These are my notes from a guest speaker session we had with Osmonakun Ibraimov, who was the Secretary of State (which seems pretty close to our Secretary of State) under the Akayev administration. Fortunately, since only Ibraimov was speaking, this post should be a lot easier to follow. Again, note that what's below is the best I could write down based on a translation of what Ibraimov was saying, and it is often phrased in my own words. My comments are in brackets. The talk was divided into four parts. They were:
2. Post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan under Akayev
3. Bakiyev
4. Kyrgyzstan today
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Part 1:
Nobody could enter the Kyrgyz SSR back then. Everything was controlled by the Kremlin. There were lots of streets with Russian names. People didn't know about Kyrgyz history before the Soviet Union. It was as if it all began when Lenin took over [note that the capital was named Frunze after the famous Bolshevik leader Mikhail Frunze].
Kyrgyzstan started hearing about the West, and there was interest in the West and Western democracy. The intelligentsia thought we were far behind. Gorbachev introduced glastnost and perestroika and the USSR collapsed. Everyone wanted independence.
Part 2:
I [Ibraimov] was working in the president's office, and became press secretary. Most of the new ministers were university professors. We started thinking about policy, especially foreign policy. The West helped a lot, but we didn't know how to prioritize, and we didn't understand what a market economy was. Jeffrey Sachs and Jim Baker visited. [George H. W.] Bush visited three times. Al Gore visited later. Democracy wasn't possible back then. Even a few years ago, it was unthinkable that American students could come here to study Russian. But we wanted to help somehow after 9/11, so we gave the U.S. Manas Airbase. The idea was to be friends with everyone who would help, but the priority was given to the West.
Kyrgyzstan was the first country to make radical changes. It became an “island of democracy”, but we ruined it ourselves by the end of the 90s. Akayev's foreign policy reached out to both Moscow AND Washington, and Beijing, too, built relations with everyone. It wasn't either/or or “multi-vector” [my phrase, the implication was that Akayev didn't try to play one Great Power off against another]. Real money came in from this, and we had a chance to not starve. Money came in from Moscow too for roads, etc. that decayed after the Soviet collapse [Something just came to mind while typing this up. If you look at the manhole covers on a typical street in Bishkek, the older ones say “кгсср”, which is an abbreviation for Kyrgyz SSR in the Cyrillic alphabet. The newer ones, unlike what Ibraimov's implies, are not in Russian. They're in Chinese.]
Still, there was pressure from Moscow. Note Putin (and Medvedev too) wanted to start Russian neo-imperialism [I’m not sure if that last sentence is from me or him].
Part 3
Bakiyev was the biggest mistake of post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan [gee, I'm so surprised he said that]. He wasn't good at foreign policy, because he was a typical Soviet bureaucrat. He ruined our relations with the U.S., he declared some people persona non grata to make Russia like him (and to get money for government/private interests). He promised Putin he'd kick the Americans out of Manas airbase, but since the Americans invested a lot of money in the airbase, it wasn't possible. Half of Kyrgyzstan's external debt is held by America [I'm not sure if this was a mistake on my part, the translator's, or Ibraimov's, but somebody probably meant Russia]. He threw out two U.S. diplomats; even the USSR wasn't that aggressive. Bakiyev promised the U.S. and Moscow that he would keep his word, but he was the perfect representative of a Silk Road bazaar trader. He sold to the highest bidder. He turned Maxim [his son] into the most influential person in Kyrgyzstan.
You can't ruin relations with any of the three Great Powers, and you can't act under only one. If you only side with one, you piss off the other two. By April 2010, he had pissed off Russia and the U.S. [and presumably China wasn't crazy about him either]. It's no big secret that Moscow wanted to get rid of Bakiyev. The U.S. basically agreed. The 2005 revolution was a huge drama. Bakiyev was brought to power by people in power. They knew he was corrupt, but clan politics won. It wasn't a happy ending. Having a revolution every five years causes a lot of damage, looting, etc. These two revolutions were a direct result of our foreign policy. This fall, there will be a presidential election and I hope there will be American / Russian election observers.
