Tag Archives: politics

Kyrgyzstan meets Soros with protests

NOV. 17 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Pro-Russian demonstrators in Bishkek protested against a visit to Kyrgyzstan by US billionaire philanthropist George Soros, an unusual welcome for a man who spends millions of dollars on the country each year.

Up to 170 protesters, including the head of Kyrgyzstan’s only real Communist Party, carried slogans such as “USA – Get your hands off sovereign Kyrgyzstan” and “Soros – Let us live in peace and friendship”.

Mr Soros, a US citizen, was in Bishkek for the first time in 10 years to meet with representatives of his Open Society Foundation and President Almazbek Atambayev.

The Open Society’s budget for 2013 was $2.2 million, mostly spent on health, education and governance programs. State-controlled Russian news outlet RIA Novosti made little mention of the foundation’s work but applauded the protests, noting spuriously that Soros’ last visit to the country in 2004 was accompanied by a revolution the following year.

“Of course, there is no direct proof that he came to realise different aims. However, there is no reason to believe a citizen of the United States,” the RIA-Novosti report said.

At their meeting, Mr Atambayev thanked Mr Soros for his continued contributions to the country. Kyrgyzstan’s parliament, though, appears less impressed. It is due to consider a Russia-inspired bill that will force all foreign-funded NGOs — including Mr Soros’s Open Society Foundation — to register as foreign agents.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 209, published on Nov.19 2014)

Thousands rally in Georgian capital against government

NOV. 15 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – An estimated 30,000 people crammed into the centre of Tbilisi for perhaps the largest anti-government rally since the Georgian Dream coalition defeated the party of former President Mikheil Saakashvili in a parliamentary election in 2012 and a presidential election in 2013.

The demonstrators waved Georgian flags and pictures of Mr Saakashvili, who now lives in New York and is wanted by Georgia’s prosecutors for various alleged crimes, and shouted anti-Russia slogans.

They blamed Russia for annexing the rebel states of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Importantly they also blamed their current government for not standing up to Russia.

Mr Saakashvili addressed the crowd via a Kiev video-link.

“Let’s show Georgia’s government that the nation is united against the serious threat to its independence, its future,” he said.

The importance of the rally, though, was not the appearance of Mr Saakashvili on a video-link but its size. It hasn’t taken long for the glamour of the Georgian Dream coalition to fade.

Allies in the EU and the United States have accused Georgian Dream of petty revenge tactics in pursuing former ministers and charging them with various crimes. Earlier this month PM Irakli Garibashvili also sacked the popular defence minister, Irakli Alasania, triggering a wave of resignations.

Street politics are still a major force in Georgia and the rally could be a sign that after a relatively calm 12 months, instability is returning to Georgian politics.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 209, published on Nov.19 2014)

Kyrgyzstan’s Ata meken supports nationalising Kumtor

NOV. 14 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyzstan’s Ata Meken party, one of three parties in the ruling government, said it supported nationalising the Kumtor gold mine. Kumtor is the focus of a row between Kyrgyzstan and its Canadian partner Centerra Gold. Ata Meken may have chosen this populist policy to bolster itself ahead of a parliamentary election next year.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 209, published on Nov.19 2014)

Political crisis brewing in Georgia

NOV. 14 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – In an unusually strongly worded intervention, Georgian President Giorgi Margvelashvili warned parliamentarians the country faced a political crisis unless they pull together, media reported. Mr Margvelashvili’s statement was made in reference to the sacking of defence minister Irakli Alasania earlier this month.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 209, published on Nov.19 2014)

Protesters rally against Azerbaijan’s President

NOV. 9 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Several hundred people protested against a crackdown by the authorities in Azerbaijan against the media, a rare protest in this increasingly heavily policed state.

A Bulletin correspondent said that the demonstration in Baku was good natured and had a festival-like atmosphere with flag waving, folk music and dancing.

Police tried to block reporters from speaking to demonstrators and from filming the march but they eventually relented.

Shakar Isgandarli was one of the demonstrators.

“I am a teacher of two political prisoners, Anar Mammadli and Bashir Suleymanli,” he said. “I taught them to fight against injustice. And they did. Now the Aliyev regime has jailed them for this”.

Europe and the United States have made increasingly harsh statements about the crackdown by Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev on the media but, seemingly, without much impact. Virtually every week, reports from Azerbaijan say that another anti-government activist has been imprisoned.

Mammadli and Suleymanli are two human rights lawyers who were imprisoned earlier this year for tax evasion and illegal business activities. They have said that these charges have been fabricated.

Protesters called for the resignation of Mr Aliyev and vowed to continue protests. The risk for Mr Aliyev is that although the police and prosecutors have been effective at imprisoning government critics, the arrests are stirring more anti-government feelings.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 208, published on Nov.12 2014)

Tajikistan’s amnesty encounters problems

NOV. 10 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – At least one of the thousands of inmates freed last week under a massive amnesty sanctioned by Tajikistan’s government to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the national constitution appears to have been let out too soon.

Tabur Gafurov, 31, killed his 55-year-old father during a heated argument after he returned to his family home in Sogd region, northern Tajikistan, reported Tajik outlet Asia Plus.

