Postcard from Bishkek

I would like to thank everyone who took the trouble to write giving me feedback about the postcards. As I have said to some of them, without their feedback I never know what people make of them.

Last week, for example, there were several messages about movies. Someone said that none of the stories that I highlighted would make a good film, because they appeared to be so outlandish that no-one would believe them. A couple of people wrote and suggested movies for me to watch and I am busy trying to track them down. One person sent me a link to a list of the highest grossing films of all time, and that was fascinating. I was struck about the predominance of Science Fiction and Fantasy, Alternative Realities and Otherworldly themes; basically, escapism. We don’t seem to have come very far from the days of Great Depression and “Sullivan’s Travels”. 

Mind you, he also pointed out that my postcards tend to contain a number of “typos” which have obviously got through my spell checker. 

One of the problems is that I have three spell checkers – one English (British), another for English (United States) and the third is for Russian – mind you that one is quite complicated because of all the case endings. Which one comes into play depends on which computer keyboard Windows thinks I am using at the time. 

Actually, as I explained in my reply, I tend to write the weekly postcard on Friday afternoon, then “sleep on it”, returning to proof read it and to check for any “breaking news” before I send it out on Saturday morning. Obviously, however, mistakes still get through and that’s either because I am still half asleep or perhaps it’s because I am still reading what I thought I had typed rather than what I had actually typed. It’s a problem I have always faced. Often, when I go back over stuff I several weeks before, I often cringe at what are obvious mistakes. 

He’s not the only one to have spotted my errors. There’s someone else, for example, who regularly takes me to task for “Americanisms”. (The French would probably be delighted at that!) I am probably the American keyboard most of the time. 

I saw a tweet on Twitter during the week from someone who is identified as Elizabeth Windsor and in between her constant references to Gin o’clock, she posted this: “One has said it before: There is no such thing as UK English. There is English and there are mistakes.” 

Today is a good day for talking about such things because in America it is National Punctuation Day. Just like Kyrgyzstan, America seems to have a particular habit of designating hundreds of special days in celebration of niche interests to the extent that every day of the year is packed with unofficial holidays and observances. This year sees the Eighth National Punctuation Day. 

Last year, 356 people from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Malta, and Italy, (in Italian!), submitted more than 3,000 haikus in a Punctuation Haiku Contest. Here’s my favourite from amongst the winning entries: 

Commas are your friends.
Who else makes you stop and breathe
before you run on?

In fact, I am told that I use too many commas and one of my staff, (a language specialist), is constantly telling me off … for my constant abuse of ellipses … multiple question marks and exclamation marks, my confusion over when to use single and double quotation marks and the use of the interrobang(?! or !?).

I can already hear people going “interrobang ?! What on earth is an interrobang!?” It seems to me that it could have been especially devised for Dame Edith Evans’ legendary outraged rendition of the line, “A Handbag?!”, in the film of Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest”, (which, sadly, is not on the list of high grossing films).

   

If I have a tendency to abuse both commas and the ellipsis by overuse … then life in Kyrgyzstan gives me plenty of opportunity to do so with the interrobang as well. .

It may be that many will refuse to believe the plot but the blockbuster fantasy storyline about the death/murder of the former head of the President’s Administration, (which Rosa Otunbaeva has described as “sensational” and “terrible”), but this has deepened even further. Do I hear the question: “Is that possible?!”? 

It seems that one of the Deputy Ministers in the Ministry of the Interior, (which is responsible for the law enforcement bodies), has been arrested for involvement in the event. This brought protestors out on to the streets claiming it was all a politically motivated “put up job” and demanding his release and threatening to move their protest on to Bishkek. The authorities, however, refused him bail whilst the investigation continued. He was later released, however, having given an undertaking not to leave the country. 

If this can be taken as a sign that “something is rotten in the State of Kyrgyzstan”, (with apologies to William Shakespeare), then it should be noted that there is a saying here that corruption reaches right up to the seventh floor of the White House … where the President has his/her office. Well, if this arrest is anything to go by, there is certainly something very odd going on at very high levels. It looks as if he won’t be alone for long – along with Bakiev’s nephews who were detained trying to cross the border to Kazakhstan a few weeks ago, it looks like there could be some other high ranking prisoners joining him sometime but, maybe, not soon. The call has gone out once more to demand the extradition of the former President and members of his entourage. 

