The Kyrgyz public feels perplexed about the attempt to exonerate the runaway president Kurmanbek Bakiev. It is also reluctant to accept his predecessor – already exonerated Askar Akayev. Normalisation of such controversial persons and manipulation by public memory have been made possible due to some gaps in public consciousness. According to experts, critical historical events, which caused the overthrow of the regimes of Akayev and Bakiev, still need to be assessed in terms of law and politics.
Two runaway presidents of Kyrgyzstan, Askar Akayev and Kurmanbek Bakiev, one after another, turned out to be on the media agenda of the country. The former arrived to his motherland with his spouse in the second half of May and was going to give lectures in the academy of sciences and two more universities. His lectures had to be cancelled after a wave of discontent of the public and parliament.
Afterwards, the interview of Kadyr Koshaliev, journalist of the national television and radio broadcasting company and chair of the Council of Elders, with runaway president Kurmanbek Bakiev, who was sentenced in absentia to 30 years in prison, was published on the internet. It received a wide public response. Many people found this fact a prerequisite for exoneration of Bakiev. Participants and relatives of those who died during the April revolution held a protest, where they spoke out against the return of ousted leaders of the country.
As a result, Koshaliev resigned from the central TV channel, and recently withdrew temporarily from the Council of Elders of the People’s Kurultai for the time of investigation of his recent actions held by the committee.
Daiyrbek Orunbekov, head of press service of the presidential administration, urged not to politicise the situation. He called the interviews with Akayev and Bakiev a creative endeavour and the personal choice of Kadyr Koshaliev. . According to NTRK, the journalist did not coordinate the interviews, but the author of the programme explained the situation differently.
“Before the new year, interviews with all ex-presidents were coordinated with the then director of NTRK (now first deputy minister of culture, information and tourism – editor), Kairat Imanaliev. It was a part of my authorship programme “Kyrgyz aalamy” (translation from Kyrgyz, “the world of Kyrgyz”). In January, I spoke to Akayev in Moscow, and in April I spoke to Kurmanbek Bakiev in Minsk. Back then, Sadyr Japarov initiated the meeting of all ex-leaders in Dubai. We had to suspend live broadcast of the event due to social and political situation. Kurmanbek Bakiev asked us to watch the edited programme, and then it was his own decision to post the video on the internet,” he said in the foreword to the interview with Akayev.
Although programmes with runaway presidents were not broadcasted on NTRK, the fact that the employee of the national TV and radio broadcasting company and representative of the People’s Kurultai held the interview gave grounds for thinking about the exoneration of Kurmanbek Bakiev.
“The very fact that Kadyr Koshaliev, head of the People’s Kurultai, employee of KTRK, held interview with Kurmanbek Bakiev and praised him personally was shocking. It is the mockery of the memory of almost two hundred (taking into account those who died of wounds in recent years) Kyrgyzstanis who died of the hands of the bloody clan of Bakievs. I also want to remind that there are Koshaliev’s colleagues – journalists – among those died and wounded by the clan of Bakievs. Is it the official position of the administration of KTRK?” Temirlan Sultanbekov, leader of the party of Social Democrats, said.
According to Zhanar Akayev, deputy of Zhogorku Kenesh, we can see the attempt to rehabilitate themselves in the actions of both Askar Akayev and Kurmanbek Bakiev, and to get back to the motherland and live a carefree life. However, there are the runaways themselves that stand behind those actions, rather than the administration of Sadyr Zhaprov, he said.
“They put the current authorities into an embarrassing situation with their actions. I don’t believe that Japarov’s administration would get Bakievs here and exonerate them. It does not need one more problem. The society will never forget those bloody days, when authorities fired its people, and will never forgive that Kyrgyzstan remains one of the poorest countries,” Zhanar Akayev said to CABAR.asia.
This February, when President Sadyr Japarov organised the meeting of his predecessors in Dubai, was the first time when possible exoneration of Bakievs was discussed. Before that, ex-president of Kyrgyzstan Almazbek Atambaev, who was sentenced to 11 years in prison, was released in violation of legal regulations. According to Japarov, the meeting was meant to strengthen the unity of people and commenting on his initiative, he said many things about mercy and forgiveness and asked to “let all the past, revenge and grievances stay in the past.”
The society takes it as a part of the long-term plan to return Kurmanbek Bakiev. However, according to political analysts, even if decisions regarding Askar Akayev and Almazbek Atambaev remained unpunished, the Bakiev case is very complex.
