Kyrgyzstan: HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND



The modern Kyrgyz Republic is based on a civilization of nomadic tribes who moved across the northern part of Central Asia, intermixing with other tribes and peoples. The first Kyrgyz state, the Kyrgyz Khanate, existed from the sixth to the thirteenth century and extended at its greatest size from present-day south-central Siberia to present-day eastern Kazakhstan and eastern Kyrgyzstan. That state had trading relations with China, Tibet, and Persia. The khanate’s territory began to shrink in the eleventh century, and by the twelfth century it occupied only regions in the Altay and Sayan mountains. Meanwhile, Kyrgyz tribes moved across Central Asia and mingled with other tribes. Islam was introduced to the Kyrgyz sometime between the ninth and twelfth centuries. In the thirteenth century, all the Kyrgyz groups were conquered by the Mongolian leader Dzhuchi, son of Genghis Khan, and the Kyrgyz remained under oppressive Mongol rule until 1510.



After gaining freedom from the Mongols, the Kyrgyz were overrun by the Kalmyks in the seventeenth century, the Manchus in the eighteenth century, and the Uzbeks in the nineteenth century. In 1876, after Kyrgyz forces had fought three unsuccessful wars of liberation against the Uzbek Kokand Khanate, Russia conquered the khanate, and the Kyrgyz became part of the Russian Empire. In the last decades of the nineteenth century, large numbers of Russian and Ukrainian settlers moved into the territory of the Kyrgyz tribes. Oppressive Russian land and taxation policies severely damaged the nomadic culture of the Kyrgyz, resulting in a bloody revolt that began in 1916 and spread to other parts of Central Asia. After the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, the territory of the Kyrgyz became part of the Soviet Union, first as the Kara-Kyrghyz Autonomous Region (1924), then as the Kyrgyz Autonomous Republic (1926), and finally as the Kyrgyz Republic (1936). During the Soviet era, the Kyrgyz Republic played a specialized, uneventful role as the supplier of agricultural products and specific mineral and military products. Until the 1960s, Russians dominated the republic’s government. Beginning in that decade, the accession of Kyrgyz politicians to high-level positions established the pattern of local patronage that still underlies politics in Kyrgyzstan.



In 1989 the liberalized policies of Communist Party First Secretary Mikhail S. Gorbachev ignited strife between the Kyrgyz and the minority Uzbek population in Osh Province. In the presidential election of 1990, the resulting general democratization movement led to the defeat of Communist Party chief Absamat Masaliyev by physicist Oskar Akayev. In 1991 Akayev, who was the first person without a substantial party résumé to lead a Soviet republic’s government, became the first president of independent Kyrgyzstan. Akayev’s stand in support of Gorbachev at the time of the August 1991 coup and his cautious approach to independence gained international respect for independent Kyrgyzstan. However, in the 1990s entrenched legislative and regional interests frustrated Akayev’s reform agenda to improve the depleted economy. Other problems of the 1990s were a serious “brain drain” of Russian technical experts, a stream of refugees into Kyrgyzstan from the civil war in neighboring Tajikistan, and instances of high-level official corruption.

Beginning in the mid-1990s, Akayev took several steps to increase presidential power vis-à-vis the legislative branch, including questionable referenda and suppression of opposition groups. Before the 2000 presidential election, Feliks Kulov, Akayev’s chief rival for the presidency, was imprisoned. In 2001 Kyrgyzstan offered the United States an air base at Manas Airport in support of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, reinforcing relations with the United States but increasing tension with Russia. The arrest of dissident parliamentary deputy Azimbek Beknazarov in 2002 caused large-scale protests. The harsh suppression of those protests brought about the resignation of the government. In 2003 a referendum, criticized by international monitors, approved Akayev serving his full presidential term (through 2005) in the face of strong demands for his resignation. That same year, the parliament approved lifelong immunity from prosecution for Akayev and his family. In February 2005, international monitors declared the first round of national parliamentary elections to have been unfair. In March the protests that arose in response forced Akayev to flee into exile. Akayev resigned the presidency in April. In a compromise division of power, an interim government was formed with opposition leader Kurmanbek Bakiyev as prime minister (hence, in the absence of a president, also acting president), but the already elected parliament took office as scheduled. In a special election, Bakiyev was elected president in July 2005, running on the same ticket as his main political rival, Feliks Kulov. Bakiyev then named Kulov prime minister to achieve unity.