Uprising in Kyrgyzstan

Lee Sustar looks at the background to the rebellion that swept out a Central
Asian autocrat with close ties to the U.S. government.

April 9, 2010

THE MASS revolt that toppled the autocratic president of Kyrgyzstan had its
roots in the impoverishment of the mass of the population and growing
discontent over repression and human rights violations.

Predictably, many commentators in the U.S. press focused on the implications
for the U.S. airbase in the town of Manas, a critical part of the supply
chain for the U.S. war in Afghanistan.

Some pundits have pointed the finger at Russia, which was upset over the
pro-U.S. tilt of the ousted Kyrgyzstan President Kurmanbek Bakiyev. But
Russian President Dimitri Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin couldn't
have been pleased by the sight of demonstrators who defied the police, seized
their weapons, and stormed the parliament and the presidential palace.

Anxieties will be greater still in the presidential palaces of the
neighboring Central Asian states of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and
Turkmenistan, where despots fear a similar mass rebellion.

Thus, a popular revolt in a country of just 5 million people has sent shock
waves through the region. As Russian author and activist Boris Kagarlitsky
said in an interview from Moscow:

>This was more of a social uprising then a revolution. There is a lot of
>unrest. But while people are rebelling against the current regime, they have
>no trust in the opposition, either. It is a social uprising with very little
>political perspective. Sooner or later, one or another group of elites will
>take over, because there is no other political force capable of doing so.
>
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THE UPRISING comes almost exactly five years after Kyrgyzstan's 2005 Tulip
Revolution ousted Askar Akayev, who had ruled the country since its
declaration of independence amid the breakup of the former USSR in 1991.

The Tulip Revolution followed a split in the ruling class. Where previous
"color" revolutions in the ex-USSR states of Ukraine and Georgia had been
largely peaceful--and heavily influenced by non-governmental organizations
with ties to the U.S.--the Tulip Revolution involved more violent social
clashes.

Bakiyev, a former stalwart of the Akayev regime turned oppositionist, took
office promising a new era of democracy and social justice.

Once in power, however, Bakiyev soon followed the pattern of other Central
Asian strongmen. He ousted opponents within the elite--including the head of
the new provisional government, Roza Otunbayeva--and used his political
connections to amass personal wealth. Bakiyev's reelection in 2009 was widely
denounced as fraudulent, and anger mounted over his effort to groom his son
to succeed him in office.

The uprising forced Bakiyev to flee the capital city of Bishkek by airplane.
While he hasn't officially conceded power--he's reportedly holed up somewhere
in the country, plotting a comeback--he has been effectively ousted by a
rebellion with much deeper social roots than the Tulip Revolution.

Eyewitness accounts of the uprising make that clear. Kyrgyz journalist Kumar
Bekbolotov described how the rebellion unfolded [1]:

>A crowd began to gather around an old bus stop in an industrial area near
>downtown Bishkek. Several speakers stepped up, rousing the group of 500 with
>impromptu remarks about the events unfolding in Talas, a northern region of
>Kyrgyzstan, where protesters had stormed a local government building and
>declared popular rule.
>
>As the crowd grew excited, the riot police circled the buses--wielding
>batons, shields and, in some cases, angry dogs. Without warning, they moved
>on the crowd in a neat rectangular-shaped formation, rounding them up and
>pushing them toward the buses.
>
>It seemed like a routine police operation. But this was no ordinary day.
>Suddenly, a large group of young protesters, screaming and shouting, tore
>through the police ranks, raced across the street, grabbed rocks and
>attacked. Several policemen lost their batons and helmets in the ensuing
>melee. By day's end, the fracas had drawn crowds of 10,000 to 15,000,
>claimed the lives of scores of protesters, toppled a president--and altered
>a country's destiny.
>
Braving police gunfire that killed at least 75 people and wounded hundreds
more, the crowds stormed the presidential palace and parliament on April 7.
Shops were targeted, too, as poor and hungry people seized the food and goods
they couldn't afford.

Luke Harding, a reporter for Britain's /Guardian/ newspaper, wrote that while
the opposition claimed to be in charge of a provisional government, the real
power was with the people [2]:

>Out on the streets...there were few signs that the new regime was in control
>of anything. The police and security forces appeared to be hiding. Large
>crowds milled around the Soviet-era, fir-tree-lined boulevards, forming and
>reforming revolutionary huddles. Dozens of shops had been looted. Burned out
>cars littered the pavements.
>
>The main government building was on fire, with thick, black smoke pouring
>out of its upper floors. Hundreds of looters gathered near the White House
>presidential building. The shells of trucks and a tractor lay next to
>destroyed railings. Youths perched on an armored personnel carrier, seized
>yesterday from government troops.
>
>By late afternoon, the general prosecutor's office was gutted, with gangs
>roaming around inside, smashing windows with broken-off table legs. Sheets
>of paper--followed by a fig plant--fell from a balcony. At the parliament
>building, opposition workers were tossing posters of Bakiyev into the
>street...
>
>Much of the frustration directed at the ousted government has stemmed from
>Bakiyev's appointment of many of his family members to key government
>positions. In particular, his younger son, Maxim, was widely detested.
>
>Inside Maxim Bakiyev's wrecked and burned mansion, a stream of looters and
>the merely curious trampled over beds of broken glass. On the wall, someone
>had written: "Fuck you." Nearby, they had added: "Death to Maxim!" A couple
>of fir trees were still left in the beds. But the others had all gone,
>transplanted--like the rest of Kyrgyzstan--to a new and uncertain future.
>
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ONE SPARK for the revolt was a big increase in electricity and water prices
that would hammer a population already reeling from the economic crisis. The
Kyrgyzstan economy contracted by 1 percent last year, forcing an increasing
number to emigrate to Russia in the hope of finding jobs that pay just $300
per month. Remittances from emigrants account for 20 percent of Kyrgyzstan's
Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

The other mainstays of the economy are exports of gold and agricultural
products, principally tobacco. Child labor is widespread, especially on
farms.

