Kulov's case has long been perceived as a bellwether of the real intentions of increasingly authoritarian President Akaev to tolerate political rivals and a more democratic political system. Kulov was arrested in September 2000 soon after announcing plans for running in the presidential election, and convicted on 22 January 2001 by the Bishkek Military Court of abuse of his official position while serving as national security minister in 1997-98. The sudden arrest, while Kulov was getting a check-up at a clinic, seemed related to an anticipated victory in his electoral district. He was sentenced to seven years in prison, although previously acquitted in August 2000 on the same charges. His lawyers appealed, but in July 2001, he faced new charges related to alleged financial dealings while he was governor of the Chu Oblast from 1993-97 and mayor of the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek in 1998-99. On 8 May, the Pervomai Raion Court of Bishkek sentenced Kulov and his co-defendant Aleksandr Gasanov to 10 and six years in prison respectively, with confiscation of property and a fine of about $415,000. Lawyers and human rights groups say the charges were either fabricated for political motivations, or would not warrant imprisonment. The United States and the European Union agree that Kulov is a political prisoner and have called for his release.
The need for a visible sign of human rights progress is acute now, not only for Kyrgyzstan. The United States signed an agreement to establish military bases in Manas, Kyrgyzstan, as part of Operation Enduring Freedom after the terrorist attacks of 11 September. Currently 2,000 American and coalition troops are stationed there. But American officials have continued to express concern both publicly and privately about Akaev's increasingly harsh repression of political rivals, particularly after five unarmed demonstrators were shot and killed in Ak-Sui Raion in Djalalabad Oblast in March after mass unrest over the jailing of another political opposition leader, Azimbek Beknazarov. Local human rights groups' expectations about the power of American human rights intervention have escalated with its military presence.
Historically, with pressure to display rapid improvement under the laser glare of a summit, the dramatic symbol preferred by both the United States and its Soviet and post-Soviet summit partners has often been political-prisoner releases. Hence, the speculation about Kulov's release now, although earlier this year the government was bent on putting him behind bars for a long time and intimidating his followers and other would-be challengers to the president.
Why else is Kulov's release needed now? With growing unrest about the mishandling of the Ak-Sui tragedy and the lack of democracy, in the last month a "dump Akaev" movement has picked up steam, drawing in 22 of the major NGO and political leaders, Kabar news agency reported on 15 August [see "RFE/RL Central Asia Report," 22 August 2002]. The Movement for the Resignation of President Askar Akaev and Reforms for the People, as the group calls itself, have convened two "people's conferences" calling on Akaev to step down, and leaders believe they have significant public backing for their challenge with a rolling tide of grassroots pickets around the country. The group says it will use "peaceful and constitutional" means to pressure Akaev to turn over his duties to the prime minister temporarily, to form a coalition government until elections can be held. The government quickly denounced the movement as "unconstitutional."
Policy analysts at the prestigious International Crisis Group (ICG), recommended to the opposition in an analytical report on the challenge to Akaev released August 20 to "develop political parties as engines of change rather than the present concentration on individuals, human rights organizations, and committees." In the same key as Western advisers, now the jailed Kulov is also counseling a more cautious path to avoid destabilization, involving the formation of political parties (presumably under a more fair associations law and better media freedom than is currently in place), a parliamentary process, and eventually presidential elections in 2005 not through a mass movement to dump Akaev now.
But the "individuals, human rights organizations, and committees" cannot be stopped. Well-known human rights activists Ramazan Dyryldaev of the Kyrgyz Committee for Human Rights and Topchubek Turgunaliev, former political prisoner and leader of the Erkindik Party, as well as journalist Zamira Sydykova, Beknazarov, and others announced on 14 August that they will chair various committees within the resignation movement to organize public discussions and to make decisions by vote regarding mass actions this coming fall.
Typically, mass social movements in the Soviet and post-Soviet era take the form of human rights campaigns or committees rather than political parties during such a phase when neither law nor practice existed for legitimized political parties nor unimpeded coverage of their activities in the mass media. In this, they are no different than the dissident committees that preceded Solidarity in Poland which ultimately, only after legalization, a roundtable process with the communist government, and long struggle evolved into a political party and ultimately a presidency. Trying to work backwards from a weak parliamentary process before legalization and legitimacy are achieved will hardly work in a country like Kyrgyzstan with less sturdy civic and democratic traditions than Poland.
