School’s Out … for some
So, it seems as if Howard Camping’s prediction of Doomsday was not fulfilled. Perhaps he misread some of his Bible prophecies, or made mistakes in his calculations based on the “holy” numbers of 5, 10 and 17, although I have no idea why he considers these particular numbers to be “holy”.
However, with this week’s earthquakes, tornados and volcano eruptions some people might simply have thought that his 6pm timing was a little awry. There certainly seems to be a inordinate number of catastrophes recently … it seems that this year we in Kyrgyzstan have experienced something like 122 incidents that are counted as disasters, including over thirty earthquakes, and numerous mudslides, avalanches and so forth. These have caused economic damage in excess of fifty million som and affected some 10,000 families – note, that’s families and not individuals.
On the other hasn’t been much in the news about mass disappearances as the 2% of the population were being “raptured”. As I hinted last week, I was tempted to be late with this week’s postcard and so leave people guessing whether I had been “raptured” … but as I am still here and going away to Naryn and then Karakol for the weekend, I realized that if I did then it would be several days before I could send it, so I thought that, instead, I had better prepare it a little earlier than usual so that I could get it off early, before I left Bishkek on Saturday morning.
So what’s been happening this week … once everyone realized that Doomsday had been postponed?
The new American ambassador, Pamela Spratlen, has arrived in the country and presented her credentials to the authorities. She has arrived at an interesting time.
Following the incident down in Osh last week, when copies of “The Hour of the Jackal” were burnt, there has been some more “book burning” this week. A copy of the report of the International Commission of Enquiry into the events of last June was burned by a protester outside the UN house in Bishkek. He was particularly concerned about what he called “the one sided nature” of the report, and two of the recommendations: changing the name of the country from The Kyrgyz Republic to The Republic of Kyrgyzstan, and the suggestion that the Uzbek language be granted special status
On the same day, as a result of the furor over the report of the international commission report, it’s chairman, (Kimmo Kiljunen from Finland), has been declared a persona non-grata and forbidden from entering the country again. The vote in the parliament was 95 to 0 with 1 abstention, (and 24 absentees) in favour of imposing the travel ban on him. It seems that there is some controvery over the actual vote with one MP claiming that someone voted “for her” and “several others”, as she claims she was actually absent during the vote. There are some dissenting voices in the country over the vote, including several comments from the twittering classes and a protest from Azamat Sydykov, a pianist who is a graduate of the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory and the Mannes College of Music, (in New York), and who is regarded as a prodigy. The Council of Human Rights Defenders have also called the ban “disgraceful”.
In fact, there have now been a number of reports into the events … most of which, according to the chairman of one of the bodies issuing a report, seem to agree to a remarkable extent when it comes to outlining the chronology of the events, but disagree distinctly when it comes to drawing conclusions or making recommendations.
The Foreign Minister has said that there is a need for Kyrgyzstan to defend its national interests in the field of information on the international stage, citing the reporting of events in Kyrgyzstan last year. One of the parliamentarians has also proposed allowing the security services to continue using the eavesdropping equipment installed under the last regime to monitor phone calls. He points out that the security services of China, Russia and the US are able to do this, so why should Kyrgyzstan hamper its security services from doing so.
There are attempts to try and bring about reconciliation, with June 10th, the anniversary of the events in Osh, being declared as a nationwide day of remembrance for the victims of the tragic events. There is also going to be week of “inter-ethnic consent” from June the 10th to the 16th, when films about the conflict should not be shown, although the ban, (directed, I think against one particular film), but this is only a recommendation. There are also plans for holding a national kurultai, (a sort of Assembly of representatives of the people), to discuss concepts for renovation and revival of the Republic on fundamentally new basis. It will be preceded by a number of similar local meetings in the regions. The organizers hope that it will not be politically biased, but will become an institute for stabilization of society.
There is still some interesting skullduggery taking place. One in particular brought back memories of last year’s Telephonegate scandal when recordings of phone conversations were leaked on an internet websites, (including one alleged to be between Maxim Bakiev and his uncle just before the events in Osh, and which seemed to presage them), when a recording was leaked linking First Vioce Priminister Babanov with Maxim Bakiev. He immediately denounced them as crude forgeries, and it seems that the law enforcement authorities agree with him.
Another involves rumours that Roza Otunbaeva is about to announce her resignation, which broke on the internet at the end of the week. I have seen only one comment about this, citing a number of different reasons which might be behind these rumours surfacing, particularly at this time. It will be interesting to see if the predictions prove to be any reliable than those of Howard Camping.
