Starting Points: Kyrgyzstan

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Jun 19, 2010

Value to Big Powers May Not Save Kyrgyzstan

Bryan Denton for The New York Times

Roza Otunbayeva, the head of the provisional government in Kyrgyzstan, landing by helicopter in the southern city of Osh on Friday, after days of ethnic fighting there.

By ELLEN BARRY

MOSCOW — A year and a half ago, the world’s great powers were fighting like polecats over Kyrgyzstan, a landlocked stretch of mountains in the heart of Central Asia.

The United States was ferociously holding on to the Manas Air Base, a transit hub considered crucial to NATO efforts in Afghanistan. Russia was so jealous of its traditional dominance in the region that it promised the Kyrgyz president $2.15 billion in aid the day he announced he was closing Manas. With the bidding war that followed, Kyrgyzstan could be forgiven for seeing itself as a global player.

And yet for the past week, as spasms of violence threatened to break Kyrgyzstan apart, its citizens saw their hopes for an international intervention flicker and die. With each day it has become clearer that none of Kyrgyzstan’s powerful allies — most pointedly, its former overlords in Moscow — were prepared to get involved in a quagmire.

Russia did send in several hundred paratroopers, but only to defend its air base at Kant. For the most part, the powers have evacuated their citizens, apparently content to wait for the conflict to burn itself out.

The calculus was a pragmatic one, made “without the smallest thought to the moral side of the question,” said Aleksei V. Vlasov, an expert in the politics of post-Soviet countries at Moscow State University.

“We use the phrase ‘collective responsibility,’ but in fact this is a case of collective irresponsibility,” he added. “While they were fighting about whatever — about bases, about Afghanistan — they forgot that in the south of Kyrgyzstan there was extreme danger. The city was flammable. All they needed to do was throw a match on it.” He referred to the city of Osh, which suffered days of ethnic rioting.

Kyrgyzstan might have unraveled anyway, but competition between Moscow and Washington certainly sped the process.

To lock in its claim on the base after the threat of expulsion, the United States offered President Kurmanbek S. Bakiyev $110 million to back out of his agreement with Russia, which had already paid him $450 million. Congratulating itself on its victory, Washington raised the stakes by announcing the construction of several military training facilities in Kyrgyzstan, including one in the south, which further irritated Moscow.

This spring, the Kremlin won back its lost ground, employing a range of soft-power tactics to undermine Mr. Bakiyev’s government. Mr. Bakiyev was ousted by a coalition of opposition leaders in April, and conditions in Kyrgyzstan’s south — still loyal to the old government — hurtled toward disaster.

“Let’s be honest, Kyrgyzstan is turning into a collapsing state, or at least part of it is, and what was partially responsible is this geopolitical tug of war we had,” said Alexander A. Cooley, who included Manas in a recent book about the politics of military bases. “In our attempts to secure these levers of influence and support the governing regime, we destabilized these state institutions. We are part of that dynamic.”

Last week, as pillars of smoke rose off Osh and Jalal-Abad, citizens begged for third-party peacekeepers to replace local forces they suspected of having taken part in the violence.

Roza Otunbayeva, the head of Kyrgyzstan’s interim government, asked Moscow for peacekeepers, and when that request was denied, for troops to protect strategic sites like power plants and reservoirs. She asked Washington to contribute armored vehicles from the base at Manas, which she said would be used to transport the dead and wounded, she told the Russian newspaper Kommersant.

So far, Moscow and Washington have responded mostly with humanitarian aid pledges — late on Friday, Russia’s Defense Ministry said that Ms. Otunbayeva’s request was still under consideration.

The United States, overextended in Afghanistan and Iraq, has neither the appetite nor the motivation for a new commitment. Russia, the more obvious player, sees the risks of a deployment outweighing the benefits. Russian troops would enter hostile territory in south Kyrgyzstan, where Mr. Bakiyev’s supporters blame Moscow for his overthrow, and Uzbekistan could also revolt against a Russian presence.

Mr. Vlasov, of Moscow State University, said: “Who are we separating? Uzbeks from Kyrgyz? Krygyz from Kyrgyz? Kyrgyz from some criminal element? There is no clearly defined cause of this conflict. It would be comparable to the decision the Soviet Politburo made to invade Afghanistan — badly thought through, not confirmed by the necessary analytical work.”

If the explosion of violence was a test case for the Collective Security Treaty Organization, an eight-year-old post-Soviet security group dominated by Russia, it seems to have failed, its leaders unwilling to intervene in a domestic standoff. In any case, neither the Russian public nor the county’s foreign policy establishment is pressing the Kremlin to risk sending peacekeepers.

“If you send them, you have to shoot sooner or later,” said Sergei A. Karaganov, a prominent political scientist in Moscow. “Then you are not a peacekeeper, but something else.”

Though it seems that the worst of the violence has passed, great challenges remain. Beyond the immediate humanitarian crisis is an unstable state at the heart of a dangerous region. The Ferghana Valley, bordering Afghanistan, is a minefield of religious fundamentalism, drug trafficking and ethnic hatreds.

If Kyrgyz-style violence should radiate across borders in Central Asia, the result could be a rise in Islamic militancy that would directly threaten Russia and the United States.

The failure of international institutions last week should alarm both capitals. President Obama and President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia began their relationship with the crisis over the Manas base, and as they grope toward tentative collaboration in the post-Soviet space, Kyrgyzstan has dominated their conversation.

Now, Kyrgyzstan needs help building a stable government that knits together the north and the south. Dmitri V. Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, suggested that NATO should be working with the members of the Collective Security Treaty Organization to develop a mechanism for collective action. The next time a Central Asian country is wobbling at the edge of a precipice, he said, someone must be prepared to accept responsibility.

“You can abstain from a local conflict in Kyrgyzstan,” Mr. Trenin said. “You can close your eyes to it — it’s bad for your conscience — but you can live with it. If something happens in Uzbekistan, you will not be able to just let it burn out.”

Kyrgyz president says Uzbek barricades will be removed

Image via Wikipedia

By Philip P. Pan
Saturday, June 19, 2010; A11

BISHKEK, KYRGYZSTAN -- Kyrgyzstan's interim president instructed police Friday to begin dismantling the barricades that ethnic Uzbeks have built to protect themselves from Kyrgyz mobs, a high-risk move that could ease the refugee crisis in the nation's south but spark more violence.

In an interview after making her first trip to the region since the deadly clashes between Kyrgyz and minority Uzbeks began a week ago, President Roza Otunbayeva said she ordered local authorities to work with civil society groups and to exercise restraint as they removed the trucks, trees and concrete barriers that Uzbek enclaves are using to keep Kyrgyz out. But she said police might need to use force to complete the task if Uzbeks resist.

"There are worries, certainly," she said. "How can I not be worried? But we can't just leave it like that. This will continue and continue, and there will be closed sectors, and how can you deliver humanitarian assistance? We must move. We must do something."

Otunbayeva and her government, which took power in a violent revolt in April, have come under intense public criticism for not restoring access to the Uzbek districts. Some nationalist Kyrgyz politicians have threatened to organize militias to remove the barricades if the government doesn't act, saying Kyrgyz sovereignty over the areas is in jeopardy.

In addition to clearing a path to bring relief aid to hundreds of thousands of Uzbeks who have been driven from their homes, Otunbayeva said removing the barricades will allow Kyrgyz families to search for missing relatives in ethnic Uzbek districts, help troops reestablish public order and encourage refugees to return home.