Prime Minister Atambaev even surprised some Russian journalists by suggesting that Kyrgyzstan should build a special prison just for the leaders of Criminal Gangs to keep them isolated from other prisoners, and make sure that they are, for example, unable to use mobile phones.  (Do I hear an exclamation of outrage: Inmates using mobile phones in prison?!) 

According to Eurasia.net, the fate of all prisoners is not so luxurious. They published a particularly distressing article about the number of Uzbeks for whom detention is far from that – resulting in many cases in death behind bars. 

And it’s not just the Uzbeks. There was another interview of with someone that could, I suppose, be described as a dissident under the previous regime where he described his experiences..

Rosa Otunbaeva has gone to New York to attend the General Assembly of the United Nations, (UN), and she seems to have been busy taking advantage of the possibility to hold lots of meetings, (at least 30 according to one report), with, (or so it seems), everyman … and his wife. 

As it happens, Kyrgyzstan is supposed to be a contender for one of the non-permanent seats on the UN Security Council. One report from Sri Lanka said that they had supported Kyrgyzstan and hoped that Kyrgyzstan would in turn support them in the UN Human Rights Council in thwarting the attempt of the United States to hold a special meeting on the Lessons Learned and Reconciliations report. They seem to think that the US has pre-judged the report. What surprised me in the report, however, wasn’t the possible implication of a trade off, but the final sentence that said Kyrgyzstan was “a country rich in oil, gas and gold.” Oil?!, – well, I know that there are high hopes but nothing has been proved. Gas?! – but we’ve always had troubles with supplies from Uzbekistan on whom we are heavily dependent and have, apparently, just agreed to barter a deal water with Kazakhstan for water and electricity in exchange for supplies of Kazakh gas! 

Sri Lanka isn’t the only South Asian country in the news here this week. It was announced at the beginning of the week that India was planning to develop Torpedo technology at a plant on Lake Issyk Kul. Torpedo testing in a landlocked country?! In fact the Soviet Union used to test torpedoes in the lake and the Dastan company still has some connection with the defence industry projects so, I suppose, it is not so farfetched as an idea – even if it doesn’t make for a blockbuster plot. Although the Indians apparently do have business with one of the firms based up in Issyk Kul, the Director of the plant is saying that he knows nothing of the plans. 

Then again, it’s not all that unusual for stories to appear in the press only to be amended, or even recanted, later … that is, I suppose, unless the story can quietly be dropped. Another embarrassing contradiction came when the Deputy Prime Minister announced that one of the major donor organizations, (I don’t want to call it an “aid agency” because it does a lot more than that), would not be participating in one of the major high profile projects currently being planned. The reaction of the head of the organization’s representative office here in the country was: “Really?!, that’s the first I’ve heard of it.” Although it was possible, she admitted, that she had “out of date information”, but, as far as she was aware, they were going ahead as originally planned. 

At least, even if that particular donor organization does have communication problems, another one has hit a crisis with some of its backers suspending financing over a dispute between staff and management. 

Anyway, the Indians aren’t involved, but in other Military news, there has been a three-day “counter terrorism” exercise being held in the mountains just outside Bishkek, involving troops from a number of other countries from the region, (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan). There hasn’t been much in the news about it, apart from the fact that it is taking place and the reports have concentrated on the “counter terrorism” aspect with soldiers learning how to deal with extremist militant groups. According to international commentators, however, it appears to be look as if it is preparation for dealing with “Arab Spring” like protests springing up in the region. Then again, I suppose one man’s “extremist militant group” is another man’s “Protest Movement”. We, here in Kyrgyzstan, should know that with our own experience of revolutions..

There are several stories in the news that just won’t go away. 

The forthcoming Presidential election is, of course, the first of these. 

 

The number of candidates has more or less halved – at the last count there were just 14 remaining candidates registered for the ballot paper, although that could still change. The final list should be known tomorrow when the official campaign should get underway.

