Tag Archives: Kyrgyzstan

EBRD starts cleaning up toxic Soviet mines in Kyrgyzstan

JULY 29 (The Bulletin) — The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) said that work to clean up a toxic Soviet uranium mine in south Kyrgyzstan had begun. Poisonous legacy pits and disused mines dot the region and the EBRD is funding work to clean them up. This project is focused on Shekaftar, near Jalal-Abad, where the USSR worked a uranium mine until 1968. The disused mine is still radioactive.

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— This story was published in issue 455 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on July 31 2020.

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

Kyrgyzstan decrees day of mourning for coronavirus victims

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JULY 25 (The Bulletin) — Kyrgyzstan’s President Sooronbai Jeenbekov said that July 30 would be a day of mourning for people who had died from Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. The country has recorded 36,719 infections and 1,409 deaths. Many of the people who have died have been medical staff, infected because they had been wearing inadequate PPE.

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— This story was published in issue 455 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on July 31 2020.

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

Kyrgyz film showing corruption aired on Youtube

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JULY 28 (The Bulletin) — The producers of a film showing corruption by Kyrgyz officials said that the authorities tried to block the film’s release. Meken shows a stand-off between a Chinese mining company and Kyrgyz villagers. It also shows bribes being paid by Chinese workers to Kyrgyz government officials for breaking various environmental rules. Although the film is fiction, it is rooted in real life events. The director of Meken, Medetbek Jailov, said that the film was supposed to be aired earlier in the year but was blocked because the security service had demanded that corruption scenes were removed. Instead, the producers will release the film, for free, on Youtube.

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— This story was published in issue 455 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on July 31 2020.

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

Feted Kyrgyz human rights activist dies in prison

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BISHKEK/JULY 25 (The Bulletin) — Azimzhan Askarov, one of Kyrgyzstan’s most high-profile prisoners, died in his cell aged 69.

The death of Askarov, an ethnic Uzbek human rights activist considered by the West to be a political prisoner but by most Kyrgyz to be a troublemaker, will damage Kyrgyzstan’s already battered reputation for minority rights.

Announcing Askarov’s death, the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said the Kyrgyz authorities had wanted him to die.

“They had every opportunity to end his wrongful imprisonment, but each time they flouted their obligations,” said Mihra Rittmann, senior Central Asia researcher at HRW. “They intended for him to die in prison, and so he has.”

The US and Western human rights groups had been calling on Kyrgyzstan to release Askarov from prison on humanitarian grounds. He had been ill for several years and had been given only a few months to live earlier this year.

But the Kyrgyz Supreme Court said that Askarov was a dangerous agitator who helped to whip up inter-ethnic tension in 2010 that led to fighting around Osh and Jala-Abad that killed several hundred people. He was imprisoned in 2010 for murdering an ethnic Kyrgyz policeman during the violence after a trial that human rights activists said was riddled with violations. They also said that Askarov had been tortured in prison.

In 2016, the UN asked Kyrgyzstan to release Askarov and re-run his trial and the US gave Askarov a prestigious human rights prize.

A Bulletin correspondent based in Jala-Abad, south Kyrgyzstan, said that while the death of Askarov had sparked some interest, there had been no protests. Most Kyrgyz agree that he was a troublemaker and ethnic Uzbeks don’t want to rock fragile ethnic relations.

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— This story was published in issue 455 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on July 31 2020.

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

The wisdom in punishing former presidents for corruption

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JUNE 23 (The Bulletin) — Former presidents in Central Asia and the South Caucasus have more in common with London buses than you would expect.

An old adage says that you wait for ages for a London bus and then two come along at once. To some extent, the same could be said of former presidents in Central Asia and the South Caucasus.

In Bishkek, a judge marked a first by imprisoning former president Almazbek Atambayev for 11 years for corruption. He is the first former president in the region to be imprisoned but is likely to be followed quickly by two more. In Armenia, former presidents Robert Kocharyan and Serzh Sargsyan are in and out of court and both appear destined for a spell in prison.

There have, of course, been other attempts to imprison former presidents in Central Asia, but they have failed. Just. Kurmanbek Bakiyev, a former president in Kyrgyzstan, was found guilty of corruption after a revolution in 2010 but had already fled to Belarus and Mikheil Saakashvili, Georgia’s former president, has also been found guilty of corruption but is living and working in Ukraine.

The point is that unless they are very careful, incoming governments tempted to set prosecutors onto the trail of former presidents and their various associates, look like they are more interested in settling scores than governing.

Rightly, US and EU diplomats have lobbied for various governments not to go down this route. It undermines their credibility and damages both relations with foreign investors, who don’t like the aggressive headlines, and also ordinary people’s trust in politics.

