Postcard from Bishkek

Let me start this week with an apology and a correction.

Last week I said that there were going to be two public holidays this week, which meant a “three day working week”.  Well, I got it wrong … the Muslim holiday, Kurman Ait, falls next week, not on Friday the 12th.  Those of you who have checked the website, (ianbek.kg), may have spotted that I made a correction at the bottom:

“Actually, I got it wrong … Friday the twelfth is not a holiday – it’s a week later … so it was only a four day week – followed by another – not a three day week!  “

So, I prepared to eat “humble pie” and own up to the mistake, but the note on the website was a little premature.   To make things even more complicated, (even though some sources say the holiday should actually fall on the17th – i.e. Wednesday), in Kyrgyzstan Tuesday, the 16th, has been declared as the holiday.  As this happens to be a Tuesday, the government has decided in their wisdom to make Monday a non-working day as well – but so as to not lose productivity, Saturday, the 13th, will be a working day.

So, this week turned out to be a full five day week after all, (Tuesday to Saturday) and next week will be a three day week, (Wednesday to Friday).

Confused? … I know that I am.

So that was the correction … and now for the apology: Sorry!

Actually, it’s good to be reminded every now and again that we are all fallible.  I never claimed to be anything else.  Indeed, I often say that the postcards simply records things as I see and understand them, in the light of my background and experience.  It’s always possible that I get something wrong, (as in this case), or that I may change my mind when new information comes along.

The last few postcards have tended to concentrate on things like the election and the delays, (a whole month), in declaring the definitive results.  I was informed by one reader that the election has not really made much of a dent on the news coverage in the West, but that the “Manas Fuel Contract” has.

The Pentagon’s decision to renew the fuel contract has caused quite a stir here, at least amongst the political and literati classes.  The Chairman of the Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs has apparently commented: “Although our investigation has not uncovered any underlying corruption in the Manas fuel contract, it should be noted that we did find that the Pentagon and State Department had ignored widespread Kyrgyz public perceptions of contract corruption engendered by a fundamental lack of transparency in the contracting process and Mina Corporation’s operations.”  The decision to renew the contract certainly seems to have been taken as a “slap in the face” for the Kyrgyz government.  Amongst the local reaction, I have seen a number of comments, for example on Twitter, that express astonishment that the Pentagon couldn’t find anything amiss in the arrangements.  One of the Vice Prime Ministers is certainly convinced that the American decision is a mistake, and that the US will own up to it in due course.  A criminal investigation is underway and is likely to be concluded soon, and he says that the Prosecutors office has documentary evidence incriminating the companies concerned.  “I am convinced the U.S. Government will recognize the tender illegitimate and will announce a new one after seeing those documents,” he apparently told reporters.  Well, we’ll see.

If the election “got little play” in the Western media recently, then I wonder what they will focus on next?:

• the threat of “extremist action” – but that’s basically a regional issue rather than specifically Kyrgyz, with things simmering away in Tajikistan, for example …
• Water in Central Asia? – that issue has been raised again here in Central Asia with some comments from Uzbekistan’s President, Karimov.  During the week I was sent a report, (thanks Louise, I hadn’t seen that one), of how the Chinese are planning a pipeline to transport sea water to their Central Asian province, Xinjiang, from the  Bohai Sea (east of Beijing) to eastern Xinjiang and there is still a lot of concern in some quarters about the possibility, (or reality?), of shrinking glaciers as a result of global warming and the water level in the Toktogul Reservoir seems to fluctuate continuously. So that’s another regional issue to watch for …
• the potential for further ethnic tension? – the ethnic mix throughout the whole region – and, indeed, the whole of the former USSR, is not just a “melting pot”, it has the potential to boil over, as the situation in Osh and Djalal Abad demonstrated, even if the authorities are adamant that there is no formal or institutionalized discrimination…Incidentally – as an aside – Saturday, (13th November), is St. Bride’s Day.  Why is that interesting?  Because in 1002 AD, King Ethelred the Unready ordered that on this day all Danish men in his realm should be slaughtered.  The order was actually carried out, at least in some parts of the Kingdom, but in others the Danes were too numerous and too strong.  However, the sister of the King of Denmark was one of those killed in the St. Bride’s Day Massacre, leading to a Danish invasion the following year seeking revenge.  So, even though it was a long time ago, we can conclude that there is nothing new under the sun – and agree with Sir Isaac Newton that every Action has a Reaction – even if it is not exactly Equal and Opposite.
• Housing? – which is an interesting addition to the list.  An editorial in the English Language Times of Central Asia, (ToCA), chose to highlight this as an important issue in need of urgent attention and action.  Over the years, housing has been a flashpoint which has aroused passions and, as the ToCA points out, at the moment the housing problem is acute.  The loss of so much housing in the South has only exacerbated the situation  even if some of it has been replaced.  There have been more incidents where ethnic Kyrgyz have attempted to seize land, (as I understand it, Uzbek owned land – which they claim was illegally privatized), in order to build on it.  Some have been arrested, but they gave the authorities three days to “resolve their issue”.  The time limit is up, but I haven’t heard anything new on the situation.

Incidentally – as one commentator has put it, “Osh is back to normal. weddings on the street. small trade is resuming.”  I hope that proves to be a fair and accurate assessment and not another mistake.  We’ll see.

