Alright, who opened Pandora's Box?

(photos from Reuters and Yahoo News)


Well, I guess we all knew something like this was going to happen. After 9 nine days of relatively peaceful anti-government protests in the center of Bishkek, where far fewer people than opposition organizers hoped for camped out in tents and yurts on Ala-Too square and the Old Square in front of Parliament, the shit finally hit the fan. I am sitting here in the secure confines of the UN Building, five blocks east of the White House and Ala Too Square, where just a few hours ago a skirmish broke out between a rowdy group of probably drunk protesters and the police in front of the White House. The police and interior ministry special forces then decided to make their endgame move and push all the protestors out of Ala-Too Square once and for all with the help of stun grenades, tear gas, batons and attack dogs. We heard the thunderous concussion grenades going off as we dined at one of the posh Chtyri Saison (Four Seasons) restaurant a few blocks away. I immediately knew what it was. My personal introduction to these satanic noise bombs last November left an indelible imprint on my nervous system.

Oddly enough we barely blinked and continued to eat our okroshka soup and salmon as if it was just another round of wedding night fireworks going off, so ubiquitous here in the warmer months. I guess we were trying not to think about the possibility that armageddon had beguun. Yet across the park in Ala-Too Square, under the the pained gaze of the towering Erkindik, a statue of a woman lifting up a tunduk (national symbol), cheerfully lit by colored string lights, chaos reigned.
As we watch later that night the raw footage broadcast on the independent Pyramid TV, a group of rowdy and probably besotted protesters attempted to approach the gates of the White House. Some people started throwing rocks and bottles at the police. The debate raging in the aftermath was whether this provocation was pre-meditated by the opposition organizers, or by some pro-Bakiev provacateurs, who had certainly been active throughout the weeklong demonstrations, as an excuse to crackdown and end the protests once and for all. While an opposition leader likened the alleged provocation by undercover government thugs to the Nazi's planned burning of Reichstag in Berlin, the Kyrgyz government has issued criminal charges against the opposition leaders for purposefully causing civil disorder.

However it started, it ended with a steady and disciplined march of waves of armored swat police launching stun grenades and tear gas into the main square. Some resisted, others mostly just sheepishly trudged back onto Kievskaya street behind the square. Especially eery was watching the footage of the last holdouts of the opposition cowering on the stage, screaming helplessly into the PA system as streaming gas canisters reigned down around them. Soon enough they too joined the other demonstrators now scattering out in the neighborhood behind the square (our neighborhood!) and engaging in running street battles with police, occasionally stopping and smashing passing cars with bricks and sticks.

The police pursued, firing rubber bullets and more teargas up and down every surrounding street. As we drove home from dinner we had to keep turning around to avoid the masses of protesters occupying the streets as I had to also swerve around rocks, bricks and gas canisters strewn around the streets. At this point its every man for themselves as other drivers screamed through intersections to avoid getting stopped and smashed by protestors. Meanwhile, within an hour of making the final putsch of the square, the police had managed to dismantle the yurt village set up by protesters nine days earlier, and the queer emptiness of Ala Too square was quickly restored.
(my photos the morning of 4/19, view the rest here)




All in all it was an efficient operation to clean out the square and end the protests, though several protesters and police alike were treated for a variety of injuries, one deemed grave, and the resulting street battles resulted in some property damage and some looting, mostly of the poor little kiosks that line every street. The next day life around the American University where I work in downtown Bishkek strangely returned to normal. No yurt village outside parliament, no more incessant echo of speechifying and Kyrgyz pop music, no more multi-colored flag parade blockades around the parliament. Just bluebird skies and steady hum of students stressing over their term papers and final exams.

As the dust settles the political situation seems to have notched down from crisis mode, while political fallout has yet to seem clear. President Bakiev is still in power, and probably stronger than ever after soundly sweeping away the protests without too many casualties. There was a hunger striker who seems to have died of mysterious causes, and the Governer of Naryn province has been blamed by the President, whether the governor was just used as a scapegoat it may never be known. But perhaps the biggest casualty may be ex-Prime Minister Felix Kulov's career. Kulov, who uncompromisingly led a fractured opposition movement, was widely suspected of using the whole movement to just get himself back to power after he was unceremoniously booted out by the Parliament early in the year. Now it seems he overplayed his hand by annoying the local populace, dividing the opposition even further, and essentially achieving none of his goals, including the ouster of his former tandem partner, President Bakiev. Constitutional reforms are going on thanks to the initiative of the current Prime Minister and former opposition leader Almaz Atambaev, who Bakiev cunningly installed to take the steam out of the opposition a few weeks before the protests began. As the Prime Minister even said, most everyone dislikes Bakiev with a passion, but he's still president and changes must come through the compromise within the system, not from the street.

