…especially right now in Kyrgyzstan, it seems.

Last week, both the head of Kyrgyzstan’s National Security Council under Askar Akaev, Bolot Djanuzakov, and Russian political scientist Aleksandr Knyazev were attacked near their homes on the night of December 9. Knyazev has been critical of the Kyrgyz government (you can find his work on his website), and he claims that his attackers said that the assault was for his “politics.”

Via CPJ, Gazeta.ru reports that several Russian analysts and journalists who report for Russian publications received threatening letters this week saying, “Knyazev wouldn’t listen the first time. Listen, we warned you. Leave our Kyrgyzstan and don’t meddle in our lives.” A reporter for BaltInfo, Aleksandr Evgrafov received the message in the form of a beating, during which he was told not to write “bad things” about Kyrgyzstan and shouldn’t try to rehabilitate former Kyrgyz officials.

And it’s not just Russians who are being targeted in this latest round of attacks on critics and independent voices in the media. The Osh Shamy received a new year’s card containing a threatening message and a bullet.

The letter said: “Your lies do not cost anything. But they might cost you something though — your youth. This is our New Year’s Eve announcement. The other two [bullets] are in the AK-47’s magazine. For now, consider this the most humane attitude towards you. But those who do not appreciate [our message] will be punished.”

One of the paper’s journalists, Kubanychbek Joldoshev was beaten in early November.

Routine attacks on the press or former officials are sadly not a surprise for Kyrgyzstan anymore, but attacks on Russian analysts and journalists, critics or not, and a night letter campaign seem like a worrying new development.

Something seems to be afoot in Kyrgyzstan — after another slaying of a journalist (the third this year) and the rearranging of the government that put the President’s son into a leading role, the Ata-Meken (Fatherland) party is speaking out:

Ata-Meken opposition party disseminated the statement of its leader Omurbek Tekebaev, where he blames Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiev in the violation of number of constitutional norms and unlawful seizure of power through the change of constitution.

Ata-Meken notes that reforms of Kurmanbek Bakiev uncovered the purpose of his politics: to strengthen personal control via rude violations of Constitution and laws of Kyrgyzstan with open ignorance of public opinion.

Tekebaev says that Bakiev went beyond his commission, appropriating authority and establishing five independent from each other institutes, united under president’s institutes whereas constitution says that President’s activity is maintained by President’s administration.

But this may not be as spontaneous a protest as it first appears — indeed, it seems to have been in the works for a while now:

During a visit to the United States from December 10 to 19, the leader the Kyrgyz Ata Meken opposition party, Omurbek Tekebayev, his colleagues, and representative of the For Justice movement repeatedly mentioned a plan to challenge President Kurmanbek Bakiyev this March by organizing crowds across the country. From the criticism and vigor they expressed in their numerous meetings in Washington, D.C., and New York, one could see that Tekebayev and his fellow oppositionists were determined to topple Bakiyev as early as spring or at least before the next presidential elections preliminarily scheduled for 2010.

The governmental rearrangement certainly provides good cover for the opposition, who continue to tap into a narrative of usurped power, but Tekebayev is not without his own flaws:

When this was posted, Tekebayev appeared to still be in custody, and he reportedly denied that he had anything to do with the heroin found in his baggage. Tekebayev, instead, has insisted that this was a provocation engineered by his political enemies in Kyrgyzstan. Furthermore, various political figures in Kyrgyzstan have backed Tekebayev’s assertion that the entire incident must have been a “set-up,” including Edil Baisalov (leader of the Coalition of NGOs for Democracy and Civil Society), Roza Otunbayeva (former Foreign Minister and co-leader of the Asaba party), and parliamentarian Temur Sariyev.

Let’s try something different today. A big part of some folks’ frustration with getting involved in Central Asian happenings is that they have a difficult time jumping in to the deep-end of the subject matter that gets covered here. To remedy that, I’m going to try to explain some trends in energy policies within Central Asia…using lyrics of Bob Dylan’s Subterranean Homesick Blues.

