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Central Asia

Mar 16, 2005

Central Asia sidesteps a revolution
By M K Bhadrakumar

The revolutionary winds blowing in from Georgia and Ukraine across the Central Asian steppes seem to have lost their way in the Pamir mountains. Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan have completed their parliamentary elections according to schedule, despite the American prognosis that Central Asia is ripe for revolution.

Actually, Tajikistan was not quite on the revolutionary calendar. The democratic choice in Tajikistan - if President Imomali Rahmonov's People's Democratic Party of Tajikistan had indeed been unseated in the February 27 elections - lay between the Communist Party and the Islamic Renaissance Party. To say the least, neither of these opposition political parties would have been an agreeable partner for the "transformationalists" in Washington. Besides, Rahmonov had never stepped on American toes. Tajikistan was also too much of a "basket case" from the American point of view - the effort was simply not worth the while.

In fact, Tajikistan ought to be the litmus test of ultimate American intentions in the Central Asian region. It ought to be in the first circle of American regional policy. It is the only country where an avowedly Islamic party stands legally registered as part of democratic life. For the neo-conservatives in Washington, Tajikistan ought to be an absorbing crucible where a certain churning dear to their thought processes is going on. Besides, from a practical angle, the country borders Afghanistan, where 18,000 American troops remain billeted for the foreseeable future engaged in an indeterminate war. The security and stability of Afghanistan and Tajikistan are inter-connected. Tajikistan is also a major gateway for the Afghan opium trade. Moreover, Tajikistan impinges on the complex experimentations with social engineering and representative rule currently under way in Afghanistan.

Most important, Rahmonov has had considerable success against very heavy odds in unifying and stabilizing his country. Tajikistan deserves all the money that the US can spare. Also, if the US could make a success story out of Tajikistan, that could be a meaningful historical legacy for the Bush administration. After all, Tajikistan formed part of the great Persian civilizational flow.

Clearly, motivation was lacking in Washington. The US has instead chosen to make Kyrgyzstan the battleground for liberty and democracy. According to Kyrgyz authorities, several media-savvy activists manning the barricades in Kiev's "Orange" revolution were dispatched by late January to Bishkek to plan and execute a similar feat; lavish American funding was made available for them. Over 54,000 foreigners entered the country in the past few months, which, according to the Kyrgyz authorities, was far in excess of average figures.

Certainly, for weeks altogether in the run-up to the Kyrgyz elections of February 27 (and the second round of voting on March 13), Kyrgyzstan was subjected to an unprecedented propaganda barrage aimed at discrediting and undercutting President Askar Akayev. Unusual to the norms of diplomatic behavior, the American ambassador in Bishkek publicly chastised the Kyrgyz government.

This was surprising. Akayev was by no means a "Soviet-style dictator". In fact, he is a "post-Soviet" elected leader. In US perceptions, he used to be a role model of enlightened democratic leadership - almost like Eduard Shevardnadze ("Shevvy") was at one time.

Akayev is turning the Kyrgyz economy around. The economy has registered a 7% gross domestic product growth rate. Kyrgyzstan is one country where the International Monetary Fund reform program is making progress. (By a curious coincidence, the Paris Club has just decided to write off US$24 million out of Kyrgyzstan's debt of $555 million and to reschedule the rest in appreciation of the country's stable economic growth and financial discipline.)

Again, Kyrgyzstan is not a front line state in the US's "war on terror" - though it faces challenges from irredentist Islamic elements. Kyrgyzstan does not hold reserves of oil or gas. In fact, apart from its water resources and Alpine scenery, Kyrgyzstan seems to hold no fascination for US commercial interests.

Several conclusions can be drawn from the US attempt to trigger revolution in Kyrgyzstan. First and foremost, the revolution did not have a raison d'etre. A revolutionary spirit was lacking. The revolutionary motive narrowed down to a single point: the "revolutionaries" simply disliked Akayev; they wanted him to step down; they couldn't bear the thought of him continuing in power. The revolution's credibility thereby suffered. As anxious days and weeks passed, it looked more and more like what it was - an attempted putsch against an established government.

In turn, this focused attention on the reason why the US chose to "punish" Akayev - his "balanced and multidirectional foreign policy" which involved cooperation with Washington's "war on terror" on the one hand and with the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) at the same time. The US piled up pressure on Akayev for his belief that Kyrgyzstan could serve as "a location for the cooperation and convergence of the interests of Russia and the United States". As Bush would say, "you are either with us, or are against us".