In Osh, the country's second-largest city, where the riots began, a senior police official, Kursan Asanov, set a deadline for Uzbeks to cooperate. "Within two days, access will be opened to the barricaded districts and the Uzbek communities where military forces can't enter," he said.

But the barricades have kept Kyrgyz and Uzbeks largely apart in recent days. Taking them down could result in renewed fighting between two traumatized and angry communities that accuse the other of atrocities.

The government says 223 people have been killed in the clashes, which have subsided in recent days. But the number of deaths could be 10 times higher because many victims have been buried without being taken to hospitals, Otunbayeva said.

"I think they should be very careful, and negotiate and build trust. Trying to tear down these barricades forcefully will not be received well," said Ole Solvang, a researcher with Human Rights Watch in the region, noting that many Uzbeks say Kyrgyz police and soldiers allowed mobs to rampage through their neighborhoods and even participated in the mayhem.

Solvang acknowledged that the barricades are slowing the delivery of aid to Uzbek refugees and are preventing ambulances from entering the neighborhoods. But he said Uzbeks are "afraid that if we take down the barricades, they'll be vulnerable to attacks again from ethnic Kyrgyz."

"There are good reasons why they feel insecure," he added. He noted that he and a colleague have documented that Uzbeks who leave their enclaves continue to be attacked, beaten and raped despite the government's assertion that it has restored order in Kyrgyz areas.

In a letter Friday, Human Rights Watch and another influential organization, the International Crisis Group, called on the U.N. Security Council to send a neutral police or military force to the region to establish a corridor for the delivery of aid, provide security for refugees to return home and make it possible for reconciliation programs to begin.

"The instability in southern Kyrgyzstan cannot be wished away, and without a decisive international response, there is considerable risk that widespread violence will reignite," the groups said, urging Russia and other countries that can deploy forces quickly to participate in the mission. Kyrgyzstan hosts U.S. and Russian air bases in the country's north.

Asked about the appeal, Otunbayeva expressed skepticism. "Nobody's ready to come in so far," she said.

She also acknowledged for the first time that some Kyrgyz police and soldiers may have participated in the violence. But she expressed faith in the ability of Kyrgyz prosecutors to conduct a fair investigation and said Uzbek witnesses and community groups had already provided much more evidence than Kyrgyz.

In Uzbekistan, where he was visiting a refugee camp near the Kyrgyz border, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Robert Blake called for an international inquiry to complement the Kyrgyz probe into the violence.

Jun 18, 2010

U.N. doubles estimate of Uzbek refugees as crisis grows in Kyrgyzstan

Image via Wikipedia

By Philip P. Pan
Friday, June 18, 2010; A18

OSH, KYRGYZSTAN -- The United Nations said Thursday that some 400,000 people have been driven from their homes by ethnic clashes in southern Kyrgyzstan, doubling its estimate of the number of refugees here and acknowledging that it was having trouble delivering aid because of continuing violence.

The new U.N. assessment highlighting the severity of the crisis came as the Kyrgyz military appeared to run into difficulties in its effort to restore order to the region, where more than 2 million people live. At least 180 have been killed in clashes between Kyrgyz and minority Uzbeks over the past week.

For a third straight day, conditions seemed to improve, with more residents feeling safe enough to venture out of their homes. But witnesses reported sporadic gunfire as troops patrolled the streets, including shots fired by unidentified gunmen at aid workers attempting to distribute food.

A children's home was reported to have been looted and set on fire, and in the afternoon, a dark plume of smoke could be seen rising from a village outside Osh, the country's second-largest city, where several Uzbek districts have been burned to the ground.

In another incident that suggested the volatility of the situation, a motorist stopped in Osh at what appeared to be a military checkpoint was asked his ethnicity, and when he said he was Uzbek, one of the uniformed men allegedly drew a knife and threatened to slit his throat. The driver tried to escape but was shot, according to his niece, Zebeil Hamrayava, 32, who said he had been hospitalized in serious condition.

Hamrayava said it was unclear whether the men at the checkpoint were Kyrgyz soldiers or impostors. But her account of the shooting dovetailed with other reports of Kyrgyz men in military uniforms targeting ethnic Uzbeks who leave their enclaves.

The behavior of the army and police during the past week's violence is a major grievance among Uzbeks, who accuse the security forces of letting Kyrgyz mobs run wild for several days, and in many cases, of taking part in the mayhem and slaughter themselves. While Uzbeks make up nearly half the region's population, almost all soldiers and police here are ethnic Kyrgyz.

Bakytbek Alymbekov, a deputy interior minister and the top police official in the Osh region, acknowledged that Uzbeks were wary of the troops that have been dispatched across the city.

But he said investigators had not identified any soldiers or police involved in the violence and suggested that those who organized the riots had distributed uniforms and weapons to the mobs. He added that the crowds managed to seize control of military vehicles, including armored personnel carriers, in the first few days of the chaos.

Ole Solvang, a Human Rights Watch researcher investigating the clashes in Osh, said the testimony he has collected thus far indicates that Kyrgyz troops at the very least ignored the attacks on Uzbek neighborhoods.

"It seems to be an extreme failure on the part of the government to intervene and protect these people," he said.

Kyrgyzstan's shaky interim government has accused the deposed president, Kurmanbek Bakiyev, and his family of triggering the riots by paying gunmen to attack Kyrgyz and Uzbek neighborhoods. In recent days, the government has also begun to shift the blame toward ethnic Uzbek politicians, many of whom had been strong allies in opposing Bakiyev and his base of ethnic Kyrgyz supporters in the south.

By turning against the Uzbek leaders and accusing them of provoking the riots with radical political demands, the new government appears to be trying to win support by tapping into Kyrgyz nationalism, including anger over foreign news media reports showing that Uzbeks bore the brunt of the violence.

Speaking to reporters in Bishkek, the capital, a deputy prime minister, Azimbek Beknazarov, suggested that the government was planning to detain Kadyrzhan Batyrov, a leading Uzbek nationalist, and had already taken two of his followers into custody.

Any attempt to arrest Batyrov and other Uzbek community leaders is likely to further alienate Uzbek residents, who are furious at the government and its security forces and have used buses, trucks and trees to set up makeshift barricades meant to keep Kyrgyz out.

The barricades have made it difficult to deliver relief aid to the Uzbek villages and neighborhoods where it is needed most, and Kyrgyz officials have debated trying to use force to reach some of the Uzbek refugee settlements -- a move that human rights activists say could cause further bloodshed.

According to a new estimate by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, about 260,000 people displaced from their homes have been taken in by relatives or others, and 40,000 have been left without any shelter.

"No U.N. agency is on the ground at the moment," said Andrej Mahecic, a U.N. spokesman. "For the humanitarians to go, there must be a minimum of a security environment so they can do their work."

Another 100,000 refugees have crossed the border into Uzbekistan, where aid is getting through and conditions in the camps are generally better, he said.

In his remarks, Beknazarov also said the government was trying to extradite Bakiyev's son, Maxim, from Britain, where he reportedly sought political asylum this week.

Beknazarov accused him of playing a key role in provoking the riots and linked the disposition of his case to the future of a U.S. air base in northern Kyrgyzstan that supplies NATO operations in Afghanistan.

"If the U.K. does not extradite Maxim Bakiyev to Kyrgyzstan, then the interim government has no other choice but to expel the Americans from the air base," he said, according to the local AKI-Press news agency.

