Tag Archives: Kyrgyzstan

Border police stops Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan bound trucks

JULY 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Russian border police stopped 43 goods trucks travelling from Ukraine to Central Asia at the border with Belarus. The trucks were bound for Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, but were stopped because of new Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) regulation that appears designed as a retaliation forWestern imposed sanctions on Russia. The EEU is a Russia-led economic bloc that includes Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Armenia and Belarus.

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(News report from Issue No. 288, published on July 8 2016)

Kyrgyz government strips interior ministry of control over powerful units

BISHKEK, JULY 4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Looking to subvert its growing influence ahead of a presidential election next year, the Kyrgyz government stripped the ministry of interior of some control over its most powerful units.

The reform reshuffled government units, awarding more independence to departments responsible for combating terrorism, drug trafficking and cracking down on economic crimes. The Prosecutor-General has also been stripped of its power to launch independent investigations.

Pres. Almazbek Atambayev said the reforms will strengthen the law.

“Today’s decision can be called historic. The law enforcement system reform should strengthen law and order, so that ordinary citizens, business, and investments are protected by the law,” media quoted him as saying at a government meeting.

Analysts were more circumspect. Bishkek-based political analyst Mars Sariyev said that changes looked designed to subvert an increasingly difficult-to-control security system.

“The security authorities had tried to undermine the power of some interest groups and their political ambitions,” he said.

And another, anonymous, analyst said the changes were probably linked to the departure last month of Melis Turganbayev as Kyrgyzstan’s interior minister who was considered by government ministers as manoeuvring to position himself as a potential next president.

“There is no doubt that he was a very big political figure and that he was probably forced to leave to help bring the ministry of internal affairs more under the control of the government,” he said.

Kyrgyzstan is due to hold a presidential election in 2017.

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(News report from Issue No. 288, published on July 8 2016)

Kyrgyzstan wants to import electricity from Tajikistan

JULY 6 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyzstan wants to import 1.5-2m kWh of electricity every day from Tajikistan over the summer, Aleksey Borodin, deputy director of National Electric Network, told local media, another sign that its power generating systems are not operating at their expected levels. In 2015, Kyrgyzstan imported 146m kWh from Tajikistan, before they halted trade because of the completion of theDatka-Kemin transmission line in Kyrgyzstan which was supposed to ensure the country’s energy independence.

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(News report from Issue No. 288, published on July 8 2016)

Comment: US foreign policy in C.Asia & the S.Caucasus

JULY 8 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — John Kerry’s visit to Georgia on Wednesday was the first visit by a US Secretary of State to the South Caucasus in four years. And, importantly, the visit was tied not to the region as a whole, but to a NATO summit that Mr Kerry will attend in Poland today, July 8.

Mr Kerry has only visited our patch once, in November 2015, when he toured all five Central Asian states.

This compares to the frequent visits of his predecessor and now presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who visited the Central Asia and South Caucasus region four times, perhaps because of a stronger US interest in Afghanistan and the need to show support to South Caucasus countries over their relationship with Russia and Europe.

President Barack Obama’s second term, which started in 2013, has been marked by a slow disengagement from the region. This included giving up the Manas air base near Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, in mid-2014, once the main jumping off point for forces heading to Afghanistan but not needed once US engagement dropped off. In July 2015, the State Department also awarded jailed Kyrgyzstani human rights defender Azimzhan Askarov a human rights prize, prompting an official complaint from Kyrgyzstan.

The NATO-driven engagement in Georgia also waned, especially after President Mikhail Saakashvili lost power in 2013. Georgia is now possibly the furthest it’s ever been from joining the military alliance.

US diplomatic relations with Azerbaijan have also worsened, after President Ilham Aliyev’s re-election in 2013 and the increasingly harsh crackdown on political opposition and media freedom, including expelling the US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty from Baku.

And Mr Kerry’s demeanor has also betrayed lack of interest. Soon after his appointment, in Feb. 2013, he referred to Kyrgyzstan as “Kyrzakhstan” at a press conference. Both the US diplomatic attitude and resource allocation show that it is losing ground in Central Asia and the South Caucasus to Russia, China and Iran, who have proved able to pay for the soft power in cash, investing in infrastructure, financial and energy projects.

Next year the State Department plans to allocate around $240m to the region, around 1/3 more than in 2015. Still, more funding does not necessarily mean more engagement.

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(News report from Issue No. 288, published on July 8 2016)

Kyrgyz and Tajiks were part of airport attack, says Erdogan

BISHKEK, JULY 5 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Tajiks and Kyrgyz were part of the group that planned an attack on Istanbul airport last week, again highlighting the Central Asian link to radical Islam.

Turkish security forces have arrested around 30 people, including Kyrgyz and Tajiks, and accused them of plotting the attack that killed at least 44 people and wounded over 200 on June 28.

Mr Erdogan accused the IS radical group of the attack.

“We have arrested 30 people related to the terrorist attack. We are dealing with natives of Dagestan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan,” Mr Erdogan said.

Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan said they would investigate Mr Erdogan’s accusations.

The Istanbul attack has highlighted Central Asia as a growing recruitment centre for Islamic extremists. It is unclear whether Central Asians become radicalised in their own country or in Russia, but their growing presence in Syria’s IS training camps is undisputed.

