Book Review: A Small Key Opens Big Doors

by Michael Hancock-Parmer
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Chen, Jay, ed. A Small Key Opens Big Doors. 50 Years of Amazing Peace Corps Stories, Volume Three: The Heart of Eurasia. Travelers Tales: Palo Alto, 2011.336 pages, includes Foreword, Preface, Introduction, Acknowledgments. Disclosure: Jay Chen is a friend and fellow Returned Peace Corps Volunteer (RPCV). We served in the same group in Kazakhstan starting in [...]

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Kyrgyzstan Elections: An Outside Observer Inside

by M

I travelled to the northwestern Talas region to observe the Parliamentary Election as an accredited international observer. Most of what I saw there suggested an honest effort to hold a free vote. Good Faith Efforts The Precinct Election Committee (PEC) Chairman at my first stop was a young man of about thirty. He was described in the [...]

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Digital Memory and a Massacre

by Sarah Kendzior

On Sunday I lay in bed and watched an Uzbek man be burned alive. The video starts with a fire in the center of a crowd. At first it is not even clear that the fire is a human being. As the Uzbek man thrashes and screams, the crowd laughs and applauds, shouting insults in [...]

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Tranquil in Bishkek? Just Wait a Week

by M

With hundreds dead in southern Kyrgyzstan, demonstrating yet again the tenuous hold of the Interim Government over those regions, those of us in Bishkek are now wondering what is in store for the capital itself. The killing seems to have lost momentum for the time being. Security forces are reaching beyond Jalalabad and Osh to [...]

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Momentum Change

by M

As has been reported widely by AKIPress.org, Kloop.kg, Eurasianet.org, and even the New York Times, the Provisional Government has retaken control in the South almost as quickly as they lost it. As one commenter noted yesterday, this is an encouraging sign. The Counter-Revolution was previously scheduled for May 17, so many are hoping that it [...]

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What We Talk about When We Talk about Revolution

by Noah Tucker
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Like probably everyone else who stops by here, I’ve spent the better part of the past two days and part of the nights and early mornings glued to #freekg and diesel.elcat.kg, peeling off temporarily to follow links that are posted to other news and analysis. The pictures, videos, and firsthand posts from witnesses and feverish [...]

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The More Things Change…

by Sarah Kendzior

Today I made the mistake of turning on CNN to hear the latest about the conflict in Kyrgyzstan. Clearly I should have remembered what happened the last time CNN — specifically, Kyra “Kyra-stan” Phillips — attempted to explain Central Asia to the masses… CNN, March 24, 2005 Miles O’Brien: Well, it looks like we’re talking [...]

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Rushing for Inaccuracy in Bishkek

by Alexander_Visotzky

The upheaval in Kyrgyzstan has seized the media’s attention, but it’s mostly just highlighted how little the major newspapers know about the region and how quick they are to put unsubstantiated facts up. The NY Times immediately reported that Bakiev had fled the country, which is a bold statement considering Cliff Levy is probably reporting [...]

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A Kyrgyz power play beginning?

by Steven_Schwerbel

Something seems to be afoot in Kyrgyzstan — after another slaying of a journalist (the third this year) and the rearranging of the government that put the President’s son into a leading role, the Ata-Meken (Fatherland) party is speaking out: Ata-Meken opposition party disseminated the statement of its leader Omurbek Tekebaev, where he blames Kyrgyz [...]

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Kyrgyzstan Goes After Its Uighurs

by Joshua Foust

These people just can’t get a break. Kyrgyzstan’s police detained two Uighur community leaders after they accused China of “state terrorism” at a rally on Monday and called for an independent investigation of last month’s clashes in neighbouring Xinjiang. About 500 Uighurs gathered at a building on the outskirts of the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek with [...]

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