May 10, 2010

Kyrgyzstan's Islamist Blowback

Image by krisdecurtis via Flickr

David Trilling | April 21, 2010

Bishkek

When he was arrested again two years ago, Ravshan Gapirov was not surprised. A popular defense lawyer for Muslims charged with extremism, Gapirov had long angered authorities in Kyrgyzstan who see Islam as one of the greatest dangers to the country's stability. He spent most of 2008 in prison, accused of supporting a banned pan-Islamist group, Hizb ut-Tahrir, and collaborating with his extremist clients.

Gapirov, director of the Justice and Truth Human Rights Advocacy Center in the southern town of Osh, struggles against a confounding system: because of Central Asia's strategic proximity to Afghanistan, the United States and Russia have supported dictatorships that, by banning even peaceful expressions of Islam, have pushed ordinary disaffected Muslims into the arms of radicals, some based in Afghanistan.

On April 7, after his security forces fired into a mob, leaving more than eighty dead, President Kurmanbek Bakiyev fled the capital, Bishkek. For the five years of his increasingly corrupt reign, he had attacked Islam as both a security and political threat. But he also hosted a US air base at the Manas airport outside Bishkek, established shortly after 9/11, and thus had an unflinching ally in his campaign, one that was willing to put aside its democratic ideals for a short-term strategic gain.

In Bakiyev's sudden and unexpected absence, former opposition leaders from disparate parties announced an interim government and slowly took control. But many of those leaders are tainted with scandal, having previously served with Bakiyev before leaving to form their own personality-driven opposition parties. The acting chair, Roza Otunbayeva, is loved in the West for her grandmotherly demeanor and fluent English, but she is suspected at home of being ineffectual. Other interim ministers are split on where their allegiances lie: with Russia, the former colonial master and driver of Central Asian economies, angry over the presence of American troops in its "near abroad"; or the United States, which most Kyrgyz see as primarily interested in keeping its air base.

Washington was quiet as Bakiyev murdered opponents, shut down media outlets, rigged elections and drove even moderate Muslims, afraid they would be targeted as terrorists, to practice their religion in secret. In private conversations, US officials acknowledged Bakiyev's appalling human rights record, but publicly they offered only tepid criticism and continued training his elite military units. Like other Central Asian despots, Bakiyev received lucrative American rewards for highlighting, or even exaggerating, the threat of terrorism.

US Ambassador Tatiana Gfoeller underscored this support in October, at the opening of a Kyrgyz special forces complex in Tokmok, where she said, "Brand-new, modern military equipment--trucks, tactical gear, ambulances, night sights, body armor and much more--are arriving in Kyrgyzstan daily and being distributed to Kyrgyzstan's armed forces."

Central Asia is a region of varied religious traditions. Islam took root late among the Kyrgyz nomads and fused with local animist and mystic beliefs. But devotion to conservative forms is growing in the Ferghana Valley, a fertile basin of twisting, arbitrary and contested borders and overlapping ethnic groups: Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan wrap around one another in puzzle pieces fashioned by Joseph Stalin in the 1920s. The Kyrgyz portion of the valley is home to a large, alienated Uzbek minority. In the 1990s hundreds died in ethnic conflicts. Tensions endure.

Judging by the crowded mosques on Fridays and the number of women wearing hijabs on the streets, the valley is more observant than elsewhere in Central Asia. But locals here, like elsewhere, are still more likely to enjoy their vodka than their prayer, or see no problem indulging in both. Nevertheless, Central Asian governments are paranoid, full of atheist apparatchiks trained in the Communist Soviet Union. Only the Islam espoused by a network of state-appointed mullahs is tolerated.

From Bakiyev's perspective, "all Muslims are extremists," said Kara-Suu Imam Rashad Kamalov, whose father was gunned down in 2006 in an attack human rights observers attribute to the state security services. Because of the oppression, "more Kyrgyz are devoted to the religion and practice Islam," he told me. But tyranny will not work forever, he added. "After someone has experienced fear once, the fear disappears."

Already there is a precedent for radicalism and violence in the Ferghana Valley: the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, bent on destroying the corrupt, despotic regime of Uzbek President Islam Karimov. Karimov's fierce crackdown in the 1990s drove the militant group, which grew out of a political movement, to Afghanistan and an alliance with Al Qaeda. IMU members fought alongside militants during the US invasion in 2001. The IMU's core membership is thought to be hiding in the tribal areas of Pakistan, waiting and plotting a return to Central Asia and their traditional base in the Uzbek portion of the Ferghana Valley. Some are probably hiding in Kyrgyzstan.

Pointing to the IMU, Bakiyev repeatedly said Kyrgyzstan faces a growing threat from international terror. With insecurity spreading into the previously quiet northern Afghan provinces, attacks throughout the Ferghana Valley have been on the rise, such as an assault in May 2009 on a police station in Khanabad, Uzbekistan, on the Uzbek-Kyrgyz frontier, and an alleged suicide bombing in nearby Andijan the following day.

Heightening the fear, the compliant Kyrgyz press eagerly reports the arrest of alleged activists, often those associated with Hizb ut-Tahrir (Party of Liberation), a transnational group that seeks to establish a caliphate. While the movement forswears violence and has never been implicated in any violence, it is banned not only in Kyrgyzstan but throughout Central Asia, forcing members to practice underground. Observers such as Osh native Alisher Khamidov, a doctoral student at Johns Hopkins, fear that, hidden from view, Hizb ut-Tahrir could prepare people to join violent groups if it is unable to offer a political solution. There are no accurate figures on membership, but informed estimates say it is 8,000 in Kyrgyzstan alone.

"If the state repression of religion continues at this pace and there are not political channels for representing Muslim grievances, we are likely to witness radicalization," Khamidov said, adding, "the Kyrgyz government is definitely exaggerating the threat of radical Islam."

The town of Kara-Suu is a natural hub for Hizb ut-Tahrir. Home to one of Central Asia's largest bazaars, it is divided by the Uzbek-Kyrgyz border. Crossing it is difficult, even for ethnic Uzbek families separated by the border, and business is hurting. Moreover, little political opposition remains to offer ideological variety.

"They mention Hizb ut-Tahrir on television every day," a Hizb ut-Tahrir recruiter told me a few weeks before Bakiyev's overthrow. "One of our tasks is promotion, and this is a natural advertisement for us." He was hiding in the back of a station wagon with tinted windows, sandwiched between stacks of shipping containers in the Kara-Suu bazaar. "Our ideology is spreading, and people are becoming more energetic because Bakiyev has moved away from the principles of democracy. It's a victory for us; we benefit from this."

While Hizb ut-Tahrir does not have an anti-Western agenda, he said, Western support for repressive governments in the region is boosting anti-Americanism and providing fertile ground for recruitment.

"They say they are building a democratic country, but at the same time they are violating the principles of democracy: freedom of belief, freedom of the press," said a Hizb ut-Tahrir member in Osh in March. "If they find a book they don't like in your house, they take you to jail. What kind of freedom is this?"

"We don't have machine guns; we have only ideas," said the Kara-Suu recruiter, explaining the group's methods and comparing Central Asia to czarist Russia in the years before the Bolsheviks seized power. "Who is in prison? Those who have been prosecuted and arrested by the government. And of course these people support us. Many revolutions started in prisons."

