Getting through the past week’s news surrounding Bishkek’s American ‘Manas-Ganci’ airbase has been a journey through an echo-chamber of Russian-influenced rumor and sloppy contradiction. Plenty of paranoid logic (Bely parohod, Interfax, 24.kg repeating Russian newswires) and some sound reasoning (mostly on the Bishkek Press Club site, and reprints of the same commentators). What I’m interested in is how much of the latter is trickling through mainstream media and to what extent people might be really buying any of these charges. I’ve met my fair share of anti-American Kyrgyz (and as far as the Ivanov killing goes, I share the sentiment), but the bulk of Bishkek citizens I’ve talked to either don’t care or denounce the recent wave of interest in the Base as a bid for further rent-hikes. Mind you, my Russian’s only functional and my Kyrgyz non-existent, so I welcome input from anyone with sources or observations to add to the debate.
Yesterday, 24.kg relayed this vague report:
The U.S. Department of State says it is not aware of Kyrgyzstan’s anxiety regarding the presence of American military forces on the territory of the country, Interfax news agency reported referring to a department’s representative.
Even to the extent that this might be true (Doesn’t declaring ignorance of a fact suggest some acknowledgement?), the source’s anonymity reeks of a hollow charge. Last week, Alisher Mamasaliev from the Citizens’ Platform, a local NGO, stated in a press release:
“The start of the information campaign to form a negative image of the US airbase is a step from Moscow against the deployment of the [proposed] missile defense system in the Czech Republic and Poland. Moscow is now using all levers of influence on President Kurmanbek Bakiyev.”
Denials here and here. Strangely, Russian news-service Kommersant owns up to the claim outright:
According to information obtained by Kommersant, the impetus for the initiative comes from Moscow. The Russian authorities hope that President Bakiyev will officially request that the US remove its base from Kyrgyz territory by as early as August, when the next meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is held in Bishkek.
Prime Minister Almazbek Atambayev has already stated that the contract for the airbase was “very cunningly put together” and “practically impossible to annul.” But Bely Parohod and a newspaper article in ‘Megapolis’ (May 25) claim that the agreement can be cancelled in reference to the Vienna Convention of 1961, in which case Kyrgyz authorities can demand a 180 day withdrawal deadline for American troops. I’d love for anyone to shed further light on any of these claims.
In the Megapolis article, Kyrgyz Justice Minister Marat Kayipov states:
Since the USA is not a member-state of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Parliament recommending an appeal to the ICC is unlikely to provide any results, regardless of the fact that Kyrgyzstan is a member of the organisation.
This is particularly appaling coming from the Minister, since Kyrgyzstan is not an ICC member state and anyway, the court doesn’t take cases of accidental manslaughter.
Kommersant reports (naturally without sources) that both Russia and China are ready to commit funds to the organization of the SCO summit, if Bakiyev demands that Washington evacuate its base. One local newspaper editor I talked to cites Bakiyev’s son’s supply business to the base one reason immediate withdrawal is unlikely. (A clear ec of ex-President Akayev’s son-in-law, Adil Toigonbayev’s jet fuel supply business to the base, pre-Tulip Revolution.)
While the charges of Iran striking Kyrgyzstan in retaliation are a stretch at best, Miroslav Niyazov, ex-secretary to the Kyrgyz Security council, suggests that an actual withdrawal of the base would just leave the whole region worse off.
Certainly the presence of the airbase in Kyrgyzstan can’t but not annoy China and Russia but on the other hand, there is the possibility that the coalition forces can neutralize [Afghanistan’s] hotbed of terrorism and narco-traffic. Let us imagine for a moment that they left [the base]. The situation is not hard to imagine – everything back to square one.
Orozbek Moldaliyev, Director of Bishkek’s Research Center on Politics, Religion and Security, further posits that with the end of the US Ganci base, the Russian side may in turn lose interest in Kyrgyzstan, as well as the existing base in Kant which was created exclusively in opposition to America’s. In the case that China were also to lose interest in Kyrgyzstan, Moldomayiev expects a decline in the country’s economy and political capital.
Both journalists for Eurasianet, Erica Marat and Daniel Sershen suggest that recent interest on the base is based on a convergence of a few key events and political processes, and the issue picks up from where the 2005 SCO summit left off, when the US promised to consider dates for withdrawing bases from Central Asia. Sershen makes a key point in this interview :
The Russians are confident, and in principle I agree, that the Americans are losing this information struggle. If all the Kyrgyz had detailed information on what was being done at the base and why, I think, that people would support the base. In Kyrgyzstan, people well-informed about details of the base are extremely few and that’s America’s fault.
The last three quotes were not from mainstream media and all of them had less than 200 viewings (which you can track on the BPC site). With little reasoned analysis in mainstream papers, the issue is likely to be dragged through the summer, leading upto the August 16 SCO summit.
