The Kyrgyz parliament, as seen here in November 2014, may vote in December to consider a possible new law that would label foreign-funded organisations “foreign agents.” But some critics of the bill, which closely resembles a similar law already passed in Russia, argue it would add layers of bureaucracy and possibly force some civil society NGOs to close their doors. Credit: David Trilling

By David Trilling
BISHKEK, Dec 1 2014 (EurasiaNet)

Kyrgyzstan must protect itself from Arab Islamists and gay-loving Americans; so say supporters of a sweeping draft law that could shutter many non-governmental organisations and, like a Russian bill adopted in 2012, label foreign-funded activists as “foreign agents.”

Kyrgyzstan currently has the most vibrant civil society in Central Asia. But critics of the bill feel that with Russia expanding its grip on the region, and Kyrgyz lawmakers seemingly eager to please Moscow, the walls are fast closing in on free speech and other civil liberties.

Even if this particular bill does not pass, other legislative changes are chipping away at basic rights, they say. In recent weeks, for example, the State Committee for National Security (GKNB) has prosecuted a local anti-torture campaigner and harassed the American watchdog Freedom House for merely distributing an opinion poll that asks sensitive questions.Questions about Moscow’s influence over the legislature are hotly debated in Bishkek. The city is rife with rumours about the Kremlin buying MPs, local media outlets, and even whole ministries.

Lawmaker Nurkamil Madaliev – a co-sponsor of the bill who promises a vote in parliament as soon as December – says the existing law governing NGO activities, adopted in 1999, was written at a time when Kyrgyzstan was too open to the world.

“Back then, there was a unipolar world order, the Unites States was the dominant country, and now we see that this order was unjust. Not all the funds that finance NGO activities in Kyrgyzstan are aimed at creating a favourable situation,” Madaliev told EurasiaNet.org.

Madaliev says his legislative changes would help protect an embattled nation from two existential threats: Islamic extremism funded by wealthy Gulf Arabs and the efforts by some Western-funded organisations to educate young Kyrgyz about gay rights and reproductive health.

Legal analyst Sheradil Baktygulov contends that an underlying aim of the bill is to weaken checks on governmental authority: officials could use the bill, he says, to settle personal vendettas against a once-thriving watchdog culture. “They can say [to an NGO], ‘If you don’t do this or that you will be closed,’” Baktygulov explains.

Dinara Oshurahunova, the head of the Coalition for Democracy and Civil Society, sees a Russian hand behind the bill, which she says would bury organisations like hers with bureaucratic reporting requirements.

“Russia would like to have its policy and rule here. Our state cannot protect us or [the openness] we had before. Or they don’t want to,” she says.

Some officials have lobbied against the legislation. During a parliamentary debate on Nov. 24, a Justice Ministry official said the bill is unnecessary and would create expensive layers of bureaucracy the state cannot afford. MPs shouted him down.

Local and international NGO representatives also spoke out against the initiative during the hearing. The session resulted in the adoption of a non-binding recommendation to shelve the measure.

The law is “too vague,” says parliament’s vice speaker, Asiya Sasykbaeva, who was a prominent activist before entering politics. Sasykbaeva also fears the bill will be used to silence government critics. She says the “foreign agent” label deliberately evokes a mood reminiscent of the Stalinist terror in the 1930s, when millions were executed or sent to labour camps for allegedly being enemies of the state.

But NGOs are not without fault. “Sometimes they exaggerate and they do it unprofessionally,” Sasykbaeva says, describing avoidable conflicts between several NGOs. “And because of these three or four NGOs others are suffering.”

Questions about Moscow’s influence over the legislature are hotly debated in Bishkek. The city is rife with rumours about the Kremlin buying MPs, local media outlets, and even whole ministries.

Madaliev concedes his bill is based on Russia’s, but denies Moscow has pressured or bought him or his colleagues. “This particular bill gives us an opportunity to resist the influence of all interested parties, including Russia,” he insists.

Over the next month, parliament is expected to rubberstamp changes to dozens of laws and regulations as Kyrgyzstan prepares to join the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU).

One opposition-minded politician considering a run in next year’s parliamentary elections says that “fear of Russian influence during the election is a big factor” in why lawmakers are tripping over themselves to back EEU accession. He describes a parliament packed with sycophants afraid of Moscow.

“Our lawmakers think these laws don’t mean anything. They think this is not serious, but it is,” the politician says.

Arguments that Russia is playing dirty are bolstered by negative articles in the local press that use familiar Russian tropes to target American-funded NGOs. And a video currently circulating online is similar in its accusations and insinuations to the specious exposes aired on Russian state-run television.

The video, entitled “Trojan Horses,” accuses Washington of using NGOs to foment revolution around the world and of threatening to destabilise Kyrgyzstan with a Ukraine-style, anti-Russian uprising. Over a montage of violent war footage it names Freedom House, USAID, Human Rights Watch, the local Soros Foundation and others as front organisations that serve the U.S. government’s nefarious purpose of changing regimes and destroying sovereign states.

[Editor’s Note: The Soros Foundation-Kyrgyzstan is part of the Soros Foundations network. EurasiaNet is a separate entity in the Soros Foundations network.]

