Postcard from Bishkek

Although Ian is a Scottish name, as far as I am aware I have no Scottish blood flowing through my veins, (however there is some Celtic blood there, because some of my mother’s forebears came from South Wales).

I mention my ancestry, (or, at least, my lack of Scottish ancestry), because today happens to be an important day for Scotsmen around the world – it’s Burn’s Night, commemorating the birth of the great Scottish poet in 1759.

Scots all over the globe will be gathering for the special dinner that has now become a tradition, custom and practice. But it’s not just the Scots that revere him and his work.  In Tsarist Russia, for example,  he was known as the “people’s poet”, becoming a symbol for the ordinary Russian in a society where the aristocracy were out of touch with the peasantry.

This was, of course, seized upon and embellished by the Soviet authorities following the Bolshevik Revolution.  Indeed, the Soviet Union issued their first commemorative postage stamp in his honour.

Among his vast output perhaps one of his most famous lines was: “The best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley” (which was taken by John Steinbeck for his 1937 novel Of Mice and Men)  An awful lot of plans seem to be going aft agley at the moment …

 

Thursday saw a very dramatic turn of events … when a group of eleven people were spotted near the Chinese border in the Issyk Kul region … which ended up with all eleven being killed in a special security operation – together with the head of the local hunting community who seems to have come across them.

The accounts are somewhat garbled … which is probably understandable, after all events unfolded very rapidly and reports were coming in from various sources … but it seems that in the morning the group of people were spotted in the border zone which is normally closed and one needs special permission to  enter – which, apparently they didn’t have.  They managed to overcome a hunter who appears to have shot and killed two of them in the struggle before he himself was killed.   The group then took refuge in a special building housing (if I understand correctly) heating equipment.

Word had reached Bishkek and instructions were given to apprehend them and if necessary eliminate any threat they posed.  More troops were dispatched as were a medical team from Karakol … but events were to overtake them and before the day was out the body count mounted before they could reach the scene.

A detachment of troops from the local border guards had arrived on the scene where the fugitives were holed up and some form of discussions were started – at least we were told that they were underway – but the group refused to surrender and in a firefight all eleven were shot – only one of the border guards was slightly injured – by shrapnel.

We are not sure who they were or why they were there … there are several theories circulating – and it looks, at the moment as if they were Chinese citizens.

Whilst it has to be  acknowledged is that the hunter who lost his life seems to have acted with great courage … although he paid for it dearly; that the troops did resolve the situation quickly and efficiently – the story raises many imponderable questions:

• What was their purpose? … among the various theories are that they were militant terrorists … intent on stirring up trouble.  (According to one account – someone was heard crying Allah Akbar when he was killed – suggesting militants – an apparently some of their personal effects support this … but no details have been released yet).  Perhaps, they were Uighur separatists from China’s Xinjiang province … which I understand is what the Chinese seem to think …  but then again, someone suggested that they might have been refugees fleeing persecution at the hands of the Chinese and not terrorists – there’s now a theory that they may have been “chased” across the border – and I saw one comment that they might simply have been illegal immigrants; there was some speculation that they might have been there at the instigation of Janysh Bakiev, (brother of the former President Kurmanbek Bakiev and the many accused of ordering troops to shoot at protesters on 7th April 2010), who was earlier reported to be in China (although, as I understand it, that was never confirmed); were they indeed Chinese? – or perhaps locals, hunters undertaking some illegal poaching? members of a criminal gang? smugglers? … although some comments have suggested links with groups trying to capitalize on disaffection in Southern Kyrgyzstan, and anti-Customs Union agitation, … (oddly enough, no-one, at least as far as I have seen – has mentioned Kumtor … which is also not far from the scene of the action).

