Tag Archives: Kyrgyzstan

Kyrgyz President uses Victory Day to warn of racism in Russia

BISHKEK, MAY 9 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — In a departure from normal diplomatic niceties, Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev used the celebration of the Soviet Union’s victory over the Nazis in 1945 to warn of growing racism against workers from Kyrgyzstan in Russia.

Thousands of migrants workers from Kyrgyzstan and the rest of Central Asia travel to work in Russia each year, sending home their salaries but racist attacks in Russia have been on the increase, a rise that some have linked to the economic downturn.

Earlier this month, Russian media reported that a group of skinheads attacked and injured a group of Kyrgyz on the Moscow metro.

In pouring rain at Kyrgyzstan’s Eternal Flame War Memorial, Mr Atambayev said that Russia and Russians should respect their neighbours in Kyrgyzstan more.

“Kyrgyz families shared food and shelter with hundreds of thousands of refugees (from Russia). Most of them soon stayed here forever and became Kyrgyz,” he said.

“I want to give a reminder of this to our brotherly nation, Russia, where unfortunately fascist groups are rising up.”

Heads of states in the former Soviet Union usually use the annual Victory Day parade and celebrations to remind their people of the region’s common cause and their debt to Russia. By using the occasion to highlight racism in Russia, Mr Atambayev was adding emphasis to his comments.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 280, published on May 13 2016)

CASA-1000 officially launched in Tajik capital

DUSHANBE, MAY 12 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Leaders from Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan flew to Dushanbe to officially launch the start of construction of the CASA- 1000 project, which they hope will give regional trade a boost.

CASA-1000 is the $1.2b World Bank backed project that policy makers hope will transform the economies of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, bolster stability in Afghanistan and boost power supplies in Pakistan.

The plan is simple — to build an electricity supply route from hydro- power stations in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, across Afghanistan and into Pakistan. But it has its detractors. Many analysts have argued that Afghanistan is simply too unstable to host a network of transmission lines and that power generation capacities in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are too temperamental.

Still, in Dushanbe, at the official ceremony to kick off production, the leaders were upbeat.

Tajikistan’s President Emomali Rakhmon, hosted the ceremony. He said that the project would work and that it would have a number of positive side effects.

“This will promote solutions to a number of social, economic and environmental protection problems in all four countries,” he was quoted by media as saying.

The CASA-1000 transmission line will run for 1,222km and should be completed by 2018. It will transmit 1,300 megawatts of electricity, most of it to Pakistan.

Also at the ceremony were Afghan Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon, and Kyrgyz Prime Minister Sooronbai Jeenbekov.

Western diplomats conceived the plan a few years ago as part of a new north-south Silk Road, although it has been the various local leaders with finance from the World Bank who have pushed it through.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 280, published on May 13 2016)

Kyrgyzstan scraps law that threatened to curtail NGOs

BISHKEK, MAY 12 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Rights campaigners in Kyrgyzstan were celebrating an unexpected victory over a proposed law that would have imposed restrictions on local NGOs with links to foreign funding and influences.

In a sign of the growing maturity of Kyrgyzstan’s parliamentary democracy, Kyrgyz lawmakers voted 65 to 46 against introducing a law that was supposedly based on Russia’s so-called foreign agents law. This would have meant that NGOs receiving funding from abroad would have had to register with a special database and agree to increased oversight.

Mihra Rittmann, the Human Rights Watch Kyrgyzstan researcher, said that Russia had used its own version of the law to carry out intrusive searches that have forced some NGOs to close.

“This is an important decision by Kyrgyzstan’s parliament, the Jogorku Kenesh,” she wrote. “Kyrgyzstan is Central Asia’s only parliamentary democracy and today’s rejection of the bill is a reminder of the positive role the Jogorku Kenesh can play in upholding Kyrgyzstan’s human rights commitments.”

Even before the vote on Thursday, the bill had been watered down taking out some of the more controversial wording, such as references to foreign agents with its undertone of espionage.

