Kyrgyztan calls Human Rights Watch’s bluff, twice

Ajit Randeniya

04 March 2009
The Kyrgyz Republic is a landlocked, mountainous country in Central Asia, bordered by Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and China: in simple English, anyone without world domination ambitions will take little interest in this tiny, peaceful country.

 But their tranquillity was disturbed rudely by the US warmongers at the beginning of the Afghanistan bombing campaign at the end of 2001. Their trouble began with the setting up of an US airbase in the capital Manas, as a vital transit point for military equipment and other supplies to Afghanistan, as it turns out, without the promised payments to the Kyrgyz government. Empire makers like Donald Rumsfeld who was ‘flying high’ at the time and was ‘negotiating’ with them, of course, could not care less about the wishes, rights and independence of the Kyrgyz people.

 Widespread public discontent over the US military presence in Kyrgyzstan grew the last several years due to a number of disgraceful incidents involving the US servicemen: in late 2006, a US serviceman fatally shot a truck driver during a routine security check, with no American investigation or prosecution on the incident. The US also failed to adequately compensate Kyrgyzstan for $650,000 worth of damage caused by the collision of a US KC-135 tanker aircraft with a civilian plane. HRW was not making any noises about these violations.

 After many years of unsuccessful attempts to get a fair deal, Kyrgyztan’s parliament finally voted overwhelmingly (78 to 1) on 19 February 2009, in support of the government-backed bill to cancel the lease agreement on the Manas air base. President Kurmanbek Bakiyev signed the bill, quick smart, making it law and an eviction notice was issued. The ‘mighty’ US has 180 days to vacate the base. The US stooge, leader of the Social Democrat party, Bakyt Beshimov who cast the single vote against (call him the Ranil Wickremesinghe of Kyrgyzstan), believed that ‘the decision to evict the Americans is premature.

 The closure of the Manas airbase is ‘throwing the spanner in to the works’ the US had planned in Afghanistan: without this vital supply route, they will have to find an alternative overland supply route to Afghanistan. More than 75 percent of U.S. supplies currently go through Pakistan, where militant attacks are increasing rapidly, making it an unsafe route. Russia and Kazakhstan has agreed to allow transport of only ‘non-lethal’ supplies by their rail.

The obvious US disappointment was reflected in their reaction which was a pathetic attempt to link the closure to a Russian offer of $2.15 billion in aid and loans, a suggestion totally rejected by the Kyrgyz government, with a member of parliament announcing that ‘The decision to shut the American base reflects the will of the Kyrgyz people’.

Kyrgystan did not stop there: the Kyrgyz State Committee for National Security refused entry in to the country of the Russian-based, so-called human rights ‘defender’ Vitalii Ponomarev (a HRW agent) upon his arrival at Manas airport, declared him ‘persona non grata’ and deported with orders not to come back. It was the second time in five months that the Kyrgyz authorities have refused entry to the ‘defender’ who dared to attempt entry in to Kyrgyzstan just a month after publishing a slanderous report about ‘religious persecution and torture’ in the country! This follows the similar deportation, in October 2008 of Ivar Dale, a Norwegian who claimed to represent the ‘Norwegian Helsinki Committee in Bishkek’, (how is that for a front?), barring him from Kyrgyzstan for 10 years.

Exploiting this incident, but in fact, expressing the US anger over the eviction, HRW jumped in to action on 26 February, with the ‘demand’ that the Kyrgyz government should reverse its decision to deport the spy! Holly Cartner (fancy name!), Europe and Central Asia director at HRW ‘ordered’ that ‘Instead of driving out human rights defenders the Kyrgyz government should be open to scrutiny of its human rights record,’ and reprimanded the Kyrgyz government: ‘more scrutiny, not less, will lead to positive change in Kyrgyzstan.’ This HRW busybody also blabbed that ‘Kyrgystan’s measures are contrary to the standards set out in the UN Declaration on Human Rights ‘Defenders’, which requires states to respect, support and is protect them.

Targeting of this poor, decent country for HRW’s vile attacks, just a week after the eviction of the US airbase, is a classic example of its unethical, cynical, disgraceful and illegal attempts to use Human Rights as cover for its role as a US state department and CIA funded front to support the US geopolitical agenda.

Kyrgyztan provides a good example for all developing countries to follow: reject their noises and call their bluff without fear or hesitation.

Bravo Kyrgyztan!

http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items09/040309-5.html