50 peaceful protestors rallied outside the US embassy in Bishkek for an hour today in the first public action from the “Movement for the Withdrawal of American military bases from Kyrgyzstan.” Spurred on by outspoken Parliament deputies, the movement is based on America’s poor (bureaucratic?) handling of the killing of a driver at the Ganci airbase, rumors of nuclear weapons bound for Iran hidden at the base and ecological damage caused by fuel dumping. Banners at the rally read: “Do not forget, do not forgive”; “No war on Iran”; “We want clean air”; and “Communists against the airbase.” With the further support of the Liberal-Progressive party, the movement has promised future protests at the Parliament and at the airbase itself, 30 kilometers outside of Bishkek.
Maria Ivanova, the widow of the driver who was shot, was front and center at the protest, denouncing America’s attitude towards relations with Kyrgyzstan as ‘impudent.’ Barring ‘anon’s denouncement of the protestors as “Moscow’s marionettes,” online commentary I’m reading is quite gung ho about the ‘Yankee Go Home’ movement. One Kyrgyz friend even told me, half in jest, that the average Kyrgyz associates three phrases with America – baks (bucks), George Washington & Yankee Go Home.
“Kyrgyzstan can cope with the threat of possible terrorist incursions without U.S. servicemen’s participation,” according to Alisher Sabirov, a member of parliament.
This type of statement is floated increasingly in local press, but no one really questions how American (or Russian/CSTO) jet fighters are likely to stop lone terrorists acting on their own, such as with the alleged terrorist bomb blast in Osh last week.
Vague as the anti-base movement demands are, GoogleNews shows AP/Reuters reports on today’s little protest plastered all over American newspapers. Hot on the heels of CSTO Secretary General Nikolai Bordyuzha’s recent visit, US Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates is due in Bishkek on June 5. Theoretically, some settlement will be negotiated to quell resistance to the base.
Even if most of the anti-base claims are loose, it’s shameful that the US government has taken so long to offer widow Ivanova so little. It seems unlikely, but with enough nudging and incentive from Moscow – visible or not – the anti-base movement could really kick off in the wake of Gates’ visit. Non pawn?
Photo from Reuters.
1 Comment
June 7, 2007 at 6:18 pm
Surely that should be:
‘Yankee go home … and take me with you!’
Seriously, though, is this an ‘Only in Kyrgyzstan’ thing or are other US military bases in the CIS subject to protests?