The Man in the Coon Skin Cap / In the big pen / wants eleven dollar bills / you only got ten
Any of the large energy projects that are going to, by definition, require a whole lot of investment. None of the -stans would be able to drum up enough capital by their own governments alone. They are all just branded as more-or-less inept, blundering, kelptocracies by people who are ignorant of the area. And this won’t change without the opportunities that real investment will afford. But the IMF-esque sources of money tend to come with the sorts of conditions that can cripple a developing country. Check that link…note how the astute writer notes that Central Asia is between South Asia and East Asia. Unfortunately, the IMF has really put the screws to the folks they want to help. In their 2009 projection, they note that “In contrast [to the rest of the countries], Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan are projected to register robust growth in 2009…” So the three countries with the least IMF support are the ones weathering the global depression the most. Hmm. Fortunately, China, India, the Aga Khan Foundation, and Iran would be more than ready to fund projects that the IMF won’t.

Maggie comes fleet foot / Face full of black soot / Talkin’ that the heat put / Plants in the bed but
China’s pollution is pretty much the stuff of legends at this point. Any project they get a part of in Central Asia will likely be gargantuan, but it’ll also lead to who-knows-what sort of consequences. I’m actually returning from an energy conference where one of the keynote speakers praised that “China is a country run by engineers while America is a country run by lawyers.” That statement can be parsed in many ways, but it does sort of explain some of the more awkward parts of China’s Central Asian policies. Who knows what would happen if policies like that started happening in the Fergana Valley. But as glaciers melt and the Fergana becomes that much more fertile, especially relative to the rest of Central Asia), it could become the Next Big Economic Region.

You don’t need a weather man / To know which way the wind blows
OK, this is sort of a stretch, lyrics-wise, but Central Asia is home to some of the flattest stretches of the flattest land on Earth. As such, it makes a pretty good sandbox for emerging wind-power technology. Mongolia has gotten a pretty decent start, but its a country with low energy usage…it can support those sort of possibilities. It will be really interesting to see what happens with Uzbekistan’s experimentation with wind power. It’s another country that is a pretty big energy importer (as well as water importer) for the region that badly needs to diversify. Wind power is too expensive to be practical now, but I’m open to anyone who could prognosticate the future of wind power in Uzbekistan better than I. Again, depending on the practicality of wind power, it could become just as important as hydropower is for Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Any frame of energy independence for the steppe states would seem to change future relations between the water importers and exporters as related to dam-building.

Lookin’ for a new fool / Don’t follow leaders / Watch the parkin’ meters
Carbon Sequestration is the new big thing in the energy world. Or at least was at the energy conference, which was led by Big Coal…sequestration allows them to keep doing what they are doing without any changes, just burying stuff and hoping it will go away (just plants are not enough to sequester the sort of CO2 being thrown up there). But even experts are skeptical about it, mostly because nobody has any clue whatsoever at what the long-term effects are of shoving noxious gasses far underneath the surface. Central Asia is a long way from US Voters, though, and projects like this get serious consideration…because what’s the Tien Shan from New York? If the opportunity comes to get a sweetheart deal from some corporation in exchange for the opportunity to do carbon sequestration in the Kazakh or Turkmen gas fields, I would be skeptical, to say the least. Unless this turns out wonderfully or something.

The pump don’t work / ‘Cause the vandals took the handles
It’s not related to Central Asia per se, but it’s worth quoting John Robb’s fuzzy math at length:

ROI (return on investment) for Nigeria’s MEND. Four years of attacks that disrupted one million barrels a day of production (on average) = ~ 1.4 billion barrels disrupted. Direct costs at an average price of ~$70 a barrel and a $20 extraction cost to Nigerian kleptocrats and their corporate allies = $70 billion. Impact of the loss of 1 m barrels a day on the world, assuming a ~$10 premium due to the loss and ~80m barrels a day of global output = $800 m a day or $1.17 trillion. Loss of global economic output due to the premium = ~.5% of $50 trillion global GDP = $0.75 trillion. Total cost = ~$2 trillion. Cost of attacks = ~$1 m. ROI = 200 million %.