Still, seeing off the bill altogether is a victory for more liberal, Western- minded Kyrgyz who had worried about the expanding influence of Russia in Kyrgyzstan and the wider region in general.

Zhanar Akayev, an MP for the ruling Social Democratic Party, explained that economics had also played a role in defeating the bill.

“Many international organisations expressed their concern,” he was quoted by media as saying. “We get financial assistance from them in many fields, including healthcare, education, and agriculture, among others. We need this money.”

And this view was largely reflected outside parliament too.

Galina, 25, said she was relieved the bill had been voted down.

“Overall I think that the less the number of laws and regulations, the better it is,” she said. “I was afraid, that the state would use this law for its own purposes.”

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 280, published on May 13 2016)

Editorial: NGOs in Kyrgyzstan

MAY 13 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Liberal, Western forces in Kyrgyzstan have scored a major victory by defeating a bill that had the Kremlin’s fingerprints all over it.

Essentially, the so called foreign agents bill aimed to blacklist NGOs which had links with foreign governments and organisations.

This blacklist would have meant more surveillance, checks and interference. It would have put many NGOs, which operate on tight margins and may not be pushing the preferred Kyrgyz government line, into liquidation.

Instead, by mounting a serious-minded campaign and targeting MPs who had a vote on the issue, those against the law were able to at first get it watered down and then scrapped altogether.

This is good news too for Kyrgyzstan’s fledgling parliamentary democracy, only five-years-old last year. It shows resilience and that the system is working. This was democracy in action in Central Asia.

The result of the MPs’ vote may also show that this term’s MPs, voted in last year, are more liberal bunch.

ENDS

(Editorial from Issue No. 280, published on May 13 2016)

Kazakhstan explains power nexus

APRIL 29 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan has sold 218m kWh of electricity to Kyrgyzstan in 2016 at a price of 9 tenge ($0.03) per kWh from the Ekibastuz power station, the Kazakh government said. Kazakhstan earned around $6m from the sale. Kyrgyzstan is a net importer of electricity from neighbouring countries due to chronic water shortages in recent years. Last year, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan exported around 400m kWh to Kyrgyzstan.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 279, published on May 6 2016)

Kyrgyz-Tajik CASA-1000, a ‘mad plan’ now nearing its launch

MAY 5 2016, DUSHANBE (The Conway Bulletin) — CASA-1000 is the power transmission project that most analysts dismissed as too madcap to work.

Conceived by US diplomats and regional officials sometime around 2010 when Hillary Clinton, then the US Secretary of State, was promoting her vision of a north-south Silk Road stretching from Central Asia to India, this was the project that was meant to fail.

Instead, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan and Afghanistan will officially launch its construction next week.

If all goes to plan, and security in areas of Afghanistan where the Taliban are active is a major concern, CASA-1000 should foster improved relations in the region and boost economies.

The World Bank is the project’s biggest backer, pledging more than half the estimated $1b cost to build the 1,222km transmission line and support systems.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 279, published on May 6 2016)

Kyrgyzstan secures $1.7b loan to push CASA-1000 forward

MAY 5 2016, BISHKEK (The Conway Bulletin) — Despite securing a $1.7b finance deal to boost its power generating sector, Kyrgyzstan still has its work cut out to ensure that it can hit targets laid out in the ambitious CASA-1000 project which aims to send Tajik and Kyrgyz electricity to Pakistan and India, analysts said.

Next week heads of state from Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan are due in Dushanbe to officially launch CASA-1000, heralded as a new epoch in Central Asia and South Asia trade relations.

And Kyrgyzstan’s $1.7b credit line, organised last week with the Islamic Development Bank, the International Development Association and the European Investment Bank, has come only just in time.

Kyrgyzstan needs the cash to bolster its power generating capacity which has faltered over the past six months. In December 2015, transmission line faults damaged the 1,200MW Toktogul power plant, which generates 40% of Kyrgyzstan’s electricity. The outage triggered shortages and worried senior officials in the Kyrgyz government and their international partners.

