News from the FSU

[keska]

I don't know if anyone else is interested in the topic, but I try to keep up with news from the former Soviet states. I particularly study terrorism issues as they relate to Central Asia, but I'm interested in all sorts of news. So, I'm going to keep a thread going here for things I find that are interesting.

Russia's Anti-Terrorism Policies Boost Insecurity, Experts Say (http://www.rferl.org/releases/2005/06/345-230605.asp)

(Washington, DC--June 20, 2005) The policies of the Russian government, under the "banner of fighting terrorism," have produced more insecurity and an ever-growing authoritarian regime, according to two distinguished human rights monitors. Yuri Dzhibladze, president of the Center for the Development of Democracy and Human Rights in Moscow and Tanya Lokshina, chairperson of DEMOS Center for Information and Research told a recent RFE/RL audience that Russia's broad and vaguely defined approach to extremism has producing wide-scale abuses of human rights and even the dismantlement of fledgling democratic institutions.

The antiterrorist legislation adopted two years ago to combat extremism, Dzhibladze said, furthered the erosion of civil and human rights in Russia, but "the tragedy in Beslan, in September of last year, became Russia's September 11 and triggered a fundamental change in the overall political regime in Russia" -- and in Russia's legal system. The government has ignored its commitments to the Council of Europe, while "eliminating" its domestic opposition, "terrorizing" the business community, and launching a "campaign" of "harassment and repression" against human rights and civic organizations in Russia, said Dzhibladze.

A new law on combating terrorism, which passed its first reading in the Duma in December 2004 and is expected to be adopted this year, is generating particular pressure on human rights NGOs who work with the victims of the Chechen conflict, racial discrimination, and abuses in the Russian military, Dzhibladze said. He also expressed concern that Russia's strategic partnership in the global war on terrorism "includes closing the eyes of the U.S. and western democracies to Russia's human rights abuses." Dzhibladze and Lokshina are urging the U.S. to build a dialogue with Russia that "defends human rights within the context of the security issue."

DEMOS recently published an analytical report on the situation in Russian law enforcement and its observance of human rights observance. DEMOS chairperson Lokshina noted that terrorist attacks are on the rise in Russia, citing Russia's Prosecutor-General. Lokshina believes that Russia "is too unstable" to be a reliable partner in the global war on terrorism, because the government's policies have bred a vicious cycle where "anti-terrorism in Russia actually results in more terrorism and more violence."

Lokshina said that in Chechnya, where there are "gross and massive human rights violations" by both sides, the "impunity" of government agencies has left citizens vulnerable by ignoring victims and providing them "no justice." These policies have made the rebel movement vulnerable to "jihadization." According to Lokshina, "Every young man is a potential victim in Chechnya, where he can be kidnapped at night and tortured during interrogations," she said. This leaves him "only two alternatives -- to join the rebels or join Kadyrov. There is no option to live a peaceful life," Lokshina concluded.

[keska]

It's interesting to see how Karimov is trying to hold on to power.

A once close relationship is souring rapidly as the Uzbek leadership rejects the United States’ right to ask what happened in Andijan.

By IWPR staff in Central Asia

The Uzbek government’s four-year-old alliance with the United States appears to be winding down, with reduced operations at the American military airbase and mounting press attacks on the West.

Uzbek leaders are annoyed by the United States’ insistence on a full, unbiased investigation into the May 13 violence in Andijan, and have suggested that outsiders have no right to question what happens in their country.

When the US came under attack on September 11, 2001 and decided to retaliate against al-Qaeda and its Taleban allies in Afghanistan, Uzbekistan was among the first countries to offer the use of its territory for American military flights.

President Islam Karimov’s decision was a groundbreaking move because even though Central Asian republics had joined the OSCE and held a few joint exercises with NATO, the region was still widely viewed as lying firmly within Moscow’s sphere of influence.

Since then, the US has maintained an outpost at Khanabad in southern Uzbekistan, a former Soviet Air Force facility near the city of Karshi less than 200 kilometres north of the Afghan border.

For US policymakers, the strategic requirements of its “war on terror” appeared to outweigh continuing concerns about Uzbekistan’s record on human rights and democracy. From Tashkent’s perspective, the arrangement appeared a happy one because of the kudos and assistance that US support brought, and because Karimov framed his own struggle with Islamic militants within the context of the international counter-terrorism effort.

