Mass protests spread from Kyrgyzstan’s capital Bishkek across the nation’s regions as protesters seized the state television station, parliament, and eventually managed to break through the barriers surrounding government buildings. Clashes with police resulted in 74 dead and more than 500 injured. Kyrgyzstan was declared a parliamentary republic and Rosa Otunbayeva was chosen to become the nation’s president until her term ends on December 31, 2011. At the same time, almost all official state powers were transferred to Parliament in accordance with a constitution approved by the people. One hundred and twenty legislative body members formed by particular party lists will appoint the next prime minister and government officials. So during the parliamentary elections being held through October 2010, the strength of Otunbayeva’s government will be seriously put to the test.
According to Russian Foreign Ministry analysts, the events in Kyrgyzstan did not take Russia completely by surprise, “Everything was pointing in that direction; the only unexpected element was the speed with which events turned”. Russia has provided the new Kyrgyz government with financial aid and tossed in its airbase in the Kyrgyz Kant, along with two companies of paratroopers “in order to ensure the safety of military families”. At the same time, a Russian presidential administration representative stated that, “We repeatedly warned Bakiyev that he could not go on behaving as he did; putting his fingers in every pot. He repeatedly failed to keep the promises he made to the Russian government and was solely motivated by selfishness”.
At first, Bakiyev simply moved south to his native region but when he eventually lost his presidential immunity status, Bakiyev left Kyrgyzstan for Belarus, where President Alexander Lukashenko granted him political asylum. Thus, a second Tulip Revolution became a fait accompli in Kyrgyzstan, recalling the first Tulip Revolution in March 2005, when President Askar Akayev was removed from power.
At the same time, political scientists and analysts are now trying to figure out who else – aside from Bakiyev and his followers – could be involved in the events which followed in Osh and Jalal- Abad. The scale of military operations in this part of the country was particularly impressive as UN estimates reveal that around 400,000 people were forced to flee as a result of ethnic clashes. Political tensions are so high that avoiding any further Kyrgyz-Uzbek clashes can only succeed if the government promises to take no repressive measures against the old elite and work to unite society by reversing the tide in terms of ethnic, territorial and clan conflicts. Furthermore, the profound socio-economic crisis that hit the very foundations of Kyrgyzstan’s economy and the fact that the State treasury simply has no funds only serve to aggravate the situation.
However, experts believe that the provisional government made a serious mistake in choosing to dissolve Parliament, which created a climate of chaos in the country and exacerbated the problem of legitimising the revolutionary coup. This factor is largely responsible for the tragic events which subsequently threw Southern Kyrgyzstan into chaos and led to bloody clashes between ethnic Kyrgyz and Uzbeks. According to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the inter-ethnic conflicts in Kyrgyzstan were deliberately triggered by five coordinated attacks involving separate groups of armed men in different parts of Osh.
The interim government blamed deposed President Kurmanbek Bakiyev for the violence and considered the actions to be an attempt to return to power. Obviously, the pro-Bakiyev faction didn’t leave it at that but the circumstances surrounding the Kyrgyz-Uzbek massacre in the south have yet to be completely clarified. U.S. Intelligence affirms that a concentration of militants, mostly ethnic Kyrgyz, gathered in the Afghan province of Kunduz just before violence broke out andmilitary experts do not exclude the possibility that they may have infiltrated Southern Kyrgyzstan.
OLD PROBLEMS RESURFACE Naturally, Kyrgyzstan’s latest revolution is rooted in both political and economic issues. The Kyrgyz government formed a National Commission to comprehensively study the tragic events that occurred in Southern Kyrgyzstan last June. It was led by Abdygany Erkebaev, a public figure and academician from the Kyrgyz National Academy. On August 17, 2010, the Commission published its first findings and Erkebaev declared, “The events that took place last June in the Osh and Jalal-Abad provinces of Kyrgyzstan were not spontaneous, but well organised ... The organisers and instigators of the June riots were local Uzbek community leaders”.
Most experts cite the conflict of various geopolitical interests in Kyrgyzstan as well. On February 3, 2009, when President Bakiyev announced his decision to close the U.S. Air Force base at Manas while in Moscow, many linked his act to the $2 billion in credit and $150 million in financial assistance Russia granted Bishkek. As a result, Washington then tripled the rent on the Manas base and promised to invest further funds on infrastructure. Moreover, President Bakiyev transferred all the fuel supply contracts to companies linked to Bakiyev family members and the former ruler’s family collectively cleared approximately $80 million in net profits. Iranian intelligence also noted that terrorist leaders active in Iran were party to the events in Kyrgyzstan at some level. Hence, another serious regional problem has arisen for all the area’s major players – including Iran, Russia, Uzbekistan and China.
Although geopolitical issues should be taken into account, the idea that the main reasons for the Kyrgyz revolution stem from internal factors should be seriously considered as well. No one has been able to establish the fundamental act that provoked such a violent chain reaction in the region. We can only speculate on that and analyse the five major risk factors threatening Kyrgyzstan’s stability today.
The first of these is drug trafficking. Although Kyrgyzstan can not be considered to have reached the level of Afghanistan’s problem in this sense as yet, it is an excellent transit route and 70% of Afghanistan’s total heroin production passes through Kyrgyzstan. Therefore, maintaining continual political instability around the country’s vast territories primarily serves the drug traffickers’ best interests.
The second factor is pressure stemming from Kyrgyzstan’s serious internal political situation. It would be premature to consider that the nation has attained political stability and although the level of tension in Kyrgyzstan appears to have somewhat subsided, this political instability has enormous potential for generating violence. The main problem may lie in the incessant clashes between the 40 major Kyrgyz clans. They fight over land, seed and fertilizer but above all, the issue is about water rights.
The third factor is immigration. It had a negative impact in the past and continues to be a major issue today, as Kyrgyzstan has been penetrated by various extremist elements. This was already the case during Askar Akayev’s reign, when in late summer – early autumn of both 1999 and 2000 groups of bandits entered Kyrgyz territory from Tajikistan and almost brought the entire country to its knees twice. In recent years, such large scale invasions didn’t actually reoccur, but the regular infiltration of criminal elements in Kyrgyzstan has simply become commonplace. Weapons are the fourth issue. Kyrgyzstan has accumulated a huge quantity of unregistered arms which virtually nobody has any control over. Data from the most authoritative sources on the Kirghiz arsenal are extremely controversial – some sources talk about thousands of light arms and dozens of heavy weapons. But sources which take into account the Soviet legacy are closer to the truth and estimate that the arsenal numbers rifles and machine guns in the tens of thousands, thousands of guns and mortars, along with hundreds of armoured personnel carriers and tanks. Anyway, it is absolutely certain that some of the above mentioned clans have both light and heavy weapons, not to mention the notorious Stingers. The fact that various major military installations similar to those typically found in Afghanistan are scattered throughout the country really comes as no surprise.
Finally, the fifth factor is geographic but is essentially economic. It takes into account the republic’s particular location in relation to the fertile Fergana Valley, which is obviously overpopulated by the 12 million people that it is hardly able to feed. The fact is that the valley is easily dominated geographically and its transport routes are controlled by Uzbekistan rather than Kyrgyzstan. The fact that many of the valley’s water sources are in Kyrgyzstan does not change the situation – Kyrgyzstan actually has no significant impact on the Valley. But the Fergana Valley provides not only food and water, but cotton as well – which is practically the only non-oil and gas export product in the entire Central Asian region. All this only exacerbates the situation in Kyrgyzstan and Kyrgyzstan’s huge, deep Lake Issyk-Kul is both too remote and surrounded by rugged, mountainous terrains to make any difference at all.