Worried about "radicalism," ICG also urged opposition groups to "unite around a public commitment to ensuring free and fair elections as the only route to a peaceful transfer of power and cooperate with the government and parliament to develop laws that will allow this to happen." With Kyrgyzstan's track record of failure to enforce and respect association laws or legalize NGO election monitoring, and frustrating years of workshops and NGO coalitions to revise association law with the help of Western experts, the opposition understandably lacks trust in the goodwill to make these real changes. ICG describes the opposition as "radicalized;" Akaev calls them "extremists;" they might call themselves "logical." Some sort of gesture seems in order to avoid a worsening crisis of confidence; hence, Kulov's release.
While Akaev backed away from a law amnestying the perpetrators of the Ak-Sui shootings, returning it to parliament, he has not moved to prosecute them or enable an impartial investigation of the tragedy and responsibility for it, including his own. Mindful of the original motivation for mass protests, in an interview with the independent newspaper "Moya stolitsa" summarized by akipress.org on 19 August, Kulov argued that calls for a campaign to impeach Akaev were unrealistic. Kulov said that rather than demand Akaev's resignation, the opposition People's Congress of Kyrgyzstan of which he is president will demand that those officials responsible for the deaths of the five demonstrators be brought to trial [see "RFE/RL Newsline," 20 August 2002]. Yet opposition and human rights leaders believe that the orders for the shootings go all the way to the top and that recognition even by the nomenklatura of that reality will lead to a faster resignation of Akaev and acceleration of the political process toward earlier elections.
It remains to be seen if a radicalized social movement would now be willing to accept prosecution of lower-level perpetrators of human rights crimes as a substitute for the resignation of the chief executive they believe to be responsible for them. Most likely prosecutions will not go through quickly in any event (nor would that necessarily be advisable in a state with a weak judiciary that cannot assure a fair trial). The release of Kulov, who is championing this "justice" cause rather than the "democracy" cause of the resignation of Akaev, would at least mean that the issue would not be forgotten and that some kind of restorative justice might commence.
Thirty years ago, in the events known as "Bloody Sunday," British soldiers shot dead 13 Northern Irish Catholic demonstrators, a tragedy that sparked decades of terrorism and civil strife. Only after many years did the United Kingdom under the Blair government come to grips with government accountability and convene a Bloody Sunday Tribunal with outside Commonwealth judges to assess the truth of the tragedy, proceedings which have faced daunting procedural and political obstacles even in this established democracy. If Kyrgyzstan, a post-Soviet transition nation facing economic deprivation and terrorist threats already, does not grapple immediately with its own "Bloody Sunday" in Ak-Sui through prosecution of those responsible for the tragedy, it, too, could face a long period of troubles.
"Litsa" reporters managed to dig up a photo of President Bush, then governor of the state of Texas, together with Kulov, at that time governor of Chu Oblast, dating back some years, when Kulov toured Bush's ranch during a visit to the United States. They featured it with an article in their paper this week titled "Feliks Kulov Will Be Freed." "Litsa" also speculated that Kulov's case may have been raised in a meeting last month on Lake Issyk-Kul in Kyrgyzstan between Akaev and Boris Yeltsin, described by the paper as "the first Russian president, who never deigned to jail his political opponents" and who was a known master of the graceful exit.
Kulov's release could kill two birds with one stone, by appearing to mollify US human rights concerns but also projecting a more moderate figure onto the Kyrgyz political scene at a time of turmoil who will not dump Akaev but dampen public anger by devising a temporary workaround for the problem created by Akaev's autocracy with an Ak-Sui "truth commission." There are other advantages to his persona: in previous statements issued from jail, he has stressed the need for Kyrgyzstan to maintain good relations with the United States and with Russia and that both are required in the region for a balance of power. Ultimately, Kulov's release from political imprisonment and implementation of his call for meaningful prosecution are vital to Kyrgyzstan's stabilization and the credibility of U.S. human rights intervention, but should be seen in the context of an unpredictable tide of public fury and an uncertain willingness of a government to address wrongs truthfully.
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