However, US-Uzbek relations were marred by the violence in Andijan, in which security forces opened fire on thousands of demonstrators. While the Tashkent government says 173 people died, and all the civilians killed were armed militants, reporters and human rights activists who witnessed the police action suggested the fatalities ran into hundreds, including women and children.

Immediately after May 13, human rights groups suggested that the US government’s response was muted by the desire to maintain the strategic partnership. But the US position has since evolved and hardened.

The State Department has stepped up pressure for an independent inquiry involving the international community, a proposal so far rejected by the Uzbek government. In mid-June, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said US policy towards Uzbekistan was under review, and he cited previous cuts in assistance as an example of possible measures that might be taken.

Addressing the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly when it met in Washington on July 1, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was openly critical of the Uzbeks’ refusal to allow outsiders to play a role in investigating the Andijan crackdown.

“The governments of some OSCE states, most notably Belarus and Uzbekistan, are failing to live up to their commitments on human rights, democracy and the rule of law,” she said. “They reject OSCE’s offers of assistance, charging interference in their internal affairs. That was a false charge when the Soviets made it, and it is a false charge now.”

Uzbekistan has reacted badly to the mounting diplomatic pressure. Without making an explicit link, it placed restrictions on US operations at the Khanabad base including a ban on night flights. Announcing this decision on June 15, a Department of Defence spokesman Bryan Whitman said “some limitations” had been imposed in the previous two weeks.

The Pentagon spokesman did not provide details of the disruption the changes had caused, but the Washington Post reported that Hercules search-and-rescue planes had been moved to Bagram in Afghanistan, while cargo planes were now operating via the US airbase in Kyrgyzstan.

This was confirmed by staff working at the Khanabad base, who told IWPR that most of the American aircraft were “long gone”. They reported that many of the 1,500 US personnel at the facility were “packing their bags”, and one Uzbek national working with aircraft at Khanabad said the US military was busy dismantling radar systems and other types of equipment.

At a local level, many people were unaware of the restrictions their government had imposed on the US military, and attributed the changes instead to rumours of a planned attack by some Islamic group. They argued that a heightened state of alert explained the tighter controls introduced at the base, with everyone going in having to undergo a thorough search.

For local staff employed at Khanabad, the prospect that the US could leave altogether is worrying. “The work has to some extent improved our lives,” said one worker, who did not want to be named. “If the Americans go how will we live, how will we feed our children?”

On July 5, a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, a regional security grouping which brings Russia and China together with Uzbekistan, Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, issued a statement calling for a date to be set for the US and its coalition allies to withdraw from Central Asia. It was not clear what role Uzbekistan played in formulating the statement. The US government rejected the statement, making it clear that it would talk to its countries where it had a military presence only on a one-on-one basis. “Our presence… is determined by the terms of our bilateral agreements under which both countries have concluded that there's a benefit to both sides from our activities,” said the State Department’s McCormack.

The Uzbek leadership’s displeasure at being criticised by a formerly supportive ally has been communicated at arm’s length, principally through the media and leading public figures.

Towns across Uzbekistan have hosted a series of public meetings at which speaker after speaker harangues the US. In a place like Uzbekistan, events of this kind do not take place unless they have been set up by the authorities.

At rallies in the central town of Jizzakh, local human rights activists and internet journalists were branded as “American stooges”. Afterwards, some were threatened by groups of civilians and told they should move out of the area.

At one such event held at on June 14 at the Jizzakh regional government, among the leading journalists called to address an audience of young people was Ibrohim Normatov, editor of the Mohiat newspaper, who informed those present that “the events in Andijan were organised by the United States and Britain, with the help of NATO”

“The Americans are spreading slanderous rumours about our motherland all over the world. They want us to adopt the western way of life and western democracy. We know for a fact that the West means prostitution, corruption and impunity. We don’t need that way of life.” Normatov’s rhetoric took an odd turn when he and other speakers began hurling abuse at the tractors the United States has supplied to the agricultural sector, blaming this “obsolete American technology” for the consistently poor grain harvest in this part of Uzbekistan.

The print and broadcast media are tightly controlled by Uzbekistan’s government, so that strongly-worded editorial comment can be taken as an officially-sanctioned view.

For example, the Ishonch newspaper launched a broadside against the West –specifically the US and Britain - saying they had a covert plan to destabilise and “re-divide” the whole of Central Asia. It said they were using Islamic militants to create tensions in the region.

After one criticial article in the government-run Narodnoye Slovo, US Ambassador Jon Purnell responded with a June 15 letter to the editors, reiterating calls for an “independent investigation with international involvement as the best means of determining what happened and how to prevent such incidents in the future”.

