Now this is classy:
A Siberian wind is now blowing through Kyrgyzstan’s political landscape. It is viewed by many as a process of Russification. That is to say, Kyrgyzstan is becoming much more like Russia. It maintains a semblance of democratic institutions, but in fact it is looking more and more like a presidential dictatorship where the men of power are prepared to use the most ruthless methods to quiet opposition voices.
Strong words from Baktybek Abdrisaev, Aksar Akayev’s last ambassador to the United States until he was chased out of Bishkek by an angry mob—remember that whole Tulip Revolution thing?—as he argues that somehow Russia exerting influence over Kyrgyz politics is new or all that interesting (the OMGNEWFOREIGNPOLICYDOTCOM certainly thought so, but whatever).
It’s strange, though, to read Abdrisaev complaining about Bakiyev’s closeness with Russia and obvious corruption… when the President he once served had a history of suspicious business relationships and fled into luxury in Russia when forced from power. It is similarly strange to read Akayev’s former U.S. ambassador complain about Bakiyev consolidating “his political base,” when that was one of the reasons analysts saw behind U.S. support for Akayev’s ouster four years ago. (And what’s with Sanjarbek Kadyraliev getting murdered this week? There will be much more to follow there.)
Either way, yes yes Kyrgyzstan has swung back into Russia’s orbit, just as Tajikistan comes into an American one and Uzbekistan moves a bit toward the middle. But in closing, let’s just take this visiting professor‘s parting words and savor them, keeping in mind that sham elections are what threw him from power:
The circumstances will provide the toughest test yet for Kurmanbek Bakiyev. And they offer renewed hope for Kyrgyzstan’s democrats, who are fearful of yet another form of Russification — sham elections that extend the power of a wannabe autocrat. In the meantime, tulip season is just on the horizon in Kyrgyzstan, and with the spring thaw, citizens have begun again to focus on politics and their uncomfortable relations with those who govern them.
Well, he oughta know.
This post was written by...
Joshua Foust – author of 1801 posts on Registan.net.
Joshua Foust is a Fellow at the American Security Project and the author of Afghanistan Journal: Selections from Registan.net. His research focuses primarily on Central and South Asia. Joshua is a correspondent for The Atlantic and a columnist for PBS Need to Know. Joshua appears regularly on the BBC World News, Aljazeera, and international public radio. Joshua is also a regular contributor to Foreign Policy’s AfPak Channel, and his writing has appeared in the New York Times, Reuters, and the Christian Science Monitor. Follow him on twitter: @joshuafoust
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{ 4 comments }
In its haughtiness, this post quite unfairly misrepresents the author’s intentions, as well as the facts.
You seemingly believe yourself to be so intimately familiar with the history of Russian attempts to exert influence over Kyrgyz politics that you imply that it should not be written about. But as Abdrisaev illustrates, Russian involvement is more systemic than ever before and, notably, has achieved the outcome of denying Kyrgyzstan the ability to deploy the strategic flexibility of playing suitors off against one another.
What Abdrisaev also hints at the scale of Russian investment in the country. Notably, Gazprom is proposing to buy out the Kyrgyz state energy company. And if Kambarata were ever to materialize (which I am profoundly skeptical about), the country would become beholden to Moscow in very concrete terms, not just in the fuzzy and imprecise understanding that we normally apply to the concept of control in international relations.
In the explicitly political sphere, Russian influence is also taking on new interesting and new forms. The ways in which what the Russians refer to as “political technology” is deployed to shape developments in the former Soviet space is a practice that has evolved considerably since around the time of the Orange Revolution. It is crude, not to speak of unfair, generalization to simply conclude that Bakiyev’s regime is little more than a facsimile of the Akayev government. They share a similarly clientelistic and kleptocratic bent, but the parallels become strained beyond that point.
Bakiyev is a brute, yet his attempts to consolidate power have taken a path that is eerily reminiscent of the constitutionally proper approach adopted by the Russians, as Abdrisaev suggests. Namely, he boosted the status on parliament on paper, only to fill it up with his own people (only his own people, if he had had his way in the last elections), not dissimilar to what Putin did in having his party take up seven-tenths of the Duma. Indeed, that is arguably why Sadyrkulov’s death could have benefited the status quo for the Bakiyev regime, since it was he that had the influence to reveal this fake constitutional order for the sham that it was by peeling away deputies from the ruling Ak Zhol party.
I would argue that the philosophy behind all this is firmly rooted in the kinds of political strategies devised beyond Bishkek, and that they are a novel tendency in the politics of the region. I think Abdrisaev recognises this and explains in general terms that are not leaden and tedious, as I realise this comment is becoming.
