Articles tagged with: Kyrgyzstan April 2010 uprising commentary
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. :-)
Do the lessons of technology cast light onto Kyrgyzstan's future? Photo by Flickr user photonichelle (CC-usage).
Editor’s note: Can the peaks and pitfalls of the consumer economics of information technology teach us something about Kyrgyzstan’s recent past, its present, and its likely future? neweurasia’s Nils thinks so. Applying “hype cycle theory”, he compares the interim government to a new electronic consumer product and the Kyrgyz public to the network of users with some enlightening results.
As an economist I have among other things written about the adoption of new information technologies in the past. Now living in Kyrgyzstan, I find it stunning how some of the economic theories common in marketing and communications research, particularly hype cycle theory, can also be applied to the political events we have witnessed over the past months (and possible years).
Two members of a voluntary guard brigade meet people at the entrance of the polling station 1001 with a smile.
Photograph by Flickr user turbojoe (CC-usage).
Editor’s note: Could a Kyrgyz-style uprising explode in the most unlikeliest of places — Ashgabad? neweurasia’s Annsoltan thinks it just might. She interviews a major figure in the Turkmen opposition in exile and gives her own thoughts: “Make no mistake, Ashgabad’s totalitarian system is very effective,” she writes, “but there is only so long hypnosis and outright repression can prevent an explosion.”
These days many regional experts and analysts, including neweurasia‘s own Alpharabius, Dushanbe, and Botur, are pondering whether the Kyrgyzstan uprising could have a spill-over effect onto the other Central Asian countries, especially neighboring democratic Tajikistan. Here are my two manat on the subject.
Domino effect theories are popular because they are so elegant and simple. The truth is none of the other countries, including Tajikistan, have the same kind of parliamentary autonomy, vibrant political opposition movement, international and domestic NGO presence, and independent media tradition like Kyrgyzstan. Indeed, Kyrgyzstan is the only country where anti-government protests are even allowed. But I think there is one possible candidate: believe it or not, Turkmenistan.
This is the translation of my article in russian.
After the April events in Kyrgyzstan in 2010, one of the questions vigorously discussed in the country is the creation of a parliamentary republic, an idea initiated by leading members of so called ‘Interim Government (IG)’. They explain their initiative through the argument that the presidential form of government has failed in practice in independent Kyrgyzstan over the last fifteen years of its existence, which is evident by the results of governance by the first and second presidents of the country. Therefore, in the members’ opinion, it is time to shift to parliamentary form of government. This will be not only more effective for Kyrgyzstan, as they assume, but also a key solution to a problem of division of power between the key members of IG.
Image by neweurasia's Schwartz (CC-usage).
Editor’s note: Kyrgyzstan today has disturbing parallels to Tajikistan in 1992, explains neweurasia’s Alpharabius, including a weak reconciliation-style government and ethnic discontent. He offers his prescriptions for peace based upon Tajikistan’s terrible experiences during the Nineties: “As a good neighbor, I sincerely wish they will avoid the terrible fate that beset my own nation.”
I am not trying to assert the worst-case scenario for Kyrgyzstan depicted in Schwartz’s post on the “invisible hand”, but as a Tajik who witnessed the 1992-1997 civil war, I see many unfortunate similarities between how the conflict started in my nation and with the situation right now in Kyrgyzstan.
The establishment of the Kyrgyz Interim Government and the situation around it remind me of when the Tajik National Reconciliation Government was founded in May 1992. After an initial bout of blood spilling, then President Rahmon Nabiyev agreed to appoint several opposition figures to key governmental positions. The situation was doomed from the start. First, because the opposition was made of many different political movements all trying to work with Nabiev’s communists. Second, because the general population viewed the new government as illegal and decided not to obey it.
Southern clans in particular felt themselves losers and discontent brewed in the two southern centers — Kulob and Qurghonteppa in Tajikistan, Osh and Jalalabad in Kyrgyzstan, both in regions with mixed ethnic compositions. The Reconciliation Government tried to suppress its Southern problem by sending in troops. In retrospection, that was the wrong decision, especially because Russia and Uzbekistan established ties with the Southern opposition groups very quickly, providing them ammunition and subsequently plunging the country into full-scale civil war.
Schwartz is right that the ‘”invisible hand” could either save or destroy Kyrgyzstan. Let’s look at the competing interests inside and outside the country.
On May 7, a month after the tragic events of April 7, the head of the Provisional Government (PG) Roza Otunbayeva addressed the nation of Kyrgyzstan through television.
Roza Otunbaeva started her statement mentioning the bloody April events, which took away lives of 86 people and overthrew the tyranny in Kyrgyzstan. Roza Otunbaeva called it “our common victory, which was achieved due to the great courage, but at great sacrifice.”
Roza Otunbayeva also mentioned the new draft of constitution, which will be put to a vote in a national referendum scheduled for June 27, 2010. According to Otunbayeva, a new design of government, which will be put in new draft of constitution, increases the role of people’s power, as it eliminates the possibility of a sole dictator. President, Otunbaeva says, will be a guarantee of constitution, and “play a role of a referee in case of possible disagreements between the parliament and government, and courts.”
Finally, according to Roza Otunbaeva, the National TV and Radio Company, which was used by both ousted presidents Akaev and Bakiev to propagate their ideas and blackmail political opponents, is now being reformed into Public broadcasting company. Otunbaeva believs that government will never befool the nation via TV.
It was nice to hear a self-criticism from the chairman of PG. In her statement, Roza Otunbayeva admitted that not all decisions of PG are thoroughly made, and not all staff appointments meet the aspirations of the people, and that there are disagreements between members of PG, as they represent different political parties. However, according to Otunbayeva, they share “a common goal – building a state where cornerstone values will be freedom and personal dignity of every citizen.”