“We are getting attacked by Russian-funded groups and our government just keeps silent. It is very naïve to hope they will protect us. But after us, I tell them, ‘It will be you next, and there will be no one here to protect you,’” says Oshurahunova of the Coalition.

The state security police’s harassment of Freedom House “makes us very nervous,” says the expatriate head of another NGO. Several NGO leaders also complain that the American Embassy is having trouble helping American-funded NGOs secure visas for their foreign staff. “We’re left to fend for ourselves,” the expatriate says. The U.S. Embassy did not respond to a request for comment.

Oshurahunova believes the “foreign agents” bill will end up not being adopted. She feels that the NGO regulatory measure, along with pending anti-gay legislation that has a much better chance of passage, are distractions to keep civil society watchdogs busy while parliament quietly approves reams of EEU legislation.

“They are changing many laws to come into line with Eurasian Union regulations and doing it without any discussion. They’re changing laws about peaceful meetings, changing laws about free media. They tell us this is only about economics, but they’re taking away our civil rights,” Oshurahunova says.

Editor’s note:  David Trilling is EurasiaNet’s Central Asia editor. This story originally appeared on EurasiaNet.org.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Pensioner Jyparkul Karaseyitova says she cannot afford meat anymore. At her local bazaar in Kyrgyzstan’s capital, Bishkek, the price for beef has jumped nine percent in the last six weeks. And she is not alone feeling the pain of rising inflation.

Butcher Aigul Shalpykova says her sales have fallen 40 percent in the last month. “If I usually sell 400 kilos of meat every month, in September I sold only 250 kilos,” she complained.On Oct. 20 a “large player” also sold about 600 million dollars, which kept the tenge stable at about 181/dollar. Observers believe the “large player” is a state-run company with ample reserves, but are mystified that the Central Bank refuses to comment and concerned that the interventions appear to be growing.

A sharp decline in the value of Russia’s ruble since early September is rippling across Central Asia, where economies are dependent on transfers from workers in Russia, and on imports too. As local currencies follow the ruble downward, the costs of imported essentials rise, reminding Central Asians just how dependent they are on their former colonial master.

The ruble is down 20 percent against the dollar since the start of the year, in part due to Western sanctions on Moscow for its role in the Ukraine crisis. The fall accelerated in September as the price of oil – Russia’s main export – dropped to four-year lows. The feeble ruble has helped push down currencies around the region, sometimes by double-digit figures.

In Bishkek, food prices have increased by 20 to 25 percent over the past 12 months, says Zaynidin Jumaliev, the chief for Kyrgyzstan’s northern regions at the Economics Ministry, who partially blames the rising cost of Russian-sourced fuel.

In Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, remittances from the millions of workers in Russia have started to fall. In recent years, these cash transfers have contributed the equivalent of about 30 percent to Kyrgyzstan’s economy and about 50 percent to Tajikistan’s. As the ruble depreciates, however, it purchases fewer dollars to send home.

Transfers contracted in value during the first quarter of 2014 for the first time since 2009, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development said last month, “primarily due” to the downturn in Russia. The EBRD added that any further drop “may significantly dampen consumer demand.”

“A weaker ruble weighs on [foreign] workers’ salaries […] which brings some pain to these countries,” said Oleg Kouzmin, Russia and CIS economist at Renaissance Capital in Moscow.

This month the International Monetary Fund said it expects consumer prices in Kyrgyzstan to grow eight percent in 2014 and 8.9 percent in 2015, compared with 6.6 percent last year. Kazakhstan and Tajikistan should see similar increases. A Dushanbe resident says he went on vacation for three weeks in July and when he returned food prices were approximately 10 percent higher. In Uzbekistan, the IMF said it expects inflation “will likely remain in the double digits.”

The one country unlikely to feel the pressure is Turkmenistan, which is sheltered from the market’s moods because it sells its chief export – natural gas – to China at a fixed price.

One factor that could sharply and suddenly affect the rest of the region is a policy shift at Russia’s Central Bank, which has already spent over 50 billion dollars this year defending the ruble. Some, like former Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin, have condemned efforts to prop up the currency, arguing that a weaker ruble is good for exports.

The tumbling ruble and the drop in the price of oil have helped steer Kazakhstan’s economy into a cul-de-sac, slowing growth projections, forcing officials to recalculate the budget, and suggesting the tenge is overvalued. The National Bank already devalued the currency by 19 percent in February.

On Oct. 21, National Bank Chairman Kairat Kelimbetov urged Kazakhs not to worry about another devaluation, but investors grumble that he said the same thing less than a month before February’s devaluation.

Another devaluation would send a distress signal to investors, says one Almaty banker. Astana “lost a fair bit of credibility last time,” the banker said on condition of anonymity, fearing new legislation designed to combat panic selling.

“They need to be much more careful about how they handle expectations going forward. And that is affecting how things are happening this time. People seem to be a lot more dollarised compared to a year ago and more hesitant to hold large tenge balances.”

“My personal position?” the banker added. “I’m not holding tenge.”

Meanwhile, a mystery investor has been propping up the tenge by selling hundreds of millions of dollars a day, according to Halyk Finance in Almaty. On Oct. 21 “a larger player, again offsetting the intraday trend, sold about 650 million dollars,” Halyk said in a note to investors.

