Letter From Bishkek

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The downfall of Kurmanbek Bakiyev began with a betrayal. In February 2009, Bakiyev, the president of Kyrgyzstan, met with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in Moscow, where he received a promise of $2.15 billion in Russian loans and aid. That same day, he ordered the U.S. military out of its airbase at the Manas airport near Bishkek. The United States set up the base in 2001 to support the NATO mission in Afghanistan; since then, the base had become particularly essential, especially after Uzbekistan ordered the closure of a U.S. base on its territory in 2005.

To nearly all Central Asia analysts, the deal was clear: Moscow had long wanted the U.S. military out of its backyard -- or at least a greater say in how U.S. forces operated -- and Bakiyev, in exchange for promises of cash, was happy to oblige.

Yet just four months later, in June, the United States agreed to increase its yearly rent for the Manas base from $17 million to $60 million. A further aid package promised $177 million to the Kyrgyz government. It was announced that the base would stay after all.

Although Bakiyev ostensibly added to his government’s coffers, he unwittingly set in motion the events that would eventually lead to his fall from power. Last week, a surge in nationwide public demonstrations in the Kyrgyz capital resulted in violent clashes that drove Bakiyev to abandon his office, effectively handing power over to a disparate and disorganized group of weak opposition parties. Five years ago, Bakiyev became president after his predecessor, Askar Akayev, was deposed in a popular revolt. Now, it was his turn to flee.

Alexander Knyazev, director of the CIS Institute, in Bishkek, told me that Bakiyev’s reneging on the deal with Moscow was a “key moment” -- not only in relations with Moscow but also in terms of his own political survival. Knyazev, who is close to the Kremlin, called the breach “prostitution.” He went on: “Many countries do that. . . . But Bakiyev did it in a very irresponsible and untalented way. He lied to Russia and got the money from the U.S.” For Moscow, this was “unforgivable.”

Last November, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin reportedly told Kyrgyz Prime Minister Daniyar Usenov that he was displeased with the way the first tranche of the Russian aid had been spent, accusing Bakiyev of channeling the money through banks controlled by his 32-year-old son, Maxim. From then on, no more Russian aid would come, weakening Bakiyev’s stature at home.

But he had a friend in the U.S. government. The Bush and Obama administrations rarely criticized how he squashed political rivals or kept tight controls over the media. And U.S. officials seemed uninterested in calling attention to how the U.S. rent and development funds were spent. As one U.S. businessman who has been in Kyrgyzstan for more than a decade told me, “The priority of addressing issues in Afghanistan has certainly minimized the importance of America’s values here."

Yet as Bakiyev appeared to enjoy the support of Washington, he was making some unpopular choices at home. Early this year, authorities raised the prices for electricity, heat, and hot water by 170 to 400 percent. For years, international donors had been pushing for gradual increases in state-subsidized prices in order to help the ailing economy and service the utilities sector. The level of the announced increases, however, came as a shock -- and Bakiyev promised even more this summer.

In early February, just as the first of the new utility bills were being distributed, Maxim reportedly purchased Severelectro, an electricity distributor in the country’s north, for well below market price. He would benefit directly from the price increases; at the same time, he accumulated interests in the Kyrgyz telecom industry and immediately raised mobile phone rates.

With these moves, many Kyrgyz citizens began to aim what had been more general discontent directly at Bakiyev and his regime. In travels around the country, pensioners told me they were spending all of their meager state allowance on utility bills, sitting at home in the cold and dark to save money. While I was visiting remote villages high in the mountains of Naryn Province last February, groups of men and women quickly gathered, asking me to relay their criticisms, mostly leveled at the younger Bakiyev, back to Bishkek.

On March 9, when a Kyrgyz-American businessman named Eugene Gourevitch -- who has close ties to the Bakiyev family and Maxim’s banking interests -- was indicted in Italy for helping to defraud an Italian telecom company of $2.7 billion, Bakiyev blocked many news outlets that were reporting on the scandal, including the Kyrgyz-language service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and several Russian-language Web sites. Within weeks, he shut down three other local papers and an online television station for critical coverage of his family business.