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The Truth Behind The Recent Unrest in Kyrgyzstan - Part 1
Dr. John Daly
The following article is the first of three examining the recent unrest in
The extraordinary events of last week in Kyrgyzstan, which saw the overthrow of President Kurmanbek Bakiyev’s administration by a popular uprising and its replacement by a provisional government have been portrayed by many in the "Beltway-istan" (Washington DC) as the latest tussle betwixt Russia and the U.S. in the ‘Great Game” for influence in the post-Soviet space.
The truth is considerably more complex, however, and like a set of Russian matruishka nesting dolls, the further one digs, the more the complex realities of the situation emerge. While Moscow and Washington’s rivalry for influence with the interim leader, 59-year-old former diplomat Rosa Otambaeyva’s administration is indeed paramount, there are other players watching the debacle, from local superpowers China and India to neighboring “Stans” Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Any final disposition of the problems emerging from the “Tulip Revolution - Part Two” will have to include consideration of these factors beyond the U.S.-Russian struggle for influence in the post-Soviet space.
NO APPARENT FUNDAMENTALIST INVOLVMENT IN DISTURBANCES
Perhaps the biggest surprise and source of relief to both regional onlookers and the U.S. and Russia in particular is that the demonstrations which erupted in Talas on 6 April and quickly spread to the capital, Bishkek, and other cities has been the absence of Islamic militant involvement in the disturbances despite the fact that
FINANCIAL CAUSES OF THE UNREST
If there is a surprise in last week’s events, perhaps it is that they were so long in coming. Nineteen years after the collapse of the
Worsening the financial situation, the global recession saw Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin In December 2008 argue that
RIGGED ELECTIONS AND NEPOTISM
In July 2009, an election that was harshly criticized by opposition figures and international monitors as undemocratic returned Bakiyev to power with a landslide 89 percent of the vote. Having won another five year term Bakiyev increasingly turned the country into his personal fiefdom, increasingly concentrating power in his hands. Last year Kyrgyzstan’s Foreign, Interior, Defense and National Security Service ministries were subordinated to the president and last November Otunbaeva, then a leader in the opposition Social Democrat Party and now leader of the provisional government observed, "Right now, in the (Kyrgyz governmental) White House there are five Bakiyevs working in the upper echelons of power, and that is not even mentioning the many relatives who have occupied every floor of the White House."
In a telling international rebuke to his increasingly autocratic style, on 3 April U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said during a speech to the Kyrgyz Parliament, "For the United Nations, the protection of human rights is a bedrock principle if a country is to prosper. Quite frankly, ladies and gentlemen, recent events have been troubling, including the past few days. I repeat: all human rights must be protected, including free speech and freedom of the media."
ALL IN THE FAMILY
Cronyism and corruption also clouded the picture;
Maksim was scheduled on 8 April in
Needless to say, the event was suspended, and the U.S. Embassy in
According to a Voice of America 12 April report, Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Robert Blake, being sent to Bishkek, stated that Maskim has since left the country and that he had no contact with U.S. officials.
The next day
RISING PRICES FOR AN IMPOVERISHED PEOPLE
While in late 2009 Bakiyev sharply increased taxes for small and medium businesses, resentment against the Bakiyev regime began to simmer when on 1 January it imposed new tariffs on telecoms, electricity and hot water, effectively doubling prices on electricity and increasing heating costs by an eye-watering 500-1,000 percent. Otumbayeva remarked that the country's leading telecoms firm had been sold to an offshore company in the Canary Islands, belonging to a friend of Maksim, adding, “We had an absolutely scandalous situation where Kyrgyzstan had become a family-run regime.” The graft and price rises combined with the shuttering of Internet sites, the Stan TV internet portal and bans on protests and arrests of opposition leaders to bring the populace onto the streets. In retrospect, the main question is what took so long.
THE
In February
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin spoke on the phone on April 8 with Roza Otunbaeva, becoming the first known foreign leader to call her once she claimed to be in charge and Kremlin spokesman Dmitrii Peskov stated that
On 8 April Almazbek Atambayev, the provisional government’s acting minister for economic affairs, was dispatched to
In perhaps the most telling sign of
In late 2001 the
Akayev’s troubles with
In March 2005
But the unpalatable truth is, even as Washington delivered homilies on human rights and democracy, the contracts for the US military base became a direct source of corruption, with first Akayev’s and then Bakiyev's families profiting, by owning the companies with exclusive rights to refuel NATO aircraft.
At the same time flights at Manas Transit Center were halted for 12 hours, but not before an eyewitnesses reported that Bakiyev’s Air Force Jet No. 1 took off from Manas Transit Center, an image few Kyrgyz are likely to forget anytime soon as rumors swept Bishkek that Bakiyev's family had been under the protection of the Americans at Manus after fleeing the capital.
Jala-Abad, in the Ferghana valley, to which Bakiyev has fled, is among
On 10 April the
THE ZERO-SUM GAME
In October 2003 during Akayev’s regime the
Kant was not the whole story.
Dating from the Soviet era, the Soviet/Russian Navy operated an extensive facility at eastern Lake Issyk-Kul’s eastern end, where submarine and torpedo technology was evaluated. Among the projects tested there was the super-cavitating VA-111 Shkval torpedo, designed originally to sink
Bakiyev in early 2009 ignited a bidding war between
And now? On 13 April U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that the U.S. has other options to its air base in Kyrgyzstan, noting that Washington explored alternatives last year when it was negotiating a deal to use the base with the Kyrgyz government, but that those alternatives are "more expensive and more challenging."
It remains to be seen, given the ineptitude of
The next few days will be interesting indeed.
To be continued.....Part 2 on Wednesday
by Dr. John CK Daly for Oilprice.com who offer detailed analysis on Crude oil, Geopolitics, Gold and most other <a href="http://www.oilprice.com/articles-commodities.php" target="new">Commodities</a>. They also provide free political and economic intelligence to help investors gain a greater understanding of world events and the impact they have on certain regions and sectors. Visit: http://www.oilprice.com
April 14, 2010