Thursday, April 06, 2006
Panic in the Streets of Bishkek, Pt. 2
So the character thus far missing from this lil' story is the current President of Kyrgyzstan, Kurmanbek Bakiev. Yes, Kyrgyzstan has a parliamentary system with a PM and a president. And, oddly, the President still retains the bulk of the political power. Yet Bakiev has been strangely quiet through this ordeal, allowing events to unfold as they may and staying a bit quiet until then. He gained his seat following last year's revolution and remains more or less the only person to have positively gained as a result of the uprising. (So far; many people here still hang on to the idea that things will be looking up soon enough. I'm less sure, simply due to the fact that these things seem to have historically taken a long time in other parts of the world. The US didn't really get the kinks out until...well...is Karl Rove in prison yet?)
Many of Bakiev's critics following the revolution claimed that he was continuing with business as usual. (Former President) Akayev and his family may not be in office and sucking the economy dry anymore, but the wealth and power isn't spreading too far afield in their absence, either. Those critics were somewhat quieted last month when Bakiev went unannounced onto the floor of Parliament and demanded of the legislators that they either get their act together regarding the embroiled budget debates or he would disband them all and hold open elections to fill their seats. A big move for a man of up to then questionable political might. (Aside from, you know, leading successful revolutions, I mean.) So what happened on Friday was both a surprise and another in a series of shocking political moves. Well, sort of anyway.
When E and I made our way to AUCA on Friday morning, we noticed a rather large number of marschutkas and cars parked along Frunze, the street running parallel to Abdumomunova, where both AUCA and Parliament sit. We walk along Frunze toward the university more or less everyday and usually find it essentially without traffic, much less rows and rows of cars and mini-buses parked along the roadside and up on the grass. So our curiosity was piqued, to say the least. When we crossed through the park and got onto Abdumomunova, we were greeted with a few bands of riot police and what appeared to be a makeshift cage constructed across the street from the parliament building, just in front of the Lenin statue I'm posing in front of over there in my profile picture at left. I was reminded of the Arrested Development episode where Lindsey sets off to protest the war (I think; maybe the destruction of the wetlands?) and winds up doing a wet t-shirt cage dance for the local police. I wondered aloud what the Kyrgyz equivalent might be but was shushed by Erin, ever the wiser of the two of us.
When we got into the school building there were rumors flying around about the upcoming events: Ryspek had assembled an army of supporters and they were coming to Bishkek to get their protest on! I heard he had 11,000 people! I heard they had guns! I heard about a guy one time who ate a hundred hard boiled eggs in one sitting! Oh, sorry, wrong game. Anyway, amidst the rumors and sketchy details, all that was really clear was Ryspek was pissed, he was coming to Bishkek, and he had a posse. Around 3:30, as we were sitting in the teachers' computer lab, the university sent out an alert that the building was to be cleared immediately and all students, faculty, and staff were to get somewhere safe as soon as possible, somewhere preferably more than ten feet from Parliament. The shit, as they say, was well through the fan and splattering about the room like water from a Wacky Wiggle. I don't know who says that either; just me, I guess. The point is: exodus!
When we got to the street, people were huddled in bunches, passing gossip and cigarettes and eyeing the neighboring Parliament building with a fair bit of worry. Everyone we ran into said essentially the same thing: "What are you still doing here? It is not safe. Go home!" So, we went home, Janika in tow. But first we made a pitstop at the bazaar around the corner so we'd have some food and drink to hold us over during what Erin dubbed the Revolution Rerun Party. The bazaar was packed, with people throwing elbows to get their hands on cucumbers and rotisserie chicken, clutching their bags in tight and scurrying with an alarming speed, given the usual stroll-on-the-beach pace of most pedestrians here.
We got home, we ate, and, because if there was any possibility for an anti-Westerner contingent to this revolution we wanted to give them every possible reason to hate us, we watched a fuzzy bootleg of Wedding Crashers. Around 8:00, Aida (#2, from the Social Research Center at the university) called to inform us that the protest had broken up peacefully and all was again well with the world, or at least the Bishkek part of the world. "The protest just broke up peacefully?" Erin asked. "Well," answered Aida #2, "President Bakiev went out and addressed them, told them to wait to see what happened with the appeal of the ruling, and off they went."
