The Big Hillbilly Bluegrass Band will play at Bishkek’s main ex-pat bar on Tuesday. Their regular gig is at Madam’s Organ in D.C., which besides being know as one of the best bars in town was also Euan Blair’s favorite hang out while an intern in Congress. Clearly this means the Big Hillbilly’s have some connections in high places, besides their official ones as State Department-sponsored cultural ambassadors.

But seriously, having personally railed many times against assumptions that bluegrass is the same as generic “country,” I can attest that the genre comes from a culture born in the American mountains. Could mountains be the best way to connect with the Kyrgyz? Bluegrass has worked for politicians before, as in Virginia’s 2001 gubernatorial race were Yankee telecom millionaire Mark Warner won with the rural vote. His campaign song was sung by the Bluegrass Brothers and included lines like: “Mark Warner’s a good ol’ boy from up in Novaville. He understands our people, the folks up in the hills.” It went on to detail how folks should shout his merits from the coal mines to the stills of Southwest Virginia. Is it possible that with a little word play, a Kyrgyz version could induce similar goodwill from Kumtor to the kymyz chanach?

Image: http://www.boxcarforeverbluegrass.com/free.htm

Posted yesterday at Jamestown, an intriguing response from US Embassy officials to three Eurasia Daily monitor articles about recent Kyrgyz opposition to the Ganci base in Bishkek. If you’re reading this site, chances are you’ve read the articles concerned (here, here and here) by Jamestown analysts John C.K. Daly, Erica Marat, and Roger McDermott. In reply to the accusations from US Ambassador to Kyrgyzstan, Marie Yovanovitch of “significant factual inaccuracies, misleading statements, and false conclusions,” the three analysts post some impressive rejoinders, including:

As authors deal with materials available at the time of writing, it is most disingenuous for government officials to subsequently request revisions based on materials that were not available when writing, but rather, to acknowledge such an effort at post-publication revisionism compromises the Jamestown Foundation’s commitment to true scholarship on important contemporary issues.

I’m not going to try recap all the details but the exchange is well-worth reading for anyone with an interest in recent issues and details surrounding the airbase. One detail I found I had missed was that Zachary Hatfield, the US soldier involved in the airbase shooting, was convicted of deliberate homicide by the Kyrgyz Prosecutor-General and Ministry of Interior on May 7, 2007. Ambassador Yovanovitch apparently missed that too. Another thing I learnt is the word – aspersion : a sharp critical remark, designed to damage sb’s reputation.

Local media sources in Central Asia are often unsourced and contradictory to begin with, whether or not they’re influenced by external or internal interests. Given that, I’m regularly impressed at the fine balancing job (or crude, depending on how you view it ) that Eurasianet and EDM pull off in compiling sources. For anyone who’s charged that most English news writing in Central Asia is heavily (indirectly) influenced by the US State department, this would seem proof to the contrary.

I’m sure there are readers out there that have plenty of opinions to hash out on related issues. Get your aspersion on!

Putin’s surprise offer for Dubya at the G8 summit to jointly work on a missile defense shield in Azerbaijan rather than the contentious Czech-based proposal has commentators buzzing. Even as Washington and Moscow have agreed to discuss such potential, many, such as the NYT and this blogger are listing “daunting, and possibly insurmountable, hurdles.”

James over at Neweurasia points to the proposal’s tremendous positive (but admittedly unlikely) potential for Central Asia.

American and Russian objectives in Central Asia are not so dramatically opposed as popularly portrayed, and there is no fundamental reason the two countries could not cooperate in Central Asia. Both countries are committed to opposing militant Islam, both favor stability in the post-Soviet space, and both have a stake in the global economy. It seems that there are too many Cold War bureaucrats left over in the foreign affairs ministries of both sides. The Cold War is over, and there is no Great Game (or if there is, it is a childish one).

Bishkek pundit Muratbek Imanaliyev is so giddy about the uncharacteristic proposal, he entertains direct cooperation if not unification between the Russian Kant base and the American Ganci base, 30 km apart from each other, just outside Bishkek. He floats possibilities for “single military infrastructural fields” tackling “group-strategy challenges [through] greater exchanges of information between the two bases.” Catching optimism:

“Kyrgyzstan must talk to our Russian friends, to the Americans, and try to find some kind of point for a closer friendship. Afghanistan is a global problem, equally important for all nations and not just Central Asia.”

Tensions around Russian opposition to the proposed missile defense shield in eastern Europe in the past weeks have visibly heightened media coverage of the small anti-US airbase protests here in Bishkek. Just yesterday, 20 protestors made a big show of burning home-made US flags outside the American University, during a visit from Richard Boucher, the US assistant Sec of State. It’s charming to imagine Bakiyev mending relations between the two powers here in Bishkek’s backyard.

Given what this post labels Russia’s ongoing “geopolitical counter-offensive” however, Putin’s track record suggests that this is just another political move. Ignoring technical issues, he’s bunting to stall the process, defuse the tensions he’s ratcheted up and/or buying time to change tacks before his next meeting with Bush in early July.

Advisers on both sides are probably scrambling to gage the next steps, which has Putin missing informal G8 meetings and Bush calling in sick, speculates Naryn Ayip and Tajik Boy. “You could see how nervous Bush was by how he was gripping that beer..”

On a more humorous note, Robert Amsterdam awards ‘Best Headline’ to Stratfor news service for this creative title:

“Putin Tells Bush Where to Put His Missile Defense System“

Top photo : A Lockheed-Martin CGI model of a missile defense shield
Putin photo : AP, from Robert Amsterdam

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.