At the same time, Russia pulled out of a $2b deal to build a dam and a 2,000MW power station at Kambar-Ata, on the Naryn river in central Kyrgyzstan, because a recession had sucked dry its funds.

Marat Kazakbayev, a political analyst based in Bishkek said Kyrgyzstan can currently meet its export demands but at a heavy cost.

“Electricity exports may be carried out at the expense of domestic electricity supply for the population of Kyrgyzstan,” he said.

For Kyrgyzstan, though, CASA- 1000 is a headline project that it simply must make work. The $1.2b project, backed by the World Bank, has been touted as a regional trade deal that will create wealth in mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, which have large power generating systems through their network of hydropower dams, and light houses and office blocks in Pakistan where electricity is in short supply.

The United States also views the project as an important way to lock Afghanistan into a global trade system and for it to generate some revenue as a transit country.

Still, as Indra Overland, research professor at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, said, even with the $1.7b loan secured, there is no guarantee that Kyrgyzstan’s power sector will be running at capacity by the time CASA-1000 is supposed to start in 2018.

“Kyrgyzstan has a problem of suboptimal internal organisation, lack of good governance,” he said. “It has plenty of hydropower potential to produce enough electricity for itself and for export. It should be a surplus country, but its infrastructure is lagging behind.”

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 279, published on May 6 2016)

Centerra looks to diffuse row with Kyrgyzstan over Kumtor

BISHKEK, MAY 4 2016, (The Conway Bulletin) – Scott Perry, CEO of Canadian miner Centerra Gold, invited the Kyrgyz government to meet with him to discuss their differences, less than a week after police in Bishkek raided the company’s offices looking for evidence of financial crimes.

In an interview with Bloomberg, Mr Perry said the government has not responded to Centerra’s offer to hold talks.

He also reiterated the company line that Kumtor’s dividend payment to Centerra in 2013 was perfectly legal.

“The rattling of the cage is without merit,” Mr Perry said of the police raid in Bishkek.

Last week, police raided the offices of Kumtor Gold Company (KGC), wholly-owned by Centerra. They were looking for documents linked to a dividend payment of $200m that KGC paid to Centerra in December 2013.

At the end of last year, the authorities sentenced Dilger Zhaparov, former board member of Kyrgyzaltyn, a state-owned mining company which has stakes in Centerra, to three years in prison for authorising the dividend payment.

During the police raid last week, Centerra’s shares were briefly suspended on the Toronto stock exchange. Many analysts interpreted the raid and the Kyrgyz allegation of financial crime against Centerra as more positioning. Kyrgyzstan has been trying to increase its control over the gold mine, the country’s single biggest industrial asset, for years.

This week, Centerra also posted quarterly results which showed a fall in gold production because of a drop in quality of mined ore. Sales also lagged because of a delay in gold shipments to Kyrgyzaltyn, which trades Kumtor’s gold, in March.

Low gold prices hit revenues, which dropped by 66% to $73.2m, compared to last year.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 279, published on May 6 2016)

Kyrgyzstan’s debt to GDP ratio grows

MAY 4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Foreign debt has outpaced GDP growth in 2015 in Kyrgyzstan and pushed up the debt/GDP ratio to 70%, Edward Gemayel, IMF head of mission, told a press conference. Mr Gemayel also said that GDP growth will be 3% in 2016, lower than the 3.5% it registered in 2015. Debt/GDP ratio is a sensitive issue in Kyrgyzstan. In 2014, the IMF said, the ratio was around 45%.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 279, published on May 6 2016)

Kyrgyzstan and Centerra row

MAY 4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Canadian miner Centerra Gold, owner of the Kumtor gold mine in Kyrgyzstan, once again said that it had not broken any rules in 2013 when it made a dividend payment . It was responding to a raid by police on the Kumtor office in Bishkek. Police were apparently sent to the Kumtor office specifically to search for any evidence of financial crime. Kyrgyzstan wants to increase its stake in Kumtor.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 279, published on May 6 2016)