This blatant exercise in unilateralism has isolated the US in the Central Asian region. The leaderships of other Central Asian countries have closed ranks with Akayev. European powers have not joined the fray - after all that embarrassment of having to witness the gory spectacle in Ukraine. Russia too, on its part, was determined not to be rubbished a second time. Moscow would have, conceivably, conveyed its solidarity with Akayev, but deftly stayed off the stage - leaving matters to Akayev himself to handle. The Kyrgyz opposition figures even paid a visit to Moscow.

But, in the heat of the Kyrgyz election, the SCO adopted a common Central Asian position at its foreign ministers' meeting in Astana on February 25 to the effect that the countries of the region have "a sovereign right to their own road most adequately corresponding to their historical, cultural world-view and other traditions established in society" and that "political stability and the evolution of the democratic processes are interrelated processes determining the progress and prosperity of the SCO member states". The SCO meeting took particular note of the measures taken by Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan to hold "democratic, open and transparent" elections.

Akayev had evidently done his homework in the period since the "Orange" revolution in Ukraine. He proceeded to ensure a "free and fair" election on February 27, playing strictly by the rule book. So much so that, in the process, 44 out of 75 parliamentary seats have had to go for a run-off election in the second round on March 13. Even the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) with its high Western standards that are unattainable for an impoverished Muslim country, expressed overall satisfaction with the February 27 election process - that the "results of the elections on the whole reflected the real choice of the constituents". The OSCE statement said that Kyrgyzstan has made good progress that can become a basis for further development.

The OSCE, on the other hand, took exception to the "agitational" approach adopted by disparate elements rooting for a revolution. It chastised the agitators that "the right of a person to freely unite cannot be construed as the freedom of blocking roads and capturing public buildings".

The US approach, in retrospect, was based on its confidence that Kyrgyzstan was one country where the American non-governmental organizations had enjoyed a free run all through the 1990s. The US plainly overestimated its influence in penetrating Kyrgyz civil society. The US stratagem overlooked the political reality that the legitimacy of state power in the Central Asian countries is heavily borne out of the region's clan-based, localized social contracts. That the agitations were confined largely to the Osh and Jalalabad areas in the Ferghana region and swiftly assumed ethnic (Kyrgyz-Uzbek) overtones told a story by itself. The Ferghana Valley had been historically a tinderbox. Does the US want to set it on fire for generating the requisite heat for a revolution?

The putsch in Kyrgyzstan will be keenly watched all over the region. Akayev has chosen to call Washington's bluff. He acted with patience and restraint in handling the agitators, even when they degenerated into drunken brawls. He did not blink in the face of the sustained propaganda directed against him. He also made a telling point by taking the decision on February 14, in consultation with CSTO and SCO, to turn down the pending US request to station AWACS aircraft in the American air base at Ganci near Bishkek. (Three days earlier, on February 11, Bishkek announced that the Russian air base in Kant would be doubling its deployments.) And, Akayev, an academician by training, is known to be the most mild-mannered among the Central Asian leaders.

Will the US allow Akayev to get away with such impetuosity? That is the question for the coming period. The question goes beyond a quibble over democracy and liberty. It has become intertwined with the efficacy of American power. From now on, this has, without doubt, become a vanity fair.

In a briefing to the Russian press after the US-Russia summit meeting in Bratislava on February 24, the Russians revealed that Bush and President Vladimir Putin had a "principled conversation" about what the world could expect in the "post-Soviet space" and in the Central Asian region in particular. They confirmed a "mutual [Russian-American] understanding of the need to act transparently, not to the detriment of each other, in the interests of stability in the region and of the countries where we are present together with the Americans".

But what would the "cold warriors" or the present-day votaries of the transformationist agenda in the Bush administration think of the sustainability of the Russians' unambiguous interpretation of the Bratislava summit? They had previously ignored a similar understanding that Mikhail Gorbachev thought he had sought and obtained regarding the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's eastward expansion.

Probably, it does not matter any more what they think. Probably, Central Asian countries have come of age in finding their way through deep shark-infested waters. The coming weeks should testify to that.

M K Bhadrakumar is a former Indian career diplomat who has served in Islamabad, Kabul, Tashkent and Moscow.

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