JUNE 19 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Police in Baku detained 23 protesters at an anti-government demonstration which they said was illegal. Worried that street-level revolutions in the Arab world may spread, the authorities in Azerbaijan have been trying to stamp out anti-government protesters throughout the year.
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(News report from Issue No. 45, published on June 21 2011)
JUNE 6 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – The death of Abkhazia’s President, Sergey Bagapsh, on May 29 removed a steadying influence on the volatile province and forces both Russia and Georgia to re-consider their strategy towards it.
A surprise visit by Russian PM Vladimir Putin to Bagapsh’s funeral in Abkhazia five days later underlined just how important control of the breakaway Georgian region is to Russia.
Abkhazia has been a de facto independent state since a war against Georgia after the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union. Russia recognised Abkhazia — and South Ossetia, another rebel Georgian region — as an independent state in 2008 after it also fought Georgia in a brief war.
Bagapsh was considered a competent technocrat capable of uniting different factions and able to balance Russia’s interests — geo-political, military, economic — in the region with more nationalistic local politicians.
He had been president of Abkhazia since 2005. According to the constitution, Abkhazia now has three months to hold a presidential election.
There are three main candidates to replace Bagapsh: vice-President Aleksandr Ankvab, PM Sergey Shamba and Raul Khadjimba, Bagapsh’s former opponent. A power vacuum in Abkhazia could pull in Georgia which still hopes to reclaim the region and South Ossetia.
This tension between Russia and Georgia over Abkhazia is never far away. On June 3 Georgia said it had arrested two residents of Abkhazia for trying to plant a bomb on behalf of Russia.
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(News report from Issue No. 43, published on June 6 2011)
MAY 25/26 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – In the worst street violence in Georgia since a state of emergency in November 2007, police fired rubber bullets and tear gas at anti- government protesters blocking the main street in Tbilisi. The government said protesters had started the violence, the protesters said it was unprovoked. A car speeding away from the protest hit and killed two people.
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(News report from Issue No. 42, published on May 30 2011)
MAY 26 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev issued a pardon freeing 70 people from prison including newspaper editor Eynulla Fatullayev, in jail since 2007 for inciting terrorism and drugs possession. Mr Fatullayev had written articles critical of the government and denies the charges. His supporters have always said the charges were false.
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(News report from Issue No. 42, published on May 30 2011)
MAY 27 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – In a move aimed at appeasing anti-government protests, Armenian authorities released journalist Nikol Pahinian and parliamentarian Sasun Mikaelyan from jail. Mr Pahinian and Mr Mikaelian were prominent opposition figures jailed for allegedly provoking clashes after elections in 2008.
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(News report from Issue No. 42, published on May 30 2011)
MAY 27 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyzstan’s parliament voted to ban from the country Kimmo Kiljunen, a Finnish former parliamentarian, who wrote a report on ethnic violence last year that killed more than 400 people. Mr Kiljunen’s report implicated Kyrgyz security forces. Parliament said Mr Kiljunen was a threat to national security.
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(News report from Issue No. 42, published on May 30 2011)
MAY 22 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Security forces fired rubber bullets to disperse anti-government demonstrators in central Tbilisi, some of whom had attacked plain-clothed police with sticks during the worst street violence in Georgia since a state of emergency in 2007. The day before, about 6,000 protesters had called for President Mikheil Saakashvili to resign.
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(News report from Issue No. 41, published on May 24 2011)
MAY 16 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia plans to move its parliament to Kutaisi, a town 200km from Tbilisi. No reason was given for the proposed move which appeared in changes to last year’s constitutional amendments. The amendments hand more power to parliament from 2012.
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(News report from Issue No. 40, published on May 17 2011)
MAY 15 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – A parliamentary committee in Kyrgyzstan cleared first deputy PM Omurbek Babanov of corruption, media reported, giving the fragile government coalition a boost. Mr Babanov had stepped down a month ago while the corruption charges were being investigated.
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(News report from Issue No. 40, published on May 17 2011)
MAY 6 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – In a case that highlighted the porous border controls in Central Asia, Kazakh PM Karim Massimov said he had sacked the head of Kazakhstan’s customs agency after security forces broke up a smuggling ring which had bribed officials to operate freely across a border with China for five years.
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(News report from Issue No. 39, published on May 9 2011)