We are – Esimde discussion platform team, strongly protest the aggression against Ukraine. We condemn the Russian authorities regime actions, which unleashed a war on the territory of a sovereign state.
Such acts of aggression are unacceptable in a civilized world. In history, including in our common one, this has led to irreversible consequences, primarily for the aggressor states. We remember how our people and the whole world, not so long ago, prevented the similar collapse, at great cost of human life.
In October 2021, the Esimde team conducted a research in Ukraine. We walked along the roads of Kherson, Odessa and Kyiv, studying the fate of the dispossessed and exiled from the territory of Kyrgyzstan to Ukraine in the 30s of the twentieth century. Meeting with different people and institutions, opening and studying the archives, we did not meet any nazis or fascists, no one of those who are now so actively demonized by the Russian Federation propaganda. Therefore, the use of the term “denazification”, which allegedly became a reason for aggression, is absolutely inappropriate and is a substitution of facts and concepts.
Esimde is against changing facts and the use of history/memory to justify any violent actions against any state. And today Ukraine is such an object of violence. For a long time forbidden memory that is now being revealed to us, shows the consequences of such aggressions: repressions, deportations and wars. It only destroys the world, divides us, leads to devastation and suffering.
To remain silent in such a situation is a betrayal against our past, present and future.
These days we remember an 87-year-old woman from the village of Vinogradnoye, Kherson region. As a girl, she grew up and played near the orphanage where kids from Kyrgyzstan lived – the children of the dispossessed. Later, she wrote a book of memoirs “Chalbassy Kyrgyz”, in which she reflected the memory of past troubles and tragedies, as well as humanity and mutual assistance in the most difficult times. We hope that Alexandra Vasilievna is alive and safe.
Kyrgyzstan is the same sovereign and independent state as Ukraine. And it’s not a coincidence that we are the same age.
We call on our government and the President of Kyrgyzstan to uphold the commitment to the values of sovereignty and the right to the territorial integrity of the state. Because supporting an aggressive stance is equivalent to giving up the Kyrgyz Republic’s own independence and commitment to peace.
