KYRGYZSTAN:
BLACK HOLE OF MIDDLE ASIA.
Vacuum of power, emerged after the color revolutions of 2005 is
filled with chaos now
Today’s ethnic riots in Kyrgyzstan are actually nothing new
in the essence. Similar event used to take place in the 90s,
though the authorities managed to settle them down, or — putting
it right — "freeze them for the time being". Today, however, the
national antipathy was multiplied by the social collapse and the anarchy
that reigns over the republic.
Today’s ethnic riots in Kyrgyzstan are actually nothing new in the
essence. Similar event used to take place in the 90s, though the
authorities managed to settle them down, or — putting
it right — "freeze them for the time being". Today, however, the
national antipathy was multiplied by the social collapse and the anarchy
that reigns over the republic.
After the two revolutions Kyrgyzstan lacks both authoritative and legitimate
power. And it’s not about the names of the acting leaders. People may have
confused them long time ago or could have even failed to remember
in the first place. It’s all about the way anarchy reveals itself. Police
and army squad commanders, having received the orders from Bishkek, can
no longer be sure that its signers would be able to secure
their own political future. And traditionally, it’s the military that
is made responsible for everything in situations like that. The
latter sincerely admit though, that they’d be guided only by their
own interests. First of all, they have to save their servicemen from
both Lynch law and the staff repressions of the "revolutionaries-to-be".
That’s why police — completely shaped as a social estate —
carried out the political demarches and officially refused to participate
in the political clashes; its representatives also refuse to protect
the Uzbek community. Their motivation is simple — neither can they
stand it any longer, nor have they any wish to do so.
Much more unattractive things are also told about the military. Quite often
thugs are having too easy time, putting their hands to the military
arsenals. Eyewitnesses report the numerous cases of military participation
in the massacres over the Uzbek population.
Today everyone understands that Kyrgyzstan is going not through the simple
deficit of power, but rather through the lack of its own state
legitimacy. One simple question is on the agenda: whether this
country is capable of securing its own state sovereignty? Provisional
government addressed Russia, asking for help not due to the scarce factual
opportunities to rule the country. It would have been just
a half of trouble. Both provisional governors and their predecessors
don’t have the political grounds itself. Kyrgyzstan actually lacks any distinct
political power that could have taken the responsibility for complete authority
in the circumstances of the statehood collapse, top brass’
self-resigning from dealing with the problem and the absence of the
national salvation programs.
There’s nothing like that. Today the nation is as far from unity
as ever. Instead of seeking for reconciliation, it, on the
contrary, seeks and finds yet another grounds for demarcation. Southerners
against northerners, Uzbeks against Kirghiz’ and yet it’s not all. Kyrgyzstan
is seized by the centrifugal cyclone.
That’s not just another national history phase. External influence (though the
one that happened in the past) is quite distinctive here. In the
due time, Americans were glad to grasp a perfect opportunity
to give the "orange scenario" a trial run in the authoritarian
region of Asia. Kyrgyzstan was the unique ground for that, as long
as unlike the adjacent states, local authorities were not ready
to shoot at their own people. Member of the opposition
of neighboring Uzbekistan tried to initiate the mass riots
simultaneously with the start of Tulip revolution in Kyrgyzstan but
they were simply wiped out with the large-caliber machine-guns. Karimov,
President of Uzbekistan didn’t allow even the slightest situational
contact between the special services and protesters — fraught with the
unpredictable further course of events.
After that the West recognized Kurmanbek Bakyiev as the democratic leader
of Kyrgyzstan, though even comparing with the Akayev’s times his rule was
the definite step backwards. That feeling remained both in the area
of civic rights, corruption level, common Kirghiz urge to leave their
motherland and, finally, the collapse of national economics and the price
leap. The latter eventually provoked the recent "Rose revolution", followed
by an obvious breakdown. That’s not a single step backwards, but
rather the complete regress...
However, the United States along with their allies have lost their interest
in the consequences of the orange experiments that brought Kyrgyzstan
to the verge of self-destruction. These consequences led to the
degradation, rather than progress — even according to the very
"orange" standards. Government of the republic is self-appointed and
it combines the functions of legislative and the executive branches
of power. This is actually even more radical than the late Turkmen
leader who wanted to control both space and time. Mind that provisional
government usurped also the third branch of power — the judicial one
(why would it just lie around, wouldn’t it?) — having appointed and
fired the judges of the supreme institutions and having banned the
activity of the Constitutional Court.
What is going on now is not the internal Kirghiz affair.
No one is able — even if he wants to —
to stay indifferent, having faced the emergence of the political
vacuum in the region, the one that republic is unable to cope
with by itself. Today’s impotence of Kyrgyzstan at the
geopolitical chessboard is the resource of the outer powers.
Why do the Uzbek authorities prevent hundreds of thousands
of Kyrgyzstan-born Uzbeks from crossing the border? It is well
known that the amount of refugees who managed to get the political
asylum is much less than the number of those who want to. Why
Tashkent isn’t urging to save its fellow countrymen? Isn’t it because
thus they provoke an irreversible situation when getting back to the
status quo would become impossible and the scales of humanitarian disaster
become so great that even the international community wouldn’t condemn
bringing the Uzbek troops into the country?
Uzbek leadership provokes both the aggravation of the internal conflict
and the possibility of its future recurrence in the scale of the
whole region with its actions. And that is much more serious — the
very system of the existing state borders would be disputed then.
We may just conjecture the consequences of that for the whole
post-Soviet space if that actually happens. Not accidentally the saying
goes like "the chain is no stronger than the weakest of its
links". Central Asian mosaic — blossoming complexity within the framework
of any imperial project (no matter Tamburlaine, Russian
or Soviet one) — given the circumstances of collapse and
decline, inevitably turns into the numerous splinters that aim its sharp
injuring ends towards each other.
By Dmitry Sergeev
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