China stations 1 million troops next to Kyrgyzstan in Xinjiang
There is little hard and fast information as to the extent of organized opposition to Chinese rule within Xinjiang, but Beijing has repeatedly made it clear that it will not tolerate any political interference from abroad, where pro-independence Uighur organizations exist.
China has already protested the establishment of a Uighur Government-in-Exile in Washington and Beijing has repeatedly made it clear that it will not tolerate any political interference from abroad, where pro-independence Uighur organizations exist. This means us. It would seem we are orchestrating a riot in the Xinjiang province of China. Kyrgyzstan is one of the countries that borders the Xinjiang region. #msg-4098311
-Am
China: Border Crossing With Kyrgyzstan Closed By Patrick Moore
The semi-official China News Service announced in Beijing on 25 March that the Irkeshtam border trading station with Kyrgyzstan is closed and will remain so until 28 March, Reuters reported. The statement said there is "chaos" in Kyrgyzstan and that the trading post was closed "in order to guarantee the safety of passengers and goods." A second trading station along the frontier nonetheless continues to operate.
China's main concern with Kyrgyzstan centers on China's own large and restive Muslim Turkic Uighur minority, which lives primarily in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. That province makes up one-sixth of China's territory and borders on seven countries, including Kyrgyzstan, where the frontier is largely mountainous.
Five decades of Chinese Communist colonization policies have raised the ethnic Chinese, or Han, share of Xinjiang's population from 5 percent to some 40 percent, and about 1 million Chinese troops are stationed there.
Xinjiang is historically closer to Central Asia than to the centers of Chinese power in eastern China. Beijing tenuously controlled it as part of its land empire for only about 100 years in the 18th and 19th centuries, and Chinese influence waned following revolts in the 1860s until the Communists came to power in 1949.The closing of the border trading station at Irkeshtam -- where Uighurs live on both sides of the frontier -- at peak trading season is probably intended as a warning to the Uighurs and the new authorities in Kyrgyzstan that Beijing will protect its interests.
Xinjiang has a long history of political restiveness toward what many Uighurs regard as Chinese colonial rule, and most experts point out that strong tensions are never far beneath the surface. U.S. China expert Gordon G. Chang wrote that "violence flares in Xinjiang almost daily."
Reinforcing the problem is a deep and mutual feeling of cultural alienation. This expresses itself not only in language and religion but even in diet, where the Han Chinese fondness for pork as their staple meat is repugnant to the Muslim Uighurs.
The two communities live next to rather than with each other, and Australian-American sinologist Ross Terrill has described government policies as producing "apartheid with Chinese characteristics."
There is little hard and fast information as to the extent of organized opposition to Chinese rule within Xinjiang, but Beijing has repeatedly made it clear that it will not tolerate any political interference from abroad, where pro-independence Uighur organizations exist. Uighur separatists accuse the ruling Chinese of political, religious, and cultural repression.
The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 triggered fears in Beijing of its possible effect on China's non-Han frontier populations, and the post-Soviet Central Asian governments have generally tread lightly where Chinese sensitivities are concerned.
Beijing is as worried about "splittism" in Xinjiang as it is about "splittism" in neighboring Tibet or "separatism" in Taiwan. The closing of the border trading station at Irkeshtam -- where Uighurs live on both sides of the frontier -- at peak trading season is probably intended as a warning to the Uighurs and the new authorities in Kyrgyzstan that Beijing will protect its interests. The politically motivated opening or closing of trading stations is a centuries-old tool of Chinese diplomacy. http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2005/3/50BB93C4-E5D0-4009-A01D-4646E5ADD5D7.html
It all went down at the speed of light. In only a few hours on Thursday in Kyrgyzstan's capital Bishkek, the palace was stormed, the tyrant fled and a new order was starting to take shape. Or was it?
The revolution had traveled by bus - 500 winding kilometers from Osh, of Silk Road fame, in the south through high mountain passes to Bishkek - before the planned kurultai (assembly) in front of the presidential palace took a swift, epic turn.
It was all about alleged rigged elections in February and March and astounding corruption exercised by the clan of autocrat president Askar Akayev, who has now fled the country. With his new parliamentary majority, Akayev was practically set to change the constitution - or do one better, appoint his daughter Bermet Akayev to the throne.
