In 1916, Russian announced a draft to enlist Native peoples in modern-day Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan to support Russia in World War I. The Russians killed thousands of people who resisted, and some 100,000 more people died trying to flee to China. More than a century later the episode is still difficult to talk about because of efforts by Russia to erase it from the history books.
Unrest in the Central Asian nation of Kyrgyzstan may endanger a US military base key to operations in Afghanistan.