In October 2008 residents of Nookat organized the Eid al-Fitr festival marking the end of Ramadan, a holiday widely celebrated throughout Kyrgyzstan with the slaughter of sheep--and often a lot of vodka. Villagers say the mayor's office gave permission to celebrate in the town's stadium. Instead, town officials prohibited the celebration and dispersed the crowd. A protest followed in which villagers allegedly threw rocks, breaking windows in a government office. Thirty-two were convicted of inciting unrest and fomenting religious enmity. Sentences ranged up to twenty years.

"The authorities interfered in the process of investigation and in the courts. There was no evidence against the convicted. Witnesses were mostly people from law enforcement bodies. It was obvious that they were ordered" to testify, said an Osh-based lawyer who has represented defendants in extremism trials, including the one in Nookat.

Several unexplained killings in Uzgen and Jalalabad last summer further rattled Muslim communities and tested the state's credibility. Authorities say they liquidated terrorists infiltrating from Uzbekistan--perpetrators of a suicide bombing by an IMU splinter group in Andijan--yet provided little proof. Human rights activists allege the security services tortured and killed innocent farmers in a botched raid and elaborate cover-up. That several foreign human rights activists investigating the events in Nookat were expelled from Kyrgyzstan in 2009 further undermined faith in the authorities' version of events.

Yet while these abuses continued, the United States maintained its support for Bakiyev, calling him a partner in the "war on terror." Earlier this year Washington announced it would build a $5.5 million anti-terrorism training center in the Ferghana Valley. Activists saw a connection between the US aid and Bakiyev's mounting crackdown. "The authorities don't care about their citizens' rights, about absolutely innocent people," said the Nookat defense lawyer, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. The crackdown is "to show that we have a problem with religious extremism and terrorism, because a lot of money is being allocated for that.... The money is being given to the Kyrgyz government by the United States and by the Russians."

Moscow and Washington, both concerned about Islamic terrorism, look the other way while repression continues apace in Central Asia. Moscow is also vying to build an anti-terror training center in the Ferghana Valley, and in this competition for strategic influence, the two are willing to overlook odious behavior. For the United States, that could be a mistake, warns a March report by the conservative Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. It argues that the Central Asian governments' overreaction is promoting radicalization, because "ongoing state-sponsored violence has almost certainly claimed more lives, and surely maimed more fates, than the sporadic actions of a handful of terrorists." The report cautions that US interests in the region, such as the base at Manas and overland transportation networks used to supply American troops in Afghanistan, make tempting targets.

Since the violent uprising of April 7, that message has gone unheeded. Washington appears most concerned about keeping the base open, worriedly courting Kyrgyzstan's interim government of bickering former officials and apparatchiks. Many of these figures led the so-called Tulip Revolution of 2005. Now they are struggling to define their legitimacy. Some are angry with the United States for not speaking out against Bakiyev's human rights abuses and have openly said Manas must be closed. It's too early to tell how they will approach human rights, but already power struggles are apparent, and friends have told me they fear the recent upheaval just delivered more of the same, as the new leaders are all recycled from past governments.

Bloodshed is on many people's minds these days--not just the kind Bakiyev left on the streets of Bishkek as he fled. "The authorities don't know what they want to achieve. But in my opinion, it will lead to a very bloody revolution if it goes on like this. I am convinced that such a revolution is inevitable," Gapirov, the human rights lawyer, told me a few weeks before Bakiyev's downfall. When it comes to human rights and Islam, in a country known for its spontaneous uprisings, the new government and its foreign backers would be wise to listen.

Fueling the Afghan War

Image by kahunapulej via Flickr

Aram Roston | April 21, 2010

Research support for this article was provided by the Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute.

In Napoleon Bonaparte's day an army may have marched on its belly, as the French emperor famously quipped, but the modern-day American military campaign in Afghanistan needs not just food but also fuel. Diesel for the MRAPs and Humvees, aviation fuel for the planes and helicopters--that's the fodder for the military surge under way in Afghanistan. Fuel is precious there--they call it liquid gold--and the effort to keep it flowing has created an array of bizarre monopolies, strange alliances and allegations of corruption entangling the US government.

This is the story of two interlinked and secretive offshore companies run by a former Army intelligence officer. The firms run a specialized monopoly of massive proportions. Their niche: supplying aviation fuel for US military operations in Afghanistan--enough to fill two Olympic-size swimming pools each and every day of the year.

The companies' names are Red Star Enterprises and Mina Corp. In Afghanistan, Red Star Enterprises has a sole source contract worth more than $1 billion, won without competition, to deliver fuel to Bagram Air Base, that central hub of the war effort. The Nation has obtained an unusual "memorandum of agreement [1]" between Red Star and the US military authorities, giving the firm exclusive ownership of a fuel pipeline that feeds directly into the base.

Similarly, in nearby Kyrgyzstan, a staging ground for the Afghan war, Mina has another sole source contract, awarded without any announcement, to provide fuel to a huge and controversial base. The contract has been at the center of corruption and kickback allegations, and the companies have been accused of enriching the families of two successive heads of state, both of whom presided over kleptocratic and repressive regimes--an arrangement that fostered great resentment in the country. Violence exploded on the streets in early April, leaving eighty protesters dead, and President Kurmanbek Bakiyev was forced to flee. The new, provisional government sees Red Star and Mina in a very specific light. The chief of staff, Edil Baisalov, tells The Nation that the firms have served as "an indirect way for the Pentagon to bribe the ruling families of Kyrgyzstan." (These allegations are the subject of a Congressional hearing tomorrow, convened by the House Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs.)

Baisalov's charge is a serious one but not new, nor as outlandish as it may seem, although the companies deny it. The eight-year saga of high-stakes contracts and secretive deals raises serious questions about how the Afghan campaign has been run, not only by the Bush administration but also under President Barack Obama. Sole source contracts have continued under the current administration, and if the Kyrgyz authorities are correct, the Pentagon contractors are still doing what they did under Bush. After all, the thirst for oil and fuel can only grow as President Obama's Afghan surge ramps up.

The man in charge of Red Star's and Mina's operations is a good-natured retired Army lieutenant colonel named Chuck Squires, now 56 years old. A lanky and broad-shouldered fellow with a good sense of humor, he has a graduate degree in Russian studies from Harvard. Before 9/11, he was the defense attaché at the US Embassy in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Back then, when he was still in the military, the Republic of Kyrgyzstan was just another impoverished and mountainous ex-Soviet republic, with a per capita income a little higher than that of Cambodia. It was just one pawn in the Great Game between Russia and the United States, and it was not easily accessible, bordered by Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan on the south, west and north, respectively, and by China on the east. Nor was it strategically important, although its huge inland lake did serve as a testing site for advanced Russian torpedoes.

Squires, who did not respond to requests for comment for this article, had left Bishkek by September 11, 2001. One source says he was gone from the military by then too, but his experience there would serve him well in the private sector in the future.

That is because shortly after 9/11, Kyrgyzstan agreed to host a US air base. At the time, Kyrgyzstan's president was Askar Akayev, who presented himself as an innovative reformer and economist. The United States did not pay much for the base rights, although this was a source of controversy within the country and a matter of concern for the State Department. At the time, Donald Rumsfeld's Pentagon was holding sway over Colin Powell's State Department. The Defense Department insisted it was in charge of all negotiations, and the State Department's input wasn't wanted. "You stay out of it" is how a former State Department official remembers the Pentagon's tone.

