Tag Archives: politics

Mirziyoyev tells forced cotton labourers to go home

TASHKENT/SEPT. 22 (The Bulletin) — Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev ordered forced labourers working in the country’s cotton fields to return home, taking a step towards banning the practice altogether.

A Conway Bulletin correspondent said that the order for forced labourers — mainly teachers, medical staff and students — to leave the fields didn’t impact the wider mass mobilisation of the workforce to pick Uzbekistan’s cotton, a mobilisation that is characterised by low wages and poor conditions.

The Conway Bulletin, through its Silk Road Intelligencer newswire, had been one of the first news agencies to the report the news. The next day, on Sept. 23, Uzbek PM Abdulla Aripov confirmed the order.

“It’s forever,” he was quoted by Reuters as saying. “Students should study, state employees should work.”

The use of forced labour in Uzbekistan’s cotton fields has infuriated human rights groups who successfully lobbied for Western clothing companies to stop buying Uzbek cotton.

In the last few years, though, Uzbek officials and officials from the UN’s International Labour Organisation (ILO) have said that the use of forced labour has been cut back.

Human rights groups have published evidence that dispute this.

Under Pres. Mirziyoyev, Uzbekistan has appeared to lurch towards a more free and open society, rejecting the authoritarian tendencies of Islam Karimov who ruled from the 1991 break-up of the Soviet Union until his death in Sept. 2016.

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— This story was first published in issue 344 of The Conway Bulletin, now called the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on Sept. 24 2017.

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2017

Georgia’s Parliament weakens Georgian Dream constitutional changes

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SEPT. 22 (The Bulletin) — In what is being described as a major victory by opposition parties in Georgia, Parliament agreed to water-down the ruling Georgian Dream’s planned constitutional changes and allow blocs to contest the next parliamentary election in 2020. Georgian Dream had wanted to ban election blocs. It also ditched plans enforce the so-called Bonus System, which hands all votes from parties failing to pass a 5% threshold to the winning party, from the 2024 election.

ENDS

— This story was first published in issue 344 of The Conway Bulletin, now called the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on Sept. 24 2017.

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2017

Former Kazakh PM released early from prison

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SEPT. 21 (The Bulletin) — Former Kazakh PM Serik Akhmetov was released from prison in Karaganda only two years into a 10 year sentence for corruption. Akhmetov was convicted in 2015 in a high-profile trial that highlighted the country’s endemic problem with corruption. He was PM from September 2012 until April 2014. Earlier in September, a court in Karaganda said that Akhmetov should be released but that he will face limitations on his freedom.

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— This story was first published in issue 344 of The Conway Bulletin, now called the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on Sept. 24 2017.

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2017

Kyrgyzstan accuses Kazakhstan of political meddling

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BISHKEK/SEPT. 20 (The Bulletin) — Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan exchanged testy diplomatic notes after Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev travelled to Bishkek to meet with Omurbek Babanov, a former PM and a high-profile opposition candidate in next month’s presidential election.

Immediately after news of meeting between Mr Nazarbayev and Mr Babanov broke, the Kyrgyz government complained that the Kazakh government was trying to influence the election.

The Kazakh government replied in kind, saying that Mr Nazarbayev had every right to visit opposition leaders in Bishkek.

The election in Kyrgyzstan, set for Oct. 14, is ratcheting up into a grumpy affair. Pres. Almazbek Atambayev is stepping down after his single six-year term. He has backed his PM Sooronbai Jeenbekov to replace him.

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— This story was first published in issue 344 of The Conway Bulletin, now called the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on Sept. 24 2017.

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2017

First lesbian to run for political office in Georgia

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SEPT. 16 (The Bulletin) — Nino Bolkvadze, a gay lawyer, will compete for a seat in the Tbilisi City Council elections next month, the first lesbian to run for political office in Georgia. Ms Bolkvadze will run for the Republican Party, a staunchly pro-European party, in the election. Georgia is still regarded as a strongly conservative country with strong anti-LGBT rights movements.

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— This story was first published in issue 344 of The Conway Bulletin, now called the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on Sept. 24 2017.

