WELCOME TO IWPR'S REPORTING CENTRAL ASIA, No. 595, November 13, 2009 RETURN TO DEATH PENALTY FLOATED IN KYRGYZSTAN Parliaments refusal to sign international ban on executions seen as a bad sign. By Anara Yusupova in Bishkek
COMMENT SHOULD CENTRAL ASIA FEAR TALEBAN SPILLOVER? Upsurge in militant activity in Central Asia will be contained, although security should be stepped up in border areas. 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For more information about how you can support IWPR go to: http://iwpr.net/donate **** www.iwpr.net ******************************************************************** RETURN TO DEATH PENALTY FLOATED IN KYRGYZSTAN Parliaments refusal to sign international ban on executions seen as a bad sign. By Anara Yusupova in Bishkek A proposal to restore capital punishment has caused debate and outrage in Kyrgyzstan, where the death penalty has not been applied for more than a decade. Now being discussed by members of parliament, the idea was first floated by Murat Sutalinov, head of Kyrgyzstans National Security Committee, who even suggested that executions be carried out in public. Like other post-Soviet states, Kyrgyzstan no longer has the death penalty on its lawbooks. After a moratorium on carrying out executions lasting from 1998, capital punishment was formally abolished in 2007. The 189 convicts on death row had their sentences commuted to life. There are currently 204 individuals serving life sentences, according to Citizens Against Corruption, a human rights group. Sutalinov made his controversial proposal when the subject of tougher penalties came up at a September 23 meeting of Kyrgyzstans Security Council, a body which brings together the heads of various police and security agencies. Kyrgyzstan should not look to the West or the OSCE, he said. It should introduce capital punishment for certain crimes. In some cases, executions should be held in public. In my view, this will help reduce the crime rate. His proposal was immediately backed by the secretary of Security Council, Adakhan Madumarov, who asked, Why should society maintain people who have committed serious crimes against it? Even the United States, regarded as a model democracy, has three methods of capital punishment. The Security Council which is now being dismantled as part of wide-ranging reforms announced by President Kurmanbek Bakiev was quick to say that its head was speaking in a purely personal capacity. Madumarovs view in no way reflects the official stance of the Kyrgyz authorities or his own position as secretary of the Security Council, said a statement from the organisation. The decision taken at the Security Council session makes no mention of returning this penalty to legal practice. Despite this retraction, Sutalinovs idea has become a live issue in Kyrgyzstan. On November 11, the Ak Jol faction in the Kyrgyz parliament voted not to back a motion to ratify a United Nations agreement banning the death penalty. Since Ak Jol dominates the legislature, the decision means parliament as a whole is likely to vote against ratification when it comes to debate it. The Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights requires signatories to ban the use of capital punishment. Since Kyrgyzstan has already done so, signing up to the protocol should not have been contentious. Refusing to do so has been seen by some analysts as reflecting a broader authoritarian impulse among the ruling elite. Ak Jols debate showed that opinion among party members was divided, but those who held the majority opinion cited arguments ranging from the need to crack down on crime to the high cost of maintaining life prisoners. One member, Askar Salymbekov, said public opinion was 80 or 90 per cent in favour of reinstatement, the AKIpress news agency reported. The parliamentary committee for international affairs had reviewed the matter the previous day, and by contrast backed ratification of the UN protocol. Addressing that meeting, Justice Minister Nurlan Tursunkulov said the experience of other countries clearly showed that having the death penalty did nothing to cut the crime rate, according to AKIpress. The fact that Sutalinov and Madumarov, both of them government officials, were so outspokenly in favour of the death penalty, set off equally strong reactions from opponents of such a reversal in policy. Kyrgyzstans human rights ombudsman, Tursunbek Akun, issued a statement saying that coming from such senior officials, the proposal tarnished the countrys reputation. Any call for public executions, the practice in medieval times and under fascism, will push our country over into the abyss of lawlessness and obscurantism, said the statement. The ombudsman expressed fears that the officials remarks were a trial balloon to test public opinion. Interviewed by IWPR, Omurbek Tekebayev, who heads the major opposition party Ata Meken, agreed that top officials wanted to test public reactions. He pointed out that if this had not been the case, both Sutalinov and Madumarov would have been sacked for stepping so far out of line. Tekebayev also expressed concern that Sutalinov was articulating a more general policy shift away from honouring commitments to international conventions and democratic standards. Temir Sariev of the smaller Ak Shumkar party said Sutalinovs and Madumarovs comments were irresponsible and reckless The death penalty issue, he said, has been dealt with in line with international conventions. I do not think it makes any sense to return to it. Sariev suggested that the authorities