Kyrgyz Police Prepare for Election Unrest

Sunday, 20 November, 2005

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Gulnura Toralieva

Law enforcement agencies in Kyrgyzstan are being trained to deal with mass demonstrations ahead of a parliamentary election at the end of the month, sparking fears that the government is planning a violent crackdown.

A four-day police training course in late January, organised by the interior and defence ministries, focused on “stabilising the social and political situation” during an emergency, the government said. Opposition newspapers reported that police officers played out scenarios of how to deal with large-scale disturbances in six potential trouble spots around Kyrgyzstan – Bishkek and areas in the south of the country.

Tolekan Ismailova, leader of the non-government group Civil Society Against Corruption, worries that the government is preparing its forces to stifle legitimate protest during the February 27 parliamentary poll.

“The authorities use the police to suppress dissidents and civil initiatives,” said Ismailova. “The authorities use it to strengthen the authoritarian system. The [police] structure itself is corrupt, and all jobs are bought.”

The head of the interior ministry’s press service, Nurdin Jangaraev, admits law enforcement bodies have been trained to deal with large groups of demonstrators, but insisted the timing of the course one month before the elections was “pure coincidence”.

“The staff training is an event that was planned a year ago,” said Jangaraev. “But I think that it is very important, because the state needs to be prepared. The training was designed to prepare for the introduction of a state of emergency.

“During the training, possible scenarios… were developed for the event of mass disturbances. We will establish checkpoints to block flows of people during the election. We will also neutralise areas of tension, together with the other law-enforcement agencies.”

Spokespeople for the Kyrgyz police deny that special orders have been given to take “extraordinary measures” against demonstrators, saying their priority is to maintain calm during the elections.

“When there is a mass gathering of people, a terrorist act or some other incident may occur. We must be on guard,” said Joldoshbek Buzurmankulov, a former interior ministry spokesman.

Some in the country believe that the wave of “velvet” revolutions that began in Georgia and continued in Ukraine will come to Kyrgyzstan, sparking violence.

“At the moment, no one knows who will come to power, whether there will be a coup, whether the opposition is preparing a ‘coloured’ revolution,” said an employee of the Bishkek mayor’s office who wished to remain anonymous. “The authorities are scared about what could happen. No one is predicting that the elections will be calm.”

There have already been protests, the most recent in support of opposition politician Roza Otunbaeva. She was forbidden from running for Atajurt, the opposition party of which she is co-leader, because as a former ambassador she had not met Kyrgyz residence rules applying to candidates.

In response, the Bishkek city assembly passed a decree ordering organisers of public events to report the date and time of any protests at least 10 days before the event, along with the number of participants and their expected route.

Activists like Ismailova describe the order as unconstitutional as it violates citizens’ rights to hold peaceful meetings, but Bishkek officials say they have popular support for it.

“We were forced to take this step because we received statements and appeals from citizens, heads of companies and institutions, in which they expressed concern about breaches of the peace, damage to their property and disruption to the work of public transport. Public events that are held on city streets put massive pressure on citizens,” said Tatyana Shadrova, a city council official.

So concerned are the Kyrgyz authorities about the prospect of election-related demonstrations that they have published an appeal calling for the poll to be held “calmly and without tension”.

The statement said, “We are against methods of force [used] by a number of radically-minded individuals imposing their will on others, whose unjustified actions damage stability, disorient citizens and create tension in the social and political situation.”

Despite the elaborate preparations, one observer interviewed by IWPR says the government realises it has little reason to worry about violence.

“I don’t think they are scared that the opposition will spur the people on to a so-called revolution. The last picket in support of Otunbaeva showed that the opposition is not capable of this,” political scientist Ermek Kozubekov told IWPR.

“Opposition members bring their numerous friends and relatives to meetings with them. They do not have any real power to give the authorities reason to be afraid of them. The authorities today are mainly scared of displays of our mentality.”

Another political scientist, Nur Omarov, believes the pre-election crackdown by authorities could have a different effect than the one intended.

“The authorities are scared of a repetition of the scenario in Ukraine or Georgia,” said Omarov. “Our president has started to mention these topics frequently in his speeches. So soldiers and interior ministry employees are now making intensive preparations for the elections.

“I think that this will not help the authorities, but rather damage their reputation. By doing this, they are revealing their concerns.”

Gulnura Toralieva is an IWPR correspondent in Bishkek.