Moscow, via Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, had already criticized the European Union and reminded everyone that Bishkek was a partner in a collective security treaty. Russia's top diplomat Sergei Lavrov accused Javier Solana, the EU's top diplomat, of being politically incorrect: Solana had insisted that the Kyrgyz elections had not respected Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe criteria. At this crucial juncture, Akayev, 15 years in power, badly overplayed his hand.
Two months ago, Akayev went to Moscow to introduce his son to President Vladimir Putin. He was already plotting a dynastic transfer of power: after all, it had worked with the Aliev clan in Azerbaijan. Akayev again went to Moscow on a secret trip last Sunday, according to the Russian newspaper Vremia Novosti. He tried to meet with Putin, but this time he didn't make it. He met with Russian diplomats instead.
Back in Bishkek he said he would consider negotiating with the opposition. But as events fast spiraled out of control, he said he would not negotiate with "revolutionaries" who were "financed and controlled by outsiders". The "revolutionaries" deposed him with a bang. For the West, this is a "Tulip Revolution" (or "Lemon Revolution", as it's being called in France and Belgium). For many Russians, on the other hand, this is the work of a bunch of thugs.
Central Asian observers are betting their bowls of laghman (noodles) on what Kazakhstan's Nursultan Nazarbayev and Uzbekistan's Islam Karimov are thinking right now. Could this be the beginning of (their) end? Could they also be toppled by people-power? Should they consider a move to Lake Geneva - after what happened in the so-called Switzerland of Central Asia? Or should this be the sign to go for all-out totalitarian repression?
Compared to its ultra-hardcore neighbors, Kyrgyzstan was a paradigm of democracy. Now the Kyrgyz opposition - something of an unruly mob, composed of southern barons and former regime stalwarts - has to face other, more pressing problems. The Western media are positively agog because they cannot stamp a "face" to the Tulip Revolution - unlike the photogenic Mikhail Saakashvili in Georgia and the poisoned Viktor Yushchenko in Ukraine. Should it be former prime minister Kurmanbek Bakiyev? Or former foreign minister Roza Otunbaeva? Or maybe Omurbek Tekerbayev? They do not exactly agree with each other. Now they must because they are in power and cannot run the risk of a civil war. Parliament has appointed Bakiyev as acting premier and president.
It's the economy, stupid Kyrgyzstan was thrust into independence by the end of 1991 with the distinction of being the only former Soviet republic in Central Asia controlled by a (relative) democrat, and not by a former party apparatchik. Akayev did introduce multi-party democracy. He also went down the privatization road and followed the International Monetary Fund's (IMF's) diktats.
In 1998, Kyrgyzstan became the first Central Asian republic to join the World Trade Organization. But then Akayev fell victim to the usury of power and started playing Stalin - politically - and Suharto - economically. The economy became the Akayev clan's economy.
The IMF one-size-fits-all recipe once again was a disaster. Thanks to the IMF, the tiny republic now has the largest debt per capita in Central Asia. This has also meant a massive loss of jobs and next to 60% of the population living below the poverty line, according to World Bank figures. Increased poverty led to increased dissent. Once again, "it's the economy, stupid" - nothing to do with Islamic terrorism.
When a credible opponent, former vice president Felix Kulov, appeared in 2000, Akayev put him in jail for "abuse of power". Kulov, now released, has every chance of becoming the next Kyrgyz leader.
Asia Times Online traveled across Kyrgyzstan in autumn 2003 (see Silk Road Roving). Already at the time, businessmen as well as the urban middle class in the Russified north were fed up with their tight budgets and official corruption.
But that was nothing compared to the south, home of the volatile Fergana Valley - a 300-kilometer lush oasis divided by Josef Stalin among three Soviet republics, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. The Kyrgyz Fergana is crisscrossed by a disgruntled, vocal and relatively well-organized Uzbek minority. In Osh and Jalalabad - the capitals of the current Tulip Revolution - everyone complained about their lack of political power in Bishkek, and how there was no investment in their region. One just had to walk the dark, crumbling and empty streets of Osh at night in the freezing cold to prove their point.
A visit to the sprawling Dar Doil bazaar, outside of Bishkek and one of the largest in Central Asia, also proved the point of how a great deal of the Kyrgyz population depends for its survival on commerce with China.