raised such issues merely to show a hard line stance and intimidate their opponents. Mars Sariev, a leading political analyst in Kyrgyzstan, believes the authorities came up with the idea as they realised it would leave them in a win-win situation. They realise it is not a feasible option, as it would undermine Kyrgyzstans position in the international arena, above all in Europe, which is an investor and sponsor, he said. Yet as in many countries, reintroducing capital punishment appears to have broad public support in Kyrgyzstan. Sariev thinks and the tough on crime approach is bound to make the Bakiev administration more popular. In the end, though, the president would have to veto the idea scoring points for his democratic credentials along the way, said Sariev. In reality, everyone understands that reinstating capital punishment is impossible, unless Kyrgyzstan wants to become a totalitarian state, he concluded. Impossible or not, the spectre of capital punishment has alarmed Kyrgyzstans human rights community, which sent a joint letter to Bakiev on October 9 urging him to deal with Sutalinov and Madumarov. The following day, human rights activists marked World Day Against the Death Penalty by gathering in Bishkek to call for the right to life to be respected and a the penitentiary system made more humane. As a human rights activist, I oppose the introduction of the death penalty in Kyrgyzstan, Aziza Abdirasulova, who heads the human rights group Kylym Shamy, told IWPR. It should remain a thing of the past; 137 countries have abolished this form of punishment and I dont think theres any reason why our country should introduce it. Anara Yusupova is a pseudonym for a journalist in Kyrgyzstan. This article was produced under IWPRs Building Central Asian Human Rights Protection & Education Through the Media programme, funded by the European Commission. The contents of this article are the sole responsibility of IWPR and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of the European Union. COMMENT SHOULD CENTRAL ASIA FEAR TALEBAN SPILLOVER? Upsurge in militant activity in Central Asia will be contained, although security should be stepped up in border areas. By Sanobar Shermatova in Moscow In the eight years the United States-led Coalition has been in action in Afghanistan, the northern provinces have remained largely calm until recently, that is. Taleban attacks focused on southern Afghanistan, and the overland routes via which Coalition forces brought in fuel and ammunition from Pakistan. There was never a hint of a Taleban threat to Coalition airbases in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, or to the airfield in Tajikistan used by the French. The decision by Central Asian states to allow their territories to be used to bring in military freight into Afghanistan via the northern route changes things dramatically. The new supply line carries with it the risk that the Central Asian region could be dragged into the Afghan conflict. This danger was highlighted in stark terms in September, when the Taleban stepped up their activities in Kunduz province, a region close to Tajikistan which is controlled by German troops in the NATO force and which until this year was quiet. When the Taleban seized two fuel tankers in Kunduz in early September, NATO responded with an air strike that resulted in a number of civilian deaths, causing an international crisis. Attacks on German military vehicles have also been reported in the region. Afghan officials say Taleban activity in Kunduz has also involved non-Afghan militants of Central Asian origin. One senior commander, General Mustafa Patang, told journalists on September 12 that hundreds of militants had come to northern Afghanistan from the tribal areas of Pakistan. On October 12, President Hamid Karzai confirmed that the Taleban were moving men to the north adding that they were using military helicopters to do so. The bulk of these foreign fighters are assumed to belong to the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, IMU, which was active in Central Asia in the late Nineties before relocating to Afghanistan and then, after 2001, lawless parts of Pakistan. Estimates of their numbers range wildly from a few hundred to 5,000. However, these Central Asian militants are not entirely homogenous. One known group affiliated to the IMU is the Islamic Jihad Union, which has apparent connections with Turkish and Afghan émigrés in Germany. The German police believe the group was planning to bomb airports, restaurants and cafes, an American military base and the Uzbek embassy in that country. The aim was apparently to prompt Germans to call on their government to withdraw troops from Afghanistan and from the military base in the Uzbek border town of Termez. The IMU itself appears to have shifted its priorities from toppling the Uzbek government to the broader international jihad agenda. In practical terms, its focus has been fighting the enemy on its doorstep the Pakistani government. The military has mounted periodic offensives in the tribal areas, and the IMU has fought back on the side of the Pakistani Taleban. The IMU was closely aligned with top militant leader Baitullah Mehsud, killed by a rocket from an unmanned US plane in early August. For its part, the Pakistani army told civilians in the tribal zone that its offensive was not directed against the Pashtun population, but against the foreign militants causing instability in the area. Incessant Taleban attacks on the overland route from Pakistan through the Khyber