Some potential candidates were eliminated from the list, somewhat embarrassingly, because the candidate failed in the Kyrgyz language examination, but most of them were eliminated because they couldn’t provide the Election Commission with the list of 30000 supporting signatures. Two of the eliminations could prove controversial: one was the former Mayor of Bishkek and the other is a prominent Human Rights Campaigner.

Apparently, in a surprise move one of the leading politicians in the country and twice Presidential candidate, Omurbek Tekebaev, has decided to withdraw his candidature. As a sign of the times, the announcement was made by one of his deputies on Twitter! 

Other candidates may yet be knocked off the ballot paper. At least two, (including the Prime Minister), have been warned about violations of the election rules – for campaigning too early and for suspected use of official resources as part of their campaigning. Apparently, they have been warned that further violations could result in their registration as candidates being annulled. 

There are still analytical commentaries that highlight the risk of potential problems. There has been some comment on the ban being imposed on transmitting foreign news for the duration of the election. In a move that is clearly designed to limit the Russian media’s ability to influence voters following the experience of the Parliamentary elections last year, Kyrgyzstan’s televisions stations and cable operators are forbidden from rebroadcasting foreign news bulletins that could affect the outcome for the period between September 25th and the ballot on October 30th. As a result, most operators have no choice but to suspend foreign news programming altogether, including stations like CNN and BBC. If they don’t then they face a USD100,000 fine, They say that they don’t have the necessary capabilities, (personnel or equipment), to record, scrutinize and then rebroadcast material and, anyway, their contracts with the stations prohibit them from making changes to the programming. Needless to say, there is a certain amount of “outrage” that parliament has passed a bill which apparently “endorses censorship”. Mind you, we are now looking to see if there will be an increase in sales of satellite dishes and receivers. 

Oddly enough, I see that distrust of the media is a global issue. Gallup are reporting that even the majority of Americans still do not have confidence in the mass media to report the news fully, accurately, fairly and without bias, regardless of their political affiliations. 

The biggest potential problem, of course, is that of a damaging “North-South divide”. Two stories during the week raised this spectre in totally different ways: One concerned a politician who said that he found it funny when his political opponents tried to make him out as a nationalist, and the other from another politician who is supposed to have said, (and to be fair, I don’t know, I have only seen one reference to it), “In Kyrgyzstan the Kyrgyz are the landlords, the rest are just tenants.” 

On the other hand, there have also been praise from no less than Ban Ki-moon for the work already undertaken in terms of reconciliation and peacebuilding, (and especially the efforts made by Rosa Otunbaeva to ensure a credible and transparent election), including a commitment to provide further technical assistance. 

Other preparations continue apace with organization of polling stations, both here and abroad and the registration of international observers will soon begin. We are likely to spared the embarrassing confusion that we experienced in the parliamentary elections last year over the calculation of the threshold of votes that candidates have to reach. Some of those figures have changed, but more importantly, there will be no separate “additional voters list” – either you are on the electoral roll, in which case you can vote, or you are not, in which case you can’t. There are provisions for people being able to vote in areas apart from their main residence, but in that case they have to register the fact several days beforehand. Most importantly, the threshold figures will be based on the numbers actually voting so that should be more transparent and there shouldn’t be any complaining about attempts to manipulate the figures afterwards. 

Whoever gets the job might have a surprise in store for them. The deputies have decided to draft a bill which, if enacted, would regulate the work of the President. 

. 

The American airbase is still causing difficulties – and, once more, it is tied up with fuel. This time we are revisiting the claims that jet fuel has been sprayed on agricultural fields by planes using the base. One side is adamant that considerable environmental damage has been caused whist the other insists that it hasn’t and the situation is under constant monitoring. 

At least that makes a change about the ongoing scandal about illegal trading and smuggling fuel across borders. There have, however, been further allegations implicating members of the law enforcement services covering up for fuel smuggling. “Previously concealed facts have come to light”, complete with the names of the guilty parties and we are assured that “measures will be taken”! 

If we become part of the Customs Union, then, I suppose, that should help us deal with the question of smuggling. The border with Kazakhstan should be more open with – and we’ll have help in securing what will become the outer borders of the Union from the other members; Russia seems particularly interested in this. 

