David Lewis: Déjà  vu in Kyrgyzstan

 First it was farce, now it is tragedy. Five years after angry crowds overthrew the government in Kyrgyzstan, history is repeating itself. This time, however, at least 81 are dead, most of them killed when police allegedly opened fire on protestors in the capital, Bishkek.

Ousted President Kurmanbek Bakiyev is not giving up easily. Though he fled to his southern stronghold of Jalal-Abad after last Wednesday’s gunfire, he reemerged Monday at a rally in his hometown of Teyit. When he learned that the head of the interim government had declared a warrant out for his arrest, Bakiyev scoffed and sneered at the notion, threatening violence. "Just let him try. If he does, much blood will be shed," he told reporters Monday.

His unpopular businessman son, Maxim Bakiyev, is currently missing. He had been due to arrive in the United States on Thursday to give a speech in Washington, DC on maximizing business opportunities in Kyrgyzstan. Not surprisingly, the forum appears to have been cancelled.

Maxim is right to lie low. Protestors have already burnt down his house in Bishkek. Family businesses have been the first to be looted or destroyed; others, it appears, have been subject to hostile takeovers, Kyrgyz-style, where heavy-set men simply turn up at the door and tell residents that they’re taking over. The National Bank has seized five private banks, all allegedly linked to the ousted regime. Recent controversial privatizations seem likely to be reversed.

High-level corruption was one of the main complaints against the previous regime. President Bakiyev, who led the overthrow of the previous government, promised to clean things up, but instead started repeating all the mistakes of his predecessor: the opposition was harassed, elections were rigged, and members of the president’s family became closely involved in politics and business. In particular, the increasing influence of Maxim fueled public discontent. A young, dynamic, English-speaking businessman, he built up his own business empire, with interests in banking, energy and telecoms. Behind the scenes, Maxim increasingly ran the show.

Maxim was controversial in and of himself, but it was his taste in friends that may have eventually caused his downfall. One of them was Eugene Gourevitch, a Russian-born U.S. citizen, whose previously little known investment bank, MGN, was appointed by Bakiyev to manage a new Kyrgyz Development Fund. Among the funds it received was a $300m development loan from Russia. But Moscow began complaining that its aid was being misused, and opposition politicians claimed that the country was turning into a family business.

The government had been cracking down on critical journalists for months—one was murdered in December 2009. In March, officials tried to block websites and media outlets that carried news of an Italian fraud scandal implicating Gourevitch. An Italian court had issued an arrest warrant connecting him with an alleged multi-million euro fraud against Telecom Italia. Gourevitch denied all the charges, but was quickly disowned by the Bakiyevs. The government tried to close down opposition websites reporting the story, which incidentally revealed details of Gourevitch’s connections to the government in Kyrgyzstan.

The regime was starting to look fragile.

While officials at the top busied themselves with dubious privatizations and business deals, the reality for most people was unemployment and abject poverty. Things got much worse at the end of the year, when the government increased electricity and utility prices by 200 percent, a huge blow in a country whose average salary (for those lucky enough to have one) is less than $150 per month, and where the winter is long and cold. Pensioners found that three-quarters of their income was spent on fuel bills.

The protests of April 6 in provincial towns appear to have started as demonstrations over utility prices and economic issues. The sense of injustice caused by perceptions of corruption in the government may have helped transform them into the mutinous violence that evolved in Bishkek’s central square a day later, on April 7. The use of live ammunition by the police against angry protestors (some of whom had seized guns from the police) will not be quickly forgotten. Whatever the faults of ex-President Askar Akayev may have been (who himself was overthrown in the Tulip Revolution of March 2005), he is remembered for having refused to allow troops to shoot at protestors during that peaceful coup.

Opposition leaders have been notorious in the past for failing to form a united team, and there will be the usual jockeying for position in the new, fragile, interim government. More dangerously, there are lots of shadowy figures behind the scenes who will be trying to influence any new leader. There is a good deal at stake: senior officials have been closely entangled with criminal business—including drug trafficking—for years, and power generation and gold mining are also significant prizes in any takeover. Every new government will commit to clean up corruption, but they will find it difficult to act against powerful vested interests.

Rumors abound that Russia may have helped the opposition, in exchange for promises to close down the United States military base in Kyrgyzstan. Moscow certainly mounted pressure on Bakiyev in recent weeks, but was probably as influenced by broken promises on economic deals as by the continued presence of the U.S. logistics base for Afghanistan. If the U.S. loses the base, which closed for a time but has since resumed full normal operations, it will be a setback for Obama’s new realpolitik. Robert Blake, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State, will travel to Kyrgyzstan on Wednesday to talk about the base status with officials.

Leaders of the new government are unhappy that the United States turned a blind eye to Bakiyev’s increasing authoritarianism and did nothing about growing corruption. Most Kyrgyz don’t care much about these geopolitical games, but would be happy, if just for once, to see a government that is at least slightly more concerned about their own country than about filling their offshore bank accounts.

Comments are closed.