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Ex- Kyrgyz President accuses US

SEPT. 15 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Ex-Kyrgyz President Askar Akayev lodged accusations of drug smuggling against NATO forces that used the Manas airbase in Kyrgyzstan for their mission in Afghanistan. US forces agreed to lease the Manas airbase in Dec. 2001 and left in June 2014.Mr Akayev served as president of Kyrgyzstan from 1990 to 2005, when he was unseated during a revolution.

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(News report from Issue No. 296, published on Sept. 16 2016)

Inflation to top 10% in Azerbaijan

SEPT. 15 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Annualised inflation in Azerbaijan remained above 10% in August as the country continued to cope with the price increases linked to the Central Bank’s decision to abandon the currency peg to the US dollar in December, the Statistics Committee said. In Jan.-Aug. 2016 inflation amounted to 10.8%, in annualised terms it was 10.6%.

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(News report from Issue No. 296, published on Sept. 16 2016)

Uyghurs in Kyrgyzstan worry about terrorist

BISHKEK, SEPT. 15 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The sizable Uyghur community in Kyrgyzstan’s capital is increasingly worried by being labelled as terrorists after a suicide bomb against the Chinese Embassy this month.

Local state authorities described a suicide bomber as a member of the so-called Islamic Movement of Eastern Turkestan which wants independence for China’s eastern province of Xinjiang. Now local Uyghurs have said that they are worried about the impact the suicide bomb will have on relations with ordinary Kyrgyz.

“Honestly, I did not understand what the reason for this terror act was,” Malika, 23, a Uyghur working in a Bishkek market, told The Bulletin. “It’s bad that people think of Uyghurs as terrorists.”

There are more than 60,000 ethnic Uyghurs living in Kyrgyzstan, most working in trade and business. They are generally well regarded with a reputation for staying out of politics and producing good food. Many Uyghurs work in local bazaars where they sell fabrics from China.

There are also significant Uyghur communities in Kyrgyzstan’s east which borders China and in Kazakhstan.

The Chinese have blamed Uyghurs for a series of attacks in Xinjiang province over the past few years but this is the first attack against a Chinese target in Central Asia.

There have not previously been indicators that the Uyghur community in Central Asia was particularly militant and the suicide attacks appeared to have shocked and surprised them as much as they did the Kyrgyz authorities.

“Why? What is the reason for this attack? All my relatives are talking about it right now,” said Ikhtiyar, 22, with a note of exasperation.

“I do not think that attitudes to Uyghurs will be changed now. Right- minded people understand that terrorism does not have nationality.”

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(News report from Issue No. 296, published on Sept. 16 2016)

Azerbaijan releases opposition figure

SEPT. 14 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijani authorities released from prison opposition activist Natig Jafarli, of the Republican Alternative Movement, arrested for financial crimes on Aug. 12. Before his arrest, Mr Jafarli’s organisation had won a grant from the US-based National Democratic Institute. The leader of Republican Alternative, Ilgar Mammadov, remains in prison. He was arrested in 2013 on charges of inciting mass violence. Human rights lobby groups, the US government and the Council of Europe have called repeatedly for his release.

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(News report from Issue No. 296, published on Sept. 16 2016)

Turkmen President opens giant hotel

SEPT. 10 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmen President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov opened the largest hotel in the resort town of Avaza, on the Caspian Sea coast, local media reported. Shaped like a cruise ship, the new five-star hotel cost over $100m to build. The new hotel represents just the latest symbol of Mr Berdymukhamedov’s cult of personality in Turkmenistan.

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(News report from Issue No. 296, published on Sept. 16 2016)

Kazakhstan’s Kashagan close to opening

SEPT. 13 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan’s energy minister, Kanat Bozumbayev, said that production at the offshore oil field of Kashagan will resume on October 23, three years after its sudden interruption due to leaky pipes. Kashagan, discovered in 2000, is one of the largest finds in the oil industry’s recent history. Its reopening has been touted as crucial to give the Kazakh energy sector the boost it needs to move into the World’s premier division of producers.

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(News report from Issue No. 296, published on Sept. 16 2016)

New Georgian TV drama depicts prison torture under Saakashvili

TBILISI, SEPT. 14 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Herokratia, a fictional TV series based on prison tortures and government crimes that occurred under the government of former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, started broadcasting on prime time television, barely a month before Georgians vote in an acrimonious and bad-tempered election.

In the series, Mr Saakashvili, who is now the governor of the Odessa region in Ukraine, is portrayed as a megalomaniac living a life of opulent luxury while beatings are handed out casually, and brutally, in prisons.