The Manas base, dubbed the Ganci base, after a firefighter killed on 9/11, was like the FedEx hub through which the US military flies material and people to Afghanistan from around the world. The base hosts tankers and other planes, and operates as a transfer facility for troops.

Red Star Enterprises and Mina Corp. soon appeared on the scene like mysterious strangers. They had a rather ethereal, offshore quality and some intriguing connections. For example, Red Star had the same London address and phone number as Iraq Today, a purportedly independent and short-lived newspaper launched in the wake of the invasion of Iraq. The paper had been set up by a former journalist who worked with Mina Corp.--which, of course, was connected to Red Star.

Over the years neither Red Star nor Mina seems to have even bothered to put up a website. They both have offices in London, but they are both incorporated on the island of Gibraltar, a British territory off Spain with impenetrable secrecy laws for corporations. Various private investigators have been unable to determine who really owns them.

Though Red Star had no apparent track record, it was hired by the Pentagon to supply the base's massive fuel needs. Red Star's director of operations: the now retired Lieutenant Colonel Squires. Squires returned to Bishkek as a civilian, coordinating Red Star's contract work. The Pentagon's Defense Energy Support Center hired Red Star to supply its fuel. It was a huge contract, totaling $240 million over three years.

Even if the Kyrgyz government wasn't getting paid much for the base, the Akayev family was reaping tens of millions. It was heavily involved in business at the airport, running the two companies that operated as Red Star's subcontractors. One of them was run by Akayev's son, and the other by his son-in-law, and from 2002 to 2005 Red Star, operating on its US government contract, paid the firms about $120 million.

It may have just been business, but the way Kyrgyz investigators later saw it, Red Star, the prime contractor, was the cut out for funneling funds to the Akayev family.

It was all cozy until violence hit the streets of Bishkek in 2005, foreshadowing what was to come five years later. The "Tulip Revolution" forced Akayev to flee and abdicate, and then the secrets of the Akayev regime began to tumble out, in scandal after scandal. The new government, headed by President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, even asked the US government for help investigating the former regime. The FBI's Eurasian Unit churned out an extraordinary report that laid bare a "vast amount of potential criminal activities associated with the Akaev Organization." The president and his family were accused of "siphoning off at least $1 billion from the Kyrgyz state budget." It was as if the Kyrgyz government had been some kind of criminal enterprise within which the United States ran a military base.

After the revolt, people thought things might be different. The new government seemed to bring a fresh sense of integrity for a short while, before it began to stack its own skeletons in the closet. Despite his claims to be a reformer, Bakiyev appeared to go about replicating the patterns of his predecessor in a deliberate manner. "He really didn't think twice. They inherited this," says one consultant who dealt with Bakiyev shortly after the revolution. "We really in great detail uncovered the scheme. And I think the moment they figured out how it worked, they went and did it."

Peter Zalmayev of the Eurasia Democracy Initiative puts it this way: "Bakiyev came in under the premise he would clean [the government] up and make it more transparent. But he replaced the structure they had with Akayev and his son with his own family." Word quickly spread that Bakiyev's youngest son, Maksim, was in business too. The insiders said he was taking over "Manas International"--through frontmen.

Meanwhile, Bakiyev's associates were making powerful US connections. For example, one of his allies set up a bank called AsiaUniversalBank (AUB) in Bishkek. On its board were two august former US senators: former US Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole, currently associated with the lobbying firm Alston & Bird, and J. Bennett Johnston, the longtime Louisiana senator, who has his own firm. Dole was paid several hundred thousand dollars for his role, which included one trip to Bishkek and a few board meetings in Washington.

Meanwhile, what mattered to the United States was the base at Manas. There, the airfield was still lined with squadrons of KC-135 Stratotankers, which needed constant filling for their missions over the skies of Afghanistan.

Red Star kept up its work, supplying fuel.

But Red Star was also busy elsewhere at the same time. Chuck Squires and Red Star were now focused not just on Kyrgyzstan but directly on Afghanistan. To do business with the US military in Afghanistan usually means operating at Bagram Air Base, the sprawling compound--a virtual military city--about an hour north of Kabul.

Col. Jonathan Ives was then the base commander at Bagram. Red Star, he says, was synonymous with aviation fuel, trucking it down from Uzbekistan along an old and treacherous route through the mountains from Mazar-i-Sharif to Kabul, passing at one point through the Salang Pass, a 1.5-mile tunnel through a mountain. Ives says Red Star trucked in more than 250,000 gallons of the precious stuff each day--a staggering amount. Each tanker truck can carry a maximum of 9,000 gallons, so Red Star would have had convoys of about thirty tractor-trailers per day.

In October 2007 Red Star scored a remarkable coup. Squires signed a deal with Ives that allowed Red Star to build and own a pipeline that ran from the base for all that fuel. Ives says that Red Star had purchased land near Bagram Air Base. "It was farmland, so they purchased the land and the rights." In the memorandum of agreement between Red Star and the military, obtained by The Nation, Red Star promises it "will install, at no cost to the United States Government (USG), a petroleum pipeline for transfer of TS-1 jet fuel." Significantly, the agreement says, "Red Star will retain ownership of the pipeline."

It is intriguing that the firm signed such a document rather than an ordinary contract. "It is very unusual--very unusual," said professor Charles Tiefer, an expert on contract law at the University of Baltimore School of Law who sits on the US government's eight-member Commission on Wartime Contracting. I asked him who would regulate such an agreement. "Nobody," he answered. "There is no regulation of it because it's not supposed to happen, because it is trying to create a loophole where there is none in the Competition in Contracting Act."

Whatever the legal basis for the contract, not only the fuel pipeline but the land underneath it was owned by Red Star. Indeed, trucks would be able to gain access to the pipeline only through Red Star property. Red Star, in other words, controlled all access to the pipeline that would bring fuel to the thirsty US air base. It was as if the company offered to build a door to a US base and then controlled anything that went through the door. "I think it is pretty clever, if you want to say that," says Ives. "It is shrewd business," he added, a bit ruefully. He says he thought the pipeline was a good idea because it limited fuel trucks' access to the base and made things safe. He didn't realize, he says, that the pipeline Red Star built would give it a monopoly.

But that's what it did. Within four months of that memorandum of agreement, the United States announced it planned to offer a sole source contract to Red Star for 194 million gallons of fuel over two years. There were some complaints by a potential competitor, but it had no access to the pipeline. That summer, in August 2008, Red Star was awarded the contract for $720 million. It had locked in the monopoly.

On March 4, 2009, barely six weeks in office, Barack Obama pledged to crack down on government procurement waste and fraud, and "to dramatically reform the way we do business on contracts across the entire government." Standing next to Senator John McCain, his adversary in the election but an advocate of contract reform as well, he said, "We need more competition for contracts and more oversight as they are carried out." That day he sent out a memo asking all federal agencies to work on a way to end sole source contracts.

But when it came to Red Star and Mina, things stayed very much the same. On July 29, about five months after the president's speech, the Defense Department did not bother issuing a solicitation or requesting bids for the fuel contract. Instead, it quietly issued a new, $243 million contract to Mina to keep selling fuel to the base at Manas. The government used an unusual clause in the federal rules to justify this: the "national security" exemption. Under that provision, "Full and open competition need not be provided for when the disclosure of the agency's needs would compromise the national security."

