Well, actually there are now less than 5 days left. The Civil Society Forum gathered in Bishkek last week.The gathering was very intense, with participants being extremely firm and uncompromising about their demands to the president and the government of the country.

Though, it should be emphasized that the meeting became a precedent in terms of a number of reasonable thoughts and ideas expressed. For the past year that was packed with different rallies and protest, we in Kyrgyzstan got used to the fact that all rallies mainly bring chaos with no rationale behind. The Civil Society Forum was a different one. It has produced some notoriously wise ideas but has succeeded with being completely realistic. To be factual, I want to provide the final document of the forum and to talk about it.

The petition of the Civil Society goes as following:

1. Kyrgyz President should bring to the attention of the parliament the draft of the Constitution that was devised in July 2005 within 10 days after this petition is released.

2. Kyrgyz President should agree to call on the coalition government in accordance with a decree of Jogorku Kenesh (Parliament)

3. Kurmanbek Bakiev should call off his veto on establishing public television on the basis of the State Broadcasting Corporation (KTR)

4. The President and the Prime Minister of Kyrgyzstan should be responsible to assist Pyramid TV channel to resume its broadcasting.

5. The president and the government of Kyrgyzstan should take drastic measures in order to eradicate discrimination when it comes to state employees. The minorities, women and young people should be discriminated in state bodies. It is necessary to root out the nationalistic approach state practices.

6. President Bakiev should abide by the law and should lay off all his relatives, occupying high state positions. He should also declare his family’s income.

7. The office of the State Prosecutor should take drastic measures in order to investigate the case of framing of Omurbek Tekebaev, the leader of the “Ata Meken” party and a co chair of the movement “ Promoting Reforms”

8. The President and the Prime Minister as well as the Minister of Finance should be responsible for rebutting the suggestion to accept Kyrgyzstan into HIPIC. They should also stop lobbying the idea about the privatization of energy resources in the country.

9. The President of Kyrgyzstan should agree to all the demands of the participants of all previous rallies and the kurultay in Aksy.

10. The President and the Prime Minister of Kyrgyzstan should be responsible to carrying out the control over the process of returning the assets of the family of the ex-president Akaev to the people of Kyrgyzstan

11. All demands of the Civil Society Forum should be met before November, 2,2005.

When you read this petition, even at a glance, it is clear that some of its bullet points, indeed, apply common sense, something that before was absolutely untypical for all documents released by the movement “Supporting Reforms”. For instance, the first bullet point reads that the parliament should start considering the draft of the Constitution of July 2005.The majority gives a sigh of relief: “Thanks God we will not be pressured by the extravagant constitutional draft of Azimbek Beknazarov, with the idea of turning Kyrgyzstan into an “ecological ” state and removing the notion of secularism from the Constitution, because it was not possible to translate the word “secular” into Kyrgyz ”.

Bullet point number 5 from the resolution also deserves public appraisal. There is no irony here: I deeply respect and admire those who decided to include this issue into the document. Participants of the forum demand that the president of Kyrgyzstan immediately addresses the issue of negative nationalist and other discrimination practices when it comes to state servants and their status. The statement reads: “The minorities, women and young people should be discriminated in state bodies. It is necessary to root out the nationalistic approach state practices.” This, in my opinion, is the key issue of the petition. Ongoing speculations about the chasm existing between the South and the North of the country deeply affect all state practices. It is not a secret to anyone that nowadays the practice of pushing out all representatives of the North from state bodies at all levels is flourishing. This reminds us of the days when after the collapse of the Soviet Union all Russians were deprived for representation in all aspects of political life. At that time the proponents of the anti Russian company experienced great “success”. The majority of high quality specialists were forced our of the country: the industry was destroyed, economy suffered great losses, but “justice” and national pride finally took revenge over “oppressors”. It seems that those mistakes of the independence euphoria should have been kept in mind. In Kyrgyzstan today it is apparently not the case. The story repeats itself with minor variations: now when Russians don’t pose any challenge, all northern Kyrgyzs are subjected to the very same deprivation. Apparently, participants of the Civil Society Forum cherish an idea that the president has still enough authority to curb these destructive trends and practices.

This seems to be it about the common sense in the petition. Most of the other demands of the opposition that were included into the document once again make me think about certain destructionist features of this document. I have many doubts about many demands and I want to share this doubts with you. In the beginning of the declaration there is a demand to call on the coalition government of public trust that is supposed to be formed by president Bakiev. I have certain concerns about the technicalities of this process. The main question is who can potentially become a member of the coalition government of public trust when people in the current political situation are so disillusioned and simply trust noone. When, while reading the petition, I encountered this bullet point I had a feeling that someone who is overboard in terms of political influence and positions, is simply willing to obtain more authority through getting a seat in the coalition government.

In the bullet point 3 there is an ultimatum to president Bakiev to call off his veto on creating public television on the basis of the state broadcasting corporation KTR. Here it is worth keeping in mind, that the president the other day announced that he is firm about his decision to keep KTR’s status of an official state channel. In this case the confrontation is in the air. It is obvious that the participants of the Civil Society Forum were aware about this position of the president, but still decided to pose this challenge to the head of the state in the form of the ultimatum. Probably, noone here counts on the constructive dialogue.

I couldn’t help smiling when I was reading the bullet point number six. Here the president is asked to declare all his assets and to remove all his relatives from high positions in state bodies. I have two remarks: a) ex-president of the country Askar Akaev was very disciplined about declaring his assets. The assets, in his declarations, were minor and mainly included 2 bedroom apartments in Bishkek and an old vehicle b) in some developed countries relatives of some presidents also occupy high positions (Jeb Bush, they say, is a decent governor) and it practically doesn’t hinder the development of the state.

It is easy to criticize paragraphs 7, 8 and 9 of the resolution due to their unfeasibility. Thus the bullet point number 7 contains a demand to immediately detain those, responsible for the framing of Omurbek Tekebaev (one of the leaders of the movement “Supporting Reforms”). It is needless to say that immediacy not necessarily implies the quality of the investigation, but rather claiming yet another scapegoats. Paragraph 8 of the resolution aims to stop all negotiations having to do with accepting Kyrgyzstan into HIPIC- the club of the poorest nations on the globe.
Paragraph 9 is also funny enough: the president is asked to answer all the demands of all previous oppositional rallies and of the kurultay in Aksy. I’m personally moved by the firm awareness of the opposition, claiming the legitimacy of all previous gatherings. It is actually very flamboyant to pretend that the small gathering of those who sometimes even receive money for showing up in the streets, can embody the will of the 5 million population of the country. It should also be stressed that it has been typical for opposition leaders to overstate the number of their supporters, claiming 30000 of protesters instead of real 3000. The same argument applies to the recent kurultay in Aksy. What is especially weird in this case is the fact that Kyrgyz opposition, constantly speculating with the “will of the people of Aksy”, completely forgets about the rest of the country, apparently qualifying all of us as second-class citizens.

The final paragraph of the resolution is another discouragement. The authors of the resolution in the form of an ultimatum suggest the president to meet ALL the demands of the opposition by November, 2. The sad thing is that noone seems to be willing to get engaged into the constructive dialogue and compromise when such a necessity occurs. It is hard to imagine that anything positive can be achieved through blackmail, but opposition members doesn’t seem to care a lot about resolving problems. The fight is the ultimate goal here. Thus, it hardly makes sense to talk about constructivism of the opposition in Kyrgyzstan.