In terms of the economy, it seems according to various announcements that Kyrgyzstan owes some 473 dollars for every citizen, but if there are no more loans taken out, then the debts should be cleared off by 2050.
I’m not sure if this includes the “something like 15 million dollars” for membership fees to some of the 85 different international organizations to which it belongs.
It’s hard to see, however, that the country will be able to continue without taking out more loans. Indeed, there is a second conference of donor organizations timetabled for later in the year. At the last one, there was aid announced to the extent of over one billion dollars but in the end agreements were signed for just 380 million and, according to the Finance Ministry, received just 160 million.
Still other projects are in the pipeline: the European Commission is ready to provide the first tranche in the amount of 15 million Euro; The IMF is to consider disbursing 108 million dollars in June; the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, (EBRD) are providing credits for almost 17 million Euros for work on the water supply in the Osh and Djalal Abad regions and the Islamic Development Bank is offering 20 million dollars for improvements in the Health Services.
A senior delegation from the EBRD is in town and has announced support for several initiatives: construction of small Hydro electric power plants; support for microfinance organizations and the construction of a garbage recycling plant for Bishkek.
There are even signs of private investment being interested in coming to Bishkek, with a German investment group announcing that they are ready and willing to invest 4 billion dollars into the country. Whilst welcoming this news, the Prime Minister, Atambaev, has acknowledged that “nationalism” is the main challenge facing the attraction of foreign investment.
Meanwhile, the government is in the process of considering their representatives for the Board of Directors of Canterra, the company that operates the Kumtor gold mine, and have started an appeal against the court decision which overturned the recall of another company’s license. In the meantime, one foreign mining company has announced that they intend to withdraw from Kyrgyzstan.
At least the IMF seems to think that productivity will grow, (to about 6%, after last years decline of 1%) and that inflation will fall, (to 13% from last year’s 19%), in the coming year. Of course, one of the great unknowns is still the likely effect of the Customs Union on the economy and that debate continues to rage on with the IMF weighing in with a comment that it is too early to say. The government, however, is still intent on accession.
Protest meetings are still taking place. One of the latest protests has been directed against a politician who had the temerity to liken the legendary national hero, Manas, to a bandit. It may have been a rash statement, but there are those who admit that the Manas epic does record a wide variety of stories, not all of which paint the Kyrgyz ion a positive light.
A piece of potentially good news, (at least for us involved in tourism), is that the First Vice Prime Minister has come out in favour of relaxing the visa regime. There has already been some relaxation, at least for holders of diplomatic and service passports, where the list of countries where no visa is required has been increased. It’s too early to say, of course, that more progress will be made on this question, but we are hopeful.
This week the weather has been mixed … after some overcast days, we are hoping for good weather for our trip to Naryn and Karakol.
It was fine last weekend as I went to the Orthodox Cathedral for the celebration of St. Nicholas’s Day – the original Santa Clause. I thought that was in December, but they seem to celebrate it twice a year. The place was packed – everyone standing, not sitting in pews – and the singing was fantastic.
Fortunately it was nice on Wednesday as the school year came to an end, (apart from exams), with the Last Bell being rung on May 25th. I am impressed because the kids seem to be getting a string of 4s in their exams so far this year, (that’s the equivalent of a B, the scale goes 1 to 5 – but as far as I can tell no-one ever gets a 1 which is the equivalent of Peppermint Patty’s “That’s not a grade, that’s sarcasm!” when she was awarded a Z- for one of her pieces of work in the Peanuts cartoon). On Wednesday, the streets of Bishkek were graced by crowds of young people in their finery, some with sashes indicating that they were in their final year and were graduating. Now the 2000 or so children who don’t attend any school in Kyrgyzstan will be joined on the streets by the more than one million who normally do and we have three months of trying to keep them busy until the new school year starts on September 1st.
At least there is Baseball starting next week … and I hope that there will be lots of BMX competitions to help keep them occupied. Maxim, for example, is off to the mountains tomorrow to attend, (not compete), one competition. I’m sorry that I will miss it.
The weather was also quite good on Thursday which was the Independence Day for Georgia. Georgia is quite popular here amongst the liberals, and I went to a small party to commemorate the occasion. Unfortunately, the news from Tbilisi was not good, but that didn’t really cast a cloud over the event. I can’t help thinking that the protestors there deliberately chose this day to stage their protest as it has significant symbolism. Interestingly, Georgia is one of the eleven countries in the world which celebrates two Independence Days.
Perhaps the upheavals in Georgia, and in other places around the world, are signs for some of the Howard Camping’s followers that he is on to something … but then again, history teaches us that such events have always been with us … and, unfortunately, are likely to continue to be with us in the future.
Bishkek