In this issue:

1. POINT OF VIEW: Kyrgyz Constitution referendum: future political struggle in the making

5. Good luck, Roza!

1. POINT OF VIEW: Kyrgyz Constitution referendum: future political struggle in the making (Kyrgyzstan, June 10, 2010-issue 620) By Giorgio Fiacconi TCA publisher

BISHKEK (TCA) — The Kyrgyz Constitution referendum, scheduled for June 27, announces a definite regime change in Kyrgyzstan. All are hoping for the best but how much difference will be made remains to be seen. On one side there is an urgent need to legitimize the Provisional Government, bringing the rule of law. On the other side, the Constitution is only the first step before a proper parliamentary and presidential elections are held, beginning a new political struggle.

Today, it appears that Roza Otunbayeva is the consensus interim president through the end of 2011. Everybody favours the new Constitution giving more power to the Government and the Parliament. Much has changed in the last 20 years, but not always for the better and many are not sure that a real change will take place. The fact is that past politicians have been very generous in words and promises but always very short in deeds and actions. To be honest, president after president, government after government, and minister after minister has promised change, reform, less harassment, a better investment climate, etc. In fact, this reporter has been assisting for the last 12 years in one conference after another, to one promise of reform after another, but the fact remains that the country has not been able to design and implement a proper economic strategy capable of providing the nation with a suitable employment policy and the creation of a middle class. Year after year, we have seen the number of migrants to Russia and Kazakhstan and other countries increase. Good professional and young brains have left the country, agriculture is in a tough spot, tourism is getting little attention and trade is only developing through a smuggling chain. Nobody invests in long term industry for local and export markets and real estate survives only due to black money that needs to be invested to legalize while nobody is buying. The overall economic situation is certainly not at its best. However, the country has resources and opportunities, but is unable to manage them in a transparent way through the rule of law. To address the economy and develop an adequate short and medium term plan will certainly not be a walk in the park. Here in Kyrgyzstan, we have many so called “experts and advisers” mainly among politicians that have never managed more than their households. Every new Government or minister feels the right to review what was done before, creating a climate of uncertainty that keeps investors at bay while opportunists jump on board searching for contacts and grabbing whatever they can. Transparency at the referendum and future election is certainly a good thing. But transparency doesn’t mean a change of governance if those elected don’t adhere to the law by forcing business to adapt to their private interest. We call such attitude corruption but here in Kyrgyzstan this way of life has been going on forever. About 3.2 million citizens are said to be eligible to vote in the referendum. The figure may be correct from the statistic point of view, but in fact less than 50 percent will actually cast a ballot. There are many reasons for this. About one million are living abroad as labor migrants, and some will already be on vacation on June 27 and would not come home to vote. Rural residents would not show interest regardless of promotion. In practical terms, Kyrgyzstan’s non-voters are the biggest group of people and convincing them to participate in the “democratic process” will not be an easy task after so many changes of government, severe unrests and lack of knowledge. This brings us to our conclusion: people do not trust that a new regime will be different from previous ones. At this stage, the only way for the provisional government to earn trust from the Kyrgyz people (and the international community) will be to immediately start a new economic and legal policy and implement it in a visible way with short and medium term objectives and frequently monitored results. We are in summer, so let’s focus on tourism. Let the government push on the Chinese side to attract Chinese tourists. Forget about the Europeans, concentrate on Central Asia. Make an aggressive policy toward Kazakhstan and China, ask neighbouring countries to help. If we really want to move forward in the short term, Chinese and Kazakh tourist are the best to fill the hotels. Squatters are demanding land for housing, so a transparent commission must be made up by the government and NGOs to evaluate who is really entitled to such benefits and to make a financial agreement with some local and/or foreign companies to build low cost houses/apartments in a short period of time. Do it simultaneously in three or four locations. Those entitled should pay a small deposit and then a monthly rent for a long period (10-15 years) to become legitimate owners of the property. Establish a concept that nothing is free and although at a very low cost, people must pay for their private property. Kyrgyzstan has a free economic zone where management has not always been transparent and many abuses have been recorded in the past. Make an overall auditing and promote the FEZ as an advance system for export-oriented assembly plant and other fast turnover activity with low investment and employment potential. There are many other examples involving agriculture, trade and so on. This requires, first of all, political will, then competence and experience. So far, political will and transparency, starting with the Judiciary, has been missing. After the Constitutional referendum, hopefully without any incident under international scrutiny of hundreds of observers, we will have parliamentary elections in October. Here the situation will be different. The risk of fraud is more likely as political ambitions conquer all. Several political parties are already preparing for elections. The joy of the referendum will be over and the real power struggle will start. At that time, we will see various parties scramble for hegemony and various political leaders divide the country on ethnic and other grounds. Roza Otunbayeva will have a very difficult task to keep all together and make sure that the elections are peaceful and transparent. Ordinary people in Kyrgyzstan are concerned about their future, the future of their children and their need to be assured of an honest income based on hard work and legal protection. This brings us to the creation of jobs and the protection of investment. The thousands of unemployed around Bishkek and the underemployed that live in the rural areas are a time bomb to the destiny of any government. These people can be exploited by political opponents and criminal groups and no one should abuse their patience or think to stop with shooting. The bomb will explode again if we do not provide a sustainable quality of life. This is where the provisional government should act immediately in a pragmatic and effective way.