  The favoured theory at the moment seems to be that they were Uighur extremists;

• Why did they choose this particular route? – and at this time of year? … The mountains they would have had to cross from China are quite high and inhospitable … and especially at this time of year.  It was a terrible journey back in the eighth century when the Buddhist Monk Hsuan Tsang lost a third of his companions and animals on a single 65km stretch … in 1916 many Kyrgyz fleeing the bloodshed of the uprising died in the mountains – one pass is known as the pass of bones … and we’ve had groups turned back by the inclement weather conditions even in August.
• If they were “terrorists”, then why do they appear to have been so poorly equipped for such an expedition - they were carrying rope, masks, maps, compasses, money – Chinese yuan and American dollars, white sheets for winding bodies for burial … and they only weapons they seem to have had were knives?
• Why didn’t the border guards wait for reinforcements that were enroute? – Apparently, the story is, that their hands were “forced” as the intruders set fire to the building in order to create a smoke screen to cover their “escape”
• Was it really necessary to kill them all? … if just one had survived then some valuable information might have been gleaned from them … as in the case of the Mumbai incident …
• Was it a one-off, isolated incident … or …?
• and so on …

Whatever, their plans definitely went awry …

 

The other recent border shootout, which took place last week in the Batken oblast, was getting a lot of coverage earlier in the week … especially as Tajikistan released it’s side of the story.  Needless to say, there are some significant differences from the Kyrgyz version … especially their map of the area where the incident occurred.  The border according to their map takes a totally different route … hence, they claim, the engineers constructing the by-pass around the enclave was really on their territory and that’s why their border guards arrived to demand that work be discontinued.

As it happens, quite a lot of the border is still not officially demarcated – it wasn’t seen a priority, but presumably that will change now … if we can get the two sides to sit down at the table and talk to one another.

Although discussions with the Tajik authorities are apparently taking place – including one highly publicized telephone call – at the moment it doesn’t look as if any resolution is yet in sight - and hence the atmosphere is still pretty tense and the border remains closed.  When it does reopen, new posts are going to be established.  The closure is, of course, having some knock on effects … somehow some smugglers were caught trying to bring into Kyrgyzstan some eggs from Tajikistan and in the meantime fuel prices on that side of the border have increased.

 

All of this has meant that the news about Kumtor has been somewhat sidelined.  For example, the case against the people who are accused of trying three million dollars from the company has been continuing with some high ranking officials of the company giving evidence.

Possibly because the parliament have been considering a law on Referendums, (or should that be referenda? my spellchecker says referendums), one of the deputies decided to raise the possibility of putting the question of the deal with the company to the people in a referendum … and also, for that matter, the question of whether the country should enter the Customs Union  … The Prime Minister doesn’t think this is a good idea … indeed, as at least one commentator has pointed out, the whole affair has already cost the country dearly … the whole renegotiating exercise costing something like eighty million dollars and that’s without the losses incurred with the fall of the company’s share price.

In the meantime, the Procurators’ office has announced that they now have “proven” cases of corruption – although some cases have apparently dismissed, (… some apparently because documents were destroyed when their building was gutted by fire in the 2010 revolution and some because they have passed the statute of limitations) … and some five former officials have been put on the Interpol international wanted list – including Aidar Akaev, son of the former President, and former Prime Minister Nikolai Tanaev who gave a somewhat damning interview in the Russian press.

I mentioned earlier the “statute of limitations”.  You may remember me mentioning how a proposal to abolish this for cases of corruption got defeated in the parliament and the sardonic response this aroused among people.  Well, some of the MP’s wrote to the Speaker, saying that they hadn’t been present for the vote and someone had recorded a vote on their behalf … and asking for a re-vote so that they could participate.

Now. I am not sure about the Parliamentary rules – or what sort of precedent this may create – but in the end he agreed … and a vote on holding a re-vote was held … and the eventual re-vote set aside the earlier decision … so now, (or at least once the relevant law has been signed by the president), there will be no “statute of ,limitations” for this sort of thing.

Actually, Interpol has had a good week, newswise … there was the report that Syrian extremists have been located and arrested in Kyrgyzstan, trying to recruit fighters for the war there; there was a report that a lot of the “jeeps” being driven around Kyrgyzstan are in fact vehicles stolen in Europe and Russian, cloned (that is given a new identity with serial numbers of other similar vehicles in their home countries) before being imported and sold here; and two children kidnapped in Germany by their estranged parents (in one case the mother and the other the father),  were located and returned to home to the other parent.

 

Allegations of corruption and the abuse of power by various officials continue to be a hot topic.  The Mayor of Bishkek may have claimed that the criminal investigations against him had nothing to do with his resignation, but the Mayor of Balykchy has doggedly decided not to take the same course of action when allegations were made against him.  Now yet another Mayor (the Mayor of Karakol) is facing similar allegations … and it’s not yet clear what his reaction is going to be.