At least 700,000 Kyrgyz out of a population of 5 million have been forced to emigrate to find work. Most survive as clandestine slave laborers at construction sites in Russia or Kazakhstan. The stagnant economy revolves around gold mines, hydroelectric equipment and some tourism. The country's external debt - US$2 billion - is equivalent to its gross national product.
No Caliphate, thank you Geostrategically, the Central Asian neighbors plus Russia, China and the US simply cannot afford a chaotic or ethnically fractured Kyrgyzstan. As a side effect of the "war on terror", Kyrgyzstan is a de facto key pawn for Russia, the US and China in the New Great Game - not least because of its strategic location, squeezed between China and Kazakhstan.
The Russian military base in Kant, 20 minutes away from Bishkek, is described by Defense Minister Ivanov as "a deterrent to international terrorism". The neighboring American military base at Manas - civilian - airport is theoretically set up as a support for Bagram in Afghanistan, but is more effective as a psychological tool to rattle the Chinese, being so close to Xinjiang. Beijing, not surprisingly, also wants to set up its own Kyrgyz military base.
The Russians were especially caught by surprise with the Tulip Revolution: from the Kremlin to the generals, the mantra was always that the threat to Central Asia came from radical Islam in the Fergana Valley.
Two serious developments could derive from the Tulip Revolution. The aggressive Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and the non-violent Hizb ut-Tahrir may advance their agendas: based on the Kyrgyz Fergana, they could spread their influence to southern Kazakhstan, western Tajikistan and even Xinjiang in China.
But one has to remember that the Kyrgyz - descendants of Genghis Khan's Golden Horde who migrated south from Siberia - are nomads who were absorbed into Islam only in the 15th century. For them the al-Qaeda caliphate world view is totally alien.
A more probable, and much more worrying scenario, would be Kyrgyzstan spiraling down to something like the Tajik civil war of 1992-97, which caused tens of thousands of victims.
One thing is already certain: the Tulip Revolution will inevitably be instrumentalized by the second Bush administration as the first "spread of freedom and democracy" success story in Central Asia. The whole arsenal of US foundations - National Endowment for Democracy, International Republic Institute, Ifes, Eurasia Foundation, Internews, among others - which fueled opposition movements in Serbia, Georgia and Ukraine, has also been deployed in Bishkek. It generated, among other developments, a small army of Kyrgyz youngsters who went to Kiev, financed by the Americans, to get a glimpse of the Orange Revolution, and then became "infected" with the democratic virus.
Practically everything that passes for civil society in Kyrgyzstan is financed by these US foundations, or by the US Agency for International Development (USAID). At least 170 non-governmental organizations charged with development or promotion of democracy have been created or sponsored by the Americans.
The US State Department has operated its own independent printing house in Bishkek since 2002 - which means printing at least 60 different titles, including a bunch of fiery opposition newspapers. USAID invested at least $2 million prior to the Kyrgyz elections - quite something in a country where the average salary is $30 a month.
Opposition leader Otunbaeva has recognized publicly that "yes, we are supported by the US". The investment will have paid off if a "democratic revolution" can be sold worldwide as the sterling example of a country with a Muslim majority joining the Bush crusade. But the public relations blitz will amount to nothing if the new Kyrgyz order is not immune to corruption and does not try very hard to at least alleviate the widespread sense of economic injustice. Yes, it's the economy, stupid.
In some of the more recent and ongoing attempts by Bush to install puppet governments such as in Kyrygyzstan, Uzbekistan, Iran, Kazakhstan, the Philippines and obviously Russia there is an awareness of the clandestine agendas of the NGOs and steps are being taken by leaders to protect their sovereignty. Democracy would have had a better chance had Bush not made a mockery of democracy through vast NGO productions culminating in ‘velvet revolutions’.
-Am
Wednesday July 20, 2005 4:01 PM
By MARIA DANILOVA
Associated Press Writer
MOSCOW (AP) - Russia won't allow foreign organizations to finance political activities in the country, President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday in the latest in a series of Kremlin statements assailing Western-funded non-governmental groups.
Meeting with human rights experts to discuss how to strengthen civil society in Russia, Putin said authorities needed to ``de-bureaucratize'' how nonprofit groups get grants and financing.
But he also said he had information that certain foreign groups were paying for specific political activities in Russia.
``Not a single, self-respecting country will allow that, and neither will we,'' Putin said. ``Let us solve our internal problems ourselves.''
