ABSTRACT
The catalysts for the proclamations of independence and the establishment of new states in the Ferghana Valley were to be found not just in the capital cities of Bishkek, Dushanbe, and Tashkent, but in the Ferghana Valley itself. After all, for a century and a half the valley had played an important role in the region's politics. It had been one of the major centers of opposition to Russian colonization and pockets of resistance to Bolshevik power persisted there until the mid 1930s. When the Communist nomenklatura divided into two camps, it left an opening for Akaev. He also needed to gain the support of Kyrgyzstan's south. To this end he forged what he called a 'southern policy', the cornerstone of which was to reorganize the administration of the Kyrgyz section of the Ferghana Valley. This allowed the president, at least temporarily, to divide the southern clans in the three provinces and thereby weaken their influence in the capital.