Uzbek state media officials are so keen to follow the government line that even entertainment programmes have been switched to reflect the new thinking. After the State Department began using tougher language, TV schedulers retaliated by taking American-made films off the screen and replacing them with Arab and South Korean soaps.

More ominously, the authorities have shown their apparent rejection of working with the US by hitting out at non-government organisations, NGOs, funded by Washington.

On July 4, Internews Network, a major media development NGO, which has had a presence in Uzbekistan for a decade, found itself facing charges of illegally producing broadcast and print material. Two people who had worked with Internews were slapped with criminal charges.

Internews said in a statement that the charges came at the end of “a year-long campaign to limit the activities of western non-governmental democracy organisations”. But the process appears to have been exacerbated by As a result of the international community’s calls for a proper investigation into what happened in Andijan, “pressures on international NGOs working in the country have only increased”, it said.

When President Karimov visited Moscow last week, he was not forced to listen to talk of massacres from his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, merely praise for restoring stability to the area.

The two men appeared to strengthen the growing rapprochement between two countries whose relationship was until recently lukewarm, because of Tashkent’s desire to play the lead role in the Central Asian region and its refusal to join Moscow’s economic and security partnerships with former Soviet neighbours.

As Karimov arrived back in Uzbekistan, people there started talking about foreign military airbase again. But this time, they reckon, it’s the Russians’ turn.

[keska]

Trust Russia to side with Karimov as a good way to protect its sphere of influence.

U.S. Urged to Set Troop Pullout Date: Ctl. Asian Alliance Seeks Departure of Afghan Support Forces (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/05/AR2005070501602.html)

Associated Press
Wednesday, July 6, 2005; Page A12

ASTANA, Kazakhstan, July 5 -- A regional alliance led by China and Russia called Tuesday for the United States and its coalition partners in Afghanistan to set a date for withdrawing from several Central Asian nations, reflecting a growing unease over the U.S. military presence in the region.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization, composed of Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, urged that a deadline be set for withdrawal of foreign forces from its member states in light of what it said was a decline in active fighting in Afghanistan.

The alliance's move appeared to be an attempt to curb U.S. influence in a region that Russia regards as historically part of its sphere and in which China seeks a dominant role because of its extensive energy resources.

The United States rejected the call for a deadline. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the U.S. military presence "is determined by the terms of our bilateral agreements."

Defense Department spokesman Lawrence Di Rita said that, regarding U.S. bases in Uzbekistan, "it's a decision the Uzbek government has to make as to whether or not we would continue to operate from that."

U.S. military forces have been deployed at air bases in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan to support military operations in Afghanistan since shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in New York and at the Pentagon. At least 800 U.S. troops are stationed in Uzbekistan and 1,200 U.S.-led troops are in Kyrgyzstan, the U.S. military said.

Tajikistan has allowed the French air force to use the Dushanbe airport since 2001 as a base for logistical support of its troops in Afghanistan. About 200 French air force personnel are based there.

"We support and will support the international coalition, which is carrying out an anti-terror campaign in Afghanistan, and we have taken note of the progress made in the effort to stabilize the situation," the Shanghai Cooperation Organization said in a declaration at a summit in the Kazakh capital.

"As the active military phase in the anti-terror operation in Afghanistan is nearing completion, the SCO would like the coalition's members to decide on the deadline for the use of the temporary infrastructure and for their military contingents' presence in those countries," it said.

Earlier Tuesday, the group's leaders accused unnamed outside forces of trying to destabilize Central Asia.

[keska]

I was happy to see that after the revolution there was no upswing in militant Islamic activity in Kyrgyzstan, but I can't say it's made any improvement since Akaev left.

Kyrgyz poll key test for transition (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4656849.stm)

By Ian MacWilliam
BBC, Central Asia


Kyrgyzstan is heading for presidential elections on 10 July with some trepidation.

This scenic and usually placid Central Asian nation has unexpectedly become a testing ground for what could be a major shift in Central Asia's political landscape.

When President Askar Akayev fled into exile in the face of a massive demonstration in March, Kyrgyzstan became the first ex-Soviet Central Asian republic to experience a relatively peaceful transition of power.


In most of these republics the current president has been in power since independence 14 years ago, inheriting his position from the previous communist party structure.
The interim government which took power in Bishkek, led by the former opposition leader, Kurmanbek Bakiev, has come in for some criticism since then.