But the miserable economy is only part of the story. Political life in
Kyrgyzstan had grown intolerable, not just for the elite opposition, but also
for journalists, pro-democracy activists and anyone who happened to cross the
Bakiyev clan and its hangers-on. The summary of the U.S. State Department's
report on Kyrgyzstan [3] in its annual survey of human rights makes that
clear:

>The following human rights problems were reported: restrictions on citizens'
>right to change their government; arbitrary killing, torture and abuse by
>law enforcement officials; impunity; poor prison conditions; arbitrary
>arrest and detention; lack of judicial independence; pressure on
>nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and opposition leaders, including
>government harassment; pressure on independent media; government detention
>of assembly organizers; authorities' failure to protect refugees adequately;
>pervasive corruption; discrimination against women, persons with
>disabilities, ethnic and religious minorities, and other persons based on
>sexual orientation or gender identity; child abuse; trafficking in persons;
>and child labor.
>
But the actions of the U.S. government speak louder than its words.

In early 2009, when Bakiyev lined up $2.8 billion in loans and aid from
Russia and announced the closure of the U.S. airbase in Manas, Washington
responded with more money and political support. Bakiyev not only extended
the U.S. lease on the airbase, but recently agreed to allow the U.S. military
to establish an "anti-terrorism" training center in southern Kyrgyzstan.

Less than three weeks before Bakiyev's overthrow, the head of U.S. Central
Command, David Petraeus, was in Kyrgyzstan to show U.S. support for the
government. Having already tripled its annual rent for the Manas airbase to
$60 million per year--a big sum for a small, poor country--Petraeus was now
prepared to pay $5.5 million to the government for the training center, which
would formally belong to the Kyrgyzstan military.

Having played off the U.S. against Russia, Bakiyev was confident that it was
time to tighten his grip on power.

Less than two weeks before he was overthrown, he stated at a national
political gathering [4], "The world is actively discussing the shortcomings
of a model of democracy based on elections and human rights. There is no
certainty that such a model is suitable for all countries and peoples."

Bakiyev's tilt back toward the U.S. didn't save him, of course. And Vladimir
Putin's rush to telephone interim government leader Roza Otunbayeva might
suggest that the opposition running Kyrgyzstan's new government is aligned
with Moscow in the "Great Game" of imperial rivalry in Central Asia.

The reality, however, is more complicated. Certainly Russia--which has an
airbase of its own in Kyrgyzstan, about 20 miles away from Manas--will be
keen to influence the new government. But while Otunbayeva was educated in
Moscow and was a diplomat for the old USSR, she also has longstanding ties to
the U.S., having been Kyrgyzstan's ambassador in Washington.

Thus, one of her first statements as head of the new government was to assure
the U.S. that the Manas base would function as usual. Otunbayeva and her
faction of the elite are likely to continue to try and balance between Russia
and the U.S.

Boris Kagarlitsky said that the U.S. and Russia would both have to take a
wait-and-see approach in Kyrgyzstan, since neither has much leverage. "Both
Moscow and Washington are really interested in Kyrgyzstan, but lack any tools
of control at the moment," he said. "All they can do is just flirt with
specific groups of elites."

The question now is whether the mass of people who participated in the
uprising--and who suffered a terrible loss of life in the process--will be
satisfied with the new government. Otunbayeva has pledged to convene a
constituent assembly to draft a new constitution and hold elections in six
months. But the people are also in desperate need of jobs and economic
security.

And what's more, they've showed their power. As Kagarlitsky pointed out, the
uprising in Kyrgyzstan will reverberate across Central Asia. "This is
definitely the beginning of the destabilization of the region," he said. "It
will have a domino effect in the long term. In the short term, the Central
Asian leaders will tighten the screws, which will lead to more control and
more authoritarianism. The question is how far these regimes will go."

Pakistan's /Daily Times/ made a similar point [5]:

>The masses, fed up with the denial of their rights, across-the-board
>corruption and profiteering, tailored alterations of the constitution to
>suit whosoever usurps power, a lack of basic amenities and skyrocketing
>inflation, hold the power to exhibit an extreme degree of pent-up animosity.
>The Pakistani public, too, has been alerted, not just to its rights but also
>of the blatant denial of them.
>
>As can be seen in these latest developments in Kyrgyzstan, it is the people
>who bring about a change once the limit of their patience has been reached.
>
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[1] http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-04-08/how-the-uprising-happened/
[2] http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/apr/08/kyrgyzstan-revolt-over-kurmanbek-bakiyev
[3] http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2009/sca/136089.htm
[4] http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2010/03/24/kyrgyz_revolution_leaves_legacy_of_oppression/
[5] http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2010%5C04%5C09%5Cstory_9-4-2010_pg3_1
[6] http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0