ROI = Return on Investment. MEND essentially costs the global economy $200,000,000 for every $1 they spend. I’m sure that the Taliban/Haqqani/IMU/what-have-you have numbers similar to that in their accounts…maybe I should just ask Abu Walid al Masri. At that rate of return, this is less of an insurgency, more of a social and economic revolution.

So hopefully that’s some stuff to chew on, and it should be enough fuel for many blog posts down the road. But one of my favorite quotes about historiography is Philip Roth’s “The terror of the unforeseen is what the science of history hides, turning a disaster into an epic.”

The study of Central Asia is just so fascinating because there are so many open-ended questions that could be answered in a hundred different ways. The young people (myself included) of all educational, ethnic, national, or whatever backgrouns who are getting in on the bottom floor now have the opportunity to do incredible things in the region.

It’s hard to call this stuff news.  When I share the news, I like to think it’s surprising or somewhat unprecedented, or at the very least, not completely predictable.  But, well… here it is.

Item: Military Spending

The US continues to fund development in Kyrgyzstan.  It’s nice to have a record of this stuff, so that the next time Kyrgyzstan threatens to kick us out, we can point back and say, “We’ll leave, but we’re taking our quadrunners and ambulances with us!”  Interestingly enough, Spain and France seem to have been kicked off the Manas Base.  Perhaps this is a not-so-shrewd attempt to play the same game already won against the US war-budgeteers.

Item: A River ran through It

Another day, another dam.  Kyrgyzstan is going ahead with the construction of Kambarata-2 on the Naryn River.  Something has been in the works for about 3o years, but with a new Russian loan, progress seems more certain.  What this will mean for the power situation in Kyrgyzstan is anyone’s guess.  The only sure loser will be the Syr Darya and the North Aral, though it’s impossible to predict the exact impact the dam will have.  Russia is generously allowing repayment to stretch on until 2050.  Is it wrong that I sometimes wonder how many Central Asian states will remain in their present form at that distant date?

Item: Power Overwhelming

[insert bad StarCraft joke here]

Two news reports, one story, two slants.  China’s Xinhua is focusing on the new cabinet in Kyrgyzstan, whereas the Associated Press points out the new streamlining that came into being with the cabinet increases and consolidates the President’s powers even more.  Bakiev’s republic may be weak compared to Kazakhstan, but his power over the country may be comparable.

The map shows Isfara [Исфара] and the “A” is Vorukh, both cities in Tajikistan, though one is in an enclave inside Kyrgyzstan.  The area is part of Central Asia’s most densely populated zone, the Fergana Valley.

Last week there was a shootout in the Fergana Valley.  The Valley is one of the most complex geographic/political divisions that can be found on our globe today, and the borders are difficult for foreigners to traverse, but porous as a seive for local merchants and contraband smugglers… and elements less savory than that.

The BBC covered the story [with an appalling map] after four “militants” were killed Sunday the 18th,  in Isfara, Tajikistan.  Isfara lies in the nexus of sevaral borders, being a short drive from Quqon, Uzbekistan and Batken in Kyrgyzstan.  Four suspects were arrested in connection with the killing in Vorukh, a Tajikistan enclave of Kyrgyzstan.  The story does not mention the ethnic background of the men killed or arrested, but that they are believed to be members of the IMU.  RFE/RL added the following day that the enclave had been surrounded by Kyrgyz border guards, which is interesting.  Are the military/police forces working together?  My conclusion [jumped to, of course] is that if there is one thing Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan can agree on, it’s that Uzbeks and the IMU are subjects best approached from a common front.

Now, Dawn.com put out a story the same day as the BBC one, suggesting that the militants were “trapped” in Vorukh for a week, with the aid of the Kyrgyz border guards.  They also remind their readers that the IMU is linked to al Qaeda.  And also…

Tajikistan sent troops into the volatile Rasht Valley region near the border with Afghanistan earlier this year amid reports that militants were using Tajik territory to cross from Afghanistan into the heart of Central Asia.

