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WHAT FUTURE WILL KYRGYZSTAN CHOOSE?
SERGEY MASAULOV,
Director of the Institute for Strategic Analysis and Assessment under the President of the Kyrgyz Republic, Bishkek
The main issue that Kyrgyzstan will have to solve electing the President on July 23, 2009 is the country's future rather than a new person in President’s office. That’s why it is important to realize what options Kyrgyzstan will have.
What has Kyrgyzstan achieved before the elections? Kyrgyzstan’s image has recently changed: the major energy project, the solution to close down the American military base and the country’s readiness to actively participate in solving Afghanistan and the entire Central Asia’s problems made other players take Kyrgyzstan’s position into consideration.
It comes natural that such Kyrgyzstan’s “impudence” must be responded since nobody is interested in the players’ number increase in a “club” that was seemingly closed. Elections are the best opportunity to recover the status quo. It is not fortuitous that the first warning to the Kyrgyz authorities was given by some NGOs. The conclusion is simple: the withdrawal of the American military base will not be forgiven.
So, there is a need to give particular attention to potential projects that different interest groups seek to implement in Kyrgyzstan through bringing their presidential candidates to power.
Project 1 is a “ground for foreign games”. Within this project Kyrgyzstan acts as a floor where major geopolitical actors play with each other ignoring the weak Kyrgyzstan’s interests and views. As a matter of fact, this was the case until recently. In general the project implies foreign governance from several places, weak puppet regimes that often change and social, cultural and ethnic confrontation that is inflamed artificially.
Project 2 is the change of the existing system of relations in “Big Central Asia”. Kyrgyzstan is regarded as a ground or an area used for military or other purposes. In the long run it is planned to alter the Central Asian borders and create new states. Anyway, the project does not imply that Kyrgyzstan would be an independent player.
Project 3 is a “province of Big Kazakhstan” (or provinces of Big Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan). According to the project Kyrgyzstan becomes more and more dependent on Kazakhstan. In principle this is a way of delegating powers in the choice of a strategic way of development to a state that is close to Kyrgyzstan ethnically and mentally but more economically powerful than it is. Kazakhstan is a “retransmitter” of the Russian and Western ideas. This is a position of a state, which allows the state to patronize Kyrgyzstan, to assure the presence of the Kazakh bank capital and business projects in the country and to alter the borders with exchange of territories.
One can also assume an “Uzbek” project that implies strengthening of Uzbekistan’s influence in Kyrgyzstan via territorial expansion, Uzbekistan’s making higher demands of Kyrgyzstan in connection with the Uzbek population growth in the country’s south and control over Kyrgyzstan’s water resources.
Project 4 is “province of world Caliphate”. Experts consider the scenario of Kyrgyzstan’s joining an Islamic state by 2025.Islamic globalization can meet with mass support, especially when it comes to protection of spiritual values. It is not just a matter of external expansion. Kyrgyzstan has serious internal sources of the radical Islamism growth and, what is more, of political Islam growth. Those include impoverishment of the population because of inefficient reforms in the past, growth of protest attitudes as a consequence of long-term persecution of the Muslim population, which is expressed in the people’s wearing Islamic clothes, and enlargement of the traditional society sphere caused by unsuccessful attempts to turn the Kyrgyz society into “modern” one. The ruling regimes’ rhetoric, which is not backed by reforms, annoys the Muslim community. If the ideologized population is subjected to repressions, the Islamic underground will support the repressions’ victims and armed clashes will be unavoidable. It is necessary to take into consideration that major foreign actors also use Project 4.
Project 5 would be implemented within a Big Eurasian Project of Russia, Commonwealth of Independent States, Shanghai Cooperation Organization, Collective Security Treaty Organization, etc. Till now according to the project Kyrgyzstan was regarded as the former Soviet republic (the Kyrgyzstanis – as a part of the former Soviet people). The country is supposed to be a zone of influence and implementation of interests of Russia in Central Asia. When the Kyrgyz authorities depended on foreign assistance for a long time, Kyrgyzstan, according to the project, was regarded just as an area with its population. This could not be otherwise since we thought such things of ourselves!
Project 6 implies the foreign players’ using Kyrgyzstan as a springboardfor contacts with Central Asia to be developed economically, and becoming international influential players; the players’ seizure of Kyrgyzstan’s water resources and, maybe, even of a part of the country’s territory or taking direct control of it. Project 6 includes a project of making Kyrgyzstan a source of energy resources, which would be an alternative to the Russian source.
Project 7 is Kyrgyzstan is the Central Asian center of the “post-oil” world.
It is clear that there can be more projects and interest groups, but not fewer. One can easily understand what interest groups, agencies and even people are behind each project.
It is obvious that the U.S. losing control over the Kyrgyz authorities led to serious complications for the Pentagon. The Kyrgyz President’s words about “open doors” is a cold comfort – given the current situation the U.S. will have to come to terms with Kyrgyzstan, bargain with it and pay money to the country. The expenses for potential obligations undertaken after achievement of agreements are much higher than those for changing of obstinate politicians for the controllable ones, the more so because the schemes of non-military coups have been tested time and again – take, for example, Georgia and Ukraine. The fact that such coups create long-term chaos and confrontation in countries is welcomed by those who implement such projects – it is easier to control the weak politicians.
It is understandable that our neighbors are interested in such a weakening of Kyrgyzstan. Fortunately, we have no signs that such a project has been adopted at the governmental level. But the project must not be disregarded if to take into account objective alignment of forces and the radical groups’ attitudes.
The weakening of Kyrgyzstan, the lowering of its ambitions and its becoming an amorphous state again are the conditions of implementation of virtually all projects except the seventh one.
The Russian project seems to be the best of all foreign projects. But it also implies the absolute leadership of Russia itself as well as Russia’s major project partners – Kazakhstan, China and others. Kyrgyzstan’s role and weight in the project would be determined by its real geopolitical weight. The weak Kyrgyzstan has weak positions, the strong Kyrgyzstan has strong positions, respectively. The bottom line is Russia’s external partners would not spend their forces and resources on strengthening of Kyrgyzstan. Kyrgyzstan would have to do that by itself in any case.
Project 7, which is described in the recently published “The Policy of Kyrgyz President”, is absolutely acceptable to us. “The Policy of Kyrgyz President” is the only project that is aimed at strengthening Kyrgyzstan and that clearly depicts the desired future of Kyrgyzstan and Kyrgyzstan’s ways to the future.
The word “only” is used for this project because nobody has produced some other vision of Kyrgyzstan’s future not because other projects cannot exist. It is possible that the opposition will do that and then its actions will have sense and ideological foundation. For the time being the opposition’s criticism of the authorities resembles its attempts to come to power in order to take something from the public resources rather than to implement a project.
That’s why we believe that the discussion of strategies, and persons running for President must be viewed in the context of clashes of the future Kyrgyz projects rather than in the commonplace context: somebody saying something, somebody offending somebody, etc. In July we’ll choose Kyrgyzstan’s future rather than a person for presidency.
Great forces and enormous resources are going to be used during the presidential campaign, and only the society’s consolidation can be opposed to them. The conditions of the consolidation should become the main content of the campaign. In point of fact, this is a subject of haggle between the society and the candidates.
April 30, 2009
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