On Oct. 20 a “large player” also sold about 600 million dollars, which kept the tenge stable at about 181/dollar. Observers believe the “large player” is a state-run company with ample reserves, but are mystified that the Central Bank refuses to comment and concerned that the interventions appear to be growing.

In Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, central banks have dipped into limited reserves to ease their currencies’ slides. Nevertheless, the Kyrgyz som has fallen by 12 percent against the dollar this year, the Tajik somoni by about 5 percent. The World Bank said this month it expects the somoni to sink further.

Renaissance Capital’s Kouzmin cautions against the bank interventions in Central Asia, which use up reserves and widen trade deficits. “It makes sense for the national banks of these countries to let currencies depreciate to some extent to keep national competitiveness,” he told EurasiaNet.org.

Overall, the slowdown in Russia has long-term effects on Central Asia. “Portfolio investors look at the region as a whole. If you’re a CIS fund, the news on Russia has been bad and has caused the withdrawal of funds” from the region, said Dominic Lewenz of Visor Capital, an investment bank in Almaty. “So the trouble in Russia has hit things here.”

GDP growth projections have fallen markedly across the region, but nowhere near the levels seen during the 2008-2009 financial crisis. Everything, it seems, depends on Ukraine. Any worsening scenario there would have “far-reaching implications” for the region, possibly on food security, according to the EBRD.

Back at the bazaar in Bishkek, Orunbay Jolchuev was forced this month to increase by 15 percent what he charges for flour. But at least sales have not been affected. “We all need flour, we all need to eat bread, macaroni, dough,” Jolchuev said. “It’s not something people can cut back even if it becomes too expensive.”

Editor’s note:  David Trilling is EurasiaNet’s Central Asia editor. Timur Toktonaliev is a Bishkek-based reporter. This story originally appeared on EurasiaNet.org.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

The Kumtor gold mine is Kyrgyzstan’s lone economic gem. Yet, despite the mine’s vital importance to the Kyrgyz economy, officials appear to be mulling a doomsday option for the Canadian-run project.

Officials in Bishkek and executives for Toronto-based Centerra Gold, the entity that owns Kumtor, have been struggling to work out a new operating arrangement.

Several senior Kyrgyz government officials say they now see no way to resolve the long-standing impasse, after parliament voted last month to block a restructuring deal. That potential bargain would have seen Kyrgyzstan trade its one-third stake in the company for a 50-percent share in the mine. Parliament demanded at least a 67-percent stake, which Centerra says shareholders would be unlikely to accept.

“There’s no light at the end of the tunnel,” a senior government official told EurasiaNet.org, referring to the negotiations.

MPs have set a deadline of Dec. 23 for the sides to reach agreement. Businesspeople describe the fallout from the Kumtor crisis as a slow-moving train wreck destined to take down the government and undermine faith in Kyrgyzstan’s experiment with parliamentary democracy.

The current negotiations started after parliament voted in February to tear up a 2009 agreement, maintaining it was not in the interests of the country. Centerra countered that it has invested approximately one billion dollars in the mine since signing that contract, the second restructuring in five years. Few believe Kyrgyzstan has the technical know-how to operate the project on its own.

“What’s happening with Kumtor signals to the world that we cannot secure property rights and have normal relations with Western countries,” says prominent businessman Emil Umetaliev.

Pressure on the Kyrgyz side is now building to take unilateral action. Rioters demanding nationalisation have caused trouble on several occasions this year.

Among government officials, civil society leaders and businesspeople, many suspect the protests are led by paid provocateurs working either for MPs, or at the behest of Russia or China. Parliament’s constant, unsubstantiated corruption allegations against Centerra stir these passions.

“There is pressure from parliament and the public saying this project must be shut,” said the senior official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the negotiations.

Kyrgyzstan’s president, who previously argued against nationalisation, appears to be having second thoughts. “Even if it is very hard and harmful for Kyrgyzstan, maybe, for the sake of pacifying people, we might take a harmful action … like nationalisation,” Almazbek Atambayev told the BBC’s Kyrgyz service on Nov. 7.

On Nov. 12, Omurbek Tekebayev, leader of the Ata-Meken party, welcomed the president’s “initiative,” and said he intends to put a motion before parliament calling for nationalisation.

Because Kyrgyzstan would be unable to buy back its shares, any move by the Kyrgyz government to declare ownership of the mine would amount to expropriation, not nationalisation, Centerra officials stress.

Whether parliament understands the damage expropriation could do to Kyrgyzstan’s economy is unclear. One deputy told EurasiaNet.org he’s not afraid of arbitration, arguing, “We are a poor country. They [Centerra] can take us to court, but we have nothing to seize abroad. We have no assets.”

That misses the point, say business leaders, who are horrified and condemn authorities’ inability or unwillingness to stop violent attacks against other mining outfits.

South Africa’s Gold Fields, one of the largest miners in the world, is pulling out of Kyrgyzstan, seeking to sell its subsidiary Talas Copper Gold. A company spokesman said the decision was not related to “political risk,” though its project has been attacked several times by horsemen wielding Molotov cocktails.

Last month, locals in southern Kyrgyzstan attacked and looted Australian miner Manas Resources’s exploration site.