The question of Kyrgyzstan’s possible accession to the Customs Union continues to attract attention. The “Customs Union Sceptics”, (with apologies to Britain’s “Eurosceptics”), seems to have been most voluble this week with headlines like “Kyrgyzstan is not ready to join the Customs Union”, “Entrepreneurs urge the government to delay entry in the Customs Union” and according to the International Monetary Fund, (IMF), “Kyrgyzstan needs to mull over advantages and disadvantages in case of entry into Customs Union”. 

The mining sector continues to grab headlines here in Kyrgyzstan, and abroad. This week the focus seems to have been on the issuance of licenses. New rules for this are being introduced but the Prime Minister has rejected the current draft because it says that companies wining a competition for the development of a deposit must have a 20% government share; if that case then why run a competition at all?, he asks. Also one of the deputies has questioned why so many were issued after the revolution last year, (193 out of the 232 that are currently in force). He seems to be particularly concerned over how many were issued to companies based in neighbouring countries and the Prime Minister of Kazakhstan said on an official visit to Kyrgyzstan that they are “interested” in mining sector projects in Kyrgyzstan.

“Kyrgyz Protestors Demand Hijab Be Allowed In Schools”, screamed one headline. The ban on wearing headscarves in schools, that I mentioned last week, led to dozens of demonstrators gathering in front of the Ministry of Education in downtown Bishkek. I wonder if they count as a militant extremist group? It will be interesting to see how this story develops, especially with the news of the court decisions in France. 

Casinos are still in the news. A bill was presented to Parliament to prohibit “gambling activities. Even President Otunbaeva, citing many examples of different social issues, gave her support to the movement. I’m not sure from what I have read if she wants to ban Casinos entirely or simply to control them more tightly by restricting where they can operate in specific geographical zones. Apparently there are some 21 casinos and 55 “gambling clubs” that have received licenses – and they are not all in the capital city. According to one Deputy there are over two thousand gambling centres and points in the country with about three quarters of them in Bishkek. They act as a magnet attracting gamblers from Kazakhstan, Russia and even as far away as Belarus, where such establishments are far more strictly controlled than here. Despite this apparent “invisible earning” which presumably helps the balance of trade, one organization has argued that Casinos do not create wealth in that nothing is manufactured or any service provided, so they simply circulate money. The tax authority seems particularly concerned over the potential loss of revenue; something like 500 million som – that’s more than ten million dollars. (Ten million dollars?!). Anyway, they are arguing against an outright ban and in favour of special “gambling zones” being established. Even though the government asked the parliament to postpone discussion on the bill, because they are clear of the possible implications of such a move – especially on tax revenues – they went ahead and held the debate, passing the bill on its first reading. One deputy proposed that if it eventually became law then illegally operating a casino or gaming machines should be a criminal offence carrying a 10-year prison sentence.

On the economic front, whilst the IMF, who have had a mission in the country, have been predicting a 5% growth in GDP for Kyrgyzstan, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs are more optimistic, putting the figure at 8%. They’ve even broken it down into sectors and they see most of this growth coming in construction. It’s true that there are a lot of construction projects in the country but they are putting the figure at almost 25%!

. 

On a more personal note, the new email account that I set up for sending out the weekly postcard has now, (after just over a week), received its first spam message. Congratulations are not in order! I did think of publishing the email address and asking everyone to drop him a line – but it’s probably a waste a time. 

Also, we now have yet another two kittens – once again abandoned … this time in a cellar of one of the neighbouring apartment blocks. The two very timid “Ginger Toms”, (about two or two and a half months old), that arrived in a box have settled in well and are now making their presence felt and displaying their individual characters … and threatening to eat me out of house and home. .

Well, I apostrophe ll have to put a full stop to this postcard now as comma once again comma I apostrophe ve well and truly exceeded my word limit comma yet again open brackets exclamation mark close brackets ellipsis but I hope that you have comma at least comma found it open quotation marks interesting close quotation marks full stop.

Happy Punctuation Day! … and to Tony, (my brother), Happy Birthday!! (You can “put out the flags” – This year, I remembered!)

Tags: Calendar, Cats, Expat, Lamguage, Life_in_Kyrgyzstan, Weekly_Postcards