Tag Archives: politics

Kyrgyz President uses Victory Day to warn of racism in Russia

BISHKEK, MAY 9 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — In a departure from normal diplomatic niceties, Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev used the celebration of the Soviet Union’s victory over the Nazis in 1945 to warn of growing racism against workers from Kyrgyzstan in Russia.

Thousands of migrants workers from Kyrgyzstan and the rest of Central Asia travel to work in Russia each year, sending home their salaries but racist attacks in Russia have been on the increase, a rise that some have linked to the economic downturn.

Earlier this month, Russian media reported that a group of skinheads attacked and injured a group of Kyrgyz on the Moscow metro.

In pouring rain at Kyrgyzstan’s Eternal Flame War Memorial, Mr Atambayev said that Russia and Russians should respect their neighbours in Kyrgyzstan more.

“Kyrgyz families shared food and shelter with hundreds of thousands of refugees (from Russia). Most of them soon stayed here forever and became Kyrgyz,” he said.

“I want to give a reminder of this to our brotherly nation, Russia, where unfortunately fascist groups are rising up.”

Heads of states in the former Soviet Union usually use the annual Victory Day parade and celebrations to remind their people of the region’s common cause and their debt to Russia. By using the occasion to highlight racism in Russia, Mr Atambayev was adding emphasis to his comments.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 280, published on May 13 2016)

Kazakh leader sets up new ministry of information

ALMATY, MAY 12 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — A new information ministry announced last week by Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev will likely act as a censor and increase government control over the media, journalists and analysts said.

Mr Nazarbayev announced the Soviet-sounding ministry of information at the same time as he said that planned reforms to the land code would be postponed after they sparked a series of protests across the country.

He blamed a lack of public information about the reforms for the protests and said the new ministry would ease the flow of information from government to the people.

Political analyst Aidos Sarym said he thought that Mr Nazarbayev had been genuinely concerned his land reforms plans had been misunderstood.

“Authorities think that protests are just lack of communication. They think that if they will explain ‘properly’ to people, people will take it,” he said. “Nazarbayev understands that he lost his connection to the majority of population.”

But in an opinion piece on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Russian language website, reporter Svetlana Glushkova said that the government would try to use the new ministry to control social media, one of the few places where some form of free speech still exists in Kazakhstan, more tightly.

“I think the new ministry will increase control over social media, at first. Now you cannot see it [free speech] in TV or newspapers so the real resentment of the people, you will find it only on social media. The truth is there,” she said.

Kuralay Abylgazina, a journalist for a local news agency, agreed. She told the Bulletin that protests against the land reforms had worried the government.

“As of now, the ministry will most likely control content only from government media, but in future it will initiate some laws to regulate press freedom in the country,” she said. “And then we will see if this new government organ is a ministry of censorship.”

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(News report from Issue No. 280, published on May 13 2016)

Leak shows Kazakh Pres. daughter owned stake in offshore company

ALMATY, MAY 9 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Dariga Nazarbayeva, eldest daughter of Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev, owned a stake in an offshore company registered in the British Virgin Islands, a massive leak of data from a law firm in Panama showed.

The company called Asterry Holdings ltd was registered in the BVI in Sept. 2007 and struck off nearly five years later. Its offices were registered in Liechtenstein. It is unclear what assets the company ever held.

The revelation, though, is the second time that Kazakhstan’s ruling family has appeared in the Panama Papers. Ms Nazarbayeva’s son Nurali Aliyev, was revealed earlier this year to be the owner of a yacht and two other companies registered in BVI by Panama based Mossack Fonseca law company a the centre of the leak.

Both Ms Nazarbayeva and Mr Aliyev have high profiles in Kazakhstan. Ms Nazarbayeva is a deputy PM and has been spoken of as a future Kazakh president.

Mr Aliyev had been the deputy mayor of Astana until he quit abruptly in March so that he could concentrate on what he described as his business interests.

But with the economic outlook in Kazakhstan worsening, inflation rising and people losing their jobs, Mr Nazarbayev is treading carefully.

He is increasingly aware that he, his family and their supporters among the elite have to avoid being seen as excessively privileged and out-of-touch with ordinary people who have been struggling to survive what has become an increasingly tough and drawn out economic downturn.

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(News report from Issue No. 280, published on May 13 2016)

MP quits Georgian Dream

MAY 10 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armazi Akhvlediani, who had been a rising star of the ruling Georgian Dream coalition, quit the party and accused it of selling out its supporters. Mr Akhvlediani’s resignation will shake the Georgian Dream coalition just five months before an election which is expected to be a hard-fought affair against several opposition parties.

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(News report from Issue No. 280, published on May 13 2016)

Kazakh PM approves land reform commission

MAY 12 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakh PM Karim Massimov approved the members of a newly- established commission that will discuss reform of the land code. Bakhtyzhan Sagintayev, vice PM will head the commission which includes politicians, businessmen and members of civil society. The proposed amendments to the land code triggered weeks of protests throughout Kazakhstan and forced Pres. Nursultan Nazarbayev to delay introducing them.

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(News report from Issue No. 280, published on May 13 2016)

Georgian PM attends anti-corruption summit

MAY 12 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – At an anti-corruption summit organised in London by British PM David Cameron, Georgian PM Giorgi Kvirikashvili said his government will consider creating a public register of company information that includes data on beneficial owners. He also said that the government will set up partnerships with other countries to improve cooperation between different intelligence agencies.

