva, the official data does not take into account anyone who was buried on the day of their death, a common practice in the Sunni Muslim nation.

Nearly a week of violence against the Uzbek minority in the nation’s southwest seems to have subsided, at least for the time being, and refugees are beginning to trickle home across the border from neighboring Uzbekistan.

Not everyone is coming back, however, as a large number of the Uzbeks would rather stay in the desperate tent camps in Uzbekistan for the time being than risk returning home to a resumption of violence.

The interim government, which took power after the Bakiyev government violently tried to crush protests in the capital in April, has attempted to blame all of the violence in the south on Bakiyev, who is currently in exile in Belarus. Reports from rights groups however tell a different story, saying that the government’s soldiers not only took part in the killings of the Uzbeks, but distributed weapons to the ethnic Kyrgyz gangs responsible for most of the killings.