Pass into Afghanistan have brought a halt to Coalition convoys carrying fuel and munitions. Now that the northern route via Central Asia is being used, it would seem logical from the Talebans perspective to apply pressure here, too. The IMU is an obvious choice for the job many of its fighters spent time in northern Afghanistan in the mid-Nineties when they were part of the Tajik opposition guerrilla movement fighting the government in Dushanbe. The ethnic factor is also important, since this part of Afghanistan is populated by Tajiks and Uzbeks. Effectively, there are three front lines for defending Central Asia against a spillover of the Afghan conflict in the shape of incursions by Taleban-allied militants. Given the arrival of the latter so close to the border, it did not come as a complete surprise when there were sightings of them in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan this spring and summer. (For reports on these incursions, read Chasing Phantoms in the Tajik Mountains, RCA No. 581, 24-Jun-09; Upsurge in Militant Presence in Kyrgyzstan, RCA No. 582, 03-Jul-09; and Taming Tajikistans Eastern Valleys, RCA No. 584, 23-Jul-09.) The Tajik-Afghan frontier goes through difficult terrain and is porous in parts, allowing drug traffickers and militants to slip across unnoticed. There are mountain pathways providing routes through Tajikistan to Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. The IMU knows the ground well, since its guerrillas used the same routes in 1999 and 2000 to mount raids on Kyrgyz and Uzbek territory. The fact that armed groups appeared in roughly the same areas this year eastern Tajikistan and southern Kyrgyzstan suggests that local law-enforcement is still unable to monitor and intercept suspects using these drug routes. The second defensive line, therefore, runs along Central Asias borders with Afghanistan to reduce opportunities for infiltration. It should be recalled that both the German base in Termez and the French forces in Tajikistan are within easy reach of the border. The third line of defence lies deeper inside Central Asia. Militant groups, for example in Pakistan and the North Caucasus, are quick to adapt and will rapidly extend their attacks to new areas so as to disperse the forces arrayed against them. Weakening the security forces also has the aim of undermining the governments they support. There have been several examples of such targeted attacks in Uzbekistan in recent months. In May, police were targeted in and around the eastern city of Andijan, while in August the deputy head of the interior ministrys counter-terrorism department, Colonel Hasan Asadov, was killed. Two Muslim clerics were attacked around the same time in what seem to have been related incidents. Abror Abrorov, deputy head of the Kukeldash madrassa in Tashkent was murdered in mid-July, and the capitals chief imam or mosque leader, Anvar-Qori Tursunov, was targeted in a failed assassination attempt at the end of the month. It seems most likely that both clerics were singled out by militants for being too close to government and for preaching against radicalism. While attacks on police and clerics are unprecedented in Uzbekistan, they are fairly standard practice in Pakistan and the North Caucasus. It seems reasonable to predict that militants will use these tactics again in the Central Asian context. Yet in contrast to other parts of the world, they will find their room for manoeuvre severely constrained in Central Asia. There are no places of refuge where they can hide out and no stockpiles of arms, and the local population will not supply them with food and intelligence information. The fact that the armed group which tried to establish itself in Tajikistan was eventually confronted and dispersed by government troops shows that there are limits to such insurgent efforts. Assuming that the militants will be unable to start operating deep inside Central Asia, there is thus little chance that these states will become drawn into the conflict with the Taliban and IMU in Afghanistan. It is therefore the defensive lines on either side of the Aghan border that will be decisive. The Coalition members and the Central Asian states are aware of the dangers posed by the Taleban relocating to northern Afghanistan. After security services from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Germany and the Central Asian states gathered in Dushanbe last month, they remained tight-lipped about the outcome, but coping with the new challenge from the northern Taleban must have been at the top of their agenda. Sanobar Shermatova is a Moscow-based expert on Central Asian affairs and sits on the RIA Novosti news agencys advisory council. **** www.iwpr.net ******************************************************************** REPORTING CENTRAL ASIA provides the international community with a unique insiders' perspective on the region. Using our network of local journalists, the service publishes news and analysis from across Central Asia on a weekly basis. The service forms part of IWPR's Central Asia Project based in Almaty, Bishkek, Tashkent and London, which supports media development and encourages better local and international understanding of the region. IWPR's Reporting Central Asia is supported by the UK Community Fund. The service is published online in English and Russian. The opinions expressed in Reporting Central Asia are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the publication or of IWPR. 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