MAY 26 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in Azerbaijan sentenced the well-regarded election monitor Anar Mammadli to 5-1/2 years in prison for tax evasion and illegal business dealings. Rights groups say Mammadli’s real crime was to be an opposition figure. The authorities are cracking down on anti-government figures.
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(News report from Issue No. 186, published on May 28 2014)
MAY 27 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) -Protesters stormed the presidential administration in the Georgian rebel region of Abkhazia, forcing Aleksandr Ankvab, its leader, to flee. Protesters said they were frustrated with corruption. Mr Ankvab later denounced their action as a coup attempt. Russia has supported Abkhazian independence from Georgia since a 2008 war.
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(News report from Issue No. 186, published on May 28 2014)
MAY 21 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Tajikistan’s restive southeast is threatening to boil over again after a special forces operation near Khorog, capital of Gorno-Badakhshan region, led to four deaths and a week of protests.
The deaths and the subsequent protests underline the difficulty that Tajik president Emomali Rakhmon has in imposing central government will on this restive part of the country.
The target of the operation was given as drug traffickers. That, though, may have been a euphemism for a local anti-government warlord.
The special forces operation killed two people in broad daylight and injured several others, angering locals who then protested and tried to storm the security forces headquarters. Reports said that two protesters were killed and more injured when security forces fired on the crowd.
The whole operation is reminiscent of a security operation in the same area two years ago. Back then, the army had to virtually close off the area and engage in street to street fighting with rebels. Dushanbe may have committed another blunder in a part of the country where its authority has been limited ever since a civil war in the 1990s.
Gorno-Badakhshan, whose population backed the ill-fated United Tajik Opposition in that conflict, is a hub of anti-government resentment.
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(News report from Issue No. 186, published on May 28 2014)
MAY 22 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – In an interview with Russian TV, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko described how former Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev phoned him from a forest in southern Kyrgyzstan in 2010 after fleeing protesters and begged him for help. Mr Lukashenko gave Mr Bakiyev residence in Belarus.
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(News report from Issue No. 186, published on May 28 2014)
May 19 2014 (The Conway Bulletin)- In 2020, Kazakhstan will probably introduce a new pension scheme that will deduct 5% of an employee’s wages and automatically place it in a government plan, the labour ministry told the Tengrinews website.
Employers will match this employee contribution.
It appears that these planned reforms haven’t been announced more widely and loudly because of a very real fear of upsetting people.
The risk for Kazakhstan is fairly obvious. In Armenia a similar plan triggered widespread demonstrations. The problem is that Kazakhstan and other former Soviet States need to reform and update their pension schemes.
Last year, the Kazakh labour sacked its ministers because of backlash over trying to make women retire at the same age as men.
Persuading Kazakhs to accept the latest plan is also likely to be a serious challenge for the Kazakh government.
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(News report from Issue No. 185, published on May 21 2014)
May 19 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbek President Islam Karimov clearly intends to remain in power for some time to come.
At a conference in Samarkand, Mr Karimov, 76, said that he had no intention of relinquishing power any time soon.
“I am one of those who is criticised for staying too long,” AFP quoted Mr Karimov telling diplomats and scholars gathered for a conference on the Golden Age of Islam.
“I am criticized, but I stay. I am criticised but I want to keep working. What’s wrong with that?”
Mr Karimov’s comments are pertinent for two reasons. Over the past six months or so some doubt has crept in over the strength of the Karimov family’s grip on power. Mr Karimov’s eldest daughter, Gulnara, has disappeared from public life since she was reportedly placed under house arrest earlier this year. Prior to that she had been stripped, very publicly, of power and influence.
As, seemingly, her father’s successor, these attacks on Gulnara were seen as an attack on Mr Karimov himself. His powerful intelligence chief, Rustam Inoyatov is widely thought of to be behind the discrediting of Gulnara Karimova.
Mr Karimov has ruled over Uzbekistan since independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. Next year, Uzbekistan holds a presidential election. This may only be a Potemkin election but it is still important and it looks as if Mr Karimov will be one of the candidates.
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(News report from Issue No. 185, published on May 21 2014)
MAY 11 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – French president Francois Hollande started his tour of the South Caucasus in Baku. He discussed strengthening business and political ties. Human Rights Watch said Mr Hollande should have pressed Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev hard on rights abuses.
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(News report from Issue No. 184, published on May 14 2014)
MAY 13 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Rustavi 2, Georgia’s main television station, is under investigation for alleged wire-tapping, media reported. Georgian society and politics is currently riven through with accusations of deceit and wire-tapping. The former government of Mikheil Saakashvili has accused the new government of a witch hunt.
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(News report from Issue No. 184, published on May 14 2014)
MAY 3 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenian president Serzh Sargsyan officially appointed a new government which analysts said would be better placed to propel the country into the Russia-led Customs Union. The previous government resigned over its unpopular pension plans, a scheme the new government has watered down.
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(News report from Issue No. 183, published on May 7 2014)
MAY 3 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Gunmen shot a relative of Osh’s popular but controversial former mayor, Melis Myrzakmatov, at his home near the southern capital, sparking fears that a turf war may be brewing.
Jenish Sadiev, 39, to whom the Kyrgyz National Opposition Movement refer to as Mr Myrzakmatov’s nephew, died in hospital on May 2.
Once considered the most powerful politician in the country’s ethnically fragmented South, Mr Myrzakmatov’s whereabouts has been unknown since he failed to win a mayoral election in January.
The former Mayor, accused of stirring ethnic tension in 2010 that triggered violence which killed hundreds, nevertheless retains strong networks in and around the city especially among ethnic Kyrgyz. He is considered a potential opposition figurehead to the central government in Bishkek.
But a mix of politics, organised crime, ethnic division and family loyalties mean that few things are simple in Kyrgyzstan.
Suyin Omurzakov is the chief of police for Osh city. He also happens to be a political rival of Mr Myrzakmatov. He denied that Sadiev, the dead man, was related to the Mr Myrzakmatov and also rejected any government role in the shooting.
Whatever the truth tension is rising in Osh, already a tinderbox of divided loyalties and discontent.
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(News report from Issue No. 183, published on May 7 2014)
