Kyrgyzstan
The week of 24-28 April started with an array of progressive steps in investigations into the June events in Osh last year. According to ministry of interior information circulated on Monday, April 25, police have uncovered a bag with grenades and other ammunition in Alay District in Southern Kyrgyzstan. It was also in that part of the country where a Kalashnikov machine gun, reported to have been lost during the Osh events, was seized from a local resident. Another piece of information reads one person was detained for allegedly burning an ethnic Uzbek person’s house and hijacking his vehicle. Such a burst in successful police operations and detentions in areas with predominantly ethnic Kyrgyz residents might suggest that the local and central government are trying to “harmonize” the status-quo with the international commission’s findings expected to be released to the wider public early May. Although it is premature to make conclusions at this point, it is still to be kept in mind that the global mass media outlets and international relief organizations on the ground reported that the ethnic Uzbek portion of the population “suffered more.”
Ala-Too square, Bishkek. Photo by neweurasia's Samat "S@M" Barataliev.
Translator’s note: The Kyrgyz parliamentarian Karganbek Samakov has recently proposed to rename the “Ala-Too” square to “Manas” after a legendary epic hero, whose image, according to the MP, “goes all the way through history of the Kyrgyz people”. “Ala-Too is not the best name for a central square,” he adds.”They say everything changes with history, so we also must make a change.” Translated from Malika’s post (RUS)
The Kyrgyz parliamentarian Karganbek Samakov has recently proposed to rename the “Ala-Too” square to “Manas” after a legendary epic hero, whose image, according to the MP, “goes all the way through history of the Kyrgyz people”. “Ala-Too is not the best name for a central square,” he adds. “They say everything changes with history, so we also must make a change.”
In fact, the square has not always been called so. In the soviet times, it was named after Lenin, later after Kyrgyzstan got sovereignty it got renamed to Ala-Too after the Ala-Too Mountains.
Today it is a favorite promenade area both for the citizens and the visitors of Bishkek, but few of us know that this same square historically used to be a detainment place for political prisoners, whereas today’s Museum of History – once a KGB building. Read the full story »
Kyrgyz Premier Almazbek Atambayev chaired the first session of the Council for Security and Rule of Law, established only a couple of weeks ago, on Monday, 18 April, which discussed such important issues as penalty enforcement agency reforming, border delimitation and organized crime. The Council relies on local regional and district heads and Premier Atambayev warned the former lax approach to duties might result in “criminal investigations” into their negligence. Although the warning bears sense, one wonders about its feasibility given Osh Mayor Myrzakmatov’s hold on the city-hall, despite the fact Atambayev and other current politicians have emerged to reportedly cleanse the state system of Bakiyev and his supporters, which would include Myrzakmatov. While the Council is a duplication of similar security councils many other countries have, it has only been established in Kyrgyzstan earlier this month and is obviously of necessity for a country with weak economy and porous borders
Starting from a small market in the outskirts of Bishkek, Dordoi has grown into a huge distribution center for chinese goods (mainly textile) almost for entire Central Asia and partially Russia. Some estimate that around 100, 000 people are employed directly or indirectly in the market. Today, it is surrounded by residential areas with its own mosque, cafes, shopping areas (food), parking lots etc. (here is a google map link, if want to see the scale)
But in this post, I will not discuss anything global. We will take a walk through a small portion of the market, but I am sure you will get the idea.
Thousands of people walk through this entrance everyday to buy and sell.
Editor’s note: Shirin Aitmatova is a Deputy Member of Parliament and the daughter of the renowned author Chingiz Aitmatov. She’s also an active online social media activist. neweurasia’s Sabina sits down with her to discuss about poetry and politics. “I used to think that I would only care for working on [certain issues],” she says. “Now I understand that to make changes on the social level, I need to be involved in big politics and in more oppositionary processes.” Translated from our Russian site (RUS).
I have known Shirin Aitmatova since 2008. That summer I was lucky enough to attend summer school for young writers — “Debut 2008″ — organized by the International Chingiz Aitmatov Foundation. Back then, Shirin was running the Foundation, organizing the school, and working on the publication of the Almanac with writings from the seminar’s most creative participants, as well as translating them.
Then in 2010, Shirin enterred politics, campaigning for Parliament as a member of the Ata Meken party and soon becoming an MP at the Jogorku Kenesh.
In this podcast, we talk about how it actually works to be a woman in politics. After all, Kyrgyzstan’s mentality still reflects certain stereotypes of a traditional woman who must be a symbol of a family to keep unity and comfort in the house, or in other words, no politics. We also discuss her creative work, particularly her collection of poems written and published in English, entitled, “Sleep mask”.
Listen to the podcast now (RUS) or read the transcript below.