Extremist groups were largely pushed out of Tajikistan after the end of the country’s 1990s civil war, in which tens of thousands of people died.

Mountainous Tajikistan, the poorest former Soviet republic, shares a porous 1,340-kilometres border with war-ravaged Afghanistan.

The movements and actions of border guards probably had an effect on the latest UNHCR request that Tajikistan keep its border with Afghanistan OPEN.  This may seem counter-intuitive, but the UNHCR is urging this in order to aid the movement of Aghan refugees into Tajikistan… something itself that deserves more attention.

Central Asia is convenient term, but what does it mean?  For Registan.net, it often stretches south to include Afghanistan, east to include Xinjiang, and north to include Kazakhstan.  Kazakhstan might seem a natural inclusion, but in the Soviet Union it was considered apart, and maps that included it were generally labeled “Kazakhstan and Central Asia.”  [Казахстан и Средная Aзия]

Still, the five former Union Republics of the Soviet Union that make up most of Turkistan [Түркiстан in Kazakh] have a lot in common.  And yet, like siblings close in age they are perennially at odds, and only united by powers from without.

There is an excellent article on this meme as it manifested most recently within the SCO over at RFE/RL.  The SCO and the accompanying CSTO have been on rocky ground for the past several years, though neither was originally a strong organization.

The states of Central Asia have been known to frequently tout their close relations though pledges of eternal friendship. And, aside from Turkmenistan, they take part in regional groupings such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and Collection Security Treaty Organization (CSTO).

They are both attempts to form unity in a region torn apart by individualistic and opportunistic exploitations run by governments wholly entwined in national business interests.  There is a similar story focusing on the Uzbekistan/USA/CSTO relationship over at the Asia Times.  Here’s an excerpt, but read the whole thing:

Unsurprisingly, Moscow has prioritized its ties with Bishkek and Dushanbe. Although Uzbekistan is a much bigger country, from the perspective of the Afghan problem (and regional security), Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan are vital assets. A base in southern Kyrgyzstan enables Moscow to hold the region’s jugular veins, apart from insulating Bishkek and Dushanbe from their Uzbek Big Brother. Kazakhstan has acquiesced with the Russian move.

Reuters via the New York Times chimes in as well, pointing out that the thaw between the USA and Uzbekistan has forced Uzbekistan to drift out of Moscow’s sphere of influence.  This offers the beginning of an explanation for Uzbekistan’s harsh criticism of Russia’s planned military build-up of southern Kyrgyzstan.  Naturally, Kyrgyzstan is hoping to have some protection from their Uzbek Big Brother, and has responded in kind to Uzbekistan’s protests.

Proof that the issue is more complex than it at first appears, Russia has actually stepped in to placate Uzbekistan.  Kyrgyzstan’s President Bakiev even stressed that the new military installation would not be a ‘base,’ but a training center for anti-terrorism, something useful for the region as a whole.  I don’t expect this to convince anyone, and the recent events at Khanabad at the Uzbek/Kyrgyz border are definitely the elephants in the room.

These people just can’t get a break.

Kyrgyzstan’s police detained two Uighur community leaders after they accused China of “state terrorism” at a rally on Monday and called for an independent investigation of last month’s clashes in neighbouring Xinjiang.

About 500 Uighurs gathered at a building on the outskirts of the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek with photographs posted to the walls showing what they said was abuse of their kinfolk in China.

The pictures portrayed people being beaten up and held at gunpoint as well as unconscious or dead people lying in the streets.

There are rumors the Uighur protesters were forced to disperse even though they had gathered in a private chaikhana, or teahouse. While the Kyrgyz ombudsman Tursunbek Akun has secured their release, that doesn’t make the intimidation any less real. Message received: protesting China’s policies in Kyrgyzstan gets one thrown into prison.

Uzbekistan is stepping up its criticism of Russia’s plan to open a second military base in Kyrgyzstan, this one to be placed near Uzbekistan’s border in the Ferghana Valley. It has stepped up the rhetoric, claiming that the new base would destabilize the region and provoke extremists.

