Postcard from Bishkek

Who would have thought that what is normally a quiet week for news as the world celebrates and recovers, that so much would have happened …

Yesterday was Twelfth Night – the twelfth day of Christmas, Epiphany, the Three Kings Day, So I suppose that in the West the Christmas season is well over for 2010.  Here, the Russian Orthodox Church still keeps to the Julian Calendar which means that we had another Christmas yesterday, (January 7^th).  Epiphany isn’t for another two weeks, but that tends to be a fairly low key event here.  The New Year Celebrations really end next week with Stariy Noviy God – “Old New Year”- on January 13th, which would have been the New Year before Russia adopted Pope Gregory’s Calendar in 1917 and ‘lost’ two weeks.

After that we still have the Chinese New Year … but although that is marked here, it’s also a fairly low key event.

I am pleased to say that, on the whole. The New Year passed quietly here.  There were some fires reported and two people were hurt in accidents involving fireworks, but that doesn’t seem too far of “par” for the usual course of events.

In the build up to the Christmas holiday, which is really only marked by the Slavic community, there were a number of reports to the police about suspicious packages and “abandoned” cars, but they all turned out to be false alarms.  If they turned out to be false alarms, however, more weapons have been found down in Osh.

.

Security has, of course, been a major concern – just as it is elsewhere in the world, (for example, in the UK where the alert level has been raised to severe even though there is, apparently, no specific intelligence of planned outrages, but the authorities are worried about the possibility of a Mumbai style outrage).

A group of police on a routine check of passports in the outskirts of Bishkek inadvertently came across a group of terrorists who thought they were in a “safe house”.  Three policemen were shot and killed, according to reports their bodies were riddled with bullets from Kalashnikovs and two of them were shot in the back.  The terrorists then made a dash for freedom but were tracked down in a small village outside Bishkek called Arashan.  In the ensuing operation a soldier died along with most of the terrorists, (one remains alive but injured and hospitalized).  Others alleged to be part of the group have also been tracked down and arrested.  It is also alleged that they were all linked, also, to the bomb explosion outside the Sports Palace last month.

There were a couple of ironic moments in the whole saga.  The soldier killed in the operation to apprehend the gang was a member of Alpha Group – the Kyrgyz Special Forces – and was one of those charged and on trial for his role in defending the White House in April when 80-odd people died.  It also turns out that funeral of one of the murdered policeman was taking place in the same village that same day.

One of the most interesting things about it, however, came in some of the press reports.  Atambaev, the Prime Minister, is supposed to have said that the perpetrators should “be killed” and that the criminal gangs operating in the country should “be neutralized and killed”.  A news report of the operation against the gang once they had been located was headlined: “Special operation to kill terrorists carried out in Arashan village outside Bishkek”.  I say it’s “interesting” because, after several years of operating a moratorium on the death penalty, Kyrgyzstan has recently abolished it.  This seems to mark a change in attitude on the part of the authorities.  Although I understand, and have some sympathy with, the strength of feelings that have been aroused, it seems to me that it’s one thing if terrorists are killed as part of an operation and another if the authorities set out with the intention killing them, despite the fact that capital punishment doesn’t exist in the country.

Indeed, there have been several comments on Twitter about how few alleged terrorists are ever put on trial, and several individuals and organizations have alleged torture is being used on the accused.  Over 300 cases last year, it’s alleged.

It’s also reported that the group had international connections, in particular with the UAE, Qatar, Russia and the United States.  That raises some interesting questions – especially in the light of the “revelations” in the Washington Post’s blog “Spy Talk” about a Turkish general’s allegations of CIA connections with the Fethullah Gulen movement , (supposedly an extremist Islamist group with pan-Turkic aims – which is a particularly alarming “red rag” to Central Asian countries), sheltering CIA operatives in their camps in Central Asia.

On another security front, an alleged Israeli neo-Nazi, (I always thought of that as a contradiction in terms – but, apparently, they do exist), has been extradited to Israel under an Interpol warrant after having being arrested upon arrival from Russia and spending a month in detention in a Kyrgyz holding cell.  Interpol isn’t all that popular here, thought, as they have formally refused to participate in any efforts to extradite former president Bakiev, his son Maxim and several of his associates, back to Kyrgyzstan.   They say that it’s a political and internal issue, and they are prohibited from acting in such matters by their charter.

.

A lot now depends on how the politicians perform.  Some analysts are saying that if they don’t do a good job then there could be yet more protests in the future, and some are even talking about a “third revolution”.   I don’t want to tempt fate, but I think – I hope and trust – that is unlikely.

The politicians, on the other hand, seem to have created a stir by deciding to try and change the rules for replacing members of parliament who resign and step down.  Under the existing scheme of things, their successor should be the next person in line on their party’s list of candidates, but some politicians have proposed that this should be changed and that the one of the party’s committees should decide.  If that seems like “a storm in a teacup”, it’s certainly beginning to arouse emotions here.

That’s not to mention the continuing furor over the fuel contract for the Manas Base.  With allegations and counter allegations passing back and forth between the authorities and Mina, the company awarded the contract by the Pentagon.

.

Who would have thought that what is normally a quiet week for news as the world celebrates and recovers, that so much would have happened … but that’s not all!

Influenza, for example, has been taking a toll.  Unlike flocks of birds and schools of fish apparently dying on mass in the US and Sweden, it is not a case of reporting a mass of deaths, but The Ministry of Health reported during the week that some 130,000 people in the country have gone down with one strain or another – but to that into context, the population is over five million, so it represents about just 2.5% … and the comparable figure for last year was, apparently, 243000.