The incident has called into question Dushanbe’s decision to release so many prisoners at once, undermining what one regular observer of politics in the country says is an attempt by President Emomali Rakhmon to project his domestic political power.

“The amnesty is classic authoritarianism at work,” he said. “He wants the population to know that he can give freedom or take it away as he pleases,” he said.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 208, published on Nov.12 2014)

Armenia to set up new ministry

NOV. 7 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia plans to re-establish its Interior Ministry ahead of joining the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union.

PM Hovik Abrahamian said that several ministries would be merged together to create an Interior Ministry, which was abandoned in 2002.

“Nineteen ministries is too many for Armenia,” the official Armenpress news agency quoted Mr Abrahamian as saying. “In the future we will turn the Ministry of Emergency Situations and the Ministry of Local Government into the Ministry of Internal Affairs as it is the case in many European countries.”

In the former Soviet space the Interior Ministry is one of the more powerful government institutions. It has its own army and is tasked with imposing internal security and order. In 2002, Armenia disbanded the Interior Ministry and handed these pseudo military powers to the police force. This will now revert back to the Interior Ministry.

Armenia is joining the Eurasian Economic Union in the New Year, a group that already includes Belarus and Kazakhstan alongside Russia. Kyrgyzstan is also intending to join.

All these countries have a strong Interior Ministry. It’s likely that joining the Eurasian Economic Union and re-establishing the Interior Ministry in Armenia are linked.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 208, published on Nov.12 2014)

Georgia ministers resign

NOV. 5 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The fallout from the sacking of Georgian defence minister Irakli Alasania rumbled on. As predicted, Georgia’s foreign minister, Maia Panjikidze, and minister for European integration, Aleksi Petriashvili, both also resigned.

They belong to the same party as Mr Alasania, the Free Democrats. The party also withdrew its support for the Georgian Dream coalition, wiping out its majority in parliament.

Mr Alasania was officially sacked for insubordination after he criticised the arrest of ministry of defence officials for alleged corruption.

These sackings weaken the government of PM Irakli Garibashvili. They have also created a potentially dangerous political enemy in Mr Alasania. He was one of the most charismatic ministers and could drum up support to challenge the government.

For now, though, Mr Garibashvili and his patron, former PM and leader of the Georgian Dream coalition Bidzina Ivanishvili, were quick to deride Mr Alasania as an ambitious adventurer.

The coalition that Mr Ivanishvili created and that Mr Garibashvili leads had been built for one main purpose — to topple Mikheil Saakashvili from power. With that ambition achieved in parliamentary election in 2012 and presidential elections in 2013 it was always likely that the coalition was going to unravel. This unravelling is a natural re-balancing of Georgian politics.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 208, published on Nov.12 2014)

Georgia PM sacks defence minister

NOV. 4 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia’s PM Irakli Garbishvili sacked his defence minister Irakli Alasania for insubordination, throwing the coalition government into its most severe test of credibility since winning power at a parliamentary election in 2012 and then a presidential election in 2013.

Mr Alasania is head of the Free Democrats party which could withdraw its support for the Georgian Dream, the opposition coalition put together by Georgia’s richest man Bidzine Ivanishvili to oust Mikheil Saakshvili from power.

Georgian foreign minister, Maia Panjikidze, and Aleksi Petriashvili, the minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration, are also members of the Free Democrats and are likely to resign from the government.

Without the 10 Free Democrats MPs, Georgia Dream loses its majority in Georgia’s parliament. It drops its representation to 75 MPs, out of 150.

Reports from Tbilisi said Mr Alasania was furious about the arrest of 10 officials from the ministry of defence for alleged corruption. He countered that the officials were innocent and that the arrests were part of a plot to undermine his staunchly pro-NATO and pro-Western agenda. The current government is broadly pro-West too, although it has mended ties with Russia.

Mr Alasania was on a trip to Europe when the arrests took place. Despite a busy schedule he still found time to openly criticise the arrests. This was enough for his boss, Mr Garbishvili, probably with the support of Mr Ivanishvili, to fire him.

Mr Alasania is a popular politician. His sacking has shaken Georgian politics.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 207, published on Nov. 5 2014)

Georgia imprisoned ex-minister

OCT. 22 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in Georgia sentenced former defence minister Bacho Akhalaia to 7-1/2 years in prison for abuse of power and torture.

Akhalaia is the most high-profile member of the former government of Mikheil Saakashvili to be sent to prison. The current government, headed by members of the Georgian Dream coalition, has said it has to pursue former ministers on various corruption and abuse charges although Mr Saakashvili and his allies have called the charges a witch hunt.

The European Union and the United States have both warned the current government of using its powers to pursue personal vendettas. The US repeated its warning after the imprisonment of Akhalaia.

“We continue to stress to the Georgian Government the importance of due process and rule of law and of conducting investigations with transparency to avoid even the perception that the judicial system is being used for political retribution,” a US State Department spokesman said.

The big risk for the Georgian government is that it is undermining the country’s positive image with the West.

Akhalaia was already held in pre-trial detention. His conviction dates back to the torture of four inmates in 2006 when he was head of the Georgian prison service. He was also a former interior minister.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 206, published on Oct. 29 2014)