Roza Otunbaeva promised to pass the full authority to the new government, as soon as the new democratic government institutions will be formed after the elections.
Click here [ru] to watch a video of Roza Otunbaeva’s address to nation of Kyrgyzstan.
Editor’s note:The question on everyone’s minds is: what next for Kyrgyzstan? neweurasia’s Schwartz describes three possible scenarios. At stake is Kyrgyzstan’s social contract and solubility as a country. The choice Schwartz proposes is tough, but “any other strategy might leave Kyrgyzstan too much at the whims of the invisible hand…” [This is an expanded version of the editorial that appears in this week's "Our Take" on neweurasia's partner site, Transitions Online.]
A month ago today Kyrgyzstan erupted into its second popular uprising in five years. Despite Bakiev’s exile to Belarus and the interim government’s steady movement toward establishing its authority, the situation remains dangerous.
Poor ethnic Kyrgyz in the north are illegally seizing private property for themselves. Encampments of yurts are reportedly cropping up all over the suburbs of Bishkek. Middle class residents have responded with vigilantism by organizing patrols to protect their property.
Meanwhile, the south, which is ethnically and socio-economically more diverse, is grumbling with discontent. neweurasia‘s Tolkun Umaraliev reports on his blog that the situation “feels like the calm before the storm” and “a powder bomb”.
…but you are not right when saying that recent revolts in Kyrgyzstan could never have happened without the web!
The Newsweek wrote on April 30 about the impact of internet both on building democracy around the world and making the dictators much stronger with easily available information online. Well, I do believe that social media and new internet tools make it easy for people to obtain and disseminate news. But I also do believe that with the help of experienced internet geeks, dictators can strengthen their control over people. And the Newsweek is right calling it a cat-and-mouse game. I agree with it and I am not going to argue with it.
The debate I am going to have is about the subheading the Newsweek used for its article on internet helping to build democracy. To be more precise, it is about the statement of the Newsweek that it is internet that made the recent revolts happen in Kyrgyzstan.
Many, including the Newsweek, mistakenly think that if not internet, the recent events in Kyrgyzstan, which ousted the president and took away lives of 85 people, would not have happened at all. Why mistakenly? Well, unlike the same events of 2005, which also made the president flee (but was peaceful), the demonstrations were organized on grassroots level, with minimum influence of the opposition parties, and it all started in regions like Naryn and Talas, where penetration of internet is very low and majority of people do not know what Twitter, WordPress or Livejournal is.
The graph is a part of a research "Research of Internet Audience in Kyrgyzstan" done by the Civic Initiative for Internet Policy in 2009 (Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan)
This graph shows that Naryn and Talas, where people organized big demonstrations against poverty, unemployment, skyrocketing utility prices and family based ruling of the president, have 0% and 1% share of internet audience of Kyrgyzstan respectively! The great majority of internet users in Kyrgyzstan (77%) are based in the capital city Bishkek. And a death toll list shows that most of those, who were shot dead when storming the White House, were originally from regions, not Bishkek. Therefore, it is really hard to believe that it was internet that helped people gather and demonstrate against the government.
Telling that internet did not play any role in recent revolts is also not true. Social media, especially online forums and Twitter, a microblogging service, did a great job in disseminating information about what was going on in Kyrgyzstan before, during and after April 7. These online tools were helpful especially when several independent news websites were blocked by previous Kyrgyz authorities. Kyrgyz twitterers used hashtags #freekg and #kyrgyzstan when giving information or links about uprisings, thus creating hubs of information, where one could find interesting first hand information or get links to related articles and multimedia online content. It is true that the audience that was using these new online tools were disappointed by Bakiev’s government. However, they were not the backbone of the uprising on April 7.
Thus, the Newsweek is not right when saying that the bloody uprising in Bishkek, which took away many lives and ousted the president, would have never happened without web. Internet did a great job in terms accessing and disseminating information freely. But it never was an ultimate cause of the public uprising.
Crossposted from Tolkun Umaraliev’s blog
About 6 weeks ago, I had heard about a funny rumor. People in At Bashy were saying that China was going to take over their entire rayon. But unlike when these kinds of rumors surfaced last summer, this time people were excited, “it’ll be great,” they said, “we’ll have nice roads, and our salaries will be paid.” So at the beginning of April, I headed out there to talk to folks, and see what they’d say to me.
By that time, however, the tide had turned. It was back to the old rumor, that their land was being sold to China, and that it was a crime. Folks were talking about the Ak Sai valley again, and Naryn’s Jetim Too, where iron ore is so plentiful. As one slightly drunk baike put it, “he can raise electricity rates, and he can make his son so powerful, but he should not sell our land. That is wrong.” They were all the recent complaints, but selling off sovereign Kyrgyzstan seemed to trump the bill.
Fast forward a week later, and from April 8th on down, there has been only one talk in the town, “he killed people. He shot them. He told his snipers to aim for the head and the heart. A Kyrgyz could not do this.”
In people’s homes, they are asking their toddlers, “what did Bakiev do?” And the children respond, “al atty! Al atty!” He shot! He shot!
Someone from Jalalabad even told me, “I don’t think he was so bad, until he fired into the crowd. Now I would never support him.”
Of all the things he did in those last 6 months, around here, only one memory seems to remain.
“The electricity, the land, we’ve forgotten all about that,” my hairdresser said, as she trimmed me up for the impending summer, “all we remember now is the 85 people killed.”
And now, on Constitution Day, people are gathering at each other’s homes, with open Korans, to mourn those 85 dead. This was one gambit, he most definitely lost.
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