You wouldn’t normally think of fishing as a typical industry for landlocked Kyrgyzstan, but over the years commercial fishing has been an important activity on Lakes Issyk Kul and Son Kul.  (Fishing is, technically, prohibited on Lake Sary Chelek – and Chater Kul has no fish.)  In recent years, however, there have been a number of restrictions placed on fishing these two lakes in order to try and preserve stock levels.  For the amateur, on the other hand, several of the mountain rivers offer opportunities for anglers of different skills and experience.  We learned during the week, however, that there are seven fish farms in the country and that last year they produced some 140 tons of fish and have capacity to produce even more.

Two estimates for Inflation have been prepared for this year, one optimistic and the other pessimistic – they range from 8 to 18 percent.  I haven’t yet seen any end-of-year figures for 2010, and inflation is a complex statistical measure with many different components and facets, but it seems to me that this could well be an improvement on what we have been through already.

Recently the authorities introduced lie detector tests for several ranks of civil service employees.  Amongst these were tax inspectors.  Well, there was a report about the results of lie detector tests on these tax officials – and guess what, they revealed that not all of them are honest.  As it happens, they now all have to make a declaration of incomes, (level and sources), and although not everyone complied last year, the authorities are fairly confident that they will this year.

There have been a couple of other items of news concerning elements of “corruption” including arrests for “baby trafficking” at one of Bishkek’s maternity hospitals and a teacher arrested red-handed accepting a bribe.

I am not sure what impact that might have on the teacher’s pay claim that I have mentioned previously – probably none.  There are suggestions that they will be offered a 30% rise – but I haven’t seen details of how that is to be implemented, or paid for.  Some of them, understandably, are not happy with this.  Despite this, they have suspended any impending industrial action, giving the authorities time to establish a commission to assess the merits of their case.

But the teachers may just be the tip of the iceberg.  Now Kyrgyzstan’s Health workers are demanding a pay rise.  Doctors are paid 3,900 som on average, nurses: 2,500-3,000 som, hospital cleaners: 1,700 som.  It’s hardly surprising therefore when we are told, (by no less than the Ministry of Health, itself), that more than 12,00 doctors and 28,000 nurses “can hardly make both ends meet”.

This week the news broke that the The State Registration Service of Kyrgyzstan is considering the implementation of the “One Laptop Per Child Project”, (OLPC), in Kyrgyzstan.  Now, issues concerning issues relating to education in schools are beyond the remit of the service, but “informatization” of the country does fall within it.  ”This project is a good chance to contribute to the human development of our country,” the Vice Chairman said.

The OLPC project is run by a U.S. non-profit organization aiming “to create educational opportunities for the world’s poorest children by providing each child with a rugged, low-cost, low-power, connected laptop with content and software designed for collaborative, joyful, self-empowered learning. Its current focus is on the development, construction and deployment of the XO-1 laptop and its successors.   The XO-1, manufactured in Taiwan and previously known as the “$100 Laptop” or “Children’s Machine”, is an inexpensive laptop computer specially designed to be distributed, to children in developing countries around the world, in order to provide them with access to knowledge, and opportunities to “explore, experiment and express themselves”.   It is rugged; has low-power consumption; uses flash memory instead of a hard drive; runs a special, (Fedora-based), operating system and user interface, (called “Sugar”); has provision for mobile, ad-hoc, networking which allows students to collaborate on activities and to share Internet access from one connection; and has also been designed to be lower cost and much longer-lived than typical laptops.

It will be interesting to see the reaction of the teaching force to this proposed initiative – give the considerable investment that will be required compared to their low salaries, (see below).   I hope and trust that the project will include computers for the teachers themselves and suitable training.

Also, during the week, it was reported that there are more than two million internet users in the country – that’s about 36% of the population, which strikes me as pretty good penetration given the patchy nature of coverage throughout the country.  A couple of weeks ago, I saw a report which said that, although they used a multiple number of sources, most “movers and shakers” in Kyrgyzstan relied on the internet for their news.  This week I see that a report from the Pew Research Center says that the situation in the United States is fairly similar.

During the week we discovered that in 2009, Kyrgyzstan imported 155,533 mobile phones.  That’s a peak, so far, but 2007 seems to have been a watershed year with the number growing by over sixfold on the previous year.

I mentioned last week the proposal to require mobile phone operators to register users and apparatus, and I am grateful to one correspondent who sent me an explanation about how it would be easy to arrange for foreigners using “roaming”.  I have posted it as a comment on the website www.ianbek.com.  On the site you can also find a comment about one of our other sites, www.links.kg, mountain rescue, recent developments in Ambridge – for my fellow fans of The Archers, how I also missed out on the Solar Eclipse on Tuesday, tipping and service charges, hotel taxes and my visit to church for the Christmas nativity play yesterday.

Finally, (I am tempted to say “on a whimsical note” – but apparently this was serious news), the government have proposed naming a mountain after Vladimir Vladimirovitch Putin.  The 4,446-meter summit, (14,586 foot for those who still reckon in Imperial units), is not one of Kyrgyzstan’s tallest mountains and is shorter than the 7,134 meter (23,406 foot) Lenin Peak on the Kyrgyzstan-Tajikistan border, but, all the same, it is almost 1000 meters taller than Mt. Yeltsin, (named after Putin’s predecessor as President of the Russian Federation), in 2002.

.

As I said, “Who would have thought that what is normally a quiet week for news as the world celebrates and recovers, that so much would have happened …”

Tags: Expat, Life_in_Kyrgyzstan, Weekly_Postcards