Protest weary Kyrgyz turn to
parliament By Igor Rotar
Despite the predictions of Kyrgyz and
international analysts, a swift arrest and
sentencing of the three Kyrgyzstani lawmakers who
tried to capture the parliament building did not
spark serious riots.
On October 3,
opposition party Ata-Jurt and parliamentary
members Sadyr Zhaparov and Kamchibek Tashiyev
galvanized a crowd of around 500 protesters in
Bishkek who were demanding the nationalization of
the Kumtor gold mine to storm the parliament. That
evening, Zhaparov, Tashiyev and a third
parliamentarian, Talant Mamitov, were arrested on
suspicion of trying to seize power.
Because political struggles in the Central
Asian republic are
strongly connected to
regional confrontations, many analysts predicted
serious tensions would erupt in Kyrgyzstan's south
(the homeland of Tashiyev and Mamitov) and in the
Issyk-Kul region (the homeland of Zhaparov). And
at the outset of the mass protests, the events
appeared to confirm this gloomy prognosis.
On October 4, around 1,000 supporters of
the detained lawmakers blockaded the Osh-Bishkek
highway in southern Jalal-Abad province, demanding
the release of the detained lawmakers. The Tyan
Shan mountain range divides southern and northern
Kyrgyzstan, and the Osh-Bishkek highway is the
only road linking the south with the north. But,
on October 5, the authorities convinced the
demonstrators to unblock the strategic road, and
most protestors went home. And a court's decision
on the same day to prolong the arrest of the
lawmakers by two months sparked no widespread
reaction from the public. Furthermore, the speaker
of the Ata-Jurt party (the arrested lawmakers are
leaders of this organization), Nurgaza Aytiev,
officially declared that his party did not plan to
stage any rallies in support of the arrested
parliament members.
However, some protests
against the arrest are continuing. Twenty three
relatives of the detained politicians have gone on
a hunger strike in the city of Jalal-Abad in
Southern Kyrgyzstan. Also, 23 people are on a
hunger strike in the village of Tupe (the homeland
of Sadyr Zhaparov) in the Issyk-Kul province.
Additionally, around ten relatives of the former
military prosecutor, Kubatbek Kozhonaliyev, who
was also arrested in connection with the events on
October 3, gathered outside the government
building in Bishkek to support him.
"The
number of demonstrators is surprisingly small.
Most analysts predicted larger-scale protests.
This is not the protest of the people, but rather
that of relatives. In this situation, the
'revolutionaries' [the imprisoned lawmakers] will
not receive any leniency," Daniil Kislov, the
director of the Ferghana news agency told
Jamestown on October 14.
In trying to
understand the actual implication of the abortive
October 3 lawmakers' rebellion, it is important to
note that the protest was not supported by the
Mayor of Osh (the capital of southern Kyrgyzstan),
Melis Myrzakmatov.
One of most influential
politicians of southern Kyrgyzstan, Myrzakmatov
has frequently demonstrated his independence from
Bishkek and often plays on north-south cleavages -
the Osh mayor has claimed that "Northerners"
considered "Southerners" savages. He is in open
confrontation with the Kyrgyzstani President
Almazbek Atambayev. For example, Myrzakmatov
claims that the president is responsible for the
ethnic clashes that erupted in southern Kyrgyzstan
in 2010.
Mayor Myrzakmatov is also a
radical nationalist. In 2011, Myrzakmatov
published a book entitled In Search of the
Truth. The Osh Tragedy: Documents, Facts, Appeals,
and Declarations, both in Kyrgyz and Russian.
In this book, he took a radical anti-Uzbek
approach and portrayed Uzbeks as a separatist
group, stressing the need for non-Kyrgyz ethnic
groups to understand that their future role would
be as subordinates. Notably, the arrested
lawmakers are radical nationalists too. At the
rally on October 3, Zhaparov publicly stated that
the Kumtor mine "belongs to the Jews".
Furthermore, during the parliamentary elections in
2010, Tashiyev said that the Kyrgyz should have
more rights than other ethnic groups in the state.
Due to the similar nationalist platforms
as well as southern origins of Myrzakmatov and two
of the arrested parliamentarians, one would have
expected the Osh mayor to have backed the October
3 protest. After all, Tashiev and other Ata-Jurt
leaders supported Myrzakmatov during the mayoral
election in 2011. Yet, Myrzakmatov did not support
his long-standing ally during the October events.
Apparently, the mayor concluded that Kyrgyzstan's
current government is strong enough that a new
revolution would not be successful at this time.
Ethnic Uzbeks in southern Kyrgyzstan, on
the other hand, consider the muted public reaction
to the arrest of Zhaparov, Tashiyev and Mamitov to
be a reflection of a decline in the Kyrgyz
nationalist movement. Tashiyev is one of most
notorious nationalists in Kyrgyzstan and so his
arrest may actually mollify ethnic relations in
the republic. "The weak [public] reaction to the
arrest of the lawmakers shows that as a result of
the parliamentary election in 2010, a balance
between different regions [not ethnic groups] had
been reached. Now, the regional elite solve their
problems in the parliament," Dr. Sergei Abashin,
the head of the Central Asia Department of the
Russian Institute of Ethnology, told Jamestown on
October 15. According to the researcher, prior to
2010, the parliament was not a field of political
struggle, and problems were being resolved in the
streets. However, according to Abashin, this last
attempt by parliamentarians to stir up street
protests indicates that the regional balance
created after 2010 may still not be entirely
stable.
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