Postcard from Bishkek

It seems to be easier to start a war than to end one.

A few weeks ago I cam across an interesting peace about a three hundred year war where not a shot was fires and nobody died.  It doesn’t seem possible … but there was some basis to the story.  During the English Civil War, the Royalist fleet retreated to a base in the Scilly Islands, off the Cornish coast, and from there created havoc amongst Dutch shipping.  The Dutch responded by declaring war against the Islands – not against England, just against the Scilly Islands – and a task force was dispatched to deal with the marauding “pirates”.  By the time they arrived, however, the Royalist fleet had surrendered to the parliamentarian forces and so they turned around and went home again.  Unfortunately, someone forgot about the necessity to end the state of war.  It wasn’t until 1986 that the omission came to light and the Dutch formally declared the end of hostilities.

I remember being told as a child that Berwick on Tweed was still at war with Russia.  The story was that as a border town which frequently changed hands between England and Scotland, that when Great Britain entered the Crimean War against Russia, the declaration was worded in such a way that all the British territories that were party to the hostilities were listed separately … including Berwick on Tweed.  When, however, peace was concluded, those drafting the appropriate documentation omitted any mention of the town.

Whilst it is true that it wasn’t mentioned in the Paris Peace Treaty, it seems that it wasn’t actually mentioned in the declaration of war either – so the story is probably just an apocryphal modern day myth.

I was reminded of this story a short while ago when I saw a tweet that claimed that the Second World War was still not over as two of the belligerents (The Soviet Union and Japan) have apparently never signed a peace treaty.

Strictly speaking that may be true …  but, as is so often the case, it’s not that simple … there’s more to it than that – a lot more.

I knew, for example, that although the Korean War “ended” in an armistice but as the two Koreas, (North and South), have never concluded a Peace Treaty, they are still technically at war and so hostilities could break out at almost any time.  But … the second world war?

It seems that after the surrender of Japan in 1945, a peace treaty wasn’t concluded until 1951.   The San Fransisco Peace Treaty was officially between Japan and the Allied powers was signed by 48 nations at a Peace Conference in San Fransisco on 8th September, 1951, and came into force on 28th April the following year.

Of the 51 nations that did take part in conference, Czechoslovakia, Poland and the Soviet Union refused to sign the document.  Not attending the Peace Conference were Burma, China (neither the Communist People’s Republic of China nor the Republic of China based on Taiwan), India, Italy, Portugal and Yugoslavia … nor the two Koreas.

India and China (both, that is, of the two Chinas, in separate documents) apparently reached separate agreements with Japan.  Although the Soviet Union and Japan never concluded a Peace Treaty … on 19th October, 1956, they did sign a Joint Declaration providing for an end to the state of war between the two countries and the restoration of diplomatic relations … amongst other things, which included the intention to “continue negotiations for a peace treaty”.  Those negotiations have still not borne fruity and we occasionally see some problems brewing over, (for example, the status of the Kuril islands territorial dispute between the two countries).

So … in a way, the post was wrong … the war, (“the state of war”),  between Japan and the USSR (and its successor nations – like Kyrgyzstan), is indeed over – even if they didn’t sign a formal peace treaty.

I am not sure, however, what the situation is with the other belligerents, (Burma -that is, Myanmar,  Czechoslovakia, Italy, Poland, Portugal and Yugoslavia).  It seems, however, that neither of the two Korea’s signed the 1951 peace treaty nor a separate peace arrangement with Japan.  So, I wonder, are they, technically, still at war?

 

That’s a long introduction … but we seem to have a lot of similar “unfinished business” here in Kyrgyzstan …

The key issue at the moment is, of course, the future of the Kumtor Gold mine.  As it happens, there has been very little news about this during the week – just a note that the shares of the Canadian parent company (which inevitably means the value of Kyrgyzstan’s holding in the company) have fallen to a third of what they were a few months ago.  There’s talk of a hunger strike among some of the mine’s opponents up in Issyk Kul but apart from seeing that the participants announcing their intentions, I haven’t seen anything further about this.

Meanwhile the people of Naryn have asked President Atambaev to allocate 1% of the profit from the mine as compensation for environmental damage.  He replied by reminding them that they received subsidies from the center … which comes, in part, from the profits of Kumtor … and the main thing is for the mines, (the other mines, that is), to work normally and provide yet more income for the country’s coffers.

I see, however, that this message isn’t really getting through … with more protests either taking place or planned for this coming week about other mines including one that is supposed to come on stream next week.  In one case they local villages are asking for more money and in another they are demanding that the development of the mine stop altogether.

The long running Manas situation looks like coming to a conclusion.  One report suggested that the Americans would still be able to maintain a presence with the help of the Turkish, but it is now known that they are planning to relocate their operations in Romania … and have been for some time.

This is obviously having a serious negative impact on the development of the industry … as is , according to one of the key players, the constant changes to the legislation affecting mining.   

 

The border situation continues to simmer away.  In the days of the Soviet Union, the borders were simply administrative boundaries but now that they are formal international borders they cause all sorts of problems.  Apparently, this year to date there have been 41 incidents on the borders … all adding to the tensions in the region.

On the economic front, government finances are a major issue here – not just in the US – and it emerged that Kyrgyzstan’s debt currently amounts to some 40% of GDP.

Another issue is the administration of justice … well, the judges in the Ata Jurt case, (who released the politicians accused of trying to stage a coup and usurp power, climbing over the fence surrounding the White House, only to have their decision overturned in the Supreme Court when the prosecutors appealed the case), have now been sacked.  Well, I suppose that was not a surprise.

