By Kenneth J. Theisen
The present situation in the Central Asian nation of Kyrgyzstan has been described by the International Committee of the Red Cross as an immense humanitarian crisis.
But because of the roles played by the U.S. and Russia, it is not just an internal crisis. It is also a possible crisis for the U.S. war of terror.The U.S. maintains an airbase at the Manas International Airport near the capital, Bishkek. This military facility is a major transit point for U.S. supplies and troops into Afghanistan.
To give the reader an idea of the extent of activity at the base – the facility uses up to 12 million gallons of jet fuel per month.
In March 2010 approximately 50,000 troops passed through Manas on their way in and out of Afghanistan. This includes allied troops as well as U.S. troops. The airbase at Manas is the only U.S. base in Central Asia, other than those located in Afghanistan. The U.S. war of terror in Afghanistan would be exceedingly more difficult to prosecute if the U.S. were not able to continue to use this vital base.
The U.S. has sent its special envoy Robert Blake to the country for talks with the Kyrgyz government to ensure that the crisis does not interfere with the war of terror. Despite a temporary reduction in operations at the airbase at the height of the crisis, the Pentagon has announced that it has now resumed full operations to support the war in Afghanistan.
Within the country there has been inter-ethnic fighting since April when former Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev was forced to flee the country after unrest against his corrupt and inefficient government boiled over into rioting. Bakiyev left the country under a deal brokered by the U.S. and Russia. An interim government was formed by Bakiyev’s former foreign minister, Roza Otunbayeva.
But that interim government is not able to actually control the entire country, especially the southern part of the nation. Bakiyev and his supporters have not given up hope of returning to power and there are accusations by the current government that the recent unrest is “orchestrated” by some of these supporters, including one of Bakiyev’s sons. It is also possible that either Russia or the U.S. or both are playing a role in the unrest behind the scenes. The U.S. has a long history of stirring up “unrest” within various countries in order to depose governments. (Iran in 1953, Guatemala in 1954, Chile in 1973 – These are just a few of the more notorious examples of coups that were preceded by U.S. organized unrest.)
To date, at least 200 people have been killed in the country, with the number of dead possibly running into the hundreds or even thousands. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees states that 200,000 people have been displaced within the country and an additional 75,000 had fled across the border to nearby Uzbekistan. Since Uzbekistan recently closed its border, thousands more are now stranded on the Kyrgyz side of the Uzbek border.
Most Americans would be hard pressed to find Kyrgyzstan on a map. But even fewer know of the role that the country plays in the U.S. war of terror. But this country of 5.3 million people is critical to the U.S. war in Afghanistan. The Manas base is virtually indispensable to the U.S.
Russia is also assisting the U.S. effort to make sure that war supplies get through to Afghanistan. Just last year Russia cut a deal with the U.S. to allow the U.S. to send massive amounts of supplies to the war effort in Afghanistan over Russian territory. U.S. troops are also transported over Russian territory.
Manas is a transit point for some of these supplies. Russia has stated that the Collective Security Treaty Organization, a Russian led body, may send "security specialists" to Kyrgyzstan. On June 17th the Secretary General of the CSTO Nikolai Bordyuzha said, "We are looking at the question of sending specialists to the republic who know how to plan and prepare operations to prevent mass disorders." Similar security specialists operated in Georgia and Chechnya where thousands died from Russian attacks. Russia also maintains a military base in Kyrgyzstan. Russia already has sent in several hundred paratroopers to defend its air base at Kant, Kyrgyzstan.
While the Obama administration has sent some economic aid to Kyrgyzstan, the U.S. imperialists are primarily concerned that a compliant stable government emerges in the nation that is favorable to the U.S. and its continued military presence in the country. U.S. National Security Adviser James Jones proclaimed that the administration is still discussing whether to recognize the new government in Bishkek. He stated, “We’ll just have to wait and see how it plays out. Obviously Manas is a very important air base for our operations in Afghanistan.” At least he admits the real concern and do not believe that the U.S. is just going to “wait and see how it plays out.”
What role if any the U.S. is playing in the present unrest of the country is unknown at this time and because of the role of covert activity, it may never be known. We do know that in 2009 CentCom commander General David Petraeus issued a directive authorizing covert special military operations in areas under his command. Kyrgyzstan is one of those areas covered by the directive. The U.S. also has a history of stirring up ethnic unrest for it own imperialist purposes. It would not be out of character for it to do this between the various ethnic groups in Kyrgyzstan.
The Kryryzstan president Roza Otunbayeva says she has "no doubt" Bakiyev was to blame for the crisis. “His sons have been discussing that they want to organize such a crisis and we thought not of such a scale and not of such a deepness.”
Bakiyev came into power in 2005 after street protests known as the Tulip Revolution. He allowed the U.S. to maintain its airbase after demanding and getting a large increase in “rent payments” for the base. But his government was considered corrupt and he promoted his relatives, including his sons, to top government and economic posts. Opposition leaders to Bakiyev initially said they wanted to close the U.S. base. But after coming to power they also allowed the U.S. to maintain the base and to use it as forward base in the expansion of the Afghan war and as a transit point for the massive influx of troops under Obama.
