Krygyzstan
posted
to www.marxmail.org on March 29, 2005
Today's dissidentvoice.org has an interesting article by
Mike Whitney that makes the case that the coup in Kyrgyzstan
was orchestrated by the USA.
Relying heavily on a secret report purportedly written by the US
Ambassador to Krygyzstan Stephen M. Young (http://fairuse.1accesshost.com/news4/kabar1.html),
the scenario seems identical to that which took place in Yugoslavia
and elsewhere.
It should be added, however, that the report has certain
formulations that make me question its authenticity. For example, it says:
"In this regard, the embassys
Democratic commission, Soros Foundations, Eurasia Foundation in Bishkek in
cooperation with USAID have been organizing politically active groups of voters
in order to inspire riots against pro-president candidates."
This just sounds a little bit lurid to my ears but let's
take it at face value for the time being.
Young writes:
"We have set up and opened financing for an independent
printing office -- the Media Support center -- and AKIpress
news agency to interpret impartially the course of the elections and minimize
state mass media propaganda impact. We also render financial support to
promising non-governmental tele- and radio companies."
By the looks of it, the USA
has gotten exactly what it wants, the assumption of power by Kurmanbek Bakiyev, who Young describes
as "the most acceptable candidate in the aspect of fruitful development of
relations between the USA
and Kyrgyzstan."
Now, one shouldn't jump to the conclusion that this has much
to do about resisting privatization--one of the main grievances against
Milosevic who was painted as a Stalinist dinosaur in the West--since the fallen
head of state was eminently disposed to capitalist property relations. The FT
reported in May,1993:
"Mr Lloyd Bentsen, US
treasury secretary, yesterday praised Kyrgyzstan
for 'a bold and courageous reform programme that
should be a model for all states of the former Soviet Union',
writes George Graham in Washington.
Mr Bentsen spoke after meeting Kyrgyzstan's
President Askar Akayev, who
was in Washington for talks with
the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.
"Kyrgyzstan
is the first country to qualify for the IMF's new
financing facility to help the economies of eastern
Europe and the former Soviet Union make the leap from
communism to capitalism."
The July 2002 FT also reports that the Akayev
family is no slouch when it comes to feeding at the US
trough:
"Askar Akayev,
the Kyrgyzstan
president, has publicly admitted that a member of his family is involved in a
million-dollar business at his country's US-run airbase.
"The admission by the president, whose regime is
crucial to the US's
strategic presence in the region, threatens to spark discontent and will
intensify opposition calls for his resignation.
"In an interview with the Financial Times, Mr Akayev conceded that his
son-in-law, Adil Toigonbayev,
sells jet fuel to Manas airbase, outside the capital
Bishkek. Some 2,000 soldiers from eight countries - the majority from the US
- have set up a hub there for flights into nearby Afghanistan."
Speaking of these bases, one would get the impression that a
"pro-Russian" politician like Akayev might
have regarded the bases as a violation of national sovereignty on a par with Guantanamo in Cuba.
It is useful to remember how Akayev viewed these
bases. The FT reported in July, 2002:
Western forces should
remain in Kyrgyzstan for "many years", said the country's president, Askar Akayev, in the first
indication that the west's presence in the republics of ex-Soviet central Asia may prove to be long-term.
Some 2,000 troops from
eight countries - half coming from the US -have been based at Manas
international airport outside the capital, Bishkek, since the beginning of the
year. The airport serves as a hub for operations in Afghanistan, which is near Kyrgyzstan but does not share its border.
Paul O'Neill, the US
treasury secretary, thanked Kyrgyzstan for its contribution to the war against
terrorism during a visit this week and said that the base contributed to the
country's economy.
Of course, Putin himself was
charitably disposed to the bases as the Daily Telegraph reported in September,
2001:
President Putin's offer of support for the expected American air
strikes against Afghanistan marks a revolution in his leadership and in Kremlin policy towards the
former Soviet republics and the West.
He has never been one
to defy public opinion or Russia's truculent military top brass, at least
not openly. But by blessing the deployment of US forces in Central Asia, Mr Putin has taken the most courageous decision of his 18 months
in power.
Moscow has been
outspoken in its sympathy for Washington in the aftermath of the suicide
attacks but Mr Putin's
backing for plans to base US forces, even temporarily, in Russia's own backyard is an extraordinary
turnaround.
Less than a fortnight
ago Russia's defence minister, Sergei
Ivanov, one of Mr Putin's closest associates, ruled out "even the
hypothetical possibility of Nato military
operations" in the former Soviet Union.
Now, however, the US will have a foothold in a region Russia regards as one of vital strategic
importance.
With the example of Ukraine,
Venezuela and Lebanon
lingering in people's minds, one might assume that the revolt pitted a
privileged middle-class against a hated government viewed as inimical to its
interests. But news reports indicate that the protesters had little to do with Kiev's
Orange Revolution yuppies. By all accounts, the revolt brewed in the largely
Moslem and impoverished southern regions. Whatever differences exist between Putin and George W. Bush, who is represented as his
deadliest of enemies by various leftwing voices on the Internet, they do share
a common hostility to all forms of political Islam. The rhetoric used by Putin in his war in Chechnya
differs little from the post 9/11 "war on terror" outlook of Washington.
In Uzbekistan,
the US backed
dictatorship is reported to torture Moslem prisoners shipped there by the CIA
to avoid judicial oversight, while consigning its own dissidents to boiling oil
as the need arises.
After China
and Russia
revived the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation, a
security group including Kazakhstan,
Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan
and Tajikistan,
Putin and Hu Jintao attended a summit in the Uzbek capital in June, 2004
with Hamid Karzai, the
Afghan president and another sworn enemy of Islamic radicalism. The meeting
culminated with lucrative oil development deals with the dictator-torturer of Uzbekistan,
which led the shrewd FT to comment: "Leaders such as Islam Karimov, Uzbek president, must be delighted that Mr Putin and Mr
Hu are more concerned about oil and Islam than
corruption or human rights."
Meanwhile Vladimir Zharikhin,
deputy director of the official Institute of Commonwealth of Independent States
Studies in Moscow, has said,
"Unlike the recent events in Ukraine,
there is no pro-Western or pro-Moscow side to this unrest in Kyrgyzstan."
That might be true, but there certainly does seem to be an
anti-Moslem side, a primary aspect of the New Crusades.