Then there are the problems with the electricity supply – resulting from under investment since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the fact that prices haven’t gone (and apparently there are still no plans to increase them despite protests from several quarters) coupled with thefts (according to one report, for example, so far this year Oshelectric has “lost” almost 250 million kilowatt hours … how do you lose a kilowatt hour? by people bypassing meters), had resulted in an increasing number and frequency of power cuts.  That won’t be a surprise to anyone here.

 

What might be a surprise was the news that during the first eight months of the year the export of cars to Kazakhstan was worth some seven and a half million dollars.  That’s an awful lot of vehicles for a country that has no car manufacturing industry to speak of – even if an amateur made headlines recently with his custom made car.

Another surprising statistic was that in the year to date, more than a million mobile phones have been imported to Kyrgyzstan from the UAE.  A million!  The population is only just over five million and most of those already seem to have mobile phones …

Education has been well and truly in the headlines this week … with the controversy of sex education being raised once more.  Then there was the reports that extortion in schools is rife with al;most 15% of pupils missing classes because they are afraid of racketeering.  Again, that won’t really come as a big surprise to most people here – although the numbers were a little startling – as was the news that there are 428 vagrant teenagers in Bishkek and that some 79 schoolchildren have committed suicide so far this year.

Another surprise was provided with the announcement that the minimum subsistence level is apparently 4519 soms a month … that’s less than a hundred dollars.  It was a little bit in Bishkek but less than 4000 soms in Talas – that’s about 130 som a day.  The news was released on the United Nations World Poverty Day.  I know that, (both here and in the UK), politicians have challenged to try and live on such a sum … but I am not sure how many actually manage to do so.  I know I probably couldn’t – especially with the heating season about to start and the bills will probably take half of that.

Although the prognosis is for November to be relatively warm – and November can be a pleasant month – the weather has been decidedly cool.  The change in the weather has brought about a series of health problems – a rise in the number of cases of influenza.  Earlier, we were told that the  heating would be turned on in the middle of November, but this week it was announced that it would start on November 1st.

Tourism has also been in the news … although the high season is over, the industry is busy making plans for the coming year … and beyond.  Kyrgyzstan has joined with Tajikistan to try and create a Tourism Union – but I don’t think it is meant to compete with the Customs Union … the idfea is to try and present a common front in order to advertise the region as a whole and, hopefully bring more visitors.  It’s been agreed to renew the special trains from Tashkent to Balykchy to help encourtage more visitors from Uzbekistan to the Lake Issyk Kul.  Oddly enough, although the summer is over and the vast majority of tourists have left already, it was announced that there is “clean up” in the Issyk Kul region.

 

I am not sure how many tourists will make use of the planned new “alternative” to connect the Northern and Southern parts of the country … between Balykchy and Djalal Abad – but when he was opening a bridge, the President said that he wanted to have it completed by the time he left office … that just over four years away.  There’s still quite a lot to be done and the stretch from Kazarman down to Djalal Abad will involve a considerable amount of work … and expense.

He also took the opportunity to say that when his term of office finishes, (according to the constitution, he is limited to a single term so we won’t see him mounting a re-election campaign), he plans to leave politics.   That, of course, means that politicians will now be positioning themselves to take on the mantle of leadership. I do hope it doesn’t mean we are facing four years of electioneering.

Another thing he said was that many people have criticized him because he blames the Kyrgyz people themselves for some of their problems. “After the collapse of the Soviet Union, everything was destroyed in the country, and whilst people had to gather pressed dung for fuel, ministers and officials were stealing. I always say that a Kyrgyz is an enemy to a Kyrgyz, because such problems occur due to jealousy and political games aimed at the destruction of the country.”

Well, similar sentiments are being echoed elsewhere.  One of the Deputy Prime Ministers has commented on how he sees Kyrgyz society degenerating.  “Today, it seems that people seem to think that those who shout loudest” are “right” … so they organize rallies instead of trying to find solutions to their problems.

 

My week ended with a newsletter in which one of the items started with: “Don’t you just hate it when things go wrong?” … Yes!

Well, on a personal front it’s been one of those weeks … and it should have been a nice relaxing week – Monday and Tuesday off because of the Kurman Ait public holiday.

I had several jobs penciled in for Sunday, and when I got into the office … the computer wouldn’t start.  A problem with the hard disk and it wouldn’t “boot”.  It took me almost the whole day to find out what the problem was … and that it really was a problem … there seemed to be no way to bypass the disk and boot from another source.

 

Fortunately, I have everything backed up …   but the computer I went to work on decided to crash every ten minutes … I switched to a laptop which suddenly told me that there was no wifi service available even though everyone else had it.  It took three days to recover all the files … well, most of them.

Two of the three colour printers that we have decided that don’t want to work and the one of the photocopiers died on us.  My kindle gave up the ghost and even the my mp3 player decided not to recharge its batteries.

Some 35 meters of the hot water pipes needed replacing and we were without water for 3 days … then one of the cold water pipes sprung a leak … and we had another day of interrupted supply.  Hopefully, it now all been sorted out … just in time for the heating system to be turned on.

All this and the work was piling up and, once the holiday was over, there was a queue of people lining up at the door.  Even during the holiday there were tourists who wanted to go a horse trek.

To top it all … I was so immersed with all my troubles that I missed three birthdays.  Now that’s pretty serious here and has lost me a lot of “brownie points” … and although the presents were ready and only late, it’s taken a fair amount of “humble pie” to make for the omission.  As it happens, I am hoping that the offer of some real home English cooking, in the form of “cottage pie”, will do the trick.

I am not sure, however, whether or not it will result in “peace” being declared … or if like the Scilly Islanders I will have to wait for three hundred years.

 

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Postcard from Bishkek: the weekly postcard that I send out as an email also gets posted on the website ianbek.kg each week – and there are other postcards which don’t get sent out.  This week, for example, there has been the following postcards:

 

 

 

 

 

Tags: In_the_News, Weekly_Postcards