Last week, I posted this quote by Maria Ivanova, the widow of Aleksandr Ivanov, a Kyrgyz citizen truck-driver who was shot and killed by a US soldier at a Ganci airbase checkpoint on December 6, 2006.

America shouts about their democratic rights which it imposes everywhere, but today we have seen that this has not been the case. In the US, for the moral damage of a spilled cup of coffee or quality goods, far higher payments are received than those of the moral damage that they have caused with such a vile act.

When I originally posted the quote, I thought that Ivanova’s relation between America’s promotion of democracy and a McDonald’s tort case was illogical and overly emotional.

Recently, a friend (who didn’t want his name posted here) unpacked it this way for me. To much of the world, McDonald’s represents America, along with the Lion King and Lindsey Lohan. As for the Kyrgyz that shun Ivanova’s outrage at the US’s offer of $55,000 in moral compensation as opportunistic greed, Ivanova’s point holds.

In America — relatively the land of opportunistic greed — a tort case over someone’s scalded knees can fetch 10 times more than your murdered husband. What’s more, there’s nothing you can do about it. American democracy for Americans, and democracy for the rest of the world. Go figure.

That’s not to say that this case is not being hijacked politically. Media from all over the spectrum, local and foreign, have their two cents to chip in. Timing and nationality are key however, as Erica Marat points out here. Kyrgyz blogger Naryn Ayip also points out the stark lack of prostest when the son of the Russian Ambassador to Kyrgyzstan shot a local Bishkek girl in a disco after she refused to dance with him.

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.

Both of Kyrgyzstan’s airbases got plenty of newsplay today, neatly coinciding with a visit today from the CSTO Secretary General Nikolai Bordyuzha. Most of the news agencies make much of the ‘working visit,’ which follows Kyrgyz Parliament Speaker Marat Sultanov’s mission to Moscow last week where he plead for more CSTO forces to help guard Kyrgyzstan’s borders.

“If the Kant base is enlarged, the security of our airspace and our state borders will be ensured, and [the need for] further operations at the Manas base, which provides air support to international antiterrorism coalition troops in Afghanistan, could be discussed,” Sultanov said.

Akipress notably was the only news-service today that reported Bordyuzha’s chiding rejection, while Kabar, the Kyrgyz state news agency, is probably the most misleading.

“And I, as someone who deals with the protection of borders, I think that time is over. Kyrgyzstan is a sovereign state which has fully formed [military] departments, including border guards.”

Of course, any of that could change given what’s in it for Russia further down the line. Meanwhile, the newly established ‘Movement for the Withdrawal of the American Air Force Base’ declared today that it would hold rallies in front of the US Embassy in Bishkek and the Ganci airbase, starting June 2. Mostly backed by the Communist Party of Kyrgyzstan for now, the Movement’s objectives include: informing citizens of the negative consequences of hosting the base, opening detailed negotiations aimed at withdrawal, and proper compensation for the widow of the Kyrgyz-citizen, Alexander Ivanov, who was shot at a Ganci checkpoint. Recently having been offered a token US $50 thousand, widow Marina Ivanova strongly supports the anti-base movement, which she expresses here:

America shouts about their democratic rights which it imposes everywhere, but today we have seen that this has not been the case. In the US, for the moral damage of a spilled cup of coffee or quality goods, far higher payments are received than those of the moral damage that they have caused with such a vile act.

I don’t entirely understand her logic or the connection to this McDonald’s lawsuit, but the fundamental point is unavoidable: How is it possible that a Kyrgyz citizen can be shot in Kyrgyzstan by a foreign citizen without any legal recourse? It’s tough to say where the movement will go and what kind of support it will gather. AKIpress reader comments include “the true patriots of Kyrgyzstan and pickets will go not for the sake of money and vodka” and

If [Ivanov] had behaved that offensively and aggressively [as to get shot], as his wife is now acting in an informal setting, I can probably understand the American soldier [‘s actions]. The speakers against the base are those who did not receive and can not receive any personal benefit. And if the Americans leave, no one will be better off.

Erica Marat from the Eurasia Daily Monitor also points to the disproportionate amount of attention the outcry the shooting has gained.

“This is not the first case of foreign representatives killing Kyrgyz citizens. Previously Russian official representatives were implicated in fatal accidents on Kyrgyz territory; however, neither victims’ relatives nor the government made any visible attempts to investigate these cases. Furthermore, Kyrgyz citizens’ rights are abused regularly in Russia and Kazakhstan, where hundreds of thousands of Kyrgyz labor migrants work illegally. Finally, Kyrgyz citizens’ rights are constantly abused in border areas in the Ferghana Valley by Tajik, Uzbek, and fellow Kyrgyz border guards. Compared to Ivanov’s case, Kyrgyz civil society groups are much more ignorant about their fellow citizens’ rights residing abroad”.

I’ve seen a few postings in Russian on blogs and news comments that refer to America’s supposed plans to nuke Iran from the Manas base, a charge the anti-base movement will no doubt milk. Parliament Speaker Sultanov today however, made it clear that the base would be closed if used “for purposes other than to support the antiterrorism campaign in Afghanistan.”

You could probably weigh all the reasons that Kyrgyzstan will ultimately not force the US base out. And wonder at how Russian media can report such absurd rumors as truth. But hey – these days seemingly, it’s crass populism, and not reason, that wins interest.