Population pressures have exacerbated ethnic tensions. In 1995
about 71 percent of Uzbekistan's population was Uzbek. The chief
minority groups were Russians (slightly more than 8 percent),
Tajiks (officially almost 5 percent, but believed to be much
higher), Kazaks (about 4 percent), Tatars (about 2.5 percent),
and Karakalpaks (slightly more than 2 percent) (see table 4,
Appendix). In the mid-1990s, Uzbekistan was becoming
increasingly homogeneous, as the outflow of Russians and other
minorities continues to increase and as Uzbeks return from other
parts of the former Soviet Union. According to unofficial data,
between 1985 and 1991 the number of nonindigenous individuals in
Uzbekistan declined from 2.4 to 1.6 million. The increase in the
indigenous population and the emigration of Europeans have
increased the self-confidence and often the self-assertiveness
of indigenous Uzbeks, as well as the sense of vulnerability
among the Russians in Uzbekistan. The Russian population, as
former "colonizers," was reluct