Kyrgyz Elections - March/April 2005

Revolution in Kyrgyz Republic

Jews Face A Revolution
April 14:	Mail Tribune
March 31:	JTA
March 25:	Jerusalem Post
March 22:	JTA
Additional Kyrgyz coverage

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Mail Tribune- 04.11.2005

Southern Oregon Mail Tribune

‘Constant fear’ for her Kyrgyzstan family

Elena Efunia discusses her family's plight.

By PAUL FATTIG 

Elena Efunia began carrying her cell phone on a cord near her heart on March 23, the day the revolution erupted in her native Kyrgyzstan.

"I keep it here because I call my family every day now — I’m afraid for them," said the graduate student at Southern Oregon University who lives in Central Point.

""I call them because they cannot call me," she added. "Everything was destroyed. ... My family, including my husband, is frightened, desperate and scared."

Her father’s computer business was destroyed, her father and husband beaten and her parents’ home vandalized during the early days of the violent revolt.

Moreover, her family has been warned to leave because they represent both the Jewish and Russian minority, she said. 

President Askar Akayev fled to Russia just ahead of the mob which stormed Bishkek, the capital of the Central Asian country bordering China and three other "stans" — Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Kyrgyzstan and its three sister countries are former Soviet Union republics which became independent states after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.

Efunia’s family lives in Bishkek, which has a population of about 1 million, by far the largest city in the largely poor country of about 5 million.

Akayev, who ruled the country since its independence, was ousted following a dispute which grew out of parliamentary elections Feb. 27 and subsequent runoffs, according to The Associated Press. The revolt was also fueled by deep-rooted poverty and allegations of corruption against Akayev and his family, AP reported.

But Efunia, 25, who earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from Kyrgyz-Russian Slavic University in Bishkek, where she was a member of the national volleyball team for four years, says the conflict also arises out of ethnic and religious differences.

Her father, Boris, a law school graduate, is Jewish; her mother, Valentina, is Russian. Her husband, Rafail Subaev, is also of Russian descent.

"They told my dad and husband to get out of their Kyrgyz land because Jewish and Russian people will not be allowed to stay," she said of the men who broke into her parents’ ground-floor apartment during the March upheaval.

"More people over there are starting to think that if you are not Kyrgyz, then you don’t have a right to be there," she said.

Efunia, who traveled home in summer 2002 and has since been visited by her father, believes Islamic extremists are fueling much of the unrest.

"Me and my family are scared of this — we do not want to live in constant fear," she said.

In her homeland, the Kyrgyz is the largest ethnic group at some 65 percent of the population, followed by 14 percent Uzbek, 12.5 percent Russian and the rest other nationalities.

The religious breakdown is 75 percent Muslim, 20 percent Russian Orthodox and 5 percent other, including Jewish.

"Being half Jewish and half Russian, I am scared to death ... to go to Kyrgyzstan because I know what I will have to face there," she said, noting she hopes to eventually get her family members out of the country where they were born.

"I know there will be no life for us there now."

Efunia arrived in Medford on the tragic day of Sept. 11, 2001, to start school at SOU, where she completed a bachelor’s degree in business in 2002. She is now studying for a master’s degree in business management at the university while working part-time for Rogue Federal Credit Union.

But above the peace she found in Southwestern Oregon looms the cloud of unrest in her native land.

"Now many business people who are not Kyrgyz have writing on their businesses ‘Get Out!’ " she said. "They have harassed my family. My mom and my sister have to stay at home now."

Her sister, Yulia, 19, a university student in Bishkek, quickly returned home on the day the revolution broke out after she saw tanks and mobs in the streets, Elena Efunia said.

That night, the mobs destroyed most of the businesses in the city, including her father’s, she said.

"They just left the walls, nothing else," she said, adding that her father has organized a relief fund for businesses in Bishkek. "I was shaking when he told me. The next day they came to my parents’ apartment and told them to get out."

It was the next afternoon when men pounded on the apartment door and broke in, she said, adding her father and husband tried to stop them.

The men demanded to know where her mother and sister were, she said.

"They were looking for females because they were told that Jewish blood and nationality is transferred through mothers," she said, noting her father and husband feared the women were going to be raped and killed.

Fortunately, her mother and sister had hid in a neighbor’s storage shed where they stayed for two days.

