[Peace-discuss] West plays key role in Kyrgyzstan

[C. G. Estabrook]

[We were talking about American campaigns of this sort last Sunday. --CGE]

	West plays key role in Kyrgyzstan
	By Craig S. Smith The New York Times
  	Wednesday, March 30, 2005
	Pro-democracy aid led way for activists
 
BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan -- Shortly before Kyrgyzstan's recent parliamentary
elections, an opposition newspaper ran photographs of a palatial home
under construction for the country's deeply unpopular president, Askar
Akayev, helping set off widespread outrage and a popular revolt in this
poor Central Asian country.

The newspaper was the recipient of United States government grants and was
printed on an American government-financed printing press operated by
Freedom House, an American organization that describes itself as "a clear
voice for democracy and freedom around the world."

Western-financed programs to develop democracy and civil society in this
country played a key role in preparing the ground for the popular uprising
that swept opposition politicians to power.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, this economically crippled country
quickly became an aid magnet, with the highest per-capita foreign
assistance level of any Central Asian nation. Among the hundreds of
millions of dollars that arrived came a large slice focused on building up
civil society and democratic institutions.

Most of that money came from the United States, which maintains the
largest bilateral pro-democracy program in Kyrgyzstan because of the
Freedom Support Act, passed by Congress in 1992 to help the former Soviet
republics in their economic and democratic transitions. The money
earmarked for democracy programs in Kyrgyzstan totaled about $12 million
last year.

Hundreds of thousands more filters into pro-democracy programs in the
country from other United States government-financed institutions such as
the National Endowment for Democracy. That does not include the money for
the Freedom House printing press or Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's
Kyrgyz-language service.

"It would have been absolutely impossible for this to have happened
without that help," said Edil Baisolov, who heads a key coalition of
non-government organizations, referring to the uprising last week.
Baisolov's organization is itself financed by the United States government
through the National Democratic Institute.

American money helps finance dozens of civil society centers around the
country where activists and ordinary citizens can go to meet, receive
training, read independent newspapers, and even watch CNN or surf the
Internet in some. The National Democratic Institute alone operates 20
centers that provide news summaries in Russian, Kyrgyz and Uzbek.

The United States sponsors the American University in Kyrgyzstan, which is
created on an American model and whose stated mission is, in part, to
promote the development of civil society, and pays for exchange programs
that send students and non-governmental organization leaders to America.
Kyrgyzstan's new prime minister, Kurmanbek Bakiyev, was one.

All of that money and manpower provided the coalescing Kyrgyz opposition
with both financing and moral support in recent years, as well as the
infrastructure that allowed them to communicate their ideas to the Kyrgyz
people.

The growing civil society, meanwhile, began to have an awakening effect on
the country's population just as Akayev and his family grew increasingly
enamored of their power. "If none of this had been here, the family would
have continued collecting their money and people would have remained
passive as they have in other Central Asian countries," said one Western
democracy activist this week.

Alexander Kim, editor in chief of the opposition newspaper that printed
the photos of the president's house, knows the problem well: In 1999,
Akayev's son-in-law took control of his first newspaper, which he and
other employees had bought from the state during the privatizations
earlier that decade.

He says the son-in-law used fraudulent means, but he was never able to
prove it in court. So Kim went on to found another newspaper, which went
through several incarnations as the government tried to prevent him from
publishing. He has been helped by about $70,000 in American government
grants, mostly to pay for newsprint.

The problem, though, was finding a press to print his newspaper: They were
all government controlled and refused to print newspapers from the
opposition.

Then Mike Stone, Freedom House's representative in Kyrgyzstan, arrived.

"When Freedom House opened their printing press, it was the end of our
problems," Kim said, smiling behind his white mustache and goatee.

By January this year, Kim had begun national distribution of the
newspaper, called MSN for My Capital News. Opposition candidates in the
parliamentary elections bought truckloads of the papers to distribute as
campaign literature.

For those Kyrgyz who didn't read Russian or have access to the newspaper,
they listened to summaries of its articles on Kyrgyz-language Radio
Azattyk, the local United States-government financed franchise of Radio
Free Europe/Radio Liberty, the pro-democracy broadcaster.

Other independent media carried the opposition's debates: Talk shows, such
as "Our Times," produced in part with United States government grants,
were broadcast over the country's few independent television stations,
including Osh TV in the country's south, where the protests that led to
Akayev's ouster began. Osh TV has been able to expand its reach with
equipment paid for by the State Department.

"The result is that the society became politicized, they were informed,"
said Kim. "The role of the NGO's and independent media were crucial
factors in the revolution."

As corruption grew worse, the country's non-governmental organizations
began speaking out and Akayev grew wary of the foreign pro-democracy
assistance he had long allowed.

The published pictures of his house outraged him. Stone, who runs the
printing press, was summoned to the Foreign Ministry, where he was
berated.

A week later, before the press began printing a 200,000-copy special issue
of MSN, the power at the press went out. Radio Liberty was also taken off
the air.

Akayev began suggesting that the West was engaged in a conspiracy to
destabilize the country. A crudely forged document, made to look like an
internal report by the American ambassador, Stephen Young, began
circulating among local news organizations. It cast U.S.-financed
pro-democracy activities as part of an American conspiracy to topple
Akayev.

The American Embassy sent Freedom House two generators the day after the
power went out, allowing the press to print nearly all of the 200,000
copies of MSN's special issue. The power was restored on March 8 and Kim's
newspaper became one of the primary sources of information for the
mobilizing opposition.
	
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