In an effort to crush radicalism, Central Asian governments have cracked down on Islamic opposition, including ordinary, peaceful and pious Muslims, often enflaming tension.

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(News report from Issue No. 288, published on July 8 2016)

Merkel to visit Kyrgyzstan

JULY 7 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — German Chancellor Angela Merkel will visit Kyrgyzstan on July 13-14 on her first-ever visit to the Central Asian country. President Almazbek Atambayev’s press office said that the leaders will discuss cooperation between Kyrgyzstan and Germany. The last timeMs Merkel metMr Atambayev was in Istanbul in May, on the sidelines of a UN-sponsored meeting.

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(News report from Issue No. 288, published on July 8 2016)

Kyrgyz President releases song

JULY 2 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev released a music video in which he sings a melancholic ballad. Mr Atambayev also wrote the Russian-language song, entitled ‘In spite of fate’. Mr Atambayev does not appear in the video which features scenes from a Soviet-era movie. Five days later, Mr Atambayev released a second music video.

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(News report from Issue No. 288, published on July 8 2016)

Kyrgyzstan jails official

JUNE 30 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kylychbek Arpachiev, the former head of the investigations department at the Kyrgyz Prosecutor-General’s office, was jailed for 14 years for corruption and extortion. Arpachiev was arrested in 2015 for trying to extort $100,000. His imprisonment highlights the issue of corrupt officials in Kyrgyzstan.

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(News report from Issue No. 287, published on July 1 2016)

Turkey says two Kyrgyz and Uzbek citizens attacked Istanbul airport

BISHKEK, JUNE 30 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkish security forces said that two of the three attackers at Istanbul’s international airport on Tuesday were from Central Asia, highlighting Islamic extremist recruitment in the region.

At least 44 people died and another 240 people were injured when the three attackers opened fire with machine guns outside the terminal building and then blew themselves up. Nobody has claimed responsibility, although the radical IS group is the main suspect.

The Turkish government has now said one of the attackers was from the North Caucasus and the others were from Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. Uzbekistan has not commented; Kyrgyzstan initially denied a connection.

But analysts said that if two of the attackers were proved to be from Central Asia, it would show the increasingly effective recruitment network IS has developed in the region.

Anna Matveeva of King’s College London said Central Asia had become one of IS’s main recruitment pools because of its various social problems and the marginalisation of pious Muslims.

“Radicalisation and violence is definitely on the rise in Central Asia,” she said. “I think this phenomenon is growing.”

Central Asian governments are worried about the rise in IS recruitment in the area.

In 2015, a senior Tajik police commander defected to IS. Last month, the Kazakh government blamed an attack in Aktobe, in the northwest of the country, on a group which had links with Syria.

Analysts have said part of the problem is that security forces in Central Asia don’t coordinate effectively.

Kate Mallinson, a Central Asia analyst at London-based GPW, said if proved that two of the Istanbul attackers were from Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan there was likely to be a reaction by the security forces.

“The tragic attack in Istanbul will give the Central Asian governments further carte blanche in their application of punitive measures against Islamic movements in the Central Asian region,” she said.

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(News report from Issue No. 287, published on July 1 2016)

Pen Portrait: Kyrgyz rights activist: Azimzhan Askarov

JULY 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – In Kyrgyzstan and abroad, Azimzhan Askarov divides opinion.

Charged with inciting ethnic hatred and participating in the murder of a police officer, Askarov was imprisoned for life in the south of Kyrgyzstan in 2010 after ethnic fighting killed nearly 400 people in the city of Osh.

It was a angry time, only a few months after a violent revolution, that enflamed historic, simmering tension between the two ethnic groups. Askarov’s supporters said that the charges had been fabricated and in July 2015, he received a human rights prize from the US State Department, an award that prompted the Kyrgyz government to downgrade diplomatic ties with Washington.

Now, after pressure from the UN, Kyrgyzstan has agreed to look again at his sentence.

Askarov, 65, was born in Kyrgyzstan into an Uzbek family. He studied in Tashkent before returning to Kyrgyzstan to work as a human rights advocate.

In 2002, Askarov founded the NGO Vozdukh (“air”) to investigate police brutality. According to local accounts, when challenged on why he had chosen to spend his life in the unglamorous, under-paid and dangerous world of human rights in Central Asia, he would say that “human rights are as indispensable as the air”.

Human rights lobby groups said at the time of his trial in 2010 that Askarov has been beaten and mistreated while in detention. Despite several attempts to reverse the sentence, the Supreme Court upheld the decision to keep Askarov in prison for life in 2011.

His supporters said that the state apparatus was working against him to crush a government opponent. The United States agreed but Kyrgyzstan wouldn’t budge. The tipping point came when the United Nations Human Rights Commission said that Askarov had been tortured and mistreated ahead of the trial and called the Kyrgyz authorities to release him.

Surprisingly, this time, the Kyrgyz Supreme Court listened and said it would look at the sentence again in July.

The question now, though, is whether the Supreme Court will seriously consider releasing Askarov over mistreatment before his trial in 2010, a move that would anger and irritate many Kyrgyz politicians who view him with suspicion.

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(News report from Issue No. 287, published on July 1 2016)