"The (men) kicked and bit my father and my husband," she said, adding they required medical care for their injuries.

The men left, but not before stealing the television and other valuable appliances, she said.

"Now my mother and my sister have to put the scarves on the heads whenever they get out of the apartment because it is a Muslim law for a woman to be with a covered head," she said.

Although elections are set for July 10, Efunia is not optimistic peace will return to Kyrgyzstan.

"Even though it was proclaimed that Kyrgyzstan is a democratic country — there is nothing there that would prove it now," she said.

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Jewish Telegraphic Agency- 03.31.2005

Jews in Kyrgyzstan not threatened, but some may leave after upheaval

By Lev Krichevsky

MOSCOW (JTA) - Members of the small Jewish community of Kyrgyzstan may emigrate in the wake of the revolution in this Central Asian nation, the community's leader told JTA. 

"Many Jews are experiencing a burning desire to leave," Dr. Boris Shapiro, head of the Jewish culture society Menorah, the leading secular community organization, told JTA on Tuesday in a telephone interview from the Kyrgyz capital city of Bishkek. 

"No one has left yet, but there will be a wave of emigration," he said. 

He added that Jews are worried over possible economic consequences of the revolution that toppled President Askar Akayev last week. Another reason for concern is a rise in radical Islam that may slip into the vacuum created by political and economic turmoil. 

Some five million people live in Kyrgyzstan, a former Soviet republic sandwiched between Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and China. Following the nationwide protests and civil unrest, Israeli consular officers arrived to help evacuate the Jewish population if necessary. 

"People were lining up, and the Israelis are still busy checking people's papers," Shapiro said. "No one got their visas yet. But people will start leaving soon; this is certain." 

Shapiro said there was no immediate threat to the community, though he admitted the situation in Bishkek was "terrifying" on March 24-25 when protesters took over main government buildings in the city and gangs used the chaos to loot stores, markets and businesses. 

"The worst seems to be over now," Shapiro said. 

In Washington, the leader of a group that monitors Jewish life in the region said his group is working to ensure that the Jewish community is safe. 

"Fortunately, the Jews haven't been made a target and don't feel threatened," said Mark Levin, executive director of NCSJ: Advocates on Behalf of Jews in Russia, Ukraine, the Baltic States & Eurasia. "We're working with the Americans and the Israelis to keep things that way." 

Kyrgyzstan is home to some 1,500 Jews, approximately one-fifth of the Jewish community's size at its peak some 15 years ago, before the Soviet Union broke up and Jews started emigrating. 

The modern Jewish presence in Kyrgyzstan is a relatively new phenomenon. 

While the Jewish presence can be traced to the Middle Ages, the current, mostly Ashkenazi community traces its roots to Stalin-era exiles and World War II-era refugees and evacuees. 

Shapiro's story is typical. Now 74, he was born in Ukraine and settled in Kyrgyzstan some 50 years ago, looking for better educational and career opportunities. 

Like in many other places on the outskirts of the Soviet empire, state-sponsored anti-Semitism was relatively weak in Kyrgyzstan, and Shapiro managed to build a good career in medicine after graduating from a medical college in Bishkek. 

Shapiro made it to the post of deputy health-care minister in the last years of the Soviet Union. He later served in a similar position with Kyrgyzstan's first post-Soviet government. 

He added that many have regained their hopes for law and order now that Feliks Kulov, a longtime opposition politician and former national security minister who was sentenced to a prison term three years ago, is a key figure in the new government. Kulov was released from jail amid last week's protests. 

"He is a charismatic leader and he took the situation in his own hands. He knows how to go about it," Shapiro said. 

But Shapiro said the political situation is still tense, with opposition leaders focusing on redistributing the power they took from Akayev and his proteges. 

Akayev, a university-trained mathematician and the nation's leader since 1990, is a former liberal academic-turned-boss of the reform wing of the Communist party under Mikhail Gorbachev. Like many leaders in post-Soviet Central Asia, he extended his term in office and was widely accused by the opposition of authoritarianism, corruption and nepotism. 

But Shapiro said the Jewish community felt safe during Akayev's rule. 

"Despite all the setbacks of his regime, he was an intellectual, and he always remembered that all his teachers were Jewish," Shapiro said. 

