Postcard from Bishkek

Douglas Adams, the author of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy“, (HHGTTG or H2G2 to aficionados), may be famous for his answer to “the great question of … Life, the Universe and Everything … “, (that is: “forty-two”), but his quirky sense of humour also resulted in a number of interesting “one liners”.  One of my favourites is: “This must be Thursday.  I never could get the hang of Thursdays.”   (O.K., I know – that’s two lines!)

Arthur Dent, the central character of the Hitchhiker’s “trilogy” of five books, (there’s his quirky sense of humour again – and it was six books if you count “And another thing …” written by Eion Cofler), utters the phrase a few minutes before the Earth is destroyed by a fleet of Vogon constructor ships to make way for a hyperspatial express route.

Like Arthur Dent, I never got the hang of Thursdays.

I never understood, for example, why John Steinbeck called it “Sweet Thursday”, nor do I understand the old joke: “I always give 100% at work: 13% on Monday, 22% on Tuesday, 26% on Wednesday, 35% on Thursday and 4% on Friday”.  Thursday seems to represents the peak of productivity, but that doesn’t ring true in my experience.  Maybe I was just unlucky but, as a school teacher, I nearly always seemed to get  my most difficult classes on Thursday afternoon.  It seemed to me that everyone was getting tired after a long week.  The next day was Friday, but that didn’t seem so bad because everyone was looking forward to the Weekend but on Thursday afternoon, there was still one day to go.

That reminds me of the old children’s rhyme:

Monday’s child is fair in face,
Tuesday’s child is full of grace,
Wednesday’s child is full of woe,
Thursday’s child has far to go,
Friday’s child is loving and giving,
Saturday’s child works hard for its living,
and a child that’s born on the Sabbath Day
is bonny and blithe and good and gay

Thursday afternoon and there is far to go before the weekend arrives.

Looking back over previous postcards, (from both this year and 2005), I notice how often things have happened, or started developing, on a Thursday.  It was true this week as well.

The week had been full of the usual mix of “good news, bad news”.

Saturday, 1st August, was Kurmanbek Bakiev’s birthday.  The occasion wasn’t marked here in Kyrgyzstan and it is not clear what celebrations may have been held in Byelorussia but some accounts report that his brother, Janysh – who was in charge of the security services on April 7th and apparently gave the command to open fire on the protestors, has surfaced in Byelorussia.

One “present” that might been welcome was the release of official economic statistics during the week that suggested that 2010 started well – it was the start of a good year, until the events in April, that is.  Mind you, at the end the week the government were claiming a 5% growth in GDP … and predicted better growth by the end of the year so, providing it is not all wishful thinking, maybe that would take the shine off that particular “present”.

It was announced that Interglass, a glass factory and one of the country’s big foreign investments, is about to resume work in the final quarter of the year after a break of almost two years for the repair and reconstruction of its glass melting furnace, creating some 1600 jobs.  However, the official statistics show that unemployment has grown by 32% this year.

Of the 50 or so people missing and unaccounted for following the events in Osh and Djalal Abad, some 23 have been found – 10 of them alive including an eight year old boy but confusion still reigns over the mission of the 52 strong police force to be sent by OSCE in August.  The Memorandum of Understanding has not yet been signed and their terms of reference are still unclear.  There have been further protests against their deployment.

Indeed, a comment in the British newspaper “The Guardian” concluded that, despite the OSCE police mission, none of the world’s superpowers or power blocks were likely to offer much more than moral and financial support , (in the form of aid, grants and loans), and so: “Sorry Kyrgyzstan, unless you got loadsa oil you on your own!!”  This will be like music to the ears of some local politicians who are keen on stressing Kyrgyzstan’s sovereignty but not keen on foreign involvement in the country’s affairs even though many commentators, both inside and outside the country, keep referring to how Kyrgyzstan is almost “a failed state”.

The border service reported that during July there were 13400 “tourists” who visited the country – which looks quite good but I can’t find monthly figures for other years in order to make a comparison although in 2008 there were about 780,000 “tourists” and July is the start of the “high season”.