Part 4: An Untuned Piano
Now we have to rebuild our relations. Moscow doesn't like [President Rosa] Otunbayeva. The U.S. likes her; she received an award from the U.S., but Moscow openly dislikes her and thinks she's an American puppet. [Prime Minister Almazbek] Atambayev wants to be friends with Moscow, and is willing to give a little for respect from Moscow and Turkey. This is a situation where we have lost our principles. We used to want to be friends with everyone, now it's going everywhere. We have candidates begging for Russian approval. No one is going to the U.S. The U.S. did invite Otunbayeva and [Ata-Meken party leader Omurbek] Tekebayev before, and they are the two the U.S. might possibly support. Everything depends on who [among the three Great Powers] helps out. China is silent, and we don't know what they think. They seem to be only interested in economic influence. Kyrgyzstan is a headache for the U.S. because the Manas airbase is so important, and problems in Kyrgyzstan are problems for the U.S. in Central Asia. Russia is working in Kyrgyzstan and has its own plans. There's a Russian military base not far from Bishkek.
If America helps out, we're ready to be friends, even if it means becoming enemies with Russia. Some candidates promise to change the constitution, and Moscow wants two things: (1) no parliamentary system, and (2) no American airbase.
We have also had bad relations with Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. Uzbekistan said last year that we couldn't protect the Uzbeks, and that's true. Kazakhstan doesn't like our parliamentary system. It's a dangerous possibility for Nazarbayev, since he wants to be president for life. Kazakhstan has influence due to [cultural] similarities and there are a lot of Kazakhs in Kyrgyzstan. Last year Kazakhstan caused this country a lot of [economic] damage when it closed its borders [during the June riots, although he might have been referring to Uzbekistan.]. We take in a lot of goods from China and export them to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
Obama is headed in the right direction, even though last year we hated America. Now it's much better, and they really like Obama here [Just months after the “revolution”, they opened a bar and grill named after him]. If America had a Post-Soviet Marshall Plan, it would have been very different. After the USSR collapsed, the U.S. forgot about the place. The money given out wasn't controlled, it was often a one-time event, and it just went to bureaucrats' pockets.
[Returning to the idea of a Post-Soviet Marshall Plan,] Russia couldn't stop such a plan, but America had other problems. Bush Jr. was trying to “export democracy”. He had no idea what he was doing. Americans shouldn't be too aggressive. This is diplomacy. The bottom line is the U.S. was overextended thanks to Iraq and Afghanistan. This is really bad for Kyrgyzstan because we wouldn't want America to leave the Manas airbase. Kyrgyzstan doesn't know what Russia will do, but it doesn't want Russia to dominate here.
But Obama spent all that money to kill Osama Bin Laden, and the war in Afghanistan and the impact of the global recession damaged the U.S. and therefore Kyrgyzstan. The som is pegged to the dollar, and this has hurt the som significantly. From very good concepts we went to horrible results, because we betrayed all our allies.
I don't know who likes us, and I can't predict the outcome of the October elections. If there's no sure winner, the south will be unhappy, and the north is still pissed over Bakiyev [who was from the south]. Now people in the south want their southern candidate, and the north wants its candidate.
[Returning to the October elections, ] Tekebayev altered the constitution and criticized Otunbayeva in Moscow. He basically cursed her. There's no clear answer on what to do going forward. Washington will leave Afghanistan and Kyrgyzstan, and we need money badly. The world financial situation is no better, and foreign aid is drying up. The IMF and the World Bank can only do so much. China is building a huge road. It helps a lot, and there is the Shanghai-Paris railroad too. On all sides, China is winning the New Great Game. Although there is Russian aggression, and Russia is also having its own presidential elections. However, Russia needs to concentrate on the Caucasus and not Central Asia.
We're afraid of China. There's so many of them; we're afraid of demographic expansion [my phrase]. For many years we were at war with China [I think he’s referring to the various wars the Kyrgyz have fought with ethnic groups that are now on the Chinese side of the border], but we're not really afraid of Russia.
If Obama and Putin would settle things, it would be much better for Kyrgyzstan. Washington thought things would get better after 2005, but it didn't happen. In 2010, it's the same for Russia. In the fall, there will be some tension over the change of government. It will most likely be a Russian puppet. Right now, the U.S. position is much weaker, the U.S. is less aggressive and more passive, so others can be more aggressive.
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[I asked whether Turkey could have any influence on the presidential election]. I [Ibraimov] don't think they'll have much influence. Turkey has its own goals, and a shared language [I can say myself that, with half a semester of Turkish under my belt, I can make sense of small bits of Kyrgyz, but they're not mutually intelligible]. They want influence in Central Asia, but they're not good at getting it.
[Someone asked about the role of NGOs.] NGOs can have a great role, but there's a stereotype that they work for the West. It's really a mixed picture. If they're civil enough, there is a chance of influence. The biggest danger here is political Islam. Note nobody here liked the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan, even though we were glad the U.S. went there, because it changed the balance of power.