Two other projects are in international arbitration. Jerooy, the second-largest gold field in the country, is facing a 400-million-dollar suit in Washington from Kazakhstan’s Visor Holding, which lost its license in late 2010 when officials said the company had failed to begin production on schedule.

And on Oct. 31 Toronto-based Stans Energy announced it had filed a 118-million-dollar claim in Moscow because Bishkek stripped it of the license for Kutessay II, a rare earths deposit. Authorities had complained the mine was idle, but a Stans executive has suggested someone in Bishkek has succumbed to pressure from China, which has a near monopoly on rare earths.

Authorities contend that earlier licenses were handed out illegally under previous governments, or in exchange for shady payments. In late October, the Prosecutor General’s Office announced 10 criminal cases related to the first Kumtor restructuring, back in 2004.

The current investigations largely target members of the regime of Askar Akayev, who was ousted in 2005; charges against his son are expected in the coming weeks. But one of the accused is an opposition MP, leading some to suspect the prosecutions are politically motivated.

“All investors now, especially in mining, are watching this case very closely,” said the senior government official. “I hope they understand we are not blackmailing Centerra. This case was not done right. They were dealing with the presidents’ families, which is not the way a Canadian company should work.”

A parliamentary delegation is due to fly to Canada this month to ask Ottawa for help investigating the 2004 and 2009 deals.

In 2011, Kumtor’s taxes totaled seven percent of the state budget and the mine was responsible for generating 12 percent of GDP. But during a workers’ strike in 2012, ice formed in the open pit mine, sending Kyrgyzstan’s overall GDP to minus 0.9 percent. Bishkek borrowed 30 million dollars from Centerra to help cover the budget shortfall.

This year is shaping up to be a decent one at the mine. But still Bishkek faces an enormous deficit, only able to fund 53 percent of its four-year development wish list, according to the European Union. And Kyrgyzstan stands to lose three percent of GDP by closing the U.S. airbase at Manas next year.

“We’ll be a very popular government if we denounce the 2009 agreement. The effect on the economy will be a disaster, but we will be very popular,” said the senior official.

But any popularity gained at the expense of Kumtor is likely to prove fleeting once the economic hangover sets in.

Editor’s note: David Trilling is EurasiaNet’s Central Asia editor. This story originally appeared on EurasiaNet.org.

(EurasiaNet) – The Kumtor gold mine is Kyrgyzstan’s lone economic gem. Yet, despite the mine’s vital importance to the Kyrgyz economy, officials appear to be mulling a doomsday option for the Canadian-run project. Officials in Bishkek and executives for Toronto-based Centerra Gold, the entity that owns Kumtor, have been struggling to work out a new operating arrangement.

Several senior Kyrgyz government officials say they now see no way to resolve the long-standing impasse, after parliament voted last month to block a restructuring deal. That potential bargain would have seen Kyrgyzstan trade its one-third stake in the company for a 50-percent share in the mine. Parliament demanded at least a 67-percent stake, which Centerra says shareholders would be unlikely to accept.

“There’s no light at the end of the tunnel,” a senior government official told EurasiaNet.org, referring to the negotiations. MPs have set a deadline of Dec. 23 for the sides to reach agreement. Businesspeople describe the fallout from the Kumtor crisis as a slow-moving train wreck destined to take down the government and undermine faith in Kyrgyzstan’s experiment with parliamentary democracy.

The current negotiations started after parliament voted in February to tear up a 2009 agreement, maintaining it was not in the interests of the country. Centerra countered that it has invested approximately one billion dollars in the mine since signing that contract, the second restructuring in five years. Few believe Kyrgyzstan has the technical know-how to operate the project on its own.

“What’s happening with Kumtor signals to the world that we cannot secure property rights and have normal relations with Western countries,” says prominent businessman Emil Umetaliev. Pressure on the Kyrgyz side is now building to take unilateral action. Rioters demanding nationalisation have caused trouble on several occasions this year.

Among government officials, civil society leaders and businesspeople, many suspect the protests are led by paid provocateurs working either for MPs, or at the behest of Russia or China. Parliament’s constant, unsubstantiated corruption allegations against Centerra stir these passions.

“There is pressure from parliament and the public saying this project must be shut,” said the senior official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the negotiations. Kyrgyzstan’s president, who previously argued against nationalisation, appears to be having second thoughts. “Even if it is very hard and harmful for Kyrgyzstan, maybe, for the sake of pacifying people, we might take a harmful action … like nationalisation,” Almazbek Atambayev told the BBC’s Kyrgyz service on Nov. 7.

On Nov. 12, Omurbek Tekebayev, leader of the Ata-Meken party, welcomed the president’s “initiative,” and said he intends to put a motion before parliament calling for nationalisation.

Because Kyrgyzstan would be unable to buy back its shares, any move by the Kyrgyz government to declare ownership of the mine would amount to expropriation, not nationalisation, Centerra officials stress.

Whether parliament understands the damage expropriation could do to Kyrgyzstan’s economy is unclear. One deputy told EurasiaNet.org he’s not afraid of arbitration, arguing, “We are a poor country. They [Centerra] can take us to court, but we have nothing to seize abroad. We have no assets.” That misses the point, say business leaders, who are horrified and condemn authorities’ inability or unwillingness to stop violent attacks against other mining outfits.