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2017

Armenian MP group submits request to leave Eurasian Economic Union

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SEPT. 8 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — A group of pro-Western MPs in Armenia submitted a proposal in parliament to leave the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU). Armenia’s government is staunchly pro-Russia and has no intention of leaving the EEU but the proposal is a reminder that a more pro-Western strand exists in the Armenian political spectrum. Yelk, which holds nine seats in the 105 member chamber, said that Armenia’s economy has suffered in the three years it has been part of the EEU.
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— This story was first published in issue 343 of The Conway Bulletin on Sept. 15 2017

CSTO decrees Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan as a terrorist organisation

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SEPT. 7 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), a post-Soviet grouping of most militaries in Central Asia, the South Caucasus, Belarus and Russia, decreed at its meeting in June that the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT) was a terrorist organisation, media reported. Tajik officials have arrested or forced into exile all the main members of the IRPT since 2015 after President Emomali Rakhmon accused the group of a coup attempt. Until then, the IRPT, whose top members have sought sanctuary in Europe, had been the official opposition group.
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— This story was first published in issue 343 of The Conway Bulletin on Sept. 15 2017

COMMENT: One year on, Mirziyoyev is opening up Uzbekistan

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— Progress can still be derailed but so far, and only one year into the job, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s reforms in Uzbekistan have looked pretty good, writes Bulletin editor James Kilner

SEPT. 7 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — In the year that Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev has been running Uzbekistan, he has done more to open up the country than even the most optimistic observer could have imagined in Sept. 2016.

On paper, at least.

Mirziyoyev has released a number of political prisoners and mended relations with neighbours but the main structural changes, other than scrapping currency controls, that should propel Uzbekistan into the 21st century, are still to come.

Under Islam Karimov, Uzbekistan had been trapped in a sort of USSR time-warp. Mirziyoyev has promised to unravel this iron casing.

He has scrapped the dual currency system that made it more expensive to buy the soum on the official market, made noises about making it easier for foreign investors to take money out of the country and signed various decrees that will ditch the hated external passports needed to leave the country.

But these remain, in the large part, promises. Still, this is a better, more open, start than many people had expected when the former PM emerged as Karimov’s successor.
He quickly shored up his power-base by demoting his main rival to the top job former economy minister Rustam Azimov.

And he has made sure that he has struck a genuinely popular note with ordinary Uzbeks, going out to the regions and promising to invest in infrastructure projects that will create jobs and trade deals with neighbours which should generate wealth for people living in Central Asia’s most populous country.

Mirziyoyev has also done something that Karimov was always too afraid to do. He has reached out to pious Muslims. While Karimov tried to drive Islam underground, Mirziyoyev was pictured breaking the Ramadan fast with religious leaders. A huge olive branch.

Mirziyoyev has promised much to many in his first year in power. In his second year he needs to deliver on his promises.

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(News report from Issue No. 342, published on Sept. 7 2017

Lola Karimova quits UN job

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AUG. 28 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — In a speech in Samarkand, Lola Karimova-Tillyaeva, second daughter of former Uzbek leader Islam Karimov, said that she would step down as the country’s representative to UNESCO. Instead, she said, she wanted to concentrate on running the charity named after her father. Karimova-Tillyaeva is currently based in Europe. She has fallen out with her elder sister Gulnara Karimova who has been kept under house arrest in Tashkent since March 2014. Islam Karimov died in September 2016 after ruling the country since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.

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(News report from Issue No. 342, published on Sept. 7 2017)

Bishkek court closes opposition TV station

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BISHKEK, AUG. 22 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Less than two months before what is shaping up to be an increasingly feisty and acrimonious presidential election, a court in Bishkek ordered the closure of the Sentyabr private TV channel that was broadly sympathetic with the opposition. The court banned Sentyabr for broadcasting film that it said was extremist. Specifically, it broadcast an interview with an ex-police chief in Osh in which he accused Pres. Almazbek Atambayev’s preferred successor, ex-PM Sooronbai Jeenbekov, of fuelling ethnic tension in the region in 2010.

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(News report from Issue No. 341, published on Aug. 27 2017)