Message – April 4th, 2005
One week later:
A week has gone past – the sun has been shining for most of the week (but, it’s now snowing a very fine snow) and it is very quiet.
The British Prime Minister Harold Wilson is famous for having said that “a week is a long time in politics” – how right he was. John Reed wrote a book about the Russian Revolution called “Seven Days that Shook the World”. We’ve certainly see a lot happen in the last week. At the moment the events in Bishkek seem only to have shaken up Kyrgyzstan, but the rest of the world has sat up and noticed us, and I have no doubt that the events here have “stirred” if not “shaken” some of our neighbours.
As I said last time, we seem to have “dropped off the radar” as far as news coverage is concerned – that’s because everything is quiet here. Unfortunately, the press seems to be interested only in dramatic events. I understand why … but it is so frustrating that the first, only and last thing that was covered was the disorder associated with the “revolution”.
The pope’s health and eventual death has taken our place in the wall-to-wall coverage provided by the networks … and I could find only a few stories on the various newspaper websites during the week.
One of the news crews came and did an interview about the likely effect of recent events on the coming tourism season … they admitted that they weren’t that keen on the story, but “it’s all gone quiet – and we’ve got to file something so the boss knows that we are still working”. They are planning to leave this weekend. Actually, most of their colleagues seem to have gone already. The fact that the streets are quiet isn’t “newsworthy”. Don’t get me wrong, I understand that – but it is so frustrating. It takes years to build up a positive image – and only minutes to lose it.
On the positive side, the week has flown by and lots of things have been going on. I am pleased to be able to say that streets are quiet and everyday life seems to have settled down. Sitting at my desk and looking out of the office window it is hard to imagine what things were just a week ago. A great deal of effort has gone into tidying up the city. It’s true that Beta is still a just shell but, for example, the Reebok and Denim shops in the next building have replaced their windows and look as if they will be open for business again soon; the manager of the Narodbiy chain of supermarkets phoned to say that within a month they expected to be back in business; Tsum has opened its doors and is working again; the prices in the markets have returned (almost) to the level just before the tulip revolution (or was the daffodil revolution? – or the lemon revolution?, no one seems to know). There is even talk that Beta Stores may re-open after all – but if they do it will not be for a long time.
If only the political scene were just as quiet, but unfortunately … Roza Otunbaeva, (the acting Foreign Minister and former Ambassodor to both the US and the UK), has pointed out that the opposition was never a monolithic structure, and it is showing now that they are in power.
Several people have already announced that they are going to stand in the Presidential election, which, at the moment, is scheduled for June 26th. There seems to be a lot of jockeying for position. Being a disparate group, there doesn’t seem to be any unified policies or groupings. One of the problems of Kyrgyz politics has always been that there are few well established, national parties – they all seem to have small, limited, mostly regional natural constituencies.
At least they seem to have sorted out the question of which parliament should be recognized as legitimate – it’s the new one. (The one whose election sparked off the revolution.) Some of the constituencies are up for review, but basically the deputies elected in February/March – most of whom were pro-Akaev – are the body that authorizes all the decisions of the interim government. You can imagine how this has gone down with some of the “opposition”!
There are not sure what to do about Akaev. There seems to be some agreement that, technically, he is (as he claims) still President … there seems to be a lot of pressure on him to resign – but will he? … should he come to Kyrgyzstan – or will the Parliament have to send a delegation to him?, … and on what terms?, … does he have the “moral authority”
A little more worrying, two large companies are the subject of “interesting” reactions. The former owners of the Pinara Hotel (a large 4-star hotel in one of the microregions (suburbs)) walked into the reception accompanied by court officials and police and took over – one website says it was the “mafia”, but the general impression seems to be that it was all to do with a disputed legal case. The sale of the hotel to the Turkish company that has been running it for several years has been a subject of a dispute for some time. The second case involves the largest cell-phone operator in the country … which had been up for sale, but now another company puts in a claim to the courts and … the company is “arrested”. It’s still working – but who knows what is going to happen next.
Anyway – that’s it … probably until; the next round of elections in June … but let’s hope that passes off peacefully.
Bishkek