Like many of his countrymen, Shapiro believes there will be a period of uncertainty for Kyrgyzstan, and many Jews simply don't want to test their luck during the difficult times ahead. 

"We are a small and very poor country that lacks any energy resources of its own. It's difficult to live here," Shapiro said. 

(JTA Foreign Editor Peter Ephross in New York contributed to this report.) 

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Jerusalem Post - 03.25.2005

Jerusalem Post

A real-time megilla in Kyrgyzstan


Sam Ser and AP

Czechoslovakia had a Velvet Revolution, Georgia had a Rose Revolution, Ukraine had an Orange Revolution – and now Kyrgyzstan is having a Purim revolution. 

President Askar Akayev fled the capital on Thursday after protesters stormed his headquarters, seized control of state television and rampaged through government offices, throwing computers and air conditioners out of windows. 

"It certainly is a day of venahafoch hu [topsy-turvy]," Kyrgyzstan's Chief Rabbi Arye Reichman told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday night. There was considerable irony, he added, in the similarities between the megilla that Kyrgyz Jews had just read and the upheaval in the streets of the capital. 

"No one expected what is happening – not the government, not the opposition, not the Jewish community. It has all happened so quickly. That we need to establish order is clear. But who, what, where, how... this is a different question." 

Kyrgyzstan's Jewish community numbers only a few thousand, and it shares the country with some 5 million people of more than 80 ethnicities – although the overwhelming majority is Muslim. That may make it reminiscent of the scattered, far-flung Jewish communities of Queen Esther's time, but there are no clear-cut Ahashverosh or Haman figures. Reichman said the country's Jews had enjoyed good relations with their Muslim neighbors, and with both the government and the opposition. 

"So far, thank God, it's been quiet for us, and we hope it will continue like that," he said. "The Jewish community is united, but... we are hoping that God will watch over us." 

A leading opponent of the Akayev regime, Felix Kulov, was freed from prison and said Akayev had signed a letter of resignation, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported. Kulov said the opposition would guarantee Akayev's security "because there must be a peaceful transfer of power." 

Kurmanbek Bakiyev, one of two key opposition leaders, said on opposition-controlled state television that "Akayev is no longer on the territory of Kyrgyzstan." He also said Prime Minister Nikolai Tanayev had resigned, but that the Security, Interior and Defense ministries were working with the opposition. 

The Interfax news agency, without citing sources, said Akayev had flown to Russia, but it later said he changed course for Kazakhstan and landed there. Earlier, the news agency said Akayev's family had been heading to Kazakhstan. 

But the US, which maintains a base outside Bishkek, the capital, cast doubt on reports that Akayev had fled the country. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, asked specifically about reports that Akayev had fled the country, said during a trip to Guatemala: "The intelligence reports do not verify what you cited from press reports. I'm confident there will be no issue with respect to US forces." 

Members of the parliament that was in power before February's election met Thursday night to discuss keeping order in the nation and conducting a new presidential vote, perhaps as early as May or June. They elected a former opposition lawmaker, Ishenbai Kadyrbekov, as interim president. 

Shortly after the demonstrators streamed into the government headquarters, opposition activist Ulan Shambetov sat in Akayev's chair in celebration, while another demonstrator held a Kyrgyz flag triumphantly behind him. 

"It's not the opposition that has seized power, it's the people who have taken power. The people. They have been fighting for so long against corruption, against that [Akayev] family," Shambetov said. 

Kyrgyz politics depend as much on clan ties as on ideology, and opposition figures have no unified program beyond calls for more democracy, an end to poverty and corruption, and a desire to oust Akayev, who has been in power in the former Soviet republic since independence was declared in 1991. 

There is no sign that the opposition would change Kyrgyzstan's policy toward Russia or the West – and unlike in successful recent anti-government protests in Georgia and Ukraine, foreign policy has not been an issue. But any change would have impact, since both the US and Russia have cooperated with Akayev and have military bases near Bishkek. 

There is also no sign the opposition would be more amenable to Islamic fundamentalist influence than Akayev's government has been. 

The takeover of government buildings in Bishkek followed similar seizures by opposition activists in southern Kyrgyzstan, including the second-largest city, Osh. Those protests began even before the first round of parliamentary elections on February 27 and swelled after March 13 run-offs that the opposition said were seriously flawed. US and European officials concurred. 