"It went from competitive to sole source," says lawyer Ronald Uscher, who represents a competitor to Red Star and Mina called IOTC. In 2007 Mina had actually won the contract through a process that ostensibly included competitive bidding--though it beat out IOTC, whose bid had been almost 3 percent lower. Using the Freedom of Information Act, Uscher tried to obtain information about Mina's bid, but the Defense Department refused to tell him how Mina and Red Star gauged their price changes. Normally these are based on worldwide fuel prices, but not in Kyrgyzstan. Here it would be kept a secret. "There is nothing secretive about the price of jet fuel in 99.9 percent of the world," says Uscher, "except at Manas Air Base in Kyrgyzstan, apparently!" Then, in 2009, Uscher complains, "You have a sole source secret contract to supply fuel to Manas awarded to Mina with no other competitors having oversight and no citizens having oversight."

Why the secrecy? And what was the national security requirement that dictated avoiding competition? Did Mina's source for fuel have anything to do with it?

Officials in Kyrgyzstan's provisional government say it straight out: Mina Corp., the affiliate of Red Star, was paying funds to Maksim Bakiyev, the president's son. The new government's chief of staff Baisalov says that in order to keep the air base secure and supplied with fuel, the United States essentially "bribed the Kyrgyz ruling family. First it was Akayev and then it was Bakiyev. On one hand, the White House and the US State Department, they announce these noble goals, democracy, good government, and on the other hand, the military comes in and overrides everyone else." The Defense Logistics Agency, which oversees the Defense Energy Support Center, wouldn't comment specifically on that, even to deny it. "We can't speak to that," said DLA spokesman Dennis Gauci. "You'll have to speak to Mina Corp."

A representative of Mina, who asked not to be named, denied any wrongdoing. "There was no consideration given to the ownership interests of any supplier." If Maksim Bakiyev did have any ownership interest, he said, Mina didn't know about it. The company, he told me, was reaching out to the interim Kyrgyz government to try to explain it to them. (Mina emphasizes it does vital work "by providing mission-critical fuel supplies to the troops and civilians that are carrying out the mission in Afghanistan.")

With the collapse of the Bakiyev regime, a whole web of money and power has been exposed. That bank, AUB, on whose board sat ex-Senators Dole and Johnston? Its accounts have been frozen, and the new government says it was laundering money.

The provisional government in Kyrgyzstan says it will leave the base open for now. And the United States, with the Afghan surge under way, needs that base now more than ever. But the Kyrgyz government is making a new demand: it is launching a criminal investigation of the Bakiyev regime and its profits--and it wants the US government to help.

Apr 17, 2010

Kyrgyzstan: No Tulip Revolution Replay - BusinessWeek

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Despite parallels with the uprising five years ago that ousted former president Askar Akaev, the new Kyrgyz crisis is more grassroots—and more violent

By Alisher Khamidov

Some observers are drawing strong parallels with the current instability in Kyrgyzstan and the "Tulip Revolution" of March 2005. While there are definitely some similarities, there are also some substantial differences.

Similar to the Tulip Revolution, the current round of protests stems from the increased authoritarianism of the incumbent regime and regional exclusion. As was the case with the regime of former President Askar Akaev, the rule of his successor, Kurmanbek Bakiev, has sidelined important elites and their constituents. Growing corruption, nepotism, and consolidation of economic and political power in the hands of a small circle of people alienated not only powerful elites but also broader segments of Kyrgyz society.

Also similar to the Tulip Revolution, what we see now is the pervasive weakness of the state's security apparatus to restore order and restrain protesters. We see reports of police officers being beaten or changing sides. And we see reports that suggest that dual-power scenarios are emerging in some parts of the country, where crowds of protesters are appointing governors and regional administrators.

One difference between the 7 April protests and the Tulip Revolution is the level of violence. This week's events were the bloodiest in Kyrgyz history. In confronting protesters, the police relied on live bullets while protesters used stones and Molotov cocktails. Official reports put the number of people killed at more than 60 and those wounded at more than 500.

Another difference was of regional character. While the Tulip Revolution was sparked by protests and government building seizures in the southern regions (Jalal-Abad, Osh), this time the protests erupted mainly in the poor and remote northern regions such as Talas and Naryn, where residents have long complained of exclusion.

There are other remarkable differences between the current protests and those of five years ago.

Triggers for the protests differed. Unlike the Tulip Revolution, when the spark for mass mobilization was the Akaev regime's efforts to block a number of wealthy opposition elites from gaining seats in parliament, the current protests were triggered by simmering anger at the grassroots level.

In particular, three factors served to turn mass dissatisfaction into protests. They were the arrest of several opposition leaders by the Bakiev regime in relation to mass disorder in the town of Talas, where protesters occupied a government building; a steep hike in utility prices, which hit the population in the remote northern regions the hardest; the exclusion of a number of important northern elites in the Kurultai, or informal gathering of all Kyrgyz, by the Bakiev administration in March; and economic sanctions by Moscow such as the introduction of higher prices for gasoline.

That move was seen as Moscow's way of punishing the government for reneging on a 2009 agreement under which Kyrgyzstan would receive close to $2 billion in loans and aid in exchange for evicting U.S. forces from the air base in Manas. Bakiev got some of the Russian money, but then extended the lease for the base under a different status. The Russians were livid. As a result, the Russian media offered negative coverage of the Bakiev regime, a contributing factor to his sagging reputation.

Yet another notable difference between April 2010 and March 2005 were the "engines" behind the change. During the March 2005 protests, demonstrations were organized by wealthy elites who felt that their bids to gain seats in the parliament were threatened by the incumbent Akaev regime. Such elites then mobilized their supporters in their towns and villages, relying on local networks and offers of cash. The protests we saw on 7 April were sporadic and chaotic. In many ways, they appeared to be more an uncoordinated grass-roots revolt by a disenchanted population than an elite-driven and planned campaign.

As a result, the speed with which the protests erupted and spread was surprising, not only to international observers, but also to many locals. The administration and some opposition leaders seem to have not appreciated the extent of popular anger and were themselves taken aback. In other words, because there was no credible information about the distribution of power before the protests, there was little room for opposition factions and the incumbent regime to come to a negotiated settlement.

Neither the government nor opposition factions are in full control of the crowds. Already, there are reports of destruction of property and marauding in Bishkek and the regions that have seen protests. This is a bad sign for opposition factions because it discredits them.

What are the likely scenarios of events?

The most dramatic is that the Bakiev government will fall in the next several hours or days, as it appears to be doing. Because opposition leaders are not in full control of protesters, the country could plunge into anarchy and chaos that would last for a few days if not weeks.

Because Bakiev still retains a large political following in the southern regions, especially in Jalal-Abad, his birthplace, counter-protests may erupt in the south calling for his reinstatement. That would increase the risk of regional confrontation and possibility of civil war. Bakiev, now in the south, has not aired his intentions and this is contributing to tension.

A less dramatic scenario is that the Bakiev administration, while seriously weakened by the protests, could come to a negotiated settlement with opposition factions, and both groups would work to calm protesters. Russia and some neighbors such as Kazakhstan may provide good offices and assistance (not military, largely diplomatic) in this regard. Russia has already recognized the provisional government set up by opposition factions in Bishkek. Bakiev could resign as part of the negotiated deal. This would provide the provisional government some legitimacy as it faces a number of daunting challenges such as restoring order and state institutions and responding to economic and social problems that Bakiev left unaddressed.

Whatever the outcome of the protests, it is clear that Kyrgyzstan has plunged into deep chaos. It will take months, if not years to recover from this. The concern is that instability in Kyrgyzstan is already spilling over to its neighbors. Kazakhstan has closed borders as scores of Kyrgyz are trying to cross the border and find refuge in Kazakhstan. Uzbekistan is most likely to follow suit.