“After the meeting of six presidents in Dubai, it became clear to everyone that the current leadership of the country has some difficult-to-understand desire to exonerate our two runaway presidents. In particular, the most complex case is the Bakiev case. In the nearest future, it won’t be a successful idea to exonerate those people, especially Kurmanbek Bakiev. The people still reject this person and it would be quite risky and even unwise for authorities to exonerate them somehow,” said political analyst Emil Dzhuraev.
He emphasised serious consequences of such experiments in the long term: dilution of limits of legal, political and public responsibility, dilution of distinction between justice and injustice.
“This is quite negative, and destructive for the society and standards in the society. This should not be allowed in the state that builds the rule of law,” the expert said.
According to Asel Doolotkeldieva, political analyst, expert in political regimes, elites and grassroots movements, the attempt to free runaway presidents from guilt and to normalise them, manipulation by public consciousness and memory happen because of the failure to give legal and political assessment to key moments of the new history of Kyrgyzstan.
“All such critical key historic moments as Aksy peaceful protests, Tulip revolution, April revolution, October revolution, military clashes in Batken region are termed as “events” in the Kyrgyzstan political practice. Why do we avoid more precise terms such as revolution, protest, military clashes, war, and so on?” the expert said.
According to her, manipulation by the history and memory of historical events take place in the world, especially when it comes to authoritarian or populist regimes. It is rather a widespread ideological tool used by corrupt politicians.
Asel Doolotkeldieva emphasizes the immense work done by scientists, historians, political analysts, journalists in studying, documenting and archiving of the 2005 and 2010 revolutions. However, there are many different opinions in academic community regarding whether these were revolutions or coups. Various specialists use different terms, and there is different understanding of the nature of popular discontent, people’s uprising, social explosion, which is one of the problems.
“The second difficulty in assessing the events is that every political force, which came to power after the overthrow of the regime, tried to encourage and affect the process of assessment of the events in their own way. If we look at the period of Atambaev’s ruling, it was the April revolution that was considered the most important compared to the March 2005 revolution. It all results in the lack of concerted, organised process of awareness of these moments by state institutions and the society,” political analyst said.
The expert quoted the textbooks of history for grades 10-11, where scant information is provided about revolutions – one page per each, without critical assessment. As a result, the younger generation has a very poor, vague and superficial knowledge of these key historical moments. They are not aware of the guilt of Akayev and Bakiev and why we need to reject their normalisation today.
“As a result, public memory is fragmented. Some remember it, generally adults, and the younger generation will not remember it. Such open sources as textbooks make it impossible to gain full information about these events. Therefore, there are major gaps in public consciousness and there is a fruitful space for manipulating public memory. And that’s when freeing such controversial persons as Akayev and Bakiev from guilt and their normalisation could become possible,” the expert said.
What should be done?
In the absence of a coordinated state policy of memory, political analyst Asel Doolotkeldieva, the older generation being the source of memory should consolidate and remind to the younger generation, the public in articles, analyses, speeches in the media what was really behind the regimes of Bakiev and Akayev. Further manipulation is possible if we fail to convey and transmit this knowledge. And the scientific community must produce even more knowledge, which should be captured in textbooks and books.
The state should also reassess the adequacy of these key events reflected in textbooks, by state and educational institutions. And once there is the need, the educational process should be revised, and follow-up work should be done. The expert cited the museum niche as an example.
“The main historical museum has almost no information about these events, which is weird because the April and March revolutions were key events in our country’s political, democratic transformations. Our historical museum takes no part in shaping the public memory of the younger generation. It possibly makes sense to open a separate museum, even a small one, which is dedicated to these events only. Those revolutions were the outcome of the people’s will, people’s opposition, people’s overthrow of presidents,” Asel Doolotkeldieva said.
According to Zhanar Akayev, member of Zhogorku Kenesh, ousted presidents must be held liable in order to learn the lessons of the history.
“It’s only than that the incoming government will not repeat the mistakes of their predecessors. Authorities should keep in mind that they should reckon with the people, that independent courts and freedom of speech are needed, that their relatives, or even criminals must not be involved,” the deputy said.
According to political analyst Emil Dzhuraev, the civil society and all citizens who care about justice and injustice have a very serious task – to defend their norms and limits of what is unacceptable in our society.
“If we become such a society, where any actions or crimes can be taken for granted, as something that can be forgiven or forgotten, we will have serious problems in future with establishing legal and moral and ethical relationship in the society. We need to discuss and condemn such actions actively and openly. It is obvious that authorities in fact do not care about the unity of people, but rather care about political causes, which are unclear to us,” the political analyst said.