South Africa’s Gold Fields, one of the largest miners in the world, is pulling out of Kyrgyzstan, seeking to sell its subsidiary Talas Copper Gold. A company spokesman said the decision was not related to “political risk,” though its project has been attacked several times by horsemen wielding Molotov cocktails. Last month, locals in southern Kyrgyzstan attacked and looted Australian miner Manas Resources’s exploration site.

Two other projects are in international arbitration. Jerooy, the second-largest gold field in the country, is facing a 400-million-dollar suit in Washington from Kazakhstan’s Visor Holding, which lost its license in late 2010 when officials said the company had failed to begin production on schedule.

And on Oct. 31 Toronto-based Stans Energy announced it had filed a 118-million-dollar claim in Moscow because Bishkek stripped it of the license for Kutessay II, a rare earths deposit. Authorities had complained the mine was idle, but a Stans executive has suggested someone in Bishkek has succumbed to pressure from China, which has a near monopoly on rare earths.

Authorities contend that earlier licenses were handed out illegally under previous governments, or in exchange for shady payments. In late October, the Prosecutor General’s Office announced 10 criminal cases related to the first Kumtor restructuring, back in 2004.

The current investigations largely target members of the regime of Askar Akayev, who was ousted in 2005; charges against his son are expected in the coming weeks. But one of the accused is an opposition MP, leading some to suspect the prosecutions are politically motivated.

“All investors now, especially in mining, are watching this case very closely,” said the senior government official. “I hope they understand we are not blackmailing Centerra. This case was not done right. They were dealing with the presidents’ families, which is not the way a Canadian company should work.” A parliamentary delegation is due to fly to Canada this month to ask Ottawa for help investigating the 2004 and 2009 deals.

Glance at the parking lot outside parliament, at the fleet of Lexus SUVs kitted out with chrome, and you might think Bishkek is the capital of a wealthy country. A block down Chui Avenue, a shiny new Range Rover is parked on the sidewalk. Police drive their own BMWs.

Look a little closer, though, and the real Kyrgyzstan comes into focus.

In the shadow of the hulking White House – as the parliament building is known – Enjegul Kydyralieva, 50, sells lollipops and nuts from a blanket spread on the ground. On a good day, she clears about 250 soms (5.20 dollars). “One hundred percent” of that – after she subtracts 50 cents for daily transportation to and from her village 45 minutes away – goes to feeding three children and three grandchildren, including the four-year-old she’s babysitting on the curb.

“If anyone gets sick we try to save money to buy medicine,” Kydyralieva says as the steel gate opens and another shiny new SUV glides past. “It’s not fair. They drive around with these cars that cost thousands of dollars and we are here working all day to earn a few hundred soms. Plus, they try to chase us away.”

Bishkek today is a city of striking contrasts. The luxury cars – and their tendency to run red lights with impunity – are just one expression of the disparity. “Elite” apartment blocks, where units cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, are mushrooming in central districts. Billboards announce the latest new nightclubs. At a new Turkish-built shopping mall, a pair of Italian loafers costs the equivalent of Kyrgyzstan’s average monthly income.

This is one of the poorest countries in Asia. But it’s not only underemployed grandmothers who struggle.

An engineering lecturer with a doctorate, single mother Elmira Ismailova, 46, earns about 7,000 soms a month (145 dollars). She spends 70 percent of her salary on food, but considers herself lucky, because her parents help with 3,000 to 4,000 soms per month.

“If I didn’t have their support, I wouldn’t call myself middle class. My salary is never enough. If I want to go out somewhere, like a restaurant, I have to save money in advance,” she says.

Many Kyrgyz struggle to put food on the table. An April study by the World Food Program, a U.N. agency, found the average price of wheat flour 42 percent higher than a year ago. The same report estimated that 24 percent of Kyrgyz households were not meeting basic nutrition and calorie requirements. This is partially due to a poor harvest in 2012, high prices for fuel, inflation, and Kyrgyzstan’s overall isolation.

Food insecurity is not limited to Kyrgyzstan’s relatively poorer rural areas. A January study of 1,200 Bishkek residents by El Pikir, a pollster, found that almost 30 percent of the capital’s population spends 80 percent or more of its income on food and utilities. Only a tenth of the population spends less than a third of its income on food and utilities, the study found.

“Kyrgyzstan does not have a middle class. There are poor people and there’s a rich elite, which is maybe 5 to 10 percent of society,” explained Pavel Dyatlenko of Polis-Asia, a think-tank in Bishkek.

Those in the elite are doing well. One indicator is the building boom currently transforming Bishkek’s skyline. Kyrgyzstan’s construction sector grew by 17.3 percent in 2012, the Asian Development Bank says.

There are several common explanations for all the construction: A more liberal economy since 2010, when protestors chased the venal and nepotistic president out of office; the laundering of the vast quantities of Afghan drug money moving through Kyrgyzstan; and the relative absence of alternative investment opportunities.

“We have a mentality: You are rich not because you have money but because you have property,” says a local writer.

