Aksy Violence Resurrected as Political Issue

The shootings in the southern Kyrgyz district of Aksy may have happened four years ago, but they continue to reverberate and are fast becoming an embarrassment for the government of President Kurmanbek Bakiev.



A June 2 decision by Kyrgyzstan’s Supreme Court to block further investigation of the death of six protesters at the hands of police in March has left relatives of those killed both angry and disappointed that the Bakiev administration has not fulfilled its problem to punish those responsible.



On March 17 that year, police units used live fire to disperse a demonstration by Aksy residents protesting at the detention of their local member of parliament, Azimbek Beknazarov. Four people died in the shooting, a fifth died later of his injuries, and a sixth was killed the following day.



The use of extreme force, sanctioned by higher authorities, was a landmark event that seemed to symbolise everything that was wrong with the regime of President Askar Akaev.



The violence and the government’s subsequent unresponsiveness sparked a series of massive demonstrations through the course of 2002. Although these eventually died down, they were in some ways a forerunner of the protests of early 2005 which brought down the Akaev administration.



Four officials from Jalalabad region – two prosecutors and two senior policemen – were given jail sentences by a court martial in December 2002, although they were not convicted of the shootings themselves. These convictions were in any case quashed in May the following year.



In the new, more liberal environment that followed last year’s March revolution, the new government promised to reopen the investigation, and survivors were offered a chance of gaining justice at last.



Initially the signs were hopeful. Beknazarov, a leading driving force behind the March revolution, was subsequently made Kyrgyzstan’s chief prosecutor and soon initiated a formal investigation into Aksy. However, he was dismissed in September last year - some say because he was ruffling too many feathers by pursuing Akaev-era officials on other matters.



The prosecutor’s office continued to work on the case, and requested the Supreme Court to authorise trial proceedings.



But in a major rebuff, the Supreme Court on June 2 effectively threw out the request, ruling that there was no need to review the case of the four officials already tried by a military court.



Aksy residents who had come to the capital Bishkek to hear the judgement were angry at the outcome.



“We already had our suspicions when police officers gathered in the courtroom. We already thought that the decision wouldn’t be fair - and it wasn’t,” one Aksy resident told IWPR.



“They shouldn’t think we’ll stop at this. We may seek revenge, and blood may be spilled.”



Immediately after the court ruling, around 20 Aksy residents went to the main government building in Bishkek and tried to get in to see to President Bakiev.



Security guards would not let them enter, and some reports – later denied by the president’s office – said they assaulted some people who forced their way past a security checkpoint.



The following day, June 3, the president and Beknazarov’s replacement as prosecutor, Kambaraly Kongantiev, did meet a group of Aksy residents, and Bakiev promised that a new investigation would be held. It is unclear what the scope of such an investigation would be, and whether Supreme Court ruling would stand in its way.



Beknazarov - now a leading light in the new Kyrgyz opposition who feel the revolution has been betrayed by half-measures and inaction on the part of Bakiev’s government - was also at the meeting, and was clearly disappointed with the result. On June 5, he went public, expressing regret that as an opposition leader, he had helped Bakiev come to power.



“After the meeting with the president, we will see how far this case goes. There were promises that the matter would be investigated fully and that everything would be conducted with proper oversight. But my voters did not receive a clear answer,” said Beknazarov.



“The main task of the new regime was above all else to punish those responsible for this tragedy. If they don’t do this, then I won’t believe their other promises.”



Relatives of those killed at Aksy were similarly dissatisfied with the response from Bakiev.



“We expected that after the March revolution, the regime would give a political and legal assessment of the incidents at Aksy,” said Momunbek Chetinbaev, whose son Begaly was among the four people killed outright in the initial police action. “We have come to Bishkek several times with our demands, and we have met the president twice, but there have been no results.”



The last time that relatives met the president was on December 27 last year, when they gave him a list of at least ten people whom they believe are responsible for the shootings. The list includes former president Akaev, currently living in Russia.



“If the regime makes the right decision and punishes the guilty, we won’t resort to rash action. If the law doesn’t work and there is no justice, then... we’ll solve our problems ourselves,” said Abdygul Sadyrov, who was shot in the leg in the Aksy violence. “The Akaev regime has gone, and the new one should restore justice.”



What to do about Aksy is rapidly becoming a political headache for Bakiev, as Beknazarov and other opposition figures use it to measure his government’s broader performance in the year since it came to power.



“The Aksy residents are angry that Kurmanbek Bakiev used their tragedy in his electoral campaign last year, when he promised that he would investigate the Aksy tragedy to the very end if he became president,” said Tolekan Ismailova, head of the Citizens against Corruption group.



“He simply deceived them: all criminal cases have been dropped, and courts at various levels have only looked at cases where local authorities [are accused of] obstructing peaceful rallies… No one wants to hear that shots were fired and people died.”



After meeting Bakiev, Beknazarov announced he was formally allying himself with the Movement for Reforms, an umbrella group of opposition parties and movements from which he had previously stayed aloof. He went on to ask the Movement to take part in this year’s National Kurultai, an annual opposition assembly of which Beknazarov is the main organiser.



This year’s Kurultai will take place in Jalalabad region in southern Kyrgyzstan, and has the expressed aim of initiating the “second stage of the revolution”. This slogan echoes previous comments by Beknazarov that the events of March 2005 were just phase one of a revolution that remains unfulfilled.



Bakiev also came under pressure when he met the government and parliament on June 7, and with pressure groups at a separate meeting the same day. During the latter, Aziza Abdrasulova, head of the Kylym Shamy human rights group, said, “A year has gone by, and now we are in the second year. Where are the results? Why have the guilty among Akaev’s officials not been punished yet?”



The president’s own position is difficult since when the Aksy violence took place, he was Kyrgyz prime minister and an Akaev loyalist. He resigned in May 2002 and joined the opposition in 2004.



For the moment, Bakiev appears to be trying to avoid getting further embroiled in the adversarial politics around Aksy, by promising another investigation but saying his role prevents him from interfering.



“One can understand the Aksy residents. They are grieving, and I understand and support them,” he said on June 7. “But I cannot interfere in the affairs of the Supreme Court and the prosecutor general’s office.”



Cholpon Orozobekova is a correspondent for Radio Azattyk, the Kyrgyz service of RFE/RL.