Alisher Khamidov is a consultant and analyst in Washington, D.C., specializing in Central Asian affairs. He can be reached at akhamido@hotmail.com

Apr 12, 2010

Why Kyrgyzstan’s Social Media Matters — Registan.net

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by Sarah Kendzior on 4/8/2010 · 36 comments

The pundits have spoken, and, contrary to my earlier prediction that Kyrgyzstan’s uprising would be labeled another “Twitter Revolution”, they are now insisting the opposite — that the Kyrgyz tweets, videos and blog posts are irrelevant. The main proponent of this theory is Evgeny Morozov, who, as Michael noted earlier, views the internet activity of Kyrgyzstanis as meaningless because the country is of little global interest.

I’m not going to argue that the international news media are invested in Krygyzstan — the CNN transcripts I posted earlier make their lack of interest all too clear. What bothers me about Morozov’s argument is how he determines the value of online dissent. Once again, Central Asia is deemed irrelevant because it is Central Asia. The tweets, blog posts, and news articles written by people in Kyrgyzstan — often with great emotion and care — are dismissed because they were written for people in Kyrgyzstan. But for whom, may I ask, are people in Kyrgyzstan supposed to be writing?

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As Registan readers well know, Central Asia is the black hole of international media. It is not the “other” but the other’s “other” — Russia’s orient, a region whose history and political complexities are poorly understood even by some who proclaim to be experts; a region whose best-known ambassador is Borat. In the world media, Central Asia is most notable for its absence; the only region not even worthy of inclusion in the international weather report. No one cares if it’s raining in a place that doesn’t, as far as the media are concerned, exist.

Yet as Registan readers also know, a lot happens in Central Asia. And I would argue that, over the last few years, a great deal of what happens in Central Asia happens online — not only what is reported on websites that boldly defy government censorship like Ferghana.ru, but what is written by ordinary people who share, as we do, their thoughts on the internet. The problem, of course, is that they do not generally do this in English. There is another internet, a secret internet, in which meaningful political conversations take place in Uzbek, Kyrgyz, Kazakh, Turkmen, and Tajik, yet the majority of the world remains none the wiser. (Russian, of course, is less of a barrier in this respect.) In numerous cases, Central Asians are talking about issues that could never be discussed in public in their home countries. They often do so in a way that would make little sense to a foreigner even if he or she could read it. They focus on internal politics, national concerns, personal grudges. In short, like most people in the world, they write about each other, and for each other.

I would argue that when most Kyrgyz posted on Twitter, they did so for each other. They searched for meaning and answers, using the internet to forge a connection to their countrymen as chaos reigned outside. And through it all, they evaluated Kyrgyzstan’s politics, providing a rich and ongoing commentary of events. In Morozov’s view, this is irrelevant. He compares Kyrgyzstan unfavorably to Iran, noting that the Kyrgyz did not use the internet for strategic purposes, but merely to spread information. He notes that Kyrgyzstan did not rate as highly as a “trending topic” in Twitter as did Iran in the summer of 2009 (while failing to mention that Iran has a population more than ten times larger than Kyrgyzstan’s). Such an evaluative perspective, in which countries are judged winners and losers by virtue of their search ranking, leads to headlines like Andrew Sullivan’s “This Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted” (an article about Morozov’s article). This revolution was tweeted. But unfortunately, the significance of those tweets is decided not by the people who wrote and read them, but by observers in the West. As a result of this, Kyrgyzstan becomes relevant only in its relation to other nations and other revolutions. This is the virtual equivalent of the Great Game, with Central Asia but an afterthought to which people can apply their pet theories.

Image by neiljs via Flickr

What we make of Kyrgyzstan’s internet content may seem irrelevant in light of the enormity of what has happened. But it is indicative of a deeper problem — a refusal to consider Central Asia in terms of Central Asia, a refusal to see the actions and ideas of Central Asians as meaningful in their own right. Central Asia is no longer an inaccessible hinterland. Thanks to the internet, the world can hear what innumerable Central Asians have to say. The question is whether they care to listen.

Russia is said to have fueled unrest in Kyrgyzstan

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By Philip P. Pan
Monday, April 12, 2010; A01

BISHKEK, KYRGYZSTAN -- Less than a month before the violent protests that toppled the government of Kyrgyzstan last week, Russian television stations broadcast scathing reports portraying President Kurmanbek Bakiyev as a repugnant dictator whose family was stealing billions of dollars from this impoverished nation.

The media campaign, along with punishing economic measures adopted by the Kremlin, played a critical role in fanning public anger against Bakiyev and bringing people into the streets for the demonstrations that forced him to flee the capital Wednesday, according to protest leaders, local journalists and analysts.

"Even without Russia, this would have happened sooner or later, but . . . I think the Russian factor was decisive," said Omurbek Tekebayev, a former opposition leader who is now the No. 2 figure in the government.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has denied that Moscow played any role in the uprising, and leaders of the movement to oust Bakiyev insist they received only moral support. But the Kremlin had made no secret of its growing displeasure with Bakiyev, and over the past few months it steadily ratcheted up the pressure on his government while reaching out to the opposition.

The strategy was a sharp departure from Russia's traditional support for autocratic leaders in its neighborhood. It paid off quickly and dramatically, and it appears to have delivered the Kremlin a rare foreign policy victory.

Not only has Moscow served notice on other wayward autocrats in its back yard -- many of whom also govern Russian-speaking populations that watch Russian television -- it also appears to have gained a greater say over the future of the U.S. air base here, which is critical to supplying the NATO military surge in Afghanistan.

Little more than a year ago, the Kremlin regarded Bakiyev as an ally, promising him more than $2 billion in aid during a visit to Moscow at the height of the global economic crisis.

On the same trip, Bakiyev announced plans to close the U.S. air base, in what was widely seen as an exchange.

Four months later, after Russia had made good on $415 million of its pledge, Bakiyev suddenly agreed to keep the air base open when Washington offered more than three times the original rent. Russian officials, including President Dmitry Medvedev, indicated at the time that they had blessed the decision, but it soon became clear that the Kremlin had been cheated -- and was furious.

"The Russians were upset and angry, not just because of the base but because of his attitude," Tekebayav said.

In November, Russian media reported that Putin upbraided the Kyrgyz prime minister at a summit, asking why the U.S. air base had not been closed and alleging that the Russian aid money had been stolen by Bakiyev's family. In February, Moscow postponed payment of the remaining $1.7 billion of the package, with officials saying publicly that the first tranche had been misused.

In late March, two weeks before the April 7 protests, Russia's Kremlin-friendly television stations and newspapers marked the fifth anniversary of Bakiyev's rise to power in the putsch known as the Tulip Revolution with unusually tough stories about his rule. One paper compared him to Genghis Khan, and Russia's top television station hammered him with multiple reports alleging corruption.

Much of the coverage focused on Bakiyev's son, Maksim, whom he appointed to lead an economic development agency and who had become a lightning rod for opposition charges of nepotism and embezzlement.

In addition to the reversal on the U.S. base, analysts said, the Kremlin turned against Bakiyev because he tried to bring China into a Russian deal to build a hydroelectric dam and to extract rent from Moscow for a Russian air base in Kyrgyzstan. Russian leaders were also upset that Bakiyev's family was buying gasoline from Russia at special prices and selling it to the air base, a scheme worth as much as $80 million per year, Russian media reported.

