DEC. 17 2010 (The Conway Bulletin) — Three political parties in Kyrgyzstan formed a coalition government, the first under a new constitution that shifted power to parliament from the president. Almazbek Atambayev, leader of the Social Democrats and an ally of President Roza Otunbayeva, will become the prime minister and head of a coalition with Respublika and Ata Zhurt.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 20, published on Dec. 20 2010)
DEC. 8 2010 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyzstan established a new government-run company to supply fuel to the US airbase outside Bishkek. An opaque firm
registered in Gibraltar with links to the son of ousted President Kurmanbek Bakiyev had previous controlled lucrative contracts to supply fuel to the base, which is vital to NATO operations in Afghanistan.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 19, published on Dec. 13 2010)
DEC. 1 2010 (The Conway Bulletin) — US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton led the
United States delegation to the OSCE summit in Kazakhstan and then visited Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan before heading off to Bahrain. In Tashkent, Ms Clinton said Uzbekistan needed to improve its human rights record.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 18, published on Dec. 6 2010)
DEC. 3 2010 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyzstan’s new Parliament narrowly failed to elect Omurbek Tekebayev, head of the Ata Meken party, as its speaker. The loss triggered the collapse of a three-party coalition which had hoped to form a new government.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 18, published on Dec. 6 2010)
DEC. 6 2010 (The Conway Bulletin) — Perhaps US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke too soon.
“There are many who say parliamentary democracy, true parliamentary democracy, cannot work in Central Asia or in many other places in the world,” Ms Clinton said in Bishkek on Dec. 2.
“We reject that and we think Kyrgyzstan has proven that it can.”
The next day, a three-party coalition set up on Nov. 30 to form a government collapsed when its candidate to become parliament’s speaker, Omurbek Tekebayev, failed to secure the necessary majority in a parliamentary vote. Mr Tekebayev won 58 out of 120 votes.
The defeat undermined Social Democratic party leader Almazbek Atambayev, a close ally of President Roza Otunbayeva, who wanted to become the PM and head of a government coalition with the Respublika party and Ata Meken.
Kyrgyzstan — notoriously fractious and unstable — is now running out of time to form a government since an indecisive election on Oct. 10.
The Ata Zhurt party, dominated by politicians from the south and opposed to constitutional reform away from a presidential system, won the most votes but has been excluded from potential coalitions. And so on Dec. 4 Ms Otunbayeva turned to the head of the Respublika party, Omurbek Babanov, and asked him to patch together a coalition government within three weeks.
This is the Kyrgyz parliament’s second coalition building effort — under Kyrgyzstan’s new constitution, three failures triggers new elections.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 18, published on Dec. 6 2010)
NOV. 24 2010 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in the southern Kyrgyz city of Osh sentenced 17 ethnic Uzbeks to life in prison and two more to 25 years for the murder of 16 Kyrgyz during rioting in June. About 370 mainly ethnic Uzbeks died in the ethnic violence. Human rights groups have said Uzbeks are being blamed unfairly for the violence.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 17, published on Nov. 29 2010)
NOV. 28 2010 (The Conway Bulletin) – A confidential cable written by the US ambassador in Bishkek in Feb. 2009 to her bosses in Washington quoted Kyrgyz officials saying that China had offered Kyrgyzstan $3b to close down the US airbase outside Bishkek. The cable was one of 291 published so far by WikiLeaks.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 17, published on Nov. 29 2010)
NOV. 25 2010 (The Conway Bulletin) – The heads of governments of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation member states met in Dushanbe to discuss increasing humanitarian and economic cooperation. They were candid about the results other than to say they had agreed to boost regional aid. Founded in 2001, the SCO consists of China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Mongolia, India, Pakistan and Iran hold observer status and attended the meeting.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
NOV. 29 2010 (The Conway Bulletin) – WikiLeaks has released 291 out of a promised 251,287 US diplomatic cables.
Of those 291 documents, five originated from Astana, two from Bishkek and four from Ashgabat. Perhaps the most inflammatory revelation is the Feb. 2009 cable from the US ambassador in Bishkek who confronted the Chinese ambassador over Kyrgyz claims that China had offered them $3b to close the US airbase outside Bishkek.
The base is vital for resupplying NATO forces in Afghanistan. According to the leaked cable, the Chinese Ambassador’s denial was unconvincing.
A cable from Jan. 2010 documented a lunch between the U.S. ambassador in Astana and the vice president of Kazmunaigas, Maksat Idenov, who named the men he thought were closest to Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev.
They were Chief of the president’s staff Aslan Musin, the Chief of administration of the president’s office Sarybai Kalmurzayev, foreign minister Kanat Saudabayev, PM Karim Masimov and Mr Nazarbayev’s son-in-law Timur Kulibayev.
A cable from Kazakhstan in April 2009 written by the US ambassador on Kazakh officials said: “they’re stealing directly from the public trough”, another cable detailed the elite’s drinking habits and another cable described a fractious meeting between executives from Chevron and Kazmunaigas.
One cable also gave a detailed account of a meeting with the Chinese ambassador in Astana and his views on Central Asia, China’s energy policy in the region and his description of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili as “not a mature statesman”.
From Ashgabat, a cable described an arms find at the border with Iran.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 17, published on Nov. 29 2010)
NOV. 29 2010 (The Conway Bulletin) – In the wake of WikiLeaks’ publication of confidential files from US Embassies around the world, US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton will visit Central Asia this week. She flies to Kazakhstan for an OSCE summit on Dec. 1, 2010 and then visits Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan before flying on to Bahrain.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 17, published on Nov. 29 2010)
