What now for Bakiev?
Bakiev has left Kazakhstan and apparently landed in Byelorussia.
It is very odd … apparently he has been joined by his family … but not his sons Maxim and Marat who, according to the press, ensconced somewhere else. If the reports I have seen are to be believed then it seems that he has a second wife … and two small children. Lukashenko, President of Byelorussia made a statement to the country’s parliament welcoming his colleague and “fellow president”.
It also seems as if Bakiev has renounced his letter of resignation and is claiming that he is still the legitimate President of Kyrgyzstan. His letter of resignation was originally faxed to the interim government from Kazakhstan, and the authorities in the interim government have apparently received the original from the Head of the OSCE Center in Bishkek and the Ambassador of Kazakhstan in Kyrgyzstan. In the statement, Bakiev wrote:
“In these tragic days for the Kyrgyz people and realizing all responsibility for the future of the Kyrgyz people, for the sake of integrity of the state, Kyrgyz statehood and in accordance with article 50 of the Constitution of the Kyrgyz Republic, I resign.”
That seems pretty concrete to me.
So why would he think that this letter was of resignation was not valid?
Apparently, he said that he would give his reasons for the renunciation later … and left everyone wondering …
Knowing the tendency here that requires everything to be stamped or notarized, then the cynic in me thought: maybe he considers it wasn’t valid without the presidential stamp having been affixed to it, (and for all I know, it might have … I haven’t seen it), or if the document hadn’t been notarized, (and “legalized” if it was signed and effected whilst he was Kazakhstan).
Another alternative, it seemed to me, is that he could claim it wasn’t valid because “it was signed under duress”. It wasn’t clear when and where he signed the document – in Djalal Abad, which is in Kyrgyzstan, or in Taras, or somewhere else in Kazakhstan. Personally, I wasn’t sure that the “duress” argument works. As I understood the course of events, at the time he left Kyrgyzstan, he wasn’t under immediate threat. He had been given “short shrift” in Osh where he might normally have expected to gather support and was, by all accounts, in a demoralized state when he returned to his home village. This might not sound good, but it didn’t sound to me like “duress”. If it was signed when he was Kazakhstan, then he was safe and sound and could he not have easily declined to sign and send it … and try to establish a “government in exile”, as other former heads of state who have been forced from their own country have done in the past. (Indeed, there is still a “government in exile” for Byelorussia … according to the economist it is the only one of the Eastern European governments in exile which were established in the days of the Soviet Union, that still exists. The authors – Poland, the Baltic States … and so on – have all disbanded and empowered newly elected governments in their countries when the communist regimes in their countries collapsed. It traces its heritage back to the short lived government of 1918, which lasted just 8 months.)
Of course, I thought, it might have been that the resignation was a condition imposed on Bakiev by those nations that were assisting his flight from Kyrgyzstan: Kazakhstan, Russia – and America?
I thought of a couple of other alternatives … perhaps he was just receiving encouragement from “someone”, possibly in order to stir up trouble … or perhaps he was smarting at the suggestion that there will be an expedition request from the interim government after an investigation into the events of April 7th are completed – although I can’t see that actually happening.
Anyway, that was all speculation on my part … it turns out that it was something else completely. On Friday he explained that he had signed the hand-written resignation letter after leaving Kyrgyzstan. He said that he had been “under pressure” to do so – and although he didn’t say where this pressure came from, although he did say that his sudden departure from Kyrgyzstan came a day after he had held telephone talks with Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who apparently said that he could not reproach Bakiev for using arms “but if a civil war broke out it would be my responsibility entirely.” .
The Kyrgyz parliament had yet to decide whether to accept the resignation, therefore he considered that it was not in force because and he was free to renounce it because the interim government had not fulfilled its conditions, they had reneged on a “promise” to protect his relatives. “They guaranteed the safety of my family, but my family is being persecuted, therefore I do not recognize my resignation,” he said.
In fact, there is some question about what has happened to the rest of his family. One of his brothers, who was in charge of the security services, has, so evaded capture by the authorities. Another brother has apparently been kidnapped by unknown persons who claimed to be representatives of the new authorities and who had invited him to “negotiations”.
Bakiev also went on to say that, despite his renunciation of his resignation, he did not expect to return to Kyrgyzstan as president, and was not going to form a government-in-exile.
In his original statement in Minsk, Bakiev urged world leaders not to recognize the interim government, calling it an “illegitimate gang”. The next day, however, the Kremlin in Moscow announced that the Russian Federation no longer recognised him as President, and several other countries and international organizations have already followed suit.
Bishkek