Alexander Knyazev, a political analyst here with ties to a Moscow think tank, said people began to worry that the Kremlim might expel the estimated 1 million Kyrgyz migrants who work in Russia and send money home to their families. The remittances account for as much as a third of the Kyrgyz economy and at least half of the government's budget, he said.

"Bakiyev was spoiling the relationship, and people saw it," he said. "That's how this protest mood got started."

After the opposition announced plans for nationwide protests, Putin provided a final spark by signing a decree March 29 eliminating subsidies on gasoline exports to Kyrgyzstan and other former Soviet republics that had not joined a new customs union.

When the tariffs kicked in April 1, Russian fuel shipments to Kyrgyzstan were suspended, said Bazarbai Mambetov, president of a Kyrgyz oil traders association. Within days, gas prices in Bishkek began to climb, enraging residents already angry about sharp increases in utility fees.

As the Kremlin leaned on Bakiyev, it also consulted the opposition, hosting its leaders on visits to Moscow, including in the days before the protests. On the eve of the demonstrations, the Kyrgyz prime minister accused one, Temir Sariev, of telling police that he had met with Putin and had won his support for efforts to overthrow Bakiyev.

Sariev, now the interim finance minister, said he never met Putin or told police any such thing. "But I did meet privately with friends," he acknowledged with a smile. "We did discuss the situation in Kyrgyzstan."

Tekebayev, second in command of the interim administration, said Russia's actions were important because they signaled to government officials that Bakiyev could not stay in office, undermining his support in key ministries and regions when the opposition seized control.

"The Russians used to work only with those in power in the former Soviet Union," he added. "But in the last year, they started developing relations with the opposition, like the Americans and Europeans. I think, for the first time, this approach was a success for them."

Apr 8, 2010

Kyrgyz Opposition Group Says It Will Rule for 6 Months - NYTimes.com

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By CLIFFORD J. LEVY

MOSCOW — A transitional government in Kyrgyzstan declared that it was in charge on Thursday, a day after deadly protests forced the president to flee the capital. But the president himself insisted that he would not step down, issuing veiled threats from an unknown location that suggested that the country, the site of a vital American military base, could face renewed instability.

The day’s events were dominated by two compelling and contrary figures in Kyrgyz politics: the interim leader, Roza Otunbayeva, a bespectacled former diplomat who once taught Marxist-Leninist theory before becoming embracing Western mores; and Kurmanbek Bakiyev, the gruff, street-wise president, who boasted in an interview last year that he feared “absolutely nothing.”

Ms. Otunbayeva took the stage first, calling a news conference with her opposition colleagues to issue a series of directives that she said would calm the country after Wednesday’s violence, which left 68 people dead and more than 400 wounded.

“You can call this revolution. You can call this a people’s revolt,” she said. “Either way, it is our way of saying that we want justice and democracy.”

Like her colleagues at the new conference, Ms. Otunbayeva — who once backed Mr. Bakiyev before breaking with him early in his tenure — called for the president to acknowledge that he was through and resign.

But a few hours later, Mr. Bakiyev, 60, emerged from obscurity to make clear that he had no intention of stepping down.

Mr. Bakiyev had quit the capital, Bishkek, on Wednesday after thousands of opposition protesters, infuriated by rising utility costs and a government they saw as repressive and corrupt, seized control of important government buildings, including the television stations.

On Thursday, he issued a statement saying that the opposition was solely responsible for the violence the day before. Then he gave an interview to a radio station in Moscow in which he maintained that he had widespread support among the Kyrgyz people, though he acknowledged that he no longer commanded the government.

“In a few days it will become evident that those who imagined themselves the leaders — they are unable to lead,” he said. “They have pushed the country into such an abyss, into such a mess, that they will have to answer for it.”

All the while, Mr. Bakiyev offered no hint as to his whereabouts. Opposition leaders speculated that he had retreated to the south of Kyrgyzstan, where he has longstanding family ties. They said they were worried that he would try to gather supporters and try to retake the capital,– though that seemed unlikely for now — the armed forces, the security services and the police appear to have pledged loyalty to the interim government.

Mr. Bakiyev’s proclamations seemed to fall on deaf ears in Bishkek, where Ms. Otunbayeva announced that the interim government would administer the affairs of state for six months before presidential elections.

Ms. Otunbayeva said the status of the American military base in Bishkek, which plays an important role in supplying the war effort in Afghanistan, would not immediately change, though she warned that the issue was still being debated in the interim government.

In interviews Thursday, opposition politicians said that Ms. Otunbayeva, a former foreign minister and ambassador to the United States and Britain, was chosen as interim leader because she is considered to be a compromiser who is not politically ambitious and does not have a strong base of domestic support, having spent so many years abroad. The politicians, who would speak only anonymously because the situation was in such flux, said they believed she would be unable to amass power, leaving the field open for the presidential election.

Aleksandr Knyazev, a prominent political expert in Bishkek and a former student of Ms. Otunbayeva, said he thought of her as highly conscientious and honest. He said she seemed more European than Central Asian, and that she speaks better Russian and English than Kyrgyz.

“She does not understand the Kyrgyz mentality, and lacks clan support,” Mr. Knyazev said. “I doubt that she will run for president. Judging by her skills, she would make a good parliament speaker.”

While Kyrgyz politicians struggled for control, the United States and Russia on Thursday also seemed to be maneuvering for advantage in Kyrgyzstan, which is the only country in the world that has both American and Russian military bases. The Kremlin has long been bothered by the presence of the Americans in a region it calls part of its zone of influence.

Mr. Bakiyev had repeatedly sought to pit the United States and Russia against each other in order to extract more financial aid from both. Last year he upset the Kremlin when he agreed to evict the American base, then changed his mind after the Obama administration agreed to a steep increase in the rent and other favors.

In recent months, Mr. Bakiyev’s relations with Russia had collapsed, and the Russian government had increased the cost of energy that it provided to Kyrgyzstan. Russia’s state-controlled news media, which is widely followed in Kyrgyzstan, had also been conducting an intense campaign against Mr. Bakiyev, portraying him as a corrupt dictator.

On Thursday, Russia reached out to the opposition, effectively recognizing it as the government. Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin spoke with Ms. Otunbayeva, and a senior Russian lawmaker, Sergei M. Mironov, called another prominent Kyrgyz interim leader, Omurbek Tekebayev.

It did not appear that the United States took similar steps, though the State Department said diplomats from the United States Embassy in Bishkek were meeting with opposition leaders.

At her news conference, Ms. Otunbayeva said the interim government was examining the agreements governing the American base.

“We still have some questions about it,” she said. “Give us time and we will listen to all the sides and solve everything.”

Mr. Tekebayev said in a telephone interview that any decisions on the base would be made collectively by the opposition. He said he had a positive attitude toward the United States, but acknowledged that the opposition had lingering resentments over what he said was the willingness of American diplomats to overlook Mr. Bakiyev’s human rights record in order to protect the base.

“The U.S. government does not and did not criticize Bakiyev, or express any negative opinions about him,” Mr. Tekebayev said. “The embassy here was warned several days ago that this would happen. They knew it, and they didn’t do anything about it.”

Reporting was contributed by Peter Baker from Prague, Nikolai Khalip from Moscow, Alan Cowell from Paris, and Elisabeth Bumiller from Washington.