There have been a couple of announcements about Kyrgyz films being entered in foreign film festivals

Lorries of explosive ammonia bound for Kyrgyzstan were discovered and detained in Tajikistan and it is not clear if the cargo represents a proper commercial transaction as there appears to be no supporting paperwork.

Some of those who suffered in the events have put demands to the government for compensation – similar to the compensation offered to those who suffered as a result of the events in April – but it is not clear how or where the government is supposed to find the finances to do so and the demand has elicited some highly critical comments.

An independent international survey has reported that Kyrgyzstan internet service providers offer faster broadband speeds than are often available in more developed countries such as the United States – although there seems to be some surprise about that being expressed here, and I haven’t seen a comparison of the costs of such services here and abroad.

The big news of the week, however, was the events of Thursday … which hardly lived up to Steinbeck’s “Sweet Thursday”.  I am not sure how much news coverage the events had abroad, I have seen some reports, but not that many.  However, we also got phone calls from Russia and skypes from the UK about it … so there was some coverage.

The events centered around the controversial character, Urmat Bartkabasov.  Bartkabasov is a listed in one of the country’s “Who’s Who” directories as a businessman, born in the town of Balykchy, at the western end of Lake Issyk Kul.  He’s said to one of the richest men in Kyrgyzstan – if not the richest.  Although born in Kyrgyzstan and therefore a Kyrgyz citizen, according to press reports he apparently received a Kazakh passport back in 2002.  How he achieved this is anyone’s guess because, basically, dual citizenship is prohibited under Kyrgyz law.  Back in June 2005, following the Tulip Revolution in March, there was a period of uncertainty as different groups jockeyed for power and position – a bit like now, really.  Indeed, similar to what happened in Russia in 1917, and I suppose, following any revolution.  A presidential election was held in June and Bartkabasov announced his candidature, but he was disqualified by the election commission, because of his Kazakh passport.  During the month a group of his supporters staged a protest rally, managed to storm the White House and, it was reported, attempted to stage a coup.  They were thwarted and Bartkabasov fled to “an Arab country” and a criminal case against was opened by the authorities.  Following the Easter Revolution this year, he returned to Kyrgyzstan – and was placed under house arrest in Balykchy whilst the investigations into the events of 2005 were underway and he gave an assurance that he would not leave the country.  Apparently he is also wanted by the police in Kazakhstan – for embezzlement of funds – and they have issued a request for his extradition.

During the week his supporters announced that they were going to hold a rally in Bishkek on Thursday, 5th August.  They called it a Kulrutai, which is the name given to a general assembly of the elders of the Kyrgyz people but, although they claimed that about 10,000 people would attend, (30,000 according to some reports), as it was apparently only going to be his supporters attending it, this seems a little grandiose.  Permission was granted for the rally, under the law on public assemblies, by the Bishkek authorities, but there was tension in the air.  Overnight some members of the “citizen’s patrols” prepared to patrol the streets of the capital and help maintain order.  Over 2000 police officers and 300 troops from the Ministry of the Interior were detailed to monitor the situation in the capital.

Then, on Wednesday night, Bartkabasov apparently broke the terms of his house arrest.  .  Despite the fact that just after midday there was an announcement that the situation in Issyk Kul was calm and there were no meetings in Balykchy, there were other reports that trouble broke out as Bartkabasov’s supporters were gathering in Balykchy, that three police were beaten, (early reports said that these were attempts on their lives), and that weapons were apparently discovered amongst those participating.  As a result, the government decided to prevent them from entering Bishkek and announced that they had authorized the use of firearms in the event of armed resistance.  A number of police checkpoints were established – especially at the village of  Novopokrovka – which is also known as Kirshelk.

Here in Bishkek, protesters gathered on Gorky Park … some reports say that there were about 500 people  were present.  Gorky Park is not far from both the hotel and our office and we normally cross it when walking between the two, as some of our staff tried to do that morning.  They tell me that the crowd were peacefully gathering and handing out leaflets – all in Kyrgyz, none in Russian.  There was also a counter demonstration in favour of the government which gathered some 400 people.

After a period the protestors moved of off from Gorky Park to the old Central Square, outside the Parliament Building, where the government is currently housed.  There was nobody there, apart from the security staff, and when news came in that those coming from Balykchy had been stopped at the checkpoint in Kirshelk, they moved off there as well.