There have been a host of other stories this week:

There was, for example, more on the money making schemes that apparently operate in the GAI- the Traffic Police.  It was reported that a driving license costs something like just 8000 som, without having to take the exam – or even having lessons – which detracts somewhat from the GAI claim that many of the increasing number of road accidents are the result of poor driver education and training … mid you that’s being addressed with many of the schools being closed for malpractices and new legislation which is going to demand – and monitor – the provision of lessons.

Just as the impact about the number of drunk driving cases and the arrival of new improved breathalyzers was diminished somewhat with reports about the the number of DUI cases being dismissed (some rather suspiciously) or at least having minimal sentences imposed …

Then there was the report of officials who demanded bribes … in rice.  Yes, rice.  Apparently, one was arrested with sacks of rice, which were meant as a down payment, in the boot of his car.

Perhaps more disturbing is that a number of directors of organizations have been dismissed and/or prosecuted – for financial irregularities … including orphanages.  Of the six orphanages that were inspected – five Directors were sacked.  It would to nice to think that their “creative accounting” might have been to improve the lot of their charges rather than anything negative … but …

While on the subject of disadvantaged children … the number of children in such institutions has increased somewhat this week as the authorities carried out another “raid” on the markets, car washes and internet cafes to try and find homeless and vulnerable children and runaways working illegally. This raid was designed to last three days and in just an hour on the first day they managed to round up over 50 … the second day over 30 more and on the finally day – when they invited the press along – they couldn’t find any … the word had obviously got around.

It is often claimed that the tax authorities are riddled with corruption – with inspectors constantly looking for infringements of the regulations (which, usually, are not too difficult to find) so that they can extract a reward for “looking the other way”.  Well, new money making schemes have been discovered … with phoney inspectors not only conspiring to forge documents, (especially in the larger markets and among the city’s minibuses), which are, of course, easily exposed when a real inspector shows up.   I should point out that the State Tax Inspection resolutely deny that there is any such scheme … the trouble is that many people who have already had run ins with inspectors find the story so totally plausible that even if they are right and there is no such scheme – it is going to be hard to convince the general public of it.

Tax has also been in the news with a proposal to reinstate the tax on interest earned from bank deposits.  There used to be such a tax but it was removed a few years ago when the new Tax Code was introduced … but now the National Bank and some other government departments have suggested reinstating it.  The banks, of course, aren’t happy about this and have been lobbying against the proposal and it looks as if they might have won the argument … at least for now.  I am sure the argument will surface again at some time in the future …

The Security services haven’t had such a good week … what should have been a good week went gang aft agley  when it was announced that they were asking for mobile phone calls to be recorded once more … Before the revolution, the Bakiev administration purchased equipment and insisted that mobile operators install it … but a civil campaign base on the constitutional right to privacy meant that they are only allowed to record conversations under the authority of a court order.  Now, it seems, they want to go back to being able to record everything … even of they don’t listen to all the calls.

I’ld have thought that the whole Snowden affair should have been a warning flag for them (… not to mention the furor that’s blowing up over breach of the the right to privacy with the appearance of the intimate videos that have appeared on the internet … now, even the former ombudsman has got himself involved coming to the cleric’s defence).

There has been a lot of attention here as to what is going on in the Ukraine.  Early in the week it was reported that one of the police outside the embassy had to take out his gun and fire into the air … but it had nothing to do with the events in Kiev.  It seems that a group of youths were acting boisterously and a melee ensued.  He attempted to break it up but couldn’t reason with them and found that the only he could do in the situation was to fire into the air.  That seems to have done the job.

One of the reasons for the disturbances in Kiev is to do with the government’s position over the relationships with the European Union … with Russia … and the Customs Union.  Perhaps that is one of the reasons people are so interested in what’s happening over there.

Well, the debate about Kyrgyzstan’s accession to the Union has continued – even if it has been somewhat overshadowed by other events – and at least one commentator has described enthusiasm for the the move in Bishkek as “cooling off”.  There was a rally by the opponents of Kyrgyzstan’s accession … the photos made it look quite small … but some of the comments in the press suggested that it was an important event.

One of the civil servants, an adviser, went along – presumably to fulfill a “watching brief” and he went on to social media to express his disappointment … at the arguments being put forward.  When the speakers gave examples of what would happen to prices, he said. they were making a mistake because no-one could know, no-one could predict what would happen.  There were too many factors, it was too far in the future and apart from inflation there would be a number of of measures implemented to mitigate the negative effects.  He seemed to think that they were scaremongering.

