Tag Archives: politics

Uzbek president’s first 100 days in power

MARCH 27 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — >> What is the International Crises Group and why is it important to discuss its report on the first 100 days of Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s rule in Uzbekistan?

>> The International Crisis Group, or ICG, is a think tank based in Brussels. It draws most of its funding from Western governments and reports on some of the world’s long-running problem areas. It is influential. One of the areas it reports on is Central Asia and this report, on Mirziyoyev’s first 100 days as Uzbek president, is one of the first major efforts to evaluate his influence over the region’s most populous country.

>>How does the ICG view Mirziyoyev?

>>Essentially, positive with a strong dose of caution. Like others, the ICG welcomed moves by Mirziyoyev to improve relations with neighbours and has also said there are signs he wants to change the economy which has operated under a pseudo-Soviet centrally controlled system since the 1992 break up of the USSR. But the report’s authors also sounded a serious, and wise, note of caution. They pointed out that Mirziyoyev had been PM under Islam Karimov when the current system, designed to protect the elite, was devised.

>> Got it. What, according to ICG, are the most serious issues facing Mirziyoyev?

>> To start with, the ICG said that Mirziyoyev needs to shore up support within the ranks of the Uzbek elite. Without this support he will fail to update the system. It pointed to a government reshuffle at the start of the year which had improved things but said that he still needed to patch up his differences with Rustam Azimov, an ex-finance minister, and Rustam Inoyatov, the head of the National Security Service.

>> What about ordinary Uzbeks? Does ICG have any insight on how they view their new president?

>> Only a smattering of anecdotal evidence that suggests that Mirziyoyev is going about things the right way and that he has started out with a degree of popularity. ICG quoted a 55-year-old teacher in the Fergana Valley saying: “Mirziyoyev is a person who knows Uzbekistan’s real picture, he can make things better.”

>> And to sum up?

>> The ICG broadly welcomed Mirziyoyev’s first 100 days in office, although it also said that more is needed. It did urge foreign powers to work more closely with Uzbekistan under Mirziyoyev to ensure reforms that have been hinted at come through and don’t become early-day regime hubris.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 322, published on March 27 2017)

Prosecutors look at ING role in Uzbekistan telecom bribes

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MARCH 22 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — ING, one of the Netherlands’ biggest bank, became the second international bank to be placed under investigation over alleged links to money laundering by the Uzbek government.

Earlier this year prosecutors in Switzerland said that they had started an investigation into the role played by Lombard Odier, a Geneva-based private bank, in a series of bribes paid by European telecoms firms for access to Uzbekistan’s potentially lucrative mobile market.

In a statement, the Dutch prosecution service said: “The bank [ING] is suspected of having failed to report, or report in a timely fashion, irregular transactions. It is suspected of having enabled international corruption and money laundering.”

A spokesman for ING said that the company couldn’t make specific comments about an ongoing investigation other than to say that it was cooperating with the authorities.

Media reports said that the investigation will focus on a $184m payment made in 2007/8 by Netherlands-based Vimpelcom via ING to a Gibraltar-registered company owned by an associate of Gulnara Karimova, the eldest daughter of former Uzbek president Islam Karimov. This was allegedly part of a larger bribe that Vimpelcom has already admitted paying to the Karimovs, then the unrivalled First Family of Uzbekistan, for access to the 35m-person market. Last year Vimpelcom paid a $795m fine for the bribe, the second largest fine for corruption in Western corporate history.

The discovery in 2012 by Western media of the bribes has already destroyed the careers of high-flying telecoms executives and persuaded both Sweden’s Telia and Norway’s Telenor to sell out of the Central Asia/South Caucasus market, which they have said they believe is riddled through with corruption.

It was also part of the undoing of the Karimovs’ grip on power in Uzbekistan.

Ms Karimova, had appeared set on succeeding her father as Uzbekistan’s president. She had styled herself as a glamorous multi-talented pop-singer, fashion-designer, captain-of-industry and Uzbek ambassador to the UN but her enemies swooped when the scale of her corruption became apparent.

Already unpopular in Uzbekistan, she was placed under house arrest in 2014 when she return to Tashkent and has barely been seen or heard of since. Her associates were arrested and convicted of various financial crimes.

When her father died in September, Ms Karimova was even prevented from attending his funeral in Samarkand.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 322, published on March 27 2017)

Armenian police arrest activist for smuggling missile

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YEREVAN, MARCH 22 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Police in Armenia arrested influential opposition activist Samvel Babyan for allegedly smuggling a surface-to-air shoulder-launched missile into the country.

Mr Babyan’s supporters said that the accusations were absurd and that they were politically motivated. Two other men were also arrested with Mr Babyan.

The arrest comes just days before a tense parliamentary election in Armenia, the first under a new constitution that will shape Armenian politics for the next few years. Under constitutional amendments, power will shift from the president to parliament.

