Here we provide the translation of the post that was featured on the Russian version of NewEurasia.Net. Our permanent contributor Nastia discusses the confusion over the situation with the state debt of Ukraine to Kyrgyzstan.

On July 21,2006 the Ukranian ambassador to Kyrgyzstan Vladimir Tiaglo announced that Ukraine doesn’t have an intention to fulfill its obligations when it comes to covering the debt of 27 192 320 $. Ukranian side went even further that the debt is simply non existent and the sum that Kyrgyzstan identifies as a Ukrainian debt was formed in the process of financial transactions between commercial banks and their clients for which Ukraine doesn’t have any responsibility.

The main source that Ukranian ambassador would refer to in his polemics about the non existent Ukranian debt was the Paris Financial Club that has been handling all cases of mutual debts in the countries of the former Soviet Union.

According to Mr. Tiaglo : “After undergoing all necessary procedures and paying off its Soviet time debts Ukraine is clean. According to the assessment of the Paris Club, Ukraine owes nothing to Kyrgyzstan”.

So here we are all clean and clear and who cares about money. After all everything happened quite a while ago. Or may be it was a mistakes but to it’s so difficult right now to trace who is really responsible for that.
Probably all these confusions keep occurring because traditionally some big cheese people in Kyrgyzstan at a certain stage of their careers start confusing personal and public. The well known phrase “The state is I” has a very special meaning in the context of Kyrgyz politics. The formula “The state is I” automatically implies that I everything that belongs to the state belongs to me but all my mistakes are ascribed to the state.

In a whole bunch of situations the result of such philosophy is deplorable.In the case we are talking about we’ve been constantly reminded for 10 years that Ukraine was about to pay Kyrgyzstan back. We’ve been expecting the money to arrive and alleviate a bit our ongoing economic crises. It was also stated that if Ukraine for some reason would start rejecting its debt we can use our membership in WTO in order to vote against Ukrainians entering this organization. We seemed to be pretty solidly fixed on our position while negotiating on that with Ukraine but than the greatest confusion ever occurred. One of the speakers of the Kyrgyz Parliament Kubanichbek Isabekov announced that all papers confirming the fact and the sum of the Ukrainian debt disappeared. Just like that. No papers, no financial obligations.

That’s a real shame! Though ordinary Kyrgyz people were not even surprised that much (check an online discussion about that). We got so used to our state being a lame duck in so many situations that the only way to survive is to laugh a little bit. Well, after all the state and the people are two completely different categories. Let’s imagine the money is paid back. Do you think any of the ordinary citizens can benefit from that? No way.

Though something else bothers me in this case. It has again been confirmed that we don’t have any professionals in power. Neither in parliament nor in the government. Instead there are lots of ambitious dilettantes, someone’s relatives and kids, someone who is able to bribe their way through. It’s all around the place: both in politics and in economy.

That’s why the only choice for us is to make fun of ourselves and to give the whole world lots of chances to make fun of us.