Russian law-makers came up with an idea of recommending Central Asian countries not to wait until the situation goes under the control like in the Middle Eastern countries and be more open to democratic changes, various information agencies reported after a meeting closed to the public on April 13, 2011.
Russian Federation’s Duma’s (Parliament) committee on CIS affairs and compatriot relations has held the parliamentary hearing dedicated to the Central Asian region: strategic partnership and security problems. As reported by RBC, the participants have urged the countries in the region to enact democratic reforms and prevent the “North African syndrome,” Ferghana information agency reports.
At the same time “Parlamentskaya gazeta” informed that even though the whole hearing has been closed to the public, at least the first three statements have been made in presence of media.
“Russians are not indifferent as to the destiny of the people in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan in the light of historic development and co-existence with the people of Russia, which has to be the key factor in the country’s strategy in respect to these states.”
Deputy chair of Duma Nadezhda Gerasimova
U.S. State Department has released its 2010 Country Reports on Human Practices. As expected, Central Asian states did not make a significant progress in human rights practices. Vice versa, majority of our region’s countries turned their backs to what we call respect to human rights.
This report provides encyclopedic detail on human rights conditions in over 190 countries for 2010.
We will start with Uzbekistan because the situation with human rights and political freedoms in this coutnry was “granted” a huge paragraph in the Introduction to the Report. Along with Afghanistan and Pakistan, this Central Asian country, motherland for more than 28 million people, represented a South and Central Asia chapter. Read the full story »
Translator’s Note: On 7 April, Kyrgyzstan commemorated the one-year-anniversary of the April revolution. In Bishkek, the commemoration ceremony was held in the central Ala-Too square, which a year earlier had been a scene for large anti-government demonstrations that led to the overthrow of then-president Kurmanbek Bakiev. A moment of silence scheduled for 16:00 local time was held in remembrance of 87 people who had been shot during the demonstrations. Originally written by neweurasia’s Kelly Klein (RUS).
Our correspondent reported on the event:
People gathered to honor the memory of the victims and to commemorate the last year’s April events. Since early morning all the entrances to the square area had been blocked for transport. The law enforcement workers, from militia to customs officers, arrived in a park in front of the square by the Presidential palace (White House). Apparently the authorities were still cautious about new possible unrest, yet it didn’t seem so from quite relaxed and smiling faces of the officers themselves. Read the full story »
This weekend marks the one-year anniversary of last year’s revolution in Kyrgyzstan, and considering the sheer scale and importance of the story, not to mention all the grey hairs it gave me as an editor trying to put together coherent coverage of it, I would be deeply remiss if I didn’t say something.
Our Russian site has a great photo-essay on the commemoration event (an English translation is on the way), and our friends at RFE/RL have run a positive assessment by Pete Baumgartner, their O-Wire editor and possibly the most laid back man in Central Asian journalism. ;-)
As for me, it’s hard to believe it’s really been a year. For a time, it seemed as if all there was to Central Asia were upheavals in Kyrgyzstan — it was an exciting time to be covering the region. Kyrgyzstan has also played an important role in my journalistic career, as I was the editor of neweurasia‘s predecessor site, Thinking-East, during their last revolution.
I don’t really have my own assessment to give. On the one hand, it’s been great seeing civil society re-emerging as a viable political force again; on the other hand, it’s been distressing to see Kyrgyzstan’s economy continue to slide and the rivalry for influence between the United States, Russia and China deepen. I was recently talking with a Belgian academic who lamented, “The cheery, gullible Kyrgyz we all knew in the 90s and 00s have gone.”
Nevertheless, I’m hopeful. This is a true underdog nation. They continue to beat the odds and surprise. And I’ll finally be going there for the first time in my career in a little while, an experience to which I’m really looking forward. :-)
Translator’s note: It appears that Kyrgyzstan’s leading mobile operator MegaCom is about to be confiscated by the government, amidst an ongoing political and law enforcement scandal related to the company. Original post by neweurasia’s Malika (RUS).
As Kyrgyz parliamentarians propose to confiscate state’s leading mobile operator “MegaCom”, the scandal around its shares is still far from being resolved.
The proposal to confiscate was made by the working group, which had earlier been established to investigate the situation around the company. The initial plan was to nationalize it. However, nationalization would require repayment of lost profits and return of the shares costs. State budget clearly does not have funds for that.
The working group’s chairman Akylbek Zhaparov said that along with nationalization, the commission also proposed to take measures in finding the actual owner or a reliable customer only with necessary court procedures.
Speaking about the owner, with the Interim Government’s decree 49% of shares were nationalized last year, while the owner of the remaining 51% shares still has not been identified up until today. Some sources say that the mobile operator has links to the ex-president’s youngest son Maxim Bakiev.
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