“The implementation of such projects on complex and unpredictable territory, where the borders of three Central Asian republics directly converge, may give impetus to the strengthening of militarization processes and initiate all kinds of nationalistic confrontations,” the Uzbek statement asserted. “Also, it could lead to the appearance of radical extremist forces that could lead to serious destabilization this vast region.”

All of the analysis is pretty spot-on in the source article. Uzbekistan fears a loss of influence over Kyrgyzstan and is couching its opposition to the base in terms of countering terrorism and promoting stability. Since this is a CSTO base, one can’t help but wonder how long until Uzbekistan leaves the organization. Regardless of how it reacts, the Uzbek government probably shouldn’t expect too much diplomatic backing against Russia on this one. As far as the US goes, besides not wanting to be seen arguing against foreign bases in Kyrgyzstan so soon after a late-in-the-game deal kept Manas open, the Afghanistan mission gets quite a bit of quiet help from Russia.

This and many more photographs are available courtesy our friends at neweurasia.net.

Tolkun Umaraliev says the opposition candidates claim the election in Kyrgyzstan to be illegal.

There is a confusion among media, both local and foreign, that candidates Nazaraliev and Atambaev have withdrawn their candidacies. However, both Nazaraliev and Atambaev have several times stated that according to the law on elections, they cant withdraw their candidacies during the election day. They are just considering this election corrupt, and want it to be reheld.

There’s video, too:

That’s Omurbek Tekebaev, calling the Kyrgyz government criminal and declaring “war” on current president Kurmabnek Bakiev. He has good reason to think so—in 2006 he was basically framed at the Bishkek airport.

There is a lot of internet chatter about supposed fraud.

Blive.kg, one of the video servers in Kyrgyz internet domain, has several videos showing the violations of election norms, including opening of polling stations before arrival of observers, ballot stuffingand carousel voting. As Blive is not accessible outside of Kyrgyzstan, I downloaded ‘norms violations videos’ from there and uploaded in YouTube. But the problem is that one cannot really prove that all these movies were taken during the 2009 presidential elections.

There are also videos of so-called “carousel-voting,” where groups go to different polling stations using different sets of IDs, and election observers arriving on site to find ballots already in the ballot box.

Topchubek Turgunaliev, an opposition politician who has spent a lot of time fighting electoral fraud, has alleged that there are large numbers of dead people on the voter rolls. Even though he no longer wants to be considered for President, former Prime Minister Almazbek Atambaev has lead much of the charge against the elections. A former Prime Minister, he accused officials of election fraud and announced he was quitting the race shortly after learning that one of his local campaign managers had been detained. He’s also alleged that an additional 20-30 “opposition members” have been arrested in Issyk-Kul.

Kurmanbek Bakiev, however, seems to have squeaked through, though maybe not with the reported 67% margin. The New York Times ran a depressing story today about how the U.S. goal is to look the other way, as they’re too excited about getting Manas back to rock to boat too much on those pesky human rights abuses.

Obviously we don’t know for certain that there was specifically voter fraud, in part because most of the observers seemed to have given up and left early (their report will be interesting). We do know, however, there was widespread intimidation beforehand, and there are certainly indications that some forms of voter fraud were widespread and not just limited to somewhere like Bishkek. It’s still early, and it’s just turning morning in Kyrgyzstan, so there will probably be a lot more news today. A good place to keep up is the #kyrgyzelections tag on Twitter. It doesn’t garner the same amount of attention as Iran or Michael Jackson, but it’s a good source for news.

This is now the second post-Soviet ally whose abuses the U.S. has remained officially silent about in the last few months (the other, obviously, is Georgia). I’m no bleeding heart, but it is interesting that, as much as the U.S. makes hay about human rights and vote fraud when it suits a simplistic good versus evil narrative, it also prefers to look away when its friends behave even kind of similarly. The U.S. doesn’t have to walk on egg shells, it just needs to point out that it’s not comfortable or happy with these kinds of things. Baby steps.