Dyatlenko, the analyst, endorses all of the above. Moreover, paradoxically, Kyrgyzstan’s chronic instability also fuels the construction craze, he says. “Since we have many holes in our laws, unoccupied land can be seized. With all these [political] transitions, the situation is very unstable. If you have a building [on your land], it’s more difficult to confiscate,” Dyatlenko told EurasiaNet.org.

While Dyatlenko’s explanation makes sense within the Kyrgyz context, bad times aren’t all good for the construction sector. Kyrgyzstan is covered with the skeletons of abandoned projects. And just last week, protests again swept Kyrgyzstan, starting with a demonstration outside the Canadian-run Kumtor gold mine in Issyk-Kul province.

There, protestors demanded greater social benefits from the lucrative mine. Kumtor executives responded that they pay millions of dollars into a social fund for the province. Privately, however, they admit they can’t stop local politicians from misappropriating the funds.

Kyrgyzstan is certainly not the only country where a growing economy appears to widen social divisions. But with rampant corruption and authorities unable – or unwilling – to enforce the rule of law, many feel the divisions are getting starker.

Across from parliament, on the opposite side of Ala-Too Square, Anar Subankulova, who looks 75 but is 54, sells gum, single cigarettes, and kurut—dried yogurt balls that taste a bit like Parmesan cheese. Subankulova spends 4,200 soms ($87) per month on rent and utilities for the small apartment she shares with her grandchildren. She earns about 300 soms a day. “It’s torture because this is never enough.”

Asked if the 2010 “April Revolution” changed anything, she breaks into tears and says she doesn’t want to talk about it.

*Editor’s note: David Trilling is EurasiaNet’s Central Asia editor.

This story originally appeared on EurasiaNet.org.

As officials in Kyrgyzstan prepare to negotiate with their country’s largest investor in Bishkek this week, new details are emerging about how the Kyrgyz government wants to restructure the agreement covering operations at the country’s flagship gold mine.

Bishkek and Toronto-listed Centerra Gold are engaged in a protracted legal dispute over Kumtor, the largest gold mine operated by a Western company in Central Asia.

Earlier this year, a Kyrgyz state commission claimed Centerra owes approximately 467 million dollars for environmental damages. Then, in February, parliament gave Kyrgyz officials three months to negotiate a new operating agreement, which would be the third in 10 years.

Kyrgyz officials say the current agreement, negotiated under former president Kurmanbek Bakiyev in 2009, shortly before he was ousted amid violent street riots, was unfair. The company, which also operates a mine in Mongolia, argues that it negotiated in good faith with what was at the time the legitimate government, and has threatened to seek international arbitration.

It calls the 467-million-dollar claim — which other miners in Bishkek say is a negotiating tactic — “exaggerated or without merit.” Centerra officials also point out that the agreement gave the company confidence to invest almost one billion dollars in the mine since 2009.

Kumtor is critical to Kyrgyzstan’s economy. Last year the mine, which sits above 4,000 metres in the Tien Shan mountains, contributed approximately 5.5 percent of the country’s GDP. In 2011, a good year, the mine accounted for 12 percent of GDP and over 50 percent of industrial output. Earlier this month, Centerra announced its first quarter revenue rose 44 percent.

Negotiations are likely to focus on current operating agreement’s structure, a source close to the Kyrgyz side told EurasiaNet.org. Under the existing agreement, Kyrgyzstan owns close to one-third of the Toronto-listed company. That arrangement places Bishkek in a bind: if the government fines the company, it hurts its own potential dividends.

Bishkek is ready to divest itself of Centerra ownership, the source said, in return for “both a higher income stream and more direct control over operations at the mine.”

The current agreement “doesn’t allow the nation to properly exercise its function as a sovereign. It actually creates an internal conflict. The more they levy tax, the more they assess environmental penalties, the less revenue is available to them in dividends,” the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the negotiations.

“This structure may be very useful to Centerra, but it is very difficult to understand why, in 2009, the Bakiyev regime pressed for this structure. That reinforces the suspicions of corruption.”

Centerra has repeatedly denied allegations of corruption, and Kyrgyz authorities have not presented convincing evidence the company engaged in corrupt practices. But some believe the venal Bakiyev administration was eager to obtain stock options so it could one day sell them and embezzle the proceeds.

Kyrgyzstan’s shares are held by the state-run gold company, Kyrgyzaltyn. Kyrgyzstan “has every interest in seeing shareholder value maximised and Centerra run as a profitable and successful business,” Kylychbek Shakirov, Kyrgyzaltyn deputy chairman for economics and finance, said in a May 10 speech to shareholders.

Shakirov stressed that Kyrgyzstan is not seeking to nationalise the mine, but said his delegation was acting as a “responsible shareholder” by pushing for Centerra to use a new auditor (it has employed KPMG for a decade) and sideline a senior member of the board while he faces insider-trading allegations in Canada.

Shakirov also expressed “strong reservations” about proposals to offer senior Centerra managers pay raises, noting that in the past few years, compensation packages have risen “sharply as the company’s performance overall was falling.”

Centerra’s top five principals each earned, on average, over 1.6 million Canadian dollars in 2012, 56.7 percent more than they earned in 2010, according to the management information circular distributed at the shareholders’ meeting. Yet, over the past two years – while production has fallen and the company has faced repeated calls for nationalisation by some Kyrgyz politicians – the company’s value has fallen roughly 80 percent.