I’ll post some more thoughts about the housing situation on the website during the coming week.

There are some other worrying issues simmering away … such as the legal system.  The “treatment” received by lawyers, especially those in the South of the country who have been in cases relating the disturbances there, has attracted the attention and concern of the US embassy in particular.  There has also been a fair amount of comment about the number of judges dismissed by Roza Otunbaeva, and this will be one of the issues to be considered by the new parliament, once it is finally able to get down to work

One of the main branches of the Kyrgyz economy is agriculture, but there are some problems there as well.  This week, representatives of the farmers who planted beans have been pleading for help from the government.  Apparently, the price of beans is less than the cost incurred in planting and growing them.  This has happened before

There is a growing spate of raids and robberies on churches throughout the country.  In one case that I have heard of, the police have apparently managed to apprehend the thieves, but there are a lot of other cases which remain unsolved.

Migration is another issue which may well have an important impact on the way that things develop.   I noticed the following statistics posted on Facebook: “2010: 620 thousand emigrated (10% are with tertiary education); 227 thousand immigrated. Destination countries: the Russian Federation, Ukraine, Israel, Germany, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, the United States, Latvia, Turkey, Canada”

In terms of the election, (sorry, I just can’t get away from it), we now have an official result and a parliament – but no government yet.  The first session took place this week, with the deputies being sworn in and receiving their accreditation.  Well, those that turned up did, anyway.  As well as the resignation that I reported last week, there have, apparently, been another 37 – that’s almost one third of the parliament.  It’s not as bad as all that, however, as some of the “resignations” were from candidates who weren’t even successful.  (Now there’s a mistake for you.)  In actual fact, it’s only seven that have been accepted as valid.  On the other hand, several members of the leading party, Ata Jurt, were absent – the leader of the party saying that no-one had informed him or invited him to attend – causing some commentators to wonder how well the body will work in practice.  (Hmmmm, a mistake? – and, if so, on whose part?)

The first session of the parliament began with a minute’s silence to commemorate those who lost their lives in April.  Some of their relatives were holding a protest outside the building – smarting over the election of some who held official posts under the former regime.  It all seems, however, to have gone off peacefully.

Inside the chamber, things were also peaceful as the deputies got to business.  As the Toroga, or speaker, has yet to be elected, the proceedings were overseen by the oldest of the deputies.  Parties held meetings and elected their leaders – no big surprises there.  Roza Otunbaeva asked Almazbek Atambaev, leader of the Social Democratic Party, (SDPK), which came in second in the election, to try and form a majority coalition and hence a government – although she has asked Parliament to create a majority in two weeks, apparently he has just over a month to do it according to the law.  If he fails then she has said that Ata Meken, which came in third in the election, will; be charged with the task, and if they fail we have to go through the whole election again.  So, we could have quite a long period of uncertainty ahead of us.

Cynics might assume that she passed over Ata Jurt, who received the largest number of votes, because she used to belong to the SDPK, herself. That’s probably a bit unfair – according to another of the party leaders most of them suggested to her that Atambaev was the best choice.   Apparently he has had some discussions with the leaders of Ata Meken and Respubilca, but no agreement has been reached as yet.

On a different theme, we are coming close to finishing going through the backlog of archived links for websites about travel to, and life in, Kyrgyzstan for our site www.liks.kg.  All in all there are almost 1000 entries with almost 3000 individual links.  During the week, as part of the process, I came across the following snippets which I thought were worth passing on:

Roza Otunbaeva has been included in Glamour magazine’s list: “Female of the Year”.  She and the other 17 of the world’s female Heads of State and Heads of Government are joined by a grandmother of nine, a poet, a black belt in martial arts, a former student body vice president, a sociologist, an ex-schoolteacher and more as the most powerful women on earth, who have “remained focused on the issues of women’s empowerment” and have provided girls around the world with powerful role models.

Another interesting list that I came across concerned tax rates around the world.  The list was posted on http://politicalfutures.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474978675733, and generated some interesting discussion, but the figures were originally taken from Wikipedia. Top of the list with a tax take of 69.7% was Kiribati,  bottom (at 178th place) was the United Arab Emirates with taxes accounting for just 1.4% of the economy.   The United Kingdom came in 19th place with 39%, and the US at 53rd with 28.2% … and Kyrgyzstan?  Apparently it came in at 82nd with a mere 21.4%.  I am not sure how

I came across two blog entries about life at the Manas base, one saying that it “is AWESOME” and “the lap of luxury” whilst the other said it worse place he had ever served.  As they both referred to some of the same features it made me wonder why there was such a disparity of opinion.  Perhaps because one was simply in transit and the other was a marine comparing conditions between the two services … I won’t say which was the positive and which was the negative.

A photo which I thought was well worth a look – I wish I had taken it: http://asiasociety.org/blog/reasia/photo-day-goat-grabbing-kyrgyzstan

Well, I have just re-read this … and I think there are no mistakes in it this week.

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Yes, there was some mistakes … thanks to those who took the trouble to point them out … well, as I was told, my last sentence more or less asked for it:

• some repeated words,
• three spellings mistakes – sorry Louise!

I forgot to do a spellcheck …

Also, nobody spotted it, but:

• there’s a fortnight allowed for the formation of a government – not a month.

Tags: History, Life_in_Kyrgyzstan, Religion, Weekly_Postcards