Since establishing the base in 2001 the U.S. has dealt with three different Kryryzstan governments. At first it secured Kyrgyz cooperation by agreeing to pay the Manas Airport Authority, controlled by the then-president, Askar Akayev, and his band of kleptocrats, international civil aviation rates for the daily take-offs and landings of military aircraft at the airport. This was widely interpreted as an indirect bribe to Akayev. In addition to this “financial incentive,” between 2001 and 2005 the U. S. paid hundreds of millions of dollars for base-related service and fuel contracts to companies that were controlled by Akayev’s family. These payments were not accounted for by the Kyrgyz government nor were they reported in national budgetary reports. Instead they went into the pockets of Akayev and other regime officials.
But we all know that billions of dollars in war of terror contracts was just business as usual in the Bush regime’s efforts to reward it supporters in the U.S. and abroad. An FBI investigation into the contracts and the corruption that surrounded them revealed that money from the contracts had ended up in offshore bank accounts controlled by the Akayev family. But the Bush regime considered the money well-spent since it also allowed the U.S. to control the airbase in Kryryzstan. So what if the money did not help the people of the country, but instead supported a dictatorial elite.
But the people of Kryryzstan were not so complacent. In the March 2005 Tulip Revolution the Akayev kreptocrats were driven from power. Bakiyev took power and immediately took advantage of the need for the Manas base by the U.S. He increased the payments for the base to a new annual base rights package of $150 million. But not surprisingly the money somehow found it way into the pockets of Bakiyev and his regime officials.
But as is the case when the U.S. imperialists locate in a country, all did not go well. In December 2006 a U.S. guard killed a local truck driver outside of the main gate of the base. As part of the usual cover-up it was claimed that that the driver was an armed terrorist. But it was discovered that the driver was actually unarmed and an employee of a base contractor. The U.S. refused to turn over the serviceman to the local authorities and sent him out of the country with no punishment. Bakiyev used the incident as leverage to demand a renegotiation of the amount of bribes his government was receiving from the U.S.
But then the Russians entered the picture. Bakiyev went to Moscow and cut a deal with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev. This deal included an economic package in excess of $2 billion. But this was just the start of negotiations that eventually resulted in the U.S. offering an even more lucrative deal to Bakiyev to secure the airbase. President Obama even sent the autocrat Bakiyev a letter of praise. This upset opposition politicians in Kyrgyzstan who mistakenly thought the United States stood for democratic values. They have since learned better.
After taking over as interim Kyrgyzstan leader, President Roza Otunbayeva told the Washington Post, “I would say that we have been really unhappy that the U.S. Embassy here was absolutely not interested in the democratic situation in Kygryzstan. We concluded that the base is the most important agenda of the U.S., not our political development and the suffering of the opposition and the closing of the papers and the beating of journalists. They turned a blind eye." That is an accurate assessment.
U.S. leaders have been upset at Russia’s role in regard to Manas. The Russians have generally supported the U.S. war against Afghanistan, while still pressing to close Manas. A Russian official recently stated that these should be one foreign base in Kyrgyzstan and that it should be Russian. But given that the nation borders Russia, this is not a surprising view.
U.S. Secretary of War Robert Gates said this of the Russian role, “The Russians are trying to have it both ways with respect to Afghanistan in terms of Manas. On one hand you’re making positive noises about working with us in Afghanistan, and on the other hand you’re working against us in terms of that airfield which is clearly important to us.”
But even though the U.S. is upset at Russian interference it needs Russia’s continued support and agreement to continue to overfly Russian territory to supply the Afghan war effort and to transport troops. It also needs to make sure that Russia does not play a “spoiling role” within Kyrgyzstan.
Russia supported April’s Roza Revolution because they believed that Bakiyev was too close to the U.S. Moscow controlled TV stations regularly referred to Bakiyev as a tyrant. Contrast this with Obama’s letter of praise of the tyrant. But shortly after coming to power and despite the U.S. support for Bakiyev, Otunbayeva stated Manas will continue to function "until the current contracts expire."
In the latest development as I write this article the son of former President Bakiyev was arrested at an airport in Great Britain on an Interpol arrest warrant on charges of corruption and misusing state funds. He has been accused by the Kyrgyz interim government of being behind the recent turmoil there.
Azimbek Beknazarov one of the leaders of the interim government has demanded the turnover of Maxim Bakiyev under the threat of shutting down Manas. Beknazarov stated to the Guardian newspaper, “England never gives up people who arrive on its territory. But since England and the US fight terrorism, and the arrangement with the airbase is one of the elements of that fight, then they must give over Maxim Bakiyev.”
On Friday morning interim President Roza Otunbayeva claimed that some 2,000 people may have died in the recent fighting. Also Giuseppe Annunziata of the World Health Organization stated on Friday that the crisis could affect up to one million people of the five million population. “We are working with a planning figure of one million people that have been directly or indirectly affected by this event – 300,000 of them… refugees.”
It is not clear how the humanitarian crisis will play out, but it is clear that U.S. leaders only care to the extent that it impacts on its control of the Manas base. The latest development in the arrest of Maxim Bakiyev is an added complication for the U.S. imperialists. World Can’t Wait will continue to follow the situation and report here on new developments.