It's been said that the Kyrgyz have developed a perverted sense of what democracy really is after street protests in March 2005 lead to the Tulip Revolution. Thereafter they thought all changes in government could be made from the street. While an impressive compromise on a new constitution was reached at the height of the protests last November, all that noise was finally for naught as Bakiev and his supporters in Parliament managed to roll back all the changes just before the end of the year. After the failure of this latest round of protests, the Kyrgyz may be finally disabused of this notion of street democracy, which has also devolved into a farcical play casted with young, unemployed village men paid with money, vodka and a vacation from their otherwise mundane lives in the economically depressed rural areas of the country. Now the question is whether democracy as a whole has a chance in this fragile country, or whether Bakiev will finally be emboldened to turn it into a police state to safeguard his grip on power like his corrupt presidential friends in all the other Central Asian republics. One thing is for sure, Kyrgyz politics will continue to be one of the more interesting soap operas in the region.

Here we go again...

Babushkas for Peace shout for stability, unity and the preservation of the government as they stroll past opposition supporters in the Old Square and then by the American University. Word was this 'grassroots' movement was paid to come up from Osh to urge the citizens not to cause 'instability.' But really, you don't want to mess with these ladies, they are tough.
Anti-president supporters of Felix Kulov's "United Front" movement stage a hunger strike in the Old Square in front of the parliament. Good ol' Lenin looks on from his perch in the background.

Well, it's springtime in Kyrgyzstan, so of course it's time for more... anti-president rallies! (see photos here) On the eve of the planned April 11th demonstrations, all seems eerily quiet in town. Nary a soul on the street. Well, it is 2 a.m., but it seems unusually calm, perhaps the calm before the storm. All our neighbors' cars have disappeared from the courtyard, meaning they drove them to secured lots out of fear of vandalism. All the tv channels have been shut off and replaced 'Poltergeist' static. And the Promzona Rock Club was near empty, even for Tuesday Jazz night. Even the shelves of the local "magazin" (corner store) were running low on vodka. Yes, revolution is in the air again, or at least rumors of one. During the academic senate meeting at the university, the decision was made to shut down the school for the next 3 days. Our vice president was told by opposition movement leaders he could expect 60-80 yurts to be set up by anti-Bakiev supporters on the square in front of the university by Wednesday, and for 50-100,000 people take to the streets of Bishkek. And up to 20,000 pro-Bakiev supporters were supposedly on their way up from the southern cities of Osh and Jalalabad, both strongholds of support for the beleaguered President Bakiev. While the opposition, now led by scorned former Prime Minister Felix Kulov, has more or less united at the last minute to take the streets and call for real constitutional reform and an early presidential election, the president's administration is none the wiser after November's rallies and has rallied (see "coerced participation") thousands of their own to defend 'stability' and 'national unity' and block any moves by the opposition to initiate a repeat of the 2005 Tulip Revolution and force Bakiev out of the Bielee Dom (White House). The language on both sides has been more strident than in rallies past, and even an attempt by Bakiev to split the opposition by signing up one their leaders, Almaz Atambaev, to be the new prime minister has failed prevent the main opposition movements from uniting to once again put pressure on Bakiev to accede to their demands. While the nation was hopeful after an agreement on a new constitution was reached at the end of the November rallies, Bakiev pulled a fast one and rewrote the changes in his favor while the parliament was out of action before the end of December. Then he managed to get his pesky Prime Minister Felix Kulov out of office so a more acquiescent 'insider' could take his place. Ever since Kulov has been scheming to lead a new united front against the government. Only public credibility rating has taken a beating since he failed to do anything to stamp out corruption and the excesses of the Bakiev administration while he was in power. It's just another chapter in the incestuous saga of the Kyrgyz political soap opera, and while most still yearn for true democratic reforms, they are also sick of hearing the same garbage come out of the same mouths with little concern for the welfare of the country. Well, stay tuned... the fun begins Wednesday when rampant speculation about the violent potential of this political volcano gets validated or not.

Smooglianka, Moldovanka

Along with three fellow students in the American University of Central Asia Russian Language Program I sang the classic Soviet war film song, "Smooglianka Moldovanka" during Russian Langague Week in the main hall at AUCA in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. The song is about falling in love with an olive-skinned Moldavian girl (Smooglianka Moldovanka) who ends up fighting with the Moldavian partisan resistance against the Nazis. Everybody in the former Soviet Union knows this tune; It's like "Old McDonald" in the States.
I'm standing on the far left of the stage, right under the portraits of Lenin and Marx on the wall of the auditorium. They would have been proud of us singing this song in the former headquarters of the Supreme Soviet of the Kyrgyz Soviet Socialist Republic. Though we only had two practices as a whole group, we brought the house down with this well known show tune. Well, enjoy my brief career in a Russian men's choir.