And Mr Babyan, a former defence minister in the Armenia-backed government of Nagorno-Karabakh, publicly supports the Ohanyan-Raffi-Oskanyan bloc, named after three former government ministers who now lead the opposition to the ruling Republican Party.

They condemned his arrest.

“This behaviour exercised by the government is aimed at spreading the atmosphere of fear and affecting the results of the elections in an illegal way,” the Reuters news agency quoted their statement as saying.

Armenia’s security services said that the two men had been caught smuggling the missile in from Georgia, in order to deliver it to Mr Babyan. Although he has denied the charges, Mr Babyan’s reputation as a tough guy will mean that many ordinary Armenia’s will take the authorities’ view.

In 2000 he was sent to prison for 14 years for trying to assassinate a former leader of Nagorno-Karabakh. Released in 2004 he moved to Russia and only moved back to Armenia last year.

Armenia and Azerbaijan fought a war over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. Only a UN negotiated peace deal in 1994 ended the fighting, although the peace remains shaky.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 322, published on March 27 2017)

Georgian officials mull constitutional changes

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MARCH 18 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgian Parliamentary Chairman Irakli Kobakhidze told the Imedi TV channel that Georgia’s Constitutional Court was close to recommending a series of changes that would scrap direct elections for the president and also replace the complicated parliamentary election system with a simplified and transparent proportional representation system. Georgia has been tinkering with its post-Soviet Constitution over the past few years. In 2010, it shifted most power from the president to the PM.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 322, published on March 27 2017)

Kyrgyz court freezes media group’s bank accounts

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MARCH 22 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — A court in Kyrgyzstan froze the bank accounts of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Kyrgyz service and the website Zanoza.kg, which are both facing libel charges from the government for allegedly defaming President Almazbek Atambayev. The two media units deny the charges and have said that, instead, they are victims of the Kyrgyz government’s increasingly vitriolic attack on the free media.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 322, published on March 27 2017)

Berdymuhamedov wants Turkmen horse placed on UNESCO List

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MARCH 11 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkmen President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, a man renowned for his vast array of talents including being a champion jockey, ordered his government to try to have the country’s famous Akhal-Teke horse placed onto the UNESCO World Heritage List.

Over the past few years, government’s in the region have been using the UNESCO World Heritage List as a sort of brand identifier to promote

themselves. Azerbaijan has registered itself as the birthplace of polo, Armenia has claimed lavash bread as its creation and Kyrgyzstan has uploaded the epic Manas poem to the list.

The Akhal-Teke horse is the national symbol of Turkmenistan. It is one of the most expensive horses to buy and is famed around the world for its good looks, endurance, intelligence and speed.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 321, published on March 20 2017)

Kazakh opposition trial starts in absentia

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MARCH 17 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — A court in Almaty began the trial in absentia of fugitive billionaire and self-styled Kazakh opposition leader Mukhtar Ablyazov, potentially setting Kazakhstan on a collision course with France which has refused to extradite him. The former head of BTA Bank is accused of embezzling billions of dollars. He fled to Britain after the collapse of BTA Bank in 2008/9 and then to France where he was arrested in 2013. Last year, a judge in Paris ruled against his extradition because of concerns that he would be tortured.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 321, published on March 20 2017)

ODIHR chief flies to Uzbekistan

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MARCH 16 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Michael Georg, head of the OSCE’s election monitoring unit ODIHR, travelled to Tashkent for a meeting with the Uzbek foreign ministry on its findings from its election monitoring mission in December. The meeting is likely to precede a final election monitoring report from ODIHR. The elections last December were the first time that ODIHR had monitored an election in Uzbekistan.

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(News report from Issue No. 321, published on March 20 2017)

Hundreds more protest in Kyrgyz capital

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MARCH 18/19 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Police in the Kyrgyz capital broke up a series of anti-government protests complaining about what they said was pressure on free speech. Media reported that hundreds of people turned out for the demonstrations after the government said that it was going to sue two media companies for slandering Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev. There have been a number of anti-government protests in Bishkek since the arrest last month of senior members of the opposition Ata Meken party, including leader and presidential candidate Omurbek Tekebayev.

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(News report from Issue No. 321, published on March 20 2017)

Parking ticket sparks riot in Georgian city

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TBILISI, MARCH 11/12 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Police and rioters clashed in Batumi, Georgia’s second city, allegedly after an argument over a parking ticket escalated into violence.

Rioters burned cars and fought police who resorted to firing tear gas into the protesters in what observers have said was the worst violence for years in Georgia. Local media said that 85 people were detained after the violence.

For the ruling Georgian Dream coalition, the violence is a potential problem as it may show that people are become increasingly tired with the status quo and also of deal with an economic downturn that has started to impact living standards. A Georgian observer said that the main riot was the culmination of a build-up of a bad feeling towards a new police chief in Batumi who was trying to impose heavier fines for small misdemeanours such as littering the street.

There had been two days of protests before the riot.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 321, published on March 20 2017)