The man can move a crowd, that's for damn sure. Of course, he was flanked at the time by roughly a hundred armed guards and later went on television to say that some other high-ranking elected official should have also addressed the crowd (You hear that, Kulov? Yeah, I'm talking to you, buddy. You blew it!). But still, pretty sweet move, right? Maybe not. As Aida #2 said, Bakiev told the assembled to wait for the appeal ruling. The ruling came out Monday: Ryspek is allowed to run. The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that "the Judicial Collegium has decided to uphold the ruling of Bishkek's Birinchi May District Court dated April 2, 2006, on this case. The reviewing appeal by the representative of the Kyrgyz [Central Election Commission] has been rejected." The one that said Ryspek couldn't run because he didn't meet basic residency requirements. That one. It has been rejected. Pish-posh, law!
So maybe Bakiev isn't on the up-and-up after all. I'm not sure anyone actually ever thought he was. But having made men in office isn't always a bad thing. Just look at Providence. There's a reason it's called organized crime. (The protestors on Friday--a few hundred at the very least--were served lunch on paper plates by Ryspek's people and trucks showed up an hour later to clean up the trash. That's my kind of protest.) And if they operate somewhere within the scope of their prescribed responsibilities, well, so what, right? Right now it may be more important to get things done in this country than worry about occassional kick-backs to village leaders and the guy smuggling stereos in from China.
But what does all of this mean? Fledgling democracies take a bit longer to get off the ground than maybe we'd like. Well, we knew that. I hope we knew that, at least. Just as we know that it takes some time to get corruption out of the public sector. Just ask Chicago. Or, hell, ask the current administration in Washington. Or recent representatives in the UN. What all of this means in the end is, I think, we're just gonna have to be patient on getting these countries back on their feet. And with the CIS countries, especially those like Kyrgyzstan who benefited from a more hands-off approach from Moscow than some of the other Soviet republics, that they have a bright future behind them is only going to make patience a bit more difficult to muster. And with the World Bank threatening to pull out completely, that doesn't leave much wiggle room. I guess we'll just have to wait for someone to change the world. Any takers?
(I unconsciously used the word wiggle twice today! High five!)
Tags: Kyrgyzstan, Central Asia, Politics, Bishkek, Protest
Many of Bakiev's critics following the revolution claimed that he was continuing with business as usual. (Former President) Akayev and his family may not be in office and sucking the economy dry anymore, but the wealth and power isn't spreading too far afield in their absence, either. Those critics were somewhat quieted last month when Bakiev went unannounced onto the floor of Parliament and demanded of the legislators that they either get their act together regarding the embroiled budget debates or he would disband them all and hold open elections to fill their seats. A big move for a man of up to then questionable political might. (Aside from, you know, leading successful revolutions, I mean.) So what happened on Friday was both a surprise and another in a series of shocking political moves. Well, sort of anyway.
When E and I made our way to AUCA on Friday morning, we noticed a rather large number of marschutkas and cars parked along Frunze, the street running parallel to Abdumomunova, where both AUCA and Parliament sit. We walk along Frunze toward the university more or less everyday and usually find it essentially without traffic, much less rows and rows of cars and mini-buses parked along the roadside and up on the grass. So our curiosity was piqued, to say the least. When we crossed through the park and got onto Abdumomunova, we were greeted with a few bands of riot police and what appeared to be a makeshift cage constructed across the street from the parliament building, just in front of the Lenin statue I'm posing in front of over there in my profile picture at left. I was reminded of the Arrested Development episode where Lindsey sets off to protest the war (I think; maybe the destruction of the wetlands?) and winds up doing a wet t-shirt cage dance for the local police. I wondered aloud what the Kyrgyz equivalent might be but was shushed by Erin, ever the wiser of the two of us.
