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THE
ROVING EYE
The Tulip Revolution takes
root
By Pepe Escobar
It
all went down at the speed of light. In only a few
hours on Thursday in Kyrgyzstan's capital Bishkek,
the palace was stormed, the tyrant fled and a new
order was starting to take shape. Or was it?
The revolution had traveled by bus - 500
winding kilometers from Osh, of Silk Road fame, in
the south through high mountain  passes to Bishkek -
before the planned kurultai (assembly) in
front of the presidential palace took a swift,
epic turn.
It was all about alleged rigged
elections in February and March and astounding
corruption exercised by the clan of autocrat
president Askar Akayev, who has now fled the
country. With his new parliamentary majority,
Akayev was practically set to change the
constitution - or do one better, appoint his
daughter Bermet Akayev to the throne.
Moscow, via Defense Minister Sergei
Ivanov, had already criticized the European Union
and reminded everyone that Bishkek was a partner
in a collective security treaty. Russia's top
diplomat Sergei Lavrov accused Javier Solana, the
EU's top diplomat, of being politically incorrect:
Solana had insisted that the Kyrgyz elections had
not respected Organization for Security and
Cooperation in Europe criteria. At this crucial
juncture, Akayev, 15 years in power, badly
overplayed his hand.
Two months ago,
Akayev went to Moscow to introduce his son to
President Vladimir Putin. He was already plotting
a dynastic transfer of power: after all, it had
worked with the Aliev clan in Azerbaijan. Akayev
again went to Moscow on a secret trip last Sunday,
according to the Russian newspaper Vremia Novosti.
He tried to meet with Putin, but this time he
didn't make it. He met with Russian diplomats
instead.
Back in Bishkek he said he would
consider negotiating with the opposition. But as
events fast spiraled out of control, he said he
would not negotiate with "revolutionaries" who
were "financed and controlled by outsiders". The
"revolutionaries" deposed him with a bang. For the
West, this is a "Tulip Revolution" (or "Lemon
Revolution", as it's being called in France and
Belgium). For many Russians, on the other hand,
this is the work of a bunch of thugs.
Central Asian observers are betting their
bowls of laghman (noodles) on what
Kazakhstan's Nursultan Nazarbayev and Uzbekistan's
Islam Karimov are thinking right now. Could this
be the beginning of (their) end? Could they also
be toppled by people-power? Should they consider a
move to Lake Geneva - after what happened in the
so-called Switzerland of Central Asia? Or should
this be the sign to go for all-out totalitarian
repression?
Compared to its ultra-hardcore
neighbors, Kyrgyzstan was a paradigm of democracy.
Now the Kyrgyz opposition - something of an unruly
mob, composed of southern barons and former regime
stalwarts - has to face other, more pressing
problems. The Western media are positively agog
because they cannot stamp a "face" to the Tulip
Revolution - unlike the photogenic Mikhail
Saakashvili in Georgia and the poisoned Viktor
Yushchenko in Ukraine. Should it be former prime
minister Kurmanbek Bakiyev? Or former foreign
minister Roza Otunbaeva? Or maybe Omurbek
Tekerbayev? They do not exactly agree with each
other. Now they must because they are in power and
cannot run the risk of a civil war. Parliament has
appointed Bakiyev as acting premier and president.
It's the economy,
stupid
Kyrgyzstan was thrust into
independence by the end of 1991 with the
distinction of being the only former Soviet
republic in Central Asia controlled by a
(relative) democrat, and not by a former party
apparatchik. Akayev did introduce multi-party
democracy. He also went down the privatization
road and followed the International Monetary
Fund's (IMF's) diktats.
In 1998,
Kyrgyzstan became the first Central Asian republic
to join the World Trade Organization. But then
Akayev fell victim to the usury of power and
started playing Stalin - politically - and Suharto
- economically. The economy became the Akayev
clan's economy.
The IMF one-size-fits-all
recipe once again was a disaster. Thanks to the
IMF, the tiny republic now has the largest debt
per capita in Central Asia. This has also meant a
massive loss of jobs and next to 60% of the
population living below the poverty line,
according to World Bank figures. Increased poverty
led to increased dissent. Once again, "it's the
economy, stupid" - nothing to do with Islamic
terrorism.
When a credible opponent,
former vice president Felix Kulov, appeared in
2000, Akayev put him in jail for "abuse of power".
Kulov, now released, has every chance of becoming
the next Kyrgyz leader.
Asia Times Online
traveled across Kyrgyzstan in autumn 2003 (see Silk Road
Roving). Already at the time,
businessmen as well as the urban middle class in
the Russified north were fed up with their tight
budgets and official corruption.