Update: The OSCE has officially said the Kyrgyz election “failed to meet key OSCE commitments, despite some positive elements.” Before the elections, OSCE observers saw “instances of obstruction of opposition campaign events as well as pressure and intimidation of opposition supporters.” Then, on election day, there were “many problems and irregularities, including ballot box stuffing, inaccuracies in the voter lists, and multiple voting.” But hey, at least they had multiple candidates!

Russia wants a new CSTO base in Kyrgyzstan near Osh, and it is hard not to interpret its desire as having something to do with the decision to keep the airbase transit center at Manas open to US and NATO forces. It is probably a mistake to interpret this desire as a response to Russia’s “failure” to keep the US out of Kyrgyzstan — Russia has, after all, agreed to allow the US to transit goods bound for Afghanistan and shares NATO’s desire to keep the Taliban from returning to power. It is far more likely that Russia is exploiting the perception that it was beat and/or had to make concessions to the West to quiet any potential objections from the US or EU to its attempt for a new base in Kyrgyzstan. And Russia got what it wants. The US say that any new Russian base is entirely Kyrgyzstan’s business.

Uzbekistan, however, is far less interested in Russia setting up a base so close to its border. Analysts interviewed in EurasiaNet’s story say that Uzbekistan is concerned that a larger Russian presence so close to Kyrgyzstan’s border with Uzbekistan limits its ability to intimidate and influence the Kyrgyz government. While many may be wary about increased Russian influence in Central Asia, the presence of Russian soldiers near Osh may have the very positive effect of keeping the Uzbek government from launching operations across the border and asserting control over contested territory.

US Under Secretary of State William Burns, meanwhile, told the Uzbek government that the US wants better ties with Uzbekistan, a message President Islom Karimov welcomed.

“We view your visit as a confirmation of the United States’ readiness to develop relations with Uzbekistan on a constructive and pragmatic basis taking into account the long-term interests of both countries,” Russia’s Interfax news agency quoted him as saying.

Central Asia policy is something that has proven difficult enough for US administrations in the past. Reengagement with Uzbekistan ups the difficulty plenty, especially with the wrinkle a new Russian base provides. Over at Danger Room, Nathan Hodge gives the unexamined conventional wisdom caution against engagement with Uzbekistan while discussing US transit agreements in Central Asia. (Well, to be fair, he’s summarizing Deirdre Tynan’s report on the subject.)

With Manas now back in play, it may not be worth cozying up too much to Uzbek dictator Islam Karimov.

There is a mention of current events and an attempted material explanation of why closer ties are unnecessary, but it’s still just a rehash of the “Don’t have relations with dictators; dictators are bad mmmmmm’kay?” argument. As my derisive description indicates, I think that’s a silly argument. You can’t draw a straight line from Gwadar north to the Arctic without hitting a country run by unsavory types, and the US can’t write off dealing with the entire region.

However, there is a very real danger lurking in the shadows for the United States if a closer relationship is built. In the 2001-2005 round of US-Uzbekistan relations, each party had different expectations of the other and seemed not to communicate these expectations clearly. The Uzbek government’s primary concern is regime survival, its and its second is becoming the most powerful actor in Central Asia. Its disillusion with the United States from 2003 to 2005 had a great deal to do with the perception that the US did not support the Uzbek government 100% against threats to the regime. The Uzbek government was able for a time though to manipulate Western partners, and this is the danger that the Obama administration needs to watch out for if it wants closer ties to Tashkent.

Stabilizing Afghanistan trumps all other US interests in Central Asia at the moment. US-Uzbek relations are an important component in this. Goods can be transported over land via Uzbekistan, and Uzbek electricity powers parts of northern Afghanistan. The big danger in US-Uzbek relations is that the Uzbek government will use the importance of the Afghanistan mission to pull the US into enhancing the regime’s repressive capabilities and enhancing its strength in Central Asia. Especially iff Russia is intent on increasing its presence in the region, closer US-Uzbek ties only raise the stakes. Rather than worrying about vague psychic harm resulting from warmer US-Uzbek relations, we should be watching out for the very real pitfalls into which we have fallen in the past.