Perhaps it would have been better in Kyrgyzstan and Armenia and Georgia to spend less energy on settling old scores and more on improving people’s lives? The drivers can be different — in Kyrgyzstan, Pres. Sooronbai Jeenbekov had to stop Atambayev dominating politics; in Armenia, PM Pashinyan felt that he needed to perpetuate the popular revolution of 2018 and punish former governments for shooting dead anti-government protests in 2008; in Georgia, the incoming Georgian Dream coalition government needed to prove that Saakashvili and his government were as corrupt and evil as they had claimed in an acrimonious pair of elections — but the results are the same.

And it perpetuates as the next incoming government will be tempted to right the wrongs that they have also been nursing.

When this cycle is broken, politics in the region will have truly grown up.

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— This story was first published in issue 451 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin on June 23 2020

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

Atambayev sent to prison for 11 years

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BISHKEK/JUNE 23 (The Bulletin) — Almazbek Atambayev, Kyrgyzstan’s former president, was sentenced to 11 years in prison for corruption, completing a heavy fall from grace for a man who had at one time been venerated as a modern Kyrgyz leader.

Atambayev is also the first former president in the Central Asia and South Caucasus region to be imprisoned, although former Armenian presidents Robert Kocharyan and Serzh Sargsyan have both been arrested for corruption too.

The court said that Atambayev was guilty of corruption over the release of Chechen mafia boss, Aziz Batukayev from prison in 2013. Prosecutors said that the two men were allied. Batukayev was arrested and imprisoned in 2006 for 16 years for organising anti-government demonstrations. This was when Atambayev was in opposition. He was PM in 2010/11 and president from 2011-17.

Supporters of Atambayev accused the government of Sooronbai Jeenbekov of using the judiciary to pursue political vendettas. This has become a common refrain across the region after power transitions.

Atambayev has fallen out with Mr Jeenbekov, the man he picked to succeed him as president. It appeared that Atambayev, who was described as acerbic and aloof during his presidency, considered his successor to be his junior and he expected Mr Jeenbekov to defer to him. He wanted to run Kyrgyzstan, essentially, as a backseat driver. Mr Jeenbekov, though, had other ideas and prosecutors have steadily arrested and imprisoned Atambayev’s supporters.

Atambayev was arrested in August after a two-day stand-off with the security forces. He still faces trials for other offences, including inciting armed rebellion.

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— This story was first published in issue 451 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin on June 23 2020

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

Kyrgyz MPs debate increased punishments for domestic abuse

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JUNE 19 (The Bulletin) — MPs in Kyrgyzstan debated increasing fines for domestic abuse after a video went viral of a woman standing with her hands tied behind her back as her husband poured cold water over her head and slapped her. Activists have said that Kyrgyzstan, a notoriously macho society, is too soft on domestic abuse. Reports said that police have arrested the man in the video.

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— This story was first published in issue 451 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, published on June 23 2020

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

Kyrgyzstan ignores evidence of officials’ corruption

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JUNE 18 (The Bulletin) — Anti-corruption activists accused Kyrgyzstan of ignoring evidence of corruption after Parliament approved the findings of a parliamentary commission which said that despite a well-documented investigation, officials had not laundered millions of dollars. The commission said although Kyrgyz customs officials were implicated in the report, Kyrgyzstan’s reputation should not be blighted because the cash had come from private Kyrgyz and Uzbek businessmen.

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— This story was first published in issue 451 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, published on June 23 2020

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

Kyrgyz Parliament approves new PM

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JUNE 17 (The Bulletin) — Kyrgyzstan’s parliament approved the appointment of Kubatbek Boronov as PM after the resignation earlier this month of Mukhammedkalyi Abylgaziev over a corruption investigation in the telecoms sector. Mr Boronov, 55, was formerly a deputy PM and emergencies minister.

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— This story was first published in issue 451 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, published on June 23 2020

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

Kyrgyz president sacks deputy PM and health minister over coronavirus response

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APRIL 5 (The Bulletin) — At least two people have now died with COVID-19 in Kyrgyzstan, Kyrgyz health workers said. They both died in a hospital in Nookat in the south of the country, the epicentre of the outbreak in Kyrgyzstan. Officials have said that pilgrims returning from the Hajj in Mecca to their homes in and around Osh and Jala-Abad spread the coronavirus.

Looking to deflect criticism pf the government’s response to the spread of the coronavirus, Kyrgyz President Sooronbai Jeenbekov sacked health minister Kosmosbek Cholponbayev and deputy PM Altynai Omurbekova (April 1). He said that they had been too slow to identify the source of the virus in the country and said that their work was “unsatisfactory”.

The state-of-emergency forced a court in Bishkek to postpone the trial of former president Almazbek Atambayev and 13 other defendants who are charged with inciting deadly clashes with the security forces in August 2019 (March 30).

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— This story was first published in issue 441 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin