DEC. 28 2022 (The Bulletin) — Uzbekistan’s Pres. Shavkat Mirziyoyev pledged to slash the size of the country’s bureaucracy by 30% to save up to $250m. His detractors have called the pledge a gimmick designed to deflect negative headlines, mainly around corruption and a lack of gas and power for households.
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— This story was published in issue 532 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on Jan. 16 2023
— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2023
OCT. 12 2021 (The Bulletin) — Looking to consolidate his power, Kyrgyz Pres. Sadyr Japarov promoted his loyal lieutenant Akylbek Japarov (no relation) to the newly created position of cabinet chairman. In June, Adlybek Japarov had been promoted to economy minister and deputy minister after he successfully brought environmental charges against Canada’s Centerra Gold for its management of the Kumtor gold mine. The cabinet chairman is an amalgamation of the head of the presidential administration and the head of the cabinet of ministers.
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— This story was published in issue 503 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on Oct. 12 2021
— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2021
JULY 19 2021 (The Bulletin) — Opponents of the Georgian Dream government accused it of trying to smear Alexander Lasharava, a TV cameraman killed this month by anti-gay rights protesters, by accusing him of being a heroin user after traces of an opiate were found in his blood. Lasharava’s supporters said that he was given morphine by a hospital before he was discharged. He died at home. His death sparked several days of anti-government protests.
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— This story was published in issue 493 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on July 22 2021
— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2021
BAKU/ALMATY/JULY 18 2021 (The Bulletin) –Officials in Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan have been using the Pegasus Israeli spyware to eavesdrop on opposition journalists and politicians, as well as senior members of the Kazakh elite including President Kassym Jomart Tokayev.
The Berlin-based Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) said in its dossier, entitled “A World of Surveillance”, that Azerbaijan had targeted 1,000 people and Kazakhstan had targeted 2,000 people.
The accusations were based on information from a whistleblower at Israeli company NSO Group which manufactured Pegasus for clients across the world. Most of the targets in Azerbaijan were journalists and politicians, including investigative reporter Khadija Ismayilov, who works for OCCRP.
“Secretive government surveillance doesn’t only affect the target,” she said. “My sources, my family, and my friends have also been swept up in the state’s campaign against me.”
The OCCRP said that the Pegasus spyware could read messages, eavesdrop on phone calls and act as a microphone to record conversations.
Pegasus’ targets in Kazakhstan included journalists, as well as Pres. Tokayev, successor to Nursultan Nazarbayev, PM Askar Mamin and businessman Bulat Utemuratov.
“The dozens of numbers suggest that the entire Nazarbayev regime, practically from top to bottom, was being spied on — most likely by its own security services,” the OCCRP said. It is not clear when the surveillance was ordered or by whom.
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— This story was published in issue 493 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on July 22 2021
— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2021
>> Despite a war in Armenia and a coup in Kyrgyzstan in 2020, Artem Volynets, the CEO of Chaarat Gold, says that Central Asia and the South Caucasus are good places to do business
JUNE 16 2021 (The Bulletin) — A global pandemic meant a tough 2020 for most people but for Artem Volynets, the CEO of AIM-listed gold miner Chaarat Gold, it was just one issue that he had to deal with. He also had to navigate a war and a coup.
“Yes, it was a complicated time,” he told The Bulletin over lunch in central London, flashing a pearl-white, relaxed, smile.
“But in many ways it made us stronger as a company.”
Chaarat Gold is the owner of the Kapan gold mine in southeast Armenia and two gold concessions in Kyrgyzstan, Tulkubash and Kyzyltash. In 2020, Armenia lost a war to Azerbaijan for the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh and in Kyrgyzstan, a coup in October overthrew the government.
Volynets said that a third of his 1,000- person workforce at the Soviet-era Kapan gold
mine was called up for active duty.
“Even so, if anything our reputation in the region was strengthened by the war,” he said.
“We were the ones paying the taxes, keeping production going and jobs open.”
Chaarat Gold bought the Kapan mine from Russia’s Polymetal in 2019 for $55m, a deal that Volynets said had proved to be good value.
He dodged discussing criticism of Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan for allegedly dragging his feet over clearing protesters who have blocked access to another foreign-owned gold mine at Amulsar, but he was keen to discuss the expropriation in Kyrgyzstan of the Kumtor gold mine, the biggest in the country, from its Toronto-based owners, Centerra Gold.
Western investors in Bishkek have now described Kyrgyzstan as an “investment pariah” but Volynets was more circumspect.
“It’s very much an isolated incident that has to do with one particular foreign investor and one particular project,” he said. “We have been assured that we have no problems.”
Still, the noise around the expropriation of Kumtor has made life more difficult for Volynets and Chaarat Gold. Last month it said that raising finance for its Tulkubash project had slowed and that its first gold production was now delayed by a year to the second half of 2023.
In 2018, Chaarat Gold had offered to buy Kumtor, but Centerra Gold had turned down the offer.
“We’re not interested in it any more but we are still looking around at other FSU projects,” Volynets said.