The Kremlin has shown increasing discomfort with Western-funded NGOs as mass protests have swept through parts of the former Soviet Union in the past two years. Many Russian politicians contend that Western funding was behind the protests that drove out the longtime presidents of Georgia and Kyrgyzstan and that forced a rerun of Ukraine's presidential elections, in which the Kremlin-favored candidate lost.
Putin lamented that Russia's nonprofit organizations were getting little assistance from domestic and foreign donors, and called for developing ways for the state to help them. He noted, though, that this aid should not be considered ``some kind of bribery on the part of the state, that this is some form of dependency.''
Critics have accused Putin's government of favoring compliant public groups and trying to rein in nonprofit organizations critical of the government. He did not specify Wednesday what he meant by political activity, leaving open the possibility of a broad interpretation that could be used to stifle some activities by NGOs.
Putin urged environmental protection organizations to boost cooperation with the government but warned them against promoting interests of foreign businesses that might be financing them.
The extent of Washington’s meddling in Kyrgyz affairs was documented in a February 25 article in the Wall Street Journal. According to the report, Washington’s support for the Kyrgyz opposition is largely funneled through pro-Western nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).
One of the major NGOs working with the opposition, the Coalition for Democracy and Civil Society (CDCS), receives the bulk of its funding from the National Democratic Institute in Washington, which is financed by the US government.
The head of CDCS, Edil Baisalov, recently returned from Ukraine where he served as an election observer in the disputed presidential contest. Yushchenko was able to secure a victory over his rival, Viktor Yanukovich, an ally of Kuchma, with the aid of mass protests staged by organizations financed by Washington. Describing his time in Ukraine as “a very formative experience,” Baisalov told the Journal, “I saw what the results of our work could be.”
Until recently, another Kyrgyz NGO, Civil Society Against Corruption (CSAC), received funding from the National Endowment for Democracy, a US-government organization with extensive ties to the AFL-CIO trade union bureaucracy that is well known for its efforts to topple governments deemed unfriendly to Washington. The head of CSAC, Tolekan Ismailova, recently translated a pamphlet on the “revolutionary” methods used to bring down governments in Serbia, Georgia and Ukraine. This pamphlet was printed on a press in Kyrgyzstan owned by the US State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor.
The same press put out several publications critical of Akayev, including the primary organ of the opposition, the newspaper “MSN.” When government authorities cut off the electricity at the publishing house just prior to the first round of parliamentary voting on February 27, the US Embassy in Bishkek had two generators delivered to the facility.
Directed by an American, Mike Stone, the printing operations recently received an infusion of funds from George Soros’s Open Society Institute (OSI). The OSI played a major role in financing opposition activities during Georgia’s US-backed “Rose Revolution.”
The connections between the Kyrgyz opposition and the US extend beyond American funding of pro-opposition NGOs and printing presses. Roza Otunbaeva, who is the head of Ata Dzhurt and one of the leading spokespeople of the anti-Akayev coalition, has extensive personal and political ties with the US, and the West in general.
From 1991 to 1994, she served as Kyrgyz ambassador to the US and Canada, and in 1997 she served as Kyrgyz ambassador to the United Kingdom. As deputy special representative of the UN secretary general on the Georgian-Abkhazian border conflict, she lived in Georgia from 2002 until September 2004. Otunbaeva was working for the UN in Tbilisi, Georgia’s capital, at the height of the “Rose Revolution.” She routinely describes events in that country as a model for change in Kyrgyzstan.
Initially elected to office by the Supreme Soviet of the Kyrgyz Republic in 1990, Akayev, a physicist and the former president of the Academy of Sciences in Kyrgyzstan, was touted as a liberal leader with few political connections to the country’s communist past. This was despite the fact that he owed his political ascendancy to support from within the old Soviet elite. Confirmed by popular vote in 1991, Akayev’s backing from the West had much more to do with his support for the breakup of the Soviet Union and the restoration of capitalism than it did with any genuine allegiance to democratic principles on his part.
Similarly, his recent transformation into a pariah had little to do with the increasingly autocratic character of his rule over the last several years, which pales in comparison to the brutal methods used by such key US allies as Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Rather, US disfavor stemmed largely from his government’s efforts to cultivate and deepen its political and economic ties with Russia, as well as China.
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