It's the same in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. In Russia, anti-American policy is at the top of the list. It's the official policy of Russia. Many people think China has it right, but the financial crisis has left a giant question mark. NINJA loans [my phrase, No Income, No Job or Assets] fucked up everyone. Now America is printing money, and China is printing its money so that you can buy yuans. It's also really hard to understand how China grew so fast. Kyrgyzstan is just a small part of an unclear picture. That's why we're glad you're here. Everyone is interested in other places, and we feel lonely. But America is being spoiled by populist politicians. In Kyrgyzstan, a politician who says “You are going to have to work day and night to raise this country” can't get elected. [As I recall, he also implied that a statement like this isn’t politically feasible in America either, and I agree.]
[Someone asked about the current president, Rosa Otunbayeva.] Otunbayeva was the biggest hope for Kyrgyzstan, but she wasn't what we thought she'd be. Everyone was hoping for change. First, she was supposed to find the April 2010 shooters and stop the robberies. $60 million disappeared and nobody knows where it went. Where are the surveillance tapes that would have recorded this? Second, when the June riots happened, we wanted help, but nothing was done. She's a professional diplomat, she's supposed to take all intelligence into account, but she didn't do that. Corruption grew, and lots of people didn't support the parliamentary system. Most politicians would rather become regional governors than deputies, and the system of regional government is very corrupt. She was supposed to bring Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan together. She shouldn't have pissed off Russia so much, and she should have been more careful with corruption. Right now there are criminals in parliament, and we have a speaker [Akhmatbek Keldibekov] with criminal ties. A lot of Bakiyev's old friends are in power again. All of this was for nothing. Osh is one of our most ancient cities. There might be tension in Kyrgyzstan soon on a regional basis.
Otunbayeva's problem is she hates the opposition too much. She's not diplomatic enough. From the outside, she seems so nice. She's Central Asia's first female president, and she gave some nice speeches, but she hasn't been that great. What about the people who distributed weapons during the June riots? How could she let that happen? She lost a lot of respect and trust. Still, she's the least bad of the people who were in power, and now she's a really weak president.
----------------------Before I end this post, I want to add one observation that doesn’t fit well in any of my posts, but it fits best here given the discussion of the presidential election. In my last life as a Democratic activist in southern Maine (specifically York County 2004-2008), we had a difficult split within the county-level organization. Gallia York County Est Omnis Divisa in Partes Tres: the blue-collar, rural, Republican-leaning area north and west of I-95, the slightly better-off, strongly Democratic mill towns of Biddeford (pronounced “Biddefehd”), Old Orchard Beach, and Saco (which are usually lumped together with towns in Cumberland County and labeled “the greater Portland area”), and finally the much better off tourist towns southwest of greater Portland (this includes the town of Kennebunkport and Walker’s Point, where George H. W. Bush has a summer home). Whenever there was a discussion between activists from different regions, people didn’t always take into account basic differences of organization, political strategy, and PR. You can’t hold a $50-per-ticket wine and cheese fundraiser in a town of 6,000 people where the one place everyone in town visits and shoots the breeze is the town transfer station, aka the dump. Joe Sixpack, a registered undeclared (as independent voters are called in Maine voting records) from Berwick, Maine in the rural northwest who makes $35,000 a year and does construction and repair work in the area can be won over by a state representative candidate just as much as Joseph N. Sixpackington III, who owns a fancy restaurant / gift shop in Kittery, which is about an hour’s drive from Boston. However, the two voters require a completely different choice of body language, rhetoric, and even clothes.
The greater Portland people, who were the most active and vocal members of the county organization, were generally unaware of these differences and sometimes made strategic assessments that did not take into account the political environment that their allies on the other side of the Turnpike were working with. My point is that regional differences don’t just translate to differences in ideology. They can lead to differences in the basic assumptions about the political context in which you’re operating. During my whole time in Bishkek, I kept hearing that Atambayev was going to win the presidential election, largely because he was backed by Russia. Unfortunately, I think I spent my whole time in Kyrgyzstan’s “greater Portland area”, and I have little feel for what folks think in Sanford Osh or Berwick Jalal-Abad. Personally, I agree with this article on how the election is likely to play out.
We're going to take a break from Kyrgyzstan in the next post, where I'll talk about the week I spent touring Uzbekistan and all the sights, sounds and (blocked) websites I saw.
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