Most Kyrgyz now hope the upcoming presidential elections on 10 July will end the current political instability. They want the new government to move forward with economic reforms and action to reduce widespread corruption.

Samai, a Bishkek doctor, voices the concerns of many.

"We want the situation to stabilise. We want higher salaries. I want my child to live in a rich, peaceful, happy country. That's what we hope for, but of course we don't believe 100% that it will happen.

"It's unrealistic to expect that in two months everything will change and everyone will suddenly become honest," she said.





Six candidates have successfully put themselves forward for election. By far the leading candidate is the acting president himself, Mr Bakiev - not entirely surprising in the post-Soviet region, where there is still a strong tradition of voting for the incumbent.
Many people remark that there is really no choice, since the others are unknown politicians with little national standing.

One candidate slightly better known than the others is the country's ombudsman, Tursunbay Bakir uulu, generally seen as a sensible liberal figure. There is one woman candidate, Toktaim Umetaliyeva.

Fear of more political protests and chaos has in fact reduced the electorate's choice.

"There's no alternative to Bakiev," said Irina Alexandrovna, an accountant in central Bishkek.

"Our shop was looted in the chaos after Akayev fled. Now we've had enough of that and we need stability. Of course he'll use government resources in his campaign, but I'll close my eyes to that. What we must have is stability."

Running mates

Another popular former opposition leader, Felix Kulov, had intended to run against Mr Bakiev. Mr Kulov is from the north of Kyrgyzstan, near Bishkek, while Mr Bakiev is a southerner, from the region where the anti-Akayev protest movement began.

Many Kyrgyz worried that a contest between the two would exacerbate regional tensions in the country, so when these two leading contenders agreed to run as a team there was widespread relief.

The deal is that if Mr Bakiev is elected, he will appoint Mr Kulov as prime minister.

This arrangement may satisfy the two men initially.

But after the elections, the government is expected to consider constitutional reforms which would transfer some presidential powers to the prime minister and parliament. The way thus still lies open for a potential power struggle between the two rivals.

The presidential election campaign can only be described as lacklustre. The capital has some election posters, the most prominent being the acting president's.


Indeed, with most people assuming that Mr Bakiev will win, the government is increasingly concerned about the "apathy vote". A candidate must poll 50% of the vote to avoid a second round. Voting hours have now been extended to help ensure a higher turnout.
Most campaigning is carried out through the media. In the disputed parliamentary elections which prompted the anti-Akayev protest movement, international election monitors said that state-controlled television and newspapers clearly favoured government-backed candidates, seriously compromising the fairness of the electoral campaign.

That is less of a problem under the current interim leadership, who have told the state media to be more objective.

"It's very noticeable that they're not supporting the government," said Nicolas Ebnother, director in Kyrgyzstan of the US-funded media-training organisation, Internews.

"I wouldn't say they're entirely objective, but they're more balanced," he said.

Even so, with Mr Bakiev still the acting president and the other candidates being so low-profile, inevitably he appears on television more than his rivals.

The greatest worry is political violence.

Bishkek and other towns have been unsettled by a wave of protests since Mr Akayev's overthrow.

While most protests have been peaceful, a few have turned violent, sometimes after the appearance of groups of young men, usually described as "sportsmen".

These are thought to be gangs of youths brought in by unscrupulous politicians or would-be politicians with an interest in unsettling the government.

Dangerous mix

The growing involvement of rich businessmen looking for a way into politics is sometimes blamed for this new rowdiness.

The recent contract killing of one businessman MP in broad daylight in Bishkek, and an apparent attempt on the life of another are signs of where this can lead.


For Kyrgyzstan's large minority of ethnic Russians, political chaos is a particular worry.
Ethnic tensions are rarely a problem among the tolerant Kyrgyz, but anonymous leaflets have once more appeared in Bishkek, causing some disquiet.

Some leaflets distributed in residential areas of the capital are reported to have warned Russians to "Go away to Russia before you are disembowelled like lambs!"

In some ways, Kyrgyzstan has long been Central Asia's democratic testing ground.

Hailed in the early 1990s as an island of democracy in a sea of authoritarian states, this mountainous republic went into reverse in the later 1990s as President Akayev consolidated his position.

Now it is blazing the trail once again.

The upcoming elections could potentially be the most open and democratic in Central Asia's history, but the lawless undercurrents revealed by recent events could still make Kyrgyzstan's continuing transformation very chaotic indeed.