Finally, I would suggest that the regardless of Abdrisaev’s own history (you are not presumably alleging that he personally was part of any corruption or gross abuses of authority while serving under Akayev, are you?), his aim appears to be to remind his largely American audience of the strategic challenges that Washington faces in Central Asia. Moscow has been addled and bumbling in its foreign policy approach in the region since the fall of the Soviet Union, veering wildly between arrogance and obsequy. That is changing, slowly, and the United States really needs to decide whether it has any stake in the game. Not that it should matter, of course, but it is no use trying to pretend that Kyrgyzstan is not descending into a worsening abyss of economic destitution and political despotism.
P.S. Kadyraliev’s death is quite another matter altogether, I believe, and a subject that I plan to revive my poor blog for later today.
Okay.
a) Lighten up. If you can’t find it amusing that Akiyev’s former ambassador is complaining about the guy who threw him out in a coup, then you need to get a massage or something.
b) I am saying nothing about Abdrisaev. I know almost nothing about him, aside from a few speeches he gave here and there. My point is that his complaints are ironic, given that almost identical ones were made against the President he himself served.
c) I’m not at all implying Russia’s bid for influence should never be written about. I’ve written about it a lot, and I appreciate reading informed analysis of it. The problem with how FP handled this is they are pretending it is something new — like someone waiting until 2009 to realize that it’s maybe significant that Russia uses gas prices in a political way. It matters a great deal, it’s just not like this sudden thing that’s catching everyone by surprise.
d) And, finally, again the irony of this guy in particular complaining about a corrupt Russia-friendly executive is just delicious.
So yeah: lighten the hell up, man (or woman).
Don’t fret, I am quite relaxed as it is.
Who Abdrisaev is, was or will be is quite beside the point. If you are so easily tickled pink by irony this tangential then I envy you. Your observation would be understandable were it the case that Abdrisaev enriched himself from the Akayev trough, but as it is, we know only that he worked as an ambassador for him. And so what? Are you suggesting that nobody that served in the Akayev administration (in a foreign posting for a almost a decade at that) is entitled to criticize the current government?
As I think I tried to explain in my comment above, Abdrisaev does not, as you say, simply regurgitate the anti-Akayev-style arguments but talks about a different set of issues.
I am also mystified by the assertion that FP are somehow trying to make out that this Russian influence is new. I don’t see how that is the case. The gist of Abdrisaev’s argument is that Kyrgyzstan is “falling entirely under Russia’s influence,” which _is_ a novel proposition; again, as I said above.
To reiterate, I am quite chilled out (man), but it just strikes me as somewhat inconsistent to be glib and superficial in your observations when you so insistently deny others that luxury.
I found it hard to take Abdrisaev’s article seriously after this particular line in the first paragraph: “But Kyrgyzstan has something that is fairly precious and rare in the developing world: a well-educated population that values democracy and freedom.” [Music rises to a crescendo. Sweeping overhead shot of flower-filled mountain meadow.]
Foreign aid is an industry in Kyrgyzstan (as in many other developing countries), and a lot of people have a lot to gain from convincing foreign governments that their “help is urgently needed”. The American government particularly likes to fund “democracy building” projects, and I think those dollars are like the foreign aid world’s low-hanging fruit. It’s difficult to assess the impact of democracy building projects — what can you measure? So, you don’t need to be successful. And, you don’t need technical skills like you would with water sanitation or health projects. You do need to be able to talk a good game.
Almost all of the people I knew in Kyrgyzstan (most of whom lived outside of Bishkek) didn’t care very much about democracy. They had more pressing concerns, like “How am I going to heat my home this winter? Will I have enough money to afford food?” Some thought democracy was irrelevant — something for rich Westerners. “Maybe after we have a better economy we can think about democracy.” Others pined for the good old days of communism. Those born after the fall of the Soviet Union seemed to think democracy equals anarchy — there are no rules and we can do whatever we want.
It’s insulting and chauvinistic for Abdrisaev to claim that the Kyrgyz are the only people in Central Asia courageous enough to protest. Guess those people in Andijon, Uzbekistan were just a bunch of cowards.
A lot of money goes into these spring protests in Bishkek. T-shirts, flags, scarves, sound systems, meals, etc. Is this really democracy? Or elites battling it out for control of government institutions they can use to enrich themselves some more?
I think Abdrisaev’s essay falls into the latter category. He’s trying to rewrite reality. How can anyone believe that the russification of Kyrgyzstan is a new phenomenon? It’s been russified for a long time, and well before the US arrived on the scene.