When we got into the school building there were rumors flying around about the upcoming events: Ryspek had assembled an army of supporters and they were coming to Bishkek to get their protest on! I heard he had 11,000 people! I heard they had guns! I heard about a guy one time who ate a hundred hard boiled eggs in one sitting! Oh, sorry, wrong game. Anyway, amidst the rumors and sketchy details, all that was really clear was Ryspek was pissed, he was coming to Bishkek, and he had a posse. Around 3:30, as we were sitting in the teachers' computer lab, the university sent out an alert that the building was to be cleared immediately and all students, faculty, and staff were to get somewhere safe as soon as possible, somewhere preferably more than ten feet from Parliament. The shit, as they say, was well through the fan and splattering about the room like water from a Wacky Wiggle. I don't know who says that either; just me, I guess. The point is: exodus!
When we got to the street, people were huddled in bunches, passing gossip and cigarettes and eyeing the neighboring Parliament building with a fair bit of worry. Everyone we ran into said essentially the same thing: "What are you still doing here? It is not safe. Go home!" So, we went home, Janika in tow. But first we made a pitstop at the bazaar around the corner so we'd have some food and drink to hold us over during what Erin dubbed the Revolution Rerun Party. The bazaar was packed, with people throwing elbows to get their hands on cucumbers and rotisserie chicken, clutching their bags in tight and scurrying with an alarming speed, given the usual stroll-on-the-beach pace of most pedestrians here.
We got home, we ate, and, because if there was any possibility for an anti-Westerner contingent to this revolution we wanted to give them every possible reason to hate us, we watched a fuzzy bootleg of Wedding Crashers. Around 8:00, Aida (#2, from the Social Research Center at the university) called to inform us that the protest had broken up peacefully and all was again well with the world, or at least the Bishkek part of the world. "The protest just broke up peacefully?" Erin asked. "Well," answered Aida #2, "President Bakiev went out and addressed them, told them to wait to see what happened with the appeal of the ruling, and off they went."
The man can move a crowd, that's for damn sure. Of course, he was flanked at the time by roughly a hundred armed guards and later went on television to say that some other high-ranking elected official should have also addressed the crowd (You hear that, Kulov? Yeah, I'm talking to you, buddy. You blew it!). But still, pretty sweet move, right? Maybe not. As Aida #2 said, Bakiev told the assembled to wait for the appeal ruling. The ruling came out Monday: Ryspek is allowed to run. The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that "the Judicial Collegium has decided to uphold the ruling of Bishkek's Birinchi May District Court dated April 2, 2006, on this case. The reviewing appeal by the representative of the Kyrgyz [Central Election Commission] has been rejected." The one that said Ryspek couldn't run because he didn't meet basic residency requirements. That one. It has been rejected. Pish-posh, law!
So maybe Bakiev isn't on the up-and-up after all. I'm not sure anyone actually ever thought he was. But having made men in office isn't always a bad thing. Just look at Providence. There's a reason it's called organized crime. (The protestors on Friday--a few hundred at the very least--were served lunch on paper plates by Ryspek's people and trucks showed up an hour later to clean up the trash. That's my kind of protest.) And if they operate somewhere within the scope of their prescribed responsibilities, well, so what, right? Right now it may be more important to get things done in this country than worry about occassional kick-backs to village leaders and the guy smuggling stereos in from China.
But what does all of this mean? Fledgling democracies take a bit longer to get off the ground than maybe we'd like. Well, we knew that. I hope we knew that, at least. Just as we know that it takes some time to get corruption out of the public sector. Just ask Chicago. Or, hell, ask the current administration in Washington. Or recent representatives in the UN. What all of this means in the end is, I think, we're just gonna have to be patient on getting these countries back on their feet. And with the CIS countries, especially those like Kyrgyzstan who benefited from a more hands-off approach from Moscow than some of the other Soviet republics, that they have a bright future behind them is only going to make patience a bit more difficult to muster. And with the World Bank threatening to pull out completely, that doesn't leave much wiggle room. I guess we'll just have to wait for someone to change the world. Any takers?
(I unconsciously used the word wiggle twice today! High five!)
Tags: Kyrgyzstan, Central Asia, Politics, Bishkek, Protest
