MARCH 27 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — A car bomb in Tokmok, northern Kyrgyzstan, killed champion Kyrgyz kick-boxer Ruslan Abasov and injured his wife and child. Media reported that police are investigating links to organised crime gangs. Abasov has won the Eurasian and European kick-boxing championships.
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(News report from Issue No. 178, published on April 2 2014)
MARCH 25 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — In a similar move to Russia’s controversial law of 2013, Kyrgyzstan’s parliament published a draft bill that would outlaw spreading information about gay issues. The bill is currently only published online for public discussion but this is the first step to turning it into law.
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(News report from Issue No. 178, published on April 2 2014)
APRIL 1 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyzstan’s parliament confirmed the new governing coalition would be made up of the same partners as the previous one — the Social Democratic Party, Ar-Namys and Ata-Meken.
The only apparent difference is the PM who is likely to be Djoomart Otorbayev, a deputy prime minister in the last two coalition governments.
But Mr Otorbayev is already a divisive choice. He is a former World Bank technocrat and in Kyrgyzstan’s partisan politics that sits uncomfortably with many.
What he lacks, decried Kyrgyz MP Jusupali Isayev, is a certain Kyrgyz-ness. Mr Isayev said that his World Bank training is all very well but Mr Otorbayev is out-of-touch with ordinary Kyrgyz as he doesn’t know how to keep livestock or dry apricots.
Indeed, Mr Otorbayev has already signalled where he lies on the central debate in Kyrgyzstan between nationalist policies and attracting essential foreign investment, when he said that he would not look to re-negotiate a new deal with Toronto-based Centerra Gold over the Kumtor gold mine.
In February, the Kyrgyz government and Centerra Gold agreed a 50:50 ownership deal of the gold mine.
Kumtor is key to the Kyrgyz economy. It currently accounts for 10% of GDP.
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(News report from Issue No. 178, published on April 2 2014)
MARCH 24 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — A joint Tajik-Kyrgyz commission is discussing land swaps to reduce tension along their border, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported (March 24). Tension along the border has escalated this year. A shootout between Tajik and Kyrgyz border guards earlier this year killed several people.
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(News report from Issue No. 177, published on March 26 2014)
MARCH 21 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyzstan threw its support behind the Crimea referendum, saying the vote reflected the will of the people. Crimea voted overwhelmingly to cede from Ukraine and join Russia earlier this month. Kyrgyzstan supported the overthrow of former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovich but had been careful not to offend Russia.
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(News report from Issue No. 177, published on March 26 2014)
MARCH 24 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — When Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon headed to his home province of Khatlon to celebrate the Nowruz spring holiday he found time to, possibly at least, take part in an important part of Tajikistan’s modern history.
He joined Fan Xianrong, China’s ambassador in Dushanbe, at the official opening ceremony to build Tajikistan’s first oil refinery.
The facility could process up to 1.2m tonnes of crude annually, mirroring the potential of a similar Chinese-built plant in neighbouring Kyrgyzstan.
The Kyrgyz refinery is ready to begin production but has faced persistent protests and inflated compensation claims from locals concerned about the environmental impact. On March 24, Kyrgyzstan’s environmental agency finally ruled the refinery was not in breach of domestic environmental laws.
When they are up and running these refineries may help break the Russian energy grip over Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan and produce enough supply to feed domestic demand.
The crude oil for the Kyrgyz refinery could be sourced via a spur from the China-Kazakhstan pipeline, while Beijing’s CNPC is working on upstream oil projects in Tajikistan.
For China, building a refinery and controlling crude oil supplies is an effective way of securing influence over regional governments.
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(News report from Issue No. 177, published on March 26 2014)
MARCH 24 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — The price of fuel in Kyrgyzstan has increased by as much as 6.7% since the beginning of the year, media reported. An official from an industry lobby group blamed increased import prices from Russia for the rise. Fuel price rises, especially sharp ones, can generate discontent.
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(News report from Issue No. 177, published on March 26 2014)
MARCH 21 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Disagreements over the pagan Nowruz celebration, marking the beginning of spring have highlighted fault lines in Kyrgyz society.
While the state-affiliated Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Kyrgyzstan (SAMK) views celebrating Nowruz as an acceptable part of pre-Islamic Kyrgyz tradition, more hard-line clerics, perhaps with a more Arab influence, called on believers to ignore the holiday completely in the run up to March 21.
The debate brings into focus the sharp rise of nontraditional Islam, imported from the Arab world, in Central Asia.
Nowruz — a key event in the calendar of all five Central Asian states and also Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey — is not celebrated in other parts of the Muslim world.
In February, Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev expressed alarm at signs of “Arab culture, including the appearance of women wearing hijab, something alien to the gentler Kyrgyz traditional Islam.
As well as a gulf between the views of secularists like Mr Atambayev and practicing Muslims, Kyrgyzstan is also witnessing what a local religion expert called a “battle for control of mosques between different Jamaats.
As if to illustrate the point, last month the deputy Imam of a mosque in Kara-Suu, a southern city, was arrested for organising radical activity.
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(News report from Issue No. 177, published on March 26 2014)
MARCH 20 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyz president Almazbek Atambayev tasked his Social Democrat party with forming a government after the Ata Meken party walked out of a coalition, causing it to collapse earlier this month. Forming a stable government from Kyrgyzstan’s fractious parliament is notoriously difficult.
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(News report from Issue No. 177, published on March 26 2014)
MARCH 13 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — The authorities in Kyrgyzstan dropped Uzbek as a language that secondary school students can sit their graduation exams in, media reported. Kyrgyzstan’s education ministry said the number of students choosing to sit their exams in Uzbek was just too low. Human rights campaigners have said that Uzbeks have been increasingly marginalised in Kyrgyzstan.
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(News report from Issue No. 176, published on March 19 2014)