One Year On
As March 24 - and with it the first anniversary of the overthrow of the Akaev regime - approaches, the international spotlight is returning to Kyrgyzstan to see what people are thinking about the changes - or lack of them - that have occured over the last 12 months.
The BBC has a collection of 6 points of views from people around the country: KelKel activist Burul Usmanalieva from Bishkek, NGO worker Kyialbek Toksonbaev, also in Bishkek, Abdimomun Joldoshov and student Diloram Khamidova from Osh, lexicologist Daniel Matkasymov in Jalalabad, and, last but by no means least, teacher Minavar Akhmedova from Karasu.
Opinions are, inevitably, mixed, with several people expressing strong concerns over the continuation of corruption in the republic, as well as a sense of disappointment. Even so, Burul’s assessment is probably the most accurate: still too early to tell.
on March 22nd, 2006 at 10:43 am
Thanks CWX/Sivko.
Yes it’s still early. Yet in the meantime, it would be naïve to think that the ‘revolution’ was anything more than a social upheaval combined with a coup. It was not a revolution in the sense that a society broke with an old system or that the socially mobile came to replace an obsolete, disfunctional elite. I think that in a number of years there will a new upheaval phase.
Either way, I noticed a positive impact of the 2005 events, especially on people’s perception of power. See, with the ousting of the Akayevs and the liquidation of Bayaman Erkinbayev and other maffia MPs by their own kind (korotshe, shakali pazhirayut drug druga) all these little krutoi potentates have realized that they are not immune or immortal; that the tables can turn quite fast. Even Karimilosevic next door has understood that.
And that is a good thing.