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(News report from Issue No. 280, published on May 13 2016)

Editorial: Nazarbayev and protests

MAY 6 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – In a choreographed government meeting, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev blamed everyone but himself for the turmoil that proposed amendments to the land code have brought to the country.

The presidential press service posted parts of the government meeting on Facebook showing an angry Mr Nazarbayev.

He dressed down the ministers of economy and agriculture for having failed to explain the land reform to the population. With a patronising tone, Mr Nazarbayev said the population had been unable to understand the reform and needed to be spoon-fed details.

Once more, Mr Nazarbayev wanted to portray himself as the strong leader, the one who understands the people.

Nobody should be fooled. These were, and still are, Mr Nazarbayev’s reforms.

Everyone in Kazakhstan knows that for a bill to pass, especially an important one such as the land code, Mr Nazarbayev’s input is crucial.

He misjudged the appetite of the people to accept the land reforms.

ENDS

(Editorial from Issue No. 279, published on May 6 2016)

Editorial: Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh

MAY 6 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia’s parliament has started to debate whether to recognise Nagorno-Karabakh as an independent state. This is an unnecessary and inflammatory move at a tense time for the disputed region.

Last month the worst fighting in two decades broke out around Nagorno-Karabakh between Armenia-backed separatists and Azerbaijani forces.

Now Armenia, apparently keen to make a point, appears to be goading Azerbaijan by threatening to recognise the region as independent. It may have been controlled by Armenia-backed rebels since a ceasefire was agreed in 1994 but, officially at least, Nagorno-Karabakh is part of Azerbaijan.

If parliament goes all the way and recognises the independence of Nagorno-Karabakh, it will set Armenia apart in the international community. Armenia has sympathisers but few will back it.

It’ll also put its neighbour, Georgia, in a particularly difficult position. Georgia has to contend with two self-declared independent states on its territory — South Ossetia and Abkhazia. By discussing formalising Nagorno- Karabakh as an independent state, Armenia is stirring things up.

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(Editorial from Issue No. 279, published on May 6 2016)

Kazakh President scraps land reforms after protests spread

MAY 5 2016, ALMATY (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev bowed to public pressure and agreed to scrap unpopular land reforms which had sparked protests across the country.

Four days earlier, in a speech broadcast on national television, Mr Nazarbayev appeared determined to see off protests which had spread from Atyrau in west Kazakhstan, to Semey in the east and Kyzylorda in the south. He described the protesters as saboteurs who risked wrecking the country.

But with more protests planned, a clearly shaken Mr Nazarbayev told his government on Thursday that the plans would be delayed from their initial introduction on July 1 until the start of next year and, even then, only if the public agreed with the plans.

“The mechanisms and rules of the adopted law were not widely discussed with the public. The anxiety and concerns of the people are justified in many ways,” he said, according to a video posted on Facebook by his press office.

Analysts will either interpret this climb down as a humiliation for the 75-year-old leader who some say is increasingly out of touch with ordinary Kazakhs as they grapple with the frustrations of an economic downturn, or they will describe it as a masterstroke by an experienced leader able to paint himself as The- Father-of-the-People.

Certainly, Mr Nazarbayev was quick to blame others for the debacle.

He specifically said that economy minister Yerbolat Dossayev and agriculture minister Asylzhan Mamytbekov had failed to fulfil their brief.

“It should have been explained to the population that didn’t understand that there was no talk of any sale of our agricultural lands,” he said. “This means we failed to explain this point and to target those parts of the population which were concerned.”

Mr Dossayev resigned immediately and Mr Mamytbekov, the following day.

On the streets of Almaty it was easy to find people who were against the prospect of land reforms. “Renting land is wrong. Just wrong. It is the blood and sweat of our ancestors,” said Daniyar, a student.

By contrast, it wasn’t possible to find anybody who supported the proposed land reforms.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 279, published on May 6 2016)

Centerra looks to diffuse row with Kyrgyzstan over Kumtor

BISHKEK, MAY 4 2016, (The Conway Bulletin) – Scott Perry, CEO of Canadian miner Centerra Gold, invited the Kyrgyz government to meet with him to discuss their differences, less than a week after police in Bishkek raided the company’s offices looking for evidence of financial crimes.

In an interview with Bloomberg, Mr Perry said the government has not responded to Centerra’s offer to hold talks.

He also reiterated the company line that Kumtor’s dividend payment to Centerra in 2013 was perfectly legal.

“The rattling of the cage is without merit,” Mr Perry said of the police raid in Bishkek.

Last week, police raided the offices of Kumtor Gold Company (KGC), wholly-owned by Centerra. They were looking for documents linked to a dividend payment of $200m that KGC paid to Centerra in December 2013.

At the end of last year, the authorities sentenced Dilger Zhaparov, former board member of Kyrgyzaltyn, a state-owned mining company which has stakes in Centerra, to three years in prison for authorising the dividend payment.

During the police raid last week, Centerra’s shares were briefly suspended on the Toronto stock exchange. Many analysts interpreted the raid and the Kyrgyz allegation of financial crime against Centerra as more positioning. Kyrgyzstan has been trying to increase its control over the gold mine, the country’s single biggest industrial asset, for years.

This week, Centerra also posted quarterly results which showed a fall in gold production because of a drop in quality of mined ore. Sales also lagged because of a delay in gold shipments to Kyrgyzaltyn, which trades Kumtor’s gold, in March.

Low gold prices hit revenues, which dropped by 66% to $73.2m, compared to last year.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 279, published on May 6 2016)