2. Kazakhstan Investment Summit: focus on new projects (Kazakhstan, June 10, 2010-issue 620) By Charles van der Leeuw

ALMATY (TCA) — State officials have exhausted themselves stressing that Kazakhstan is the place to go for investors at the 4th Kazakhstan Investment Summit organized by the International Herald Tribune in Almaty late last week. The two-day brainstorm uniting high-level state and corporate representatives tried to formulate how the ideal investor for Kazakhstan should look like, in order to serve both his own interests and the Kazakh community’s aspirations. The most tangible result of the gathering has been the signature of an impressive number of new protocols between Kazakh representatives and foreign partners for new projects. They include Talgo of Spain for the assemblage of new passenger trains and of France’s Alsthom to put heavy-duty locomotives for rail cargo together. Other new deals concern the completion of a new rail track in Kazakhstan, the construction of a new bitumen factory financed by China’s investment corporation CITIC in Aktau on the Caspian shore in the southwest of the country, new oil and gas exploration projects to be operated by Total of France and Statoil of Norway, and new power facilities with the Korea Electric Power Corporation and Samsung.

The road to get there

Kazakhstan’s investment policy focuses on 12 industrial sectors, including infrastructure, agro-industry, machinery and equipment, high-tech tools and technology, transportation, communication and tourism, all with the aim to turn Kazakhstan into a full-fledged industrial nation through their "high added value" to the national industry, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev stressed in his opening address. The sum of investments from the public sector and from private sources adds up to the order of $45 billion. But the efforts involve more than just cash, as the head of state pointed out: attracting up-to-date technology, training a new generation in handling it, and the creation of marketing tools is of no less importance than just cash flow. In his presentation that followed, however, IHT publisher Steve Dunbar warned that long-term continuing efforts both in terms of content and financials still have to be taken. "No road for any newly independent state is short," the media executive warned.

At the closing panel towards the end of the following day, Kazakh Prime Minister Karim Masimov mentioned industrial innovation, health care and education in one breath pointing at conditions to prevent Kazakhstan from deviating from the road to get there. Don Carlos de Palacio, the president of Talgo, who had flown in from Madrid for the occasion, pointed at the human factor in the process by stating that cultural cooperation and social exchange is hardly less important than just business.

Direct investments

On the macroeconomic side of the tale, just earning money without fundamentally changing spending patterns is "a road to nowhere" in Masimov’s words. Success in industrial innovation requires the development of competitive industries rather than protectionism for low-quality products which used to be one of the Soviet policy’s main mistakes and is still "tempting" but "...will die under competition", the PM stressed during the closing session. Yet, capital build-up remains a matter of concern. Despite the global financial contraction, Kazakhstan has witnessed a net increase of direct investments through the year 2009 of 2.1 percent in comparison with the previous year — against increases in 2008 and 2007 of 5 and 14 percent on-year respectively. However, according to figures published in early May by the Moscow-based CIS Interstate Statistics Committee, in the first quarter of the current year, direct capital investment in Kazakhstan declined by 7.3 percent on-year, against 4.9 percent in the first three months of 2009. This points at the periodical decline as being seasonal, but it also indicates an aggravation which could well persist in the overall trend over the full year.

Tangible improvement

By comparison, investments in Russia have seen much heavier losses than Kazakhstan in the first quarter, but on-year decline lessened in the first quarter of this year — thereby signifying a tangible improvement in the overall trend rather than an aggravation. As for Kazakhstan’s two neighbors to the south, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and even cash-strapped Tajikistan, all of them have shown very strong performances through impressive net growth in attracting capital of late. But looking at statistics, one cannot but signal that also for them growth in investment has been slowing down so far this year. It can only mean that Russia has to do a lot to make its trend persist and Kazakhstan and its southern neighbors even a lot more to reverse it. Discrepancies between growth in investments and overall trends in gross domestic product suggest that former Soviet republics have taken the road towards industrial development, but that its end remains far-fetched. Commodity output and the money earned on it still remains the main financial resource, and the precarious paradox is that its impact can make or break attempts to diminish economic dependence on raw materials and their sales. Both in Russia and in Kazakhstan, economic and industrial growth still appears to be more production-driven than investment-driven — meaning that the main big push towards industrial reform has yet to materialize. Assessing the Almaty event’s results should therefore include a fair level of caution.