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— This story was published in issue 488 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on June 16 2021
— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2021
>> Robert Kocharyan, Armenia’s former president, has emerged as the main rival to PM Nikol Pashinyan in a parliamentary election on June 20, writes James Kilner
Even for Armenia’s chaotic political landscape, Robert Kocharyan has had an extraordinary six months.
JUNE 8 2021 (The Bulletin) — At the beginning of the year he was on trial, accused of corruption and the unlawful killings of 10 protesters in 2008 when he was Armenia’s outgoing president. Now, on the eve of a parliamentary election, he has emerged as the main rival to PM Nikol Pashinyan.
The June 20 election is an important one for Armenia as it will shape how the country recovers from losing a war to Azerbaijan for the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh last year. There is a plethora of candidates but analysts say that only two really matter.
Pashinyan is a former journalist who seized power in a popular revolution in 2018 but is now blamed for the disastrous six-week war that ended in November. His My Step Alliance holds 88 seats in Armenia’s current 132-seat parliament, the maximum two-thirds majority that the biggest party is allowed, and he is likely to win the most seats again but, importantly, possibly fall short of a majority.
This is where Kocharyan could come through, as he is regarded as the likely leader of a potential coalition that could form an alternative government.
It’s a remarkable turnaround for Armenia’s second post-Soviet leader. He was president between 1998 and 2008, overseeing an economic boom but also, according to his rivals, a rise in corruption. He handed over power to Serzh Sargsyan in 2008 who was then overthrown by Pashinyan. In 2019, prosecutors charged Kocharyan with corruption and the unlawful killing of anti-government demonstrators 11 years earlier, accusations which he said were politically motivated. In March this year, Armenia’s Constitutional Court agreed and threw them out.
As they say, politics in Armenia is personal.
Kocharyan has rebuilt his appeal by presenting himself as a no-nonsense hero from Armenia’s first war in the 1990s for Nagorno-Karabakh, where he was born, a competent alternative to the firebrand Pashinyan.
Pashinyan, in his election posters, styles himself as the suited establishment incumbent. He stares placidly away from onlookers, as if avoiding their gaze.
Kocharyan’s posters, by contrast, show him tieless, sleeves rolled-up, staring straight ahead. A man on a mission.
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— This story was published in issue 487 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on June 9 2021
— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2021
JUNE 7 2021 (The Bulletin) — Robert Kocharyan, Armenia’s former president and now the head of an opposition party that is trying to unseat PM Nikol Pashinyan, promised to secure the country’s borders if he won a parliamentary election on June 20. Armenia’s election will shape the country for the next few years.
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— This story was published in issue 487 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on June 9 2021
— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2021
TBILISI/MARCH 12 (The Bulletin) — Apparently bowing to pressure from environmentalists and local residents, the Georgian government suspended work on the construction of its Namakhvani Hydro Power Project.
Natia Turneva, the Georgian economy minister, said that the project had been suspended to allow for extra studies on the “reliability and safety” of the project.
“This is a very important large hydropower plant with an installed capacity of 430 MW. It will bring in $800 million in foreign direct investments,” she said.
This is the line that the government has consistently taken with the project, one of the most controversial energy projects in Georgia.
Police and demonstrators have clashed near the construction site of the Namakhvani HPP on the Rioni River in the foothills of the Caucasus mountains. It is slated to be the largest power plant in Georgia when it is complete, generating 15% of Georgia’s energy.
Ms Turneva said that Georgian experts and institutions would be hired to carry out independent surveys of the impact of the dam on the environment and on local communities and that a $1.5m Rioni Gorge Development Fund would be set up to help people relocate.
The hydropower project, which is being developed in two parts — a Lower Namakhvani HPP (333 MW) and the Upper Namakhvani HPP (100 MW) — is being financed by international donors, including the Norway-based Clean Energy Group, and is being constructed by Enka, Turkey’s largest construction company.
Protesters, who complain about the environmental damage and the forced resettling of people from the area, have blocked access to the site for more than four months. They said that the government couldn’t suspend the project as construction work had not started yet.
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— This story was published in issue 475 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on March 15 2021
— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2021
MARCH 10 (The Bulletin) — Uzbekistan’s state railway company released a video that claimed that a luxury retreat built in hills outside Tashkent is for its employees and not for Uzbek Pres. Shavkat Mirziyoyev. The video is a response to a report released by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty which said that the complex had been built as a palace for Mr Mirziyoyev and that Uzbek Railways have been used to shield its real use.
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— This story was published in issue 475 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on March 15 2021
— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2021
FEB. 28 2021 (The Bulletin) — Video footage has emerged of senior officials in the ruling Georgian Dream coalition government flouting coronavirus rules at a party hosted at a property in Tbilisi owned by a millionaire donor. The footage, which was aired on an opposition-supporting TV channel, showed Georgian Dream party chairman Irakli Kobakhidze and Tbilisi Mayor Kakha Kaladze socialising at the party without wearing masks and apparently ignoring social distancing rules.
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— This story was published in issue 474 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on March 5 2021
— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2021