The Supreme Court later ruled the parliamentary elections invalid, said former parliament speaker Abdygany Erkebayev. 

Celebration mixed with chaos Thursday night as thousands stayed in the main square outside the presidential headquarters. An elderly man and woman in a clearing in the crowd danced to imaginary music as a man pretended to beat drums. 

After dark, a large store on the main street was looted, with mostly by young men carting out everything from mattresses, coat hangars and mirrors to crates of food, juice and cookies. 

"The most important thing is not to allow revenge and persecution," said Kulov, who had been imprisoned under Akayev on corruption charges which he said were politically motivated. "We will try to restore order by the morning. We are trying to do what we can." 

Topchubek Turgunaliyev, an activist in the opposition People's Movement of Kyrgyzstan, said new parliamentary elections would be held in the fall. 

"We want to preserve the unity of the nation. We are holding talks with law enforcement officials so there is coordination," said Turgunaliyev, whose party is headed by Bakiyev. 

Many of the protesters who broke into the government building, whooping and whistling, were young, including members of youth opposition factions that have taken a more confrontational stance against law enforcement officers during the demonstrations. 

"It is a revolution made by the people," Kulov said on state television, adding, "Tomorrow will come, and we must decide how to live tomorrow." 

Kyrgyzstan lacks the rich energy resources or pipeline routes that have made of some of its Central Asian neighbors the focus of struggles by Russia, the US and China for regional influence. But the country's role as a conduit for drugs and a potential hotbed of Islamic extremism, particularly in the impoverished south, makes it volatile. 

An unknown number of protesters were injured in a clash with men in civilian clothes and blue armbands, who threw stones and brandished truncheons to threaten demonstrators. Vincent Lusser, spokesman for the International Red Cross in Geneva, said staff from the organization had seen "a few dozen wounded" in Bishkek hospitals. Most appeared to have injuries sustained in falls or fist fights, he said. 

Many demonstrators wore pink or yellow headbands signifying their loyalty to the opposition – reminiscent of the orange worn by protesters who helped bring in a new, pro-Western president in Ukraine last year. 

Akayev, 60, is prohibited from seeking another five-year term, but the opposition has accused him of manipulating the parliamentary vote to gain a compliant legislature that would amend the constitution to allow him to stay in office beyond a presidential election set for October. Akayev has denied that. 

He presented himself as a cautious democrat, saying he supported democratic values but that they must be introduced gradually because Kyrgyzstan has not had a long history of democracy. His opponents claim that was a cover for an intention to establish authoritarian rule.

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Jewish Telegraphic Agency- 03.22.2005

Jews in Kyrgyzstan feel safe as country faces possible upheaval

By Lev Krichevsky

MOSCOW (JTA) - The small Jewish community of Kyrgyzstan is remaining calm as protests mount in the Central Asian country following a parliamentary election that some allege was rigged. 

Protests have been gathering momentum in the southern part of Kyrgyzstan since runoff elections on March 13, when opposition parties won only a handful of seats in Parliament. 

This week, people opposing the country's longtime authoritarian leader, Askar Akaev, took over two major cities in southern Kyrgyzstan, a small country sandwiched between Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and China. 

Akaev agreed Monday to a probe into allegations of widespread election fraud. Opposition leaders are demanding that he resign. 

Boris Shapiro, the president of the country's Jewish community, said Monday that Jews remained calm amid mounting protests in this country, and that no anti-Semitic incidents have been reported lately. 

Shapiro said there were only five or six Jewish families, or about two dozen people, living in the south of the country. The majority of the country's Jewish population-- about 1,200 people -- lives in the country's capital, Bishkek, in the north. There have been no open protests in northern Kyrgyzstan. 

Experts noted that Akaev's grip on southern Kyrgyzstan long has been relatively weak because of the country's rough, mountainous terrain and poor infrastructure, which make communications difficult. 

Officials at the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress in Moscow, of which the Jewish community of Kyrgyzstan is a member, told JTA on Monday that they have been following the situation closely and have been in touch with Jewish leaders in Kyrgyzstan, as well as in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. 

"The Jewish communities in the region seem to remain calm, and from what we are hearing they do not believe their safety and well-being is threatened by what's going on in the south of Kyrgyzstan," Roman Spektor, a spokesman for the EAJC, told JTA.