Bartkabasov also arrived in Kirshelk.  Discussions between the police and the protestors had been  disrupted but when a representative of the Presidential administration arrived, the two sat in Bartkabasov’s car and discussed the situation.  There were basically three demands, we are told … Bartkabasov wanted to be allowed to enter Bishkek and address the kurultai, he asked that the criminal investigation against him be dropped and that he be made Prime Minister.  Needless to say, all three demands were turned down.

The exact sequence of events is not clear, stones were thrown, shots were fired into the air – but it is not clear who was doing the firing, and the police fired stun grenades, smoke grenades and tear gas   Some of the protestors tried to by-pass the checkpoint but were stopped by the military.  Reinforcements arrived and the the authorities moved to disperse the crowd.

Bartkabasov left the scene and it was announced later that he had been captured, arrested and was giving evidence.  One western news report I have seen says that there was a high speed chase and shootout, but all the local press reports is that the was a “special operation”.  Talk about having to learn how to “read between the lines”.

Meanwhile the markets worked, the shops worked and only a few of them cleared the goods from the shelves, public transport worked,  some ATM machines were shut down – but basically life carried on as normal.

Towards the end of the afternoon I went out to a meeting.  The town was quiet, people were walking calmly and going about their business.  The helicopters that had flown overhead earlier in the day had disappeared.  The only thing that gave away that anything was a little unusual was that traffic seemed to be a little faster than usual and drivers seemed to be a bit heavy on the horn, rather like they were back in June and I put that down to nervousness about the situation.

Five hundred volunteers from the “citizen’s patrols” were deployed to patrol the capital’s streets overnight – but there doesn’t seem to have been anything for them to do.  Checkpoints have been re-established on the outskirts of Bishkek – just in case.

To add insult to injury, Bartbakasov’s party, Meken Tuu, are going to be given an invoice for the cost of clearing up the litter in the city center created as a result of the protest.

During the day there had been a mass of accusations and counter claims – the protestors claiming that they only wanted to protest against the interim government; that they didn’t like what was happening and they wanted a “clean” face, as in Bartkabasov.  By “clean” they seem to have meant someone who hadn’t been involved in politics before and so had not participated in either of the previous regimes.

Official sources claimed that an attempted coup was in the making and had been foiled; that weapons had been found amongst the protestors, that gangs from the world of organized crime were involved – as evidenced by the numbers of Young men with an athletic build” in the crowds; that associates of Bartkabasov had issued underworld “contracts” on members of the government; that Bakiev and his associates had allocated funds for the organization of the event to destabilize the country further – although if he is as rich as people say it’s hard to understand why Bartkabasov would need to take money from Bakiev, and if he is really was responsible for trying to usurp power from Bakiev in June 2005, why he would ally himself with Bakiev now.

When it comes to these claims, counter claims, and explanations it’s not clear exactly who or what to believe.  What is fact? what is supposition? and what, (if anything), is exaggeration?  What does appear to be clear is that something very serious was afoot involving about 2000 protestors, (so much for the expected 10-30,000), and that the authorities dealt with it and think that they have sufficient evidence, which we hope will be published in due course, of nefarious dealing.

Fortunately the casualties of the days events seem to be limited to eleven people who were injured and needed hospital attention, (four of whom were detained, at least, overnight).

In the children’s rhyme, “Thursday’s child has far to go … “  At a first glance this seems to suggest that they will have a hard time in the “journey of life”, that nothing will be easy, (“and such a journey: the ways deep and the weather sharp”, as T.S. Elliott put it in “The Journey of the Magi”), but there is also an implication that they will “go far” and be successful.  For Kyrgyzstan, the first interpretation is certainly proving to be true.  Let’s hope that the second will also prove to be true, that Kyrgyzstan fares better than Wednesday’s child and Arthur Dent’s Earth.

At least The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy had some good advice for us at times like this … the front cover carried in big bold letters the caption “Don’t Panic”!

Tags: Expat, Interesting_Times, Kyrgyzstan, Life_in_Kyrgyzstan, Weekly_Postcards