John Pearson, Centerra’s vice president for investor relations, told EurasiaNet.org that the two sides “are making progress” as they approach negotiations, which parliament has said must be completed by Jun. 1.

“The discussions with the government are ongoing. Most recently in our discussion with the government we recommended that they retain external independent advisors on both the financial and legal fronts and they have done so,” he said.

Bishkek is said to have hired DLA Piper, the law firm, and Price Waterhouse Coopers as advisors.

In recent weeks, increased waste rock movement at Kumtor has highlighted long-standing environmental concerns, some of the thorniest issues in the negotiations. Centerra points to studies – including several commissioned by Bishkek – that absolve it of wrongdoing.

But questions remain about whether an accelerated pace of melting ice at the high-altitude mine is being encouraged by extraction activities there.

As part of its approach, Bishkek is expected to push for a review of environmental compliance standards, while it considers ways of tightening its own legislation related to mining’s environmental impact in general.

*Editor’s note: David Trilling is EurasiaNet’s Central Asia editor.

This story originally appeared on EurasiaNet.org.

Authorities at Kyrgyzstan’s Ministry of Culture want to ban a play that discusses domestic abuse and sexual violence because it “promotes scenes that destroy moral and ethical standards and national traditions of the peoples of Kyrgyzstan.”

The effort points to creeping conservatism in the thinking of Kyrgyzstan’s leaders.

“The Vagina Monologues” is an episodic play where woman address how they relate to their bodies, discuss their sexual experiences, and confront the topic of sexual violence. Since American Eve Ensler wrote the play in 1996, it has been performed in over 140 countries and translated into 48 languages. A performance is scheduled for Apr. 12 in Bishkek.

The Culture Ministry sent a letter to local media outlets on Apr. 1 saying the Vagina Monologues advocates “unnatural, perverted sex under the slogan of feminism”. The letter warned that Kyrgyz law prohibits the distribution of materials that “promote pornography and offend human dignity”.

Organisers say authorities are rushing to judgment. “The play is aimed at stopping violence against women, a very important thing for our society where there is a lot of violence against women,” Aikanysh Jeenbaeva, one of the organizers and a co-founder of the Bishkek Feminist Collective SQ, told EurasiaNet.org.

“The ministry did not say which parts of the Vagina Monologues are supposedly offensive or promote pornography. I think none of them have actually seen the play and they’re just judging it by its name.”

A ministry representative, Ermek Jolochuev, admitted he had not seen the play, but said it “contradicts our mentality. You know that nationalities living on the territory of Kyrgyzstan, and Eastern people in general, are not used to talking about such topics openly or to speaking publicly the names of women’s body parts.”

He confirmed that “prominent” cultural figures stood against the play, but would not name them over the phone. He also did not follow through with a promise to email EurasiaNet.org their names.

Jolochuev said the ministry has no legal recourse to ban the performance. Nevertheless, organisers fear the ministry’s recommendation will engender hostility toward the production. The Russian-language version of the play is scheduled for 7 pm Friday at the Metro Pub theater; 100 percent of proceeds will benefit Chance, a local women’s shelter. If it goes ahead uninterrupted, it will be the Vagina Monologues’ third season in Bishkek, after debuting in 2009 and returning in 2011.

Bishkek was the first location in Central Asia to host the Vagina Monologues; Almaty hosted a sold-out performance this past February.

Organisers have received threats in the past, but have never experienced such interference from authorities.

Kyrgyzstan remains an entrenched patriarchal society where, despite Soviet attempts to extend equal opportunities to women, today women’s rights appear to be backsliding. There is little quantitative data available, but a 2008 U.N. study found one in four Kyrgyz women had suffered from domestic violence.

Stigma is widespread: women who speak out about sexual and domestic abuse are often shamed both as something sullied and as backstabbers betraying their families. Moreover, bride kidnapping, though illegal, has become more common since the Soviet era, activists say.

Given the seriousness of the issue, when the Culture Ministry statement appeared on Apr. 1, “We thought it was an April Fools’ joke,” Jeenbaeva said. Cancelling the play would send a message, members of her group said, that domestic violence is not a serious problem.

The dispute underscores a trend in which the Kyrgyz government is shunning Western liberalism. Last fall, for example, the State Committee on Religious Affairs successfully blocked, with a court order, the screening of a documentary film about gay men in the Muslim world.

In recent weeks, parliament has discussed a bill that would ban young women from traveling abroad, supposedly to protect them from sexual abuse and, in the words of the bill’s author, Irgal Kadyralieva, “increase morality and preserve the gene pool”.

Prominent human rights activist and lawyer Cholpon Djakupova is worried by the trend and feels Kyrgyz society is lashing out at perceived foreign ideas with growing cynicism. She added that, despite years of promises, Western liberalism has done little to improve living standards or confront widespread corruption.

The Culture Ministry’s attempted ban “is the reaction of people who do not like [what has turned out to be a] false and empty democracy. In NGOs and even the term freedom, people see the failed realization of foreign promises,” Djakupova told EurasiaNet.org.

“This concept of freedom is only important for creative people and self-reliant people. Poor people have no access to education or justice. For them, all these liberal concepts are estranged from their difficult lives.”

