Unreliable Allies
BISHKEK/BERLIN/WASHINGTON (Own report) - Political advisors of the International Crisis Group are criticizing western policy toward Central Asia. In a recently published study, the globally active think tank considers that the overthrow of the government in Kyrgyzstan shows that Central Asia's authoritarian regimes are incapable of establishing reliable relations in their countries. Their "semblance of calm" is, in the short run, quite "attractive" to the West, seeking to realize its geostrategic objectives in the competition for raw materials, but it does not correspond to the long-term interests of western influence. Actually the International Crisis Group has for years been warning of a possible collapse of the Bishkek government, as it occurred this year - to the disadvantage of the western countries position in Central Asia. Even Berlin has been placing its bets on the authoritarian regimes of the region, to obtain access to the natural gas deposits and to secure its military transports to Afghanistan - and is relying on them in its efforts to win new influence in Kyrgyzstan currently rocked by a bloody unrest.
Crisis Analysis
The overthrow of the Kyrgyz government last April has provoked the International Crisis Group's criticism of western policy toward Central Asia. This organization, founded in 1995, prepares comprehensive analyses of numerous conflict and crisis regions around the world. It is primarily financed by US-American foundations and western nations and well anchored in the respectable western political establishment. The organization's criticism never places western efforts to gain influence into question, but is aimed at the West's concrete methods used, if these threaten to jeopardize western strategic long-term interests. In the case of Central Asia, the International Crisis Group concludes that support for authoritarian regimes does not serve the West's long-term interests in having reliable relations in this geostrategic highly important region, rich in natural resources. The organization uses Kyrgyzstan as its example.
The One-Family State
The recently overthrown government, headed by Kurmanbek Bakiyev, has been under the critical observation of the International Crisis Group since it came to power in 2005. Whereas the western media usually reported positively on the new government that came to power through a putsch - "Tulip Revolution" - with the help of western governments, the International Crisis Group was skeptical from the very beginning, calling Kyrgyzstan a "faltering state" already at the end of 2005.[1] Just one year later the group considered the country to be "on the edge".[2] A recent report on the situation in Kyrgyzstan, published just after Bakiyev was overthrown last April, provides the basis for their skepticism. According to this report, in the aftermath of the putsch, the Bakiyev clan had systematically taken all of the decisive political and economic positions which induced the Crisis Group to dub the Kyrgyzstan administration under Bakiyev's rule, a "one family state". There was no western protest. According to this report, even the obvious murder of one of Bakiyev's adversaries provoked "but few commentaries from western diplomatic missions" and was even "widely ignored by western media."[3] The reason: Bakiyev tolerated the US Air Base in Manas, agreed to the establishment of NATO facilities in Kyrgyzstan (german-foreign-policy.com reported [4]) and promised a so-called stability. Therefore he was allowed to have his way.
No Social Safety Valve
This was a mistake, says the International Crisis Group. The Bakiyev regime blocked "all social safety valves - the media, public dissent, political discourse and the right to legal redress". The regime created "a semblance of calm," but the resentment in an angry population could no longer be controlled. The closure of all other channels of change made a violent response just about the only option for an angry population. The "authoritarian model of government" has not worked in Kyrgyzstan, and is unlikely to work "in the long run" in the rest of Central Asia - which too closely resembles the situation in Kyrgyzstan. The "superficial stability" is "attractive" to the West which, above all, is looking "for a safe environment to pursue commercial or security interests," writes the International Crisis Group. "But the deep-seated and invisible instabilities of authoritarian regimes" remove, in the long run, "all predictability."[5]
Semblance of Stability Risks
The International Crisis Group therefore urgently pleads that the West modify its contacts to the authoritarian regimes in Central Asia - in its own interests. "Authoritarian and unresponsive regimes are not only embarrassing allies, but unreliable ones,"[6] warns the organization. These western political advisors are recommending, for example, that issues of social justice and development are debated stronger with the Central Asian regimes, so "that the people know their living conditions" are part of the bilateral equation. "The speed with which the Bakiyev administration collapsed" warned the Crisis Group, "is a salutary reminder of the risks of overemphasizing Western security concerns in framing policy towards the region."
Partner Germany
Indeed, the putsch in Kyrgyzstan in April 2010 harmed western interests. The new interim government requested assistance not from Washington but from Moscow and is still considering cancelling the accord with the USA on the US Air Base in Manas, near the Kyrgyz capital. In spite of the International Crisis Group's warning, Berlin is continuing its collaboration with the authoritarian regimes in Central Asia. According to the foreign ministry, the German government has not only dispatched its special emissary for Central Asia to Bishkek, but, with the help of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, is also trying to gain influence in Kyrgyzstan. Kazakhstan currently presides over the OSCE, a position obtained particularly with German support.[7] Uzbekistan is at the border of the region of the current riots and has accommodated already over 100,000 refugees. Germany is closely cooperating with both countries, either as suppliers of raw materials or as transit routes for military supplies to Afghanistan.[8] Both are exercising harsh repression against internal opposition. If conflicts forge ahead against the regimes supported by Berlin - as the International Crisis group warns - the whole of Central Asia will face bloody power struggles, like the one that is shaking up Kyrgyzstan today, also thanks to German support to authoritarian regimes in the region.
[1] Kyrgyzstan: A Faltering State; Asia Report No. 109, 16.12.2005
[2] Kyrgyzstan on the Edge; Asia Briefing No. 55, 09.11.2006
[3] Kyrgyzstan: A Hollow Regime Collapses; Asia Briefing No. 102, 27.04.2010
[4] see also The Limits of American Influence
[5], [6] Kyrgyzstan: A Hollow Regime Collapses; Asia Briefing No. 102, 27.04.2010
[7] see also Weitgehend verschwiegen
[8] see also Prioritäten der EU