It was nice to see the humility in this approach … no-one can predict what will happen – and this from a government adviser whose job it is, presumably, to make such judgments.

As an aside: As it happens, I have a lot of sympathy with his point of view … For example, when I got asked this week about the prospects for the growth of tourism in the future … I replied in much the same vein … it’s not as if we were a manufacturing company with production targets that we could plan and which we can control … but there are too many variables over which we have no control that bear down on us … all it needs is bad weather (which seems to have happened quite a few times in recent years), a lorry to fall off a bridge and spill its load into a river (as happened in 1997), border closures – for example in response to an outbreak of some mysterious disease (like SARS or bird flu, anthrax or bubonic plague) or political upheaval (such as another revolution – or firefights on two of your four borders) or even a terrorist act a long, long way away (such as planes being flown into buildings on the other side of the world), a change in visa regime (either adding more countries to the visa free regime – or reducing the number) … and so on … and so on …

So, it probably won’t come as a surprise when I say that I think that, in a way he was right.  The dollar and Euro have been strengthening against the som … perhaps, as the National Bank says, as part of a seasonal variation – perhaps as there have been a number of loan repayments … which many people say is having a serioous effect on prices.  Inflation has also been fluctuating.  The owners of one of Bishkek’s main bazaars. however, haven’t helped by more than quadrupling rents for trading spots.  (Needless to say, the market traders are far from happy … “Why such a large increase? … what do we get for that rent?”, they complain …)

 

As it happens, there’s been a lot more news … but most of the items have been drowned out by the “big” news stories … however, I want to draw two stories to your attention.

The first has absolutely nothing to do with Kyrgyzstan … but relates to two reports of the same Oxfam survey – which I think should be compulsory reading for every journalism course – not to mention Maths and Statistics courses everywhere around the world.  You can find the accounts here - “85 People Own Half Of Earth’s Wealth” – and here - “Wealth of half the world’s population now the same as that of tiny elite.”… and download the original report from Oxfam here).

The second was an interesting article on one of the news portals here in Bishkek …  it’s in Russian but with Google translate I think it should be reasonably accessible to most people – In any case I gave a summary of it in yesterdays postcard in ianbek.kg.  It’s easy to be critical … in a negative way … but one journalist asked us to be positive and consider what there is about Bishkek to love … Like the government adviser who said “no-one knows”, I found the approach to be wonderfully refreshing.

 

Finally, I don’t know if anyone of Scottish decent is here in Bishkek at the moment or if there will be any special gathering to commemorate Burns’ Night tonight … (apparently, someone did organize one a few year ago), but today also happens to be Tatiana Day …  and as my Accountant is called Tatiana, we’ll be having a cake to mark the day…

 

 

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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:

• Because Kyrgyzstan - The Oxford University Dictionary may have declared “selfie” as the word of the Year for 2013, but some Americans have decided that a better candidate for the title is “because” … which led me to suggest a possible new marketing strategy for Kyrgyz Tourism – 19/01/14
• Artnapped - Some more information about the picture that got stolen from the Museum of Fine Arts last week … and the artist who painted it – 20/01/14
• Time to get close - National Hug Day … and the question of “personal space” – 21/01/14
• What do you do when you’re at the end of your tether? - statistics about the number of suicides led to this postcard … which the kids advised me not to post … but as it’s a matter of “life and death”, (literally), I decided to go ahead anyway – 22/01/14
• Write it down - To commemorate National Handwriting Day, I decided to look at the role played by writing as far as the ancient Kyrgyz were concerned … it wasn’t just a culture of “oral tradition” – 23/01/14
• Count your blessings – name them one by one - It’s easy to be critical … in a negative way … but one journalist asked us to be positive and consider what there is about Bishkek to love – 24/01/14

It is possible to follow me on Facebook, (where we also have specific pages for Celestial Mountains, the Silk Road Lodge, The Celestial Mountains Guesthouse in Naryn  and also links.kg, Kyrgyz Diary and Kyrgyzstan Visitki … and not forgetting ianbek), and also on twitter, (@Bishkekpostcard and @celestialMTC ). .

Tags: In_the_News, Life_in_Kyrgyzstan, Weekly_Postcards