FEB. 3 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — The second floor of a madrasah in southern Kyrgyzstan collapsed during a memorial service for a local imam injuring 49 people, local media reported. The accident highlights some of the poor building construction in rural Kyrgyzstan.
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(News report from Issue No. 170, published on Feb. 5 2014)
JAN. 29 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Delegations from Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan continued their discussions on how best to delineate their troublesome border. This was the second Uzbek-Kyrgyz border meeting in January. Last year tension flared between the two sides around a disputed border area.
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(News report from Issue No. 170, published on Feb. 5 2014)
JAN. 27 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyz security forces killed 11 armed men who crossed its north-eastern border with China, media reported. Bandits and smugglers are relatively common along this border. The Kyrgyz authorities initially said the group was made up of ethnic Uyghurs who were looking to smuggle arms back into China.
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(News report from Issue No. 169, published on Jan. 29 2014)
JAN. 28 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Human Rights Watch (HRW) released a report accusing police in Kyrgyzstan of deliberately extorting bribes from gay men. The HRW report accused the police of detaining, beating and raping homosexuals. The Kyrgyz authorities denied the allegations.
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(News report from Issue No. 169, published on Jan. 29 2014)
JAN. 15 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Melis Myrzakmatov, a popular nationalist former mayor of Osh in southern Kyrgyzstan, vowed to fight on after losing a mayoral vote among city lawmakers, creating a headache for the Kyrgyz government.
His ability to whip up popular support was demonstrated immediately after lawmakers had voted 25 to 19 against him in favour of installing the pro-presidential Aitmamat Kadyrbayev as Osh’s mayor.
A crowd of several thousand of Mr Myrzakmatov’s supporters had gathered in central Osh. They were spoiling for a fight and threatened to storm a government building. Reports said several police officers were injured as they held the crowd back.
It was only when Mr Myrzakmatov personally addressed the crowd and asked them to disperse that the tension seeped away. But he did leave a message that might chill the relief felt in Bishkek. Mr Myrzakmatov promised to return to protests once winter had cleared.
Mr Myrzakmatov, who is closely connected to Kyrgyzstan’s former President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, was mayor of Osh from 2009 until December 2013 when he was sacked for attending anti-government rallies.
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(News report from Issue No. 168, published on Jan. 22 2014)
JAN. 20 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Reports from the Kyrgyzstan-Tajikistan border said tension remained high between the two sides following a shootout that injured several soldiers earlier this month. Radio Free Europe also reported that Kyrgyzstan had called up reservists living in the area for a three day military exercise.
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(News report from Issue No. 168, published on Jan. 22 2014)
JAN. 11 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Border guards from Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan fired at each other in a relatively rare skirmish. Several soldiers from both sides were injured in the firefight, media reported, and Kyrgyzstan later recalled its ambassador from Dushanbe. Tension has been escalating along the Kyrgyz-Tajik border for months.
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(News report from Issue No. 167, published on Jan. 15 2014)
JAN. 7 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — A secretly filmed sex video involving Kyrgyz Grand Mufti Rakhmatulla-Hajji Egemberdiev has rocked Kyrgyzstan’s establishment.
The video of Mr Egemberdiev having sex with a younger woman appeared on the internet on New Year’s Eve. His opponents accused him of adultery and organised street demonstrations, common in Kyrgyzstan, to force him to resign.
After a week of resistance, Mr Egemberdiev handed in his resignation. He blamed his opponents for setting up a trap and called on the government to intervene.
The whole tawdry episode means that Kyrgyzstan now has to look for its seventh religious leader in four years — a destabilising effect that even a more secure country would have problems dealing with. Mr Egemberdiev’s predecessor was sacked a year ago because of tax evasion issues.
It also throws up the issue of polygamy in Kyrgyzstan. This is technically banned but is still relatively commonplace in Kyrgyzstan and is accepted in the Sufi form of Islam.
Mr Egemberdiev’s defence was that the woman in the video was one of his additional wives.
The destabilising effect of losing another religious leader, the political in-fighting and open debate about polygamy means it’s been a messy start to the year for Kyrgyzstan.
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(News report from Issue No. 166, published on Jan. 8 2014)
JAN. 7 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyzstan’s government was set to discuss a tentative deal with Toronto-listed Centerra Gold over joint ownership of the Kumtor gold mine. The discussion may resolve the long-running ownership dispute. Kyrgyzstan could potentially swap its 32.7% stake in Centerra Gold for a 50% stake directly in Kumtor.
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(News report from Issue No. 166, published on Jan. 8 2014)
DEC. 11 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyzstan’s parliament agreed to sell the debt-ridden Kyrgyzgaz to Russian gas monopoly Gazprom for a symbolic $1. The deal increases the Kremlin’s leverage over Kyrgyzstan. Gazprom has pledged to spend about $610m modernising Kyrgyzgaz and has guaranteed gas supplies to Kyrgyzstan for a year.
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(News report from Issue No. 165, published on Dec. 18 2013)