The producer Goga Khaindrava, is known as a vocal opponent of Mr Saakashvili.

He said it was important to document the abuse.

“The main idea of this film is for people to really acknowledge what kind of disaster we went through,” he was quoted by journalists as saying. “People don’t know what kind of hell some people went through.”

The series has been paid for by former PM Bidzina Ivanishvili, Georgia’s richest man and Mr Saakashvili’s sworn opponent, and is being broadcast on his son’s TV stations.

Mr Ivanishvili has previously commissioned documentaries on brutality in prison under Mr Saakashvili’s administration. The timing appears designed to undermine the remnants of his UNM party ahead of a parliamentary election in October.

Ketino, the owner of a bakery shop, said that during Mr Saakashvili’s period in power people lived in constant fear.

“It is necessary to show what this beast did, as it was necessary after WWII to show what the Fascists and the Nazis did in order not to forget,” she said.

Lasha, a 35 years old resident of Tbilisi, said the beatings were commonly known among people.

“Everybody knew what was going on in our prisons and still, the Americans sand the EU did nothing,” he said.

Mr Saakashvili is perceived in Georgia as being too pro-EU and US and too anti-Russia.

He was blamed for taking Georgia into a disastrous five-day war against Russia in 2008.

Investigations have shown that beatings did take place in prisons under Mr Saakashvili’s administration. Some officials have been imprisoned and the authorities have said that they want Mr Saakashvili to stand trial.

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(News report from Issue No. 296, published on Sept. 16 2016)

Kazakh President visits Karimov’s grave

SEPT. 12 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev flew into Samarkand to pay his respects to recently- deceased Islam Karimov, former Uzbek president. At the time of Karimov’s funeral on Sept. 3, Mr Nazarbayev was attending a G20 summit in China. During the visit, Mr Nazarbayev met with Uzbekistan’s acting president Shavkat Mirziyoyev.

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(News report from Issue No. 296, published on Sept. 16 2016)

Comment: Uzbekistan’s smooth power transition

SEPT. 16 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – In some quarters it had been feared that Islam Karimov’s death in Uzbekistan would set off instability in Central Asia’s largest country as rival groups battled for control. So far, though, the power transition in Uzbekistan since Karimov’s death on Sept. 2 has been smooth.

Shavkat Mirziyoyev, the former PM, has been installed as acting president and will, presumably, be given the job on a full-time basis at an election in December. There is still some time before his coronation can be complete but, so far, there doesn’t appear to be any other actors coming to the fore to challenge Mirziyoyev’s ascension.

There are several striking characteristic about the smooth Uzbek power shift. Firstly, it appears to have been well-organised and well-rehearsed before Karimov’s death. The authorities were able to control the information flow, apparently even delaying the official announcement of Karimov’s death until they were ready, put together a state funeral and arrange for the Speaker of the Senate to decline taking over in favour of Mirziyoyev.

There was planning and agreement in all this. Deals were made on how to retain power and status in Uzbekistan well before Karimov died.

And the second point is that Karimov must have been in on it.

He must have agreed to this succession process while he was alive. It appears that he finally gave up on the idea of installing his favourite daughter, Gulnara, as his successor in 2014. She was deeply unpopular with ordinary Uzbeks and the elite may have considered her a liability that they wanted to get out of the way before dealing with the succession issue.

Their chance came in 2013 and 2014 with corruption accusations linked to Western telecoms companies which had paid out bribes to the Karimovs seven years earlier to access the Uzbek market. The Uzbek elite were then able to imprison Gulnara’s supporters and place her under house arrest. She has not been seen or heard of since.

March 2014, marked the real transition of power in Uzbekistan. Karimov was unable to protect his daughter and most probably had to go along with plans devised by the Uzbek elite to hold on to power.

And their plan meant stripping the Karimov family of power.

In Uzbekistan this month we have seen the natural culmination of what is effectively an internal Uzbek regime change.

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(News report from Issue No. 296, published on Sept. 16 2016)

Russia to increase gas supplies from Uzbekistan

SEPT. 13 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Russia has intensified talks to increase gas supplies from Uzbekistan, as it looks to buy more Central Asian gas. Alexei Miller, chairman of Russia’s gas company Gazprom, met with Alisher Sultanov, his counterpart from Uzbekistan’s state-owned energy company Uzbekneftegaz, in Moscow. Last year, Gazprom imported 6.4b cubic metres of Uzbek gas. Gazprom has been steadily increasing its dealings with Uzbekistan, once seen as the most awkward of the Central Asian states. The death this month of Uzbek Pres. Islam Karimov may also improve bilateral relations.

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(News report from Issue No. 296, published on Sept. 16 2016)