*Editor’s note: David Trilling is EurasiaNet’s Central Asia editor.

This story originally appeared on EurasiaNet.org.

Allegations that a member of Kyrgyzstan’s KGB-successor agency organised the brutal rape of his wife have outraged women’s rights activists in Bishkek. But what rights defenders call an ordinary crime is having an extraordinary effect because of the victim’s response: she pressed charges.

Nazgul Akmatbek kyzy has pursued her cause, despite, she says, considerable pressure from authorities to drop the case. Most women in Kyrgyzstan are afraid or ashamed to speak about sexual crimes. In a country with patriarchal norms and a dysfunctional justice system, few men are charged, especially husbands, on sexual assault charges, even though government statistics indicate 92 percent of rapes are committed by sexual partners or former partners.

Moreover, legal experts say police sometimes try to classify rape within the family as an administrative offense, which carries the same fine as burning garbage in the street – about $20.

In the case of Akmatbek kyzy, the accusations boil down to he-said-she-said. As Akmatbek kyzy tells it, late on Jun. 18, 2011, her then-husband, GKNB officer Azamat Bekboev, and his driver, Arzybek Tuuganbaev, took her into the suburbs of Bishkek and both repeatedly raped her and beat her.

Bekboev has denied all the charges. In his defence, he says his former wife (they have since divorced) was the driver’s lover.

A military court acquitted the two men on May 24, agreeing with Bekboev that Akmatbek kyzy was the driver’s lover. Akmatbek kyzy then appealed to a higher military court, which forbid Bekboev from leaving Bishkek and ordered the driver to be jailed. This second trial began earlier this month.

The lack of forensic evidence highlights an additional problem in prosecuting rape cases: Hospitals do not stock rape kits to collect evidence, say women’s rights activists.

In an interview with EurasiaNet.org, Bekboev maintained his innocence: “Imagine, I am an officer. I am a father of four. I lived with her for 14 years. How could I rape a woman I had lived with for 14 years? If I had done this, how could I look into my children’s eyes? I would kill myself.”

When pressed for details of that evening, Bekboev at first refused to discuss it, then said he hadn’t left town that night, then said he had. But he insists his wife was cheating and says he never forced her to have sex and never hit her.

Akmatbek kyzy, a petite woman of 36, says that Bekboev commonly beat her in front of their children, and often raped her. She pursued charges at the urging of her sisters because the incident left her suicidal, she said in a tearful interview with EurasiaNet.org. “If I didn’t have children I wouldn’t be sitting here right now. I wouldn’t want to live if I didn’t have children.”

“At the trial he laughs at me, calls me a prostitute,” Akmatbek kyzy said. “It’s so painful that we lived for 14 years together, we have four children together, and he’s blaming me, saying I was cheating on him. I never cheated.”

The courts have the attitude that “the rape of a wife is a sex game,” says Elena Tkacheva, Akmatbek kyzy’s therapist and head of the Chance Crisis Center in Bishkek, trying to explain why so few women are willing to report marital rape.

“Nazgul had to tell her story 30 times in court. That’s public humiliation. Then the defence finds minor discrepancies and uses them to discredit her,” Tkacheva explained. “Her neighbours and his (the ex-husband’s) family see her as a traitor because she spoke about something no one ever speaks about. When violence happens in the family, survivors don’t ask for help.”

Women who speak openly about sexual abuse in the family face the risk of double stigma – as “fallen women”, who have been dishonored and sullied, and as backstabbers, who have betrayed their own.

Tkacheva and Akmatbek kyzy are also disappointed at how some local media outlets have reported on the trial. “The news reports said she was stupid, that she should have just relaxed and enjoyed the experience,” said Tkacheva.

Some local observers believe such attitudes reflect officials’ laxness in prosecuting sexual abuse.

“The prejudice of investigators sends a message to society,” said Dmitry Kabak, a prominent activist and head of the Open Viewpoint Foundation. “If, instead, law enforcement bodies would actively investigate sexual crimes, it could help stop the daily violence that some people have started calling a tradition.”

International observers say woman in Kyrgyzstan have been particularly hard hit by poverty, which has been growing in the Central Asian nation since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

In 2010, the United Nations special rapporteur on violence against women said poverty was fostering gender inequality in Kyrgyzstan, leading “to a return to traditionalism and patriarchy where women view and depend on the family as the centre of their life and adopt a position of obedience and submissiveness.”

In 20 years of working with battered women, Tkacheva says she hasn’t seen a single case of marital rape be prosecuted as a crime. “No one – not judges, police officers, local government officials, psychiatrists or doctors – recognise it as such,” she said.

There are no reliable statistics on the number of victims of spousal rape. A representative of the Department of Court Statistics at the Supreme Court told EurasiaNet.org that producing statistics would require one month and a written request delivered by courier.

Domestic abuse, however, is considered common. A 2008 UNFPA study found one in four women had suffered domestic violence at home. Perhaps it’s not a coincidence, then, that the same UNFPA study found 70 percent of women convicted of murdering their husbands or other family members were victims of domestic abuse.

*Editor’s note: David Trilling is EurasiaNet’s Central Asia editor.

This story originally appeared on EurasiaNet.org.