But
that was nothing compared to the south, home of
the volatile Fergana Valley - a 300-kilometer lush
oasis divided by Josef Stalin among three Soviet
republics, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
The Kyrgyz Fergana is crisscrossed by a
disgruntled, vocal and relatively well-organized
Uzbek minority. In Osh and Jalalabad - the
capitals of the current Tulip Revolution -
everyone complained about their lack of political
power in Bishkek, and how there was no investment
in their region. One just had to walk the dark,
crumbling and empty streets of Osh at night in the
freezing cold to prove their point.
A
visit to the sprawling Dar Doil bazaar, outside of
Bishkek and one of the largest in Central Asia,
also proved the point of how a great deal of the
Kyrgyz population depends for its survival on
commerce with China.
At least
700,000 Kyrgyz out of a population of 5 million have
been forced to emigrate to find work. Most survive
as clandestine slave laborers at construction
sites in Russia or Kazakhstan. The stagnant
economy revolves around gold mines,
hydroelectric equipment and some tourism. The country's
external debt - US$2 billion - is equivalent to its gross
national product.
No Caliphate, thank
you
Geostrategically, the Central Asian neighbors
plus Russia, China and the US simply cannot
afford a chaotic or ethnically fractured
Kyrgyzstan. As a side effect of the "war on
terror", Kyrgyzstan is a de facto key pawn for
Russia, the US and China in the New Great Game -
not least because of its strategic location,
squeezed between China and Kazakhstan.
The
Russian military base in Kant, 20 minutes away
from Bishkek, is described by Defense Minister
Ivanov as "a deterrent to international
terrorism". The neighboring American military base
at Manas - civilian - airport is theoretically set
up as a support for Bagram in Afghanistan, but is
more effective as a psychological tool to rattle
the Chinese, being so close to Xinjiang. Beijing,
not surprisingly, also wants to set up its own
Kyrgyz military base.
The Russians were
especially caught by surprise with the Tulip
Revolution: from the Kremlin to the generals, the
mantra was always that the threat to Central Asia
came from radical Islam in the Fergana Valley.
Two serious developments could derive from
the Tulip Revolution. The aggressive Islamic
Movement of Uzbekistan and the non-violent Hizb
ut-Tahrir may advance their agendas: based on the
Kyrgyz Fergana, they could spread their influence
to southern Kazakhstan, western Tajikistan and
even Xinjiang in China.
But one has to
remember that the Kyrgyz - descendants of Genghis
Khan's Golden Horde who migrated south from
Siberia - are nomads who were absorbed into Islam
only in the 15th century. For them the al-Qaeda
caliphate world view is totally alien.
A
more probable, and much more worrying scenario,
would be Kyrgyzstan spiraling down to something
like the Tajik civil war of 1992-97, which
caused tens of thousands of victims.
One thing is already certain: the Tulip
Revolution will inevitably be instrumentalized by the
second Bush administration as the first "spread
of freedom and democracy" success story in
Central Asia. The whole arsenal of US foundations -
National Endowment for Democracy, International
Republic Institute, Ifes, Eurasia Foundation,
Internews, among others - which fueled opposition
movements in Serbia, Georgia and Ukraine, has also
been deployed in Bishkek. It generated, among
other developments, a small army of Kyrgyz
youngsters who went to Kiev, financed by the
Americans, to get a glimpse of the Orange
Revolution, and then became "infected" with the
democratic virus.
Practically
everything that passes for civil society in Kyrgyzstan
is financed by these US foundations, or by the
US Agency for International Development (USAID).
At least 170 non-governmental organizations
charged with development or promotion of democracy
have been created or sponsored by the Americans.
The US State Department has operated its
own independent printing house in Bishkek since
2002 - which means printing at least 60 different
titles, including a bunch of fiery opposition
newspapers. USAID invested at least $2 million
prior to the Kyrgyz elections - quite something in
a country where the average salary is $30 a month.
Opposition leader Otunbaeva has recognized
publicly that "yes, we are supported by the US".
The investment will have paid off if a "democratic
revolution" can be sold worldwide as the sterling
example of a country with a Muslim majority
joining the Bush crusade. But the public relations
blitz will amount to nothing if the new Kyrgyz
order is not immune to corruption and does not try
very hard to at least alleviate the widespread
sense of economic injustice. Yes, it's the
economy, stupid.
(Copyright 2005 Asia
Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
contact us for information on sales, syndication and republishing.) |
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