The World - News from June 22, 1989

A pan-Islamic effort to unite Muslim nationalities in Soviet Central Asia fueled the recent wave of ethnic unrest in which 99 people died, an official of the Uzbekistan republic said. The organizers wanted an Islamic “holy war” in which they would drive non-Muslim groups out of Uzbekistan, the official charged, stating the aim as “the revival of medieval nationalist hysteria, discrimination and ousting of the republic’s European population.” When the Meskhetians, a minority Muslim group of Turkish descent, declined to join Uzbeks in the front, violence flared between the two groups.