Stability and transparency

Yet, as Thomas Mirow, president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development noted, not only internal measures will help improve the situation for Kazakhstan, and under trends that will persist for years to come even the most effective measures so far will need to be revised time and again to meet current and new challenges. "International [capital] markets have tremendous trouble reading the situation," the EBRD executive noted. In his words, corporate business in the world is "over-leveraged, with too little equity" to dwell on, and there is no way Kazakhstan can escape from its effects. His view was supported by Sir Richard Evans, senior board member of Kazakhstan’s state welfare fund and national coffer for spare cash Samruk-Kazyna, who during the closing session of the Summit stressed the need for stability and transparency (including personal liability for both state and corporate executives now in the process of being included in legislation around the globe) in order not to let any money needed slip away. The overall message that has been adhered to, though with varying levels of enthusiasm, by most other panel members during the event: save your cash rather than squandering it. For a country that still imports more than 70 percent of its consumables, as one other speaker reported, these words should be hard to ignore.

3. Tajikistan in talks to expand railroad networks (Tajikistan, June 10, 2010-issue 620) By Rakhim Nazarov

DUSHANBE (TCA) — China’s China Roe Company, specializing in railroad construction, is considering investment in the construction of the Vakhdat-Yavan railroad in Tajikistan.

According to Jumakhon Zukhurov, Tajikistan’s first Deputy Minister for Transport and Communications, Tajik and Chinese parties have held several rounds of negotiations about the possibility of investing in the project. In the first stage, after studying all the documents, the Chinese company offered an unacceptable bid for the Tajik side. Chinese experts explained their offer, saying that the project includes the construction of a three kilometer long tunnel and several railway bridges. During the last round of negotiations, after long debates, the Chinese side and Tajik experts agreed upon a total cost of $180 million, which is much less compared to the previous amounts, said Zukhurov.

Currently, the Tajik government is considering all documents to make the final decision. According to Tajik Railways national company, now the construction of the Dushanbe-Vakhdat railroad is financed by the Tajik Railways. According to Kudratullo Faizulloyev, director of the Design and Survey Institute, 5.2 kilometers of the future railroad has already been designed, and construction has begun. The remaining 41 kilometers are being designed now. The project is very difficult in terms of geography and geology, as it concerns mountainous areas, said Faizulloyev. According to Zukhurov, it is a capital-intensive project. That is why the Tajik Railroad can not finance it alone. “We need to attract investments,” he said. Under the project, the length of the Vakhdat-Yavan railroad will be 46 kilometers. The railroad will link the central part of the country with the Khatlon region, bypassing Uzbekistan and reducing the way by 152 kilometers. Meanwhile, the Tajik Ministry for Transport and Communication has developed an investment project to build the Kolkhozabad-Nizhniy Pyanj railroad. According to the source, a provisional review project to attract investment for the project of building the Kolkhozabad-Nizhniy Pyanj railroad was developed. The railroad’s length will be about 50 kilometers. According to Yuri Yuldashev, chief engineer at the Design and Survey Institute, the project is of primary importance as it is regional, that is in the future the railroad will link Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and China. All these countries have shown interest in the project, he said.

Future railway Kolkhozabad-Nizhniy Pyanj will link to Afghanistan with Kunduz, Mazar-e-Sharif and further with Herat, and the Iranian city of Mashhad. Within Tajikistan, the railroad will be linked with the Vakhdat-Yavan railway section. Preliminary negotiations to develop a feasibility study and finance the project had been held with Iranian and Chinese investors, the source said. Economic experts believe that Tajikistan does not have any other choice rather than find an alternative way to bypass Uzbekistan, finding a way out of the traffic dead-end. Recent events have once again proved that neighboring Uzbekistan, under various pretexts, will further prevent the transit of rail freights to Tajikistan through its territory. Earlier this year, Tajikistan and Iran signed an agreement on building a railway linking the two countries through Afghanistan. Iran is currently implementing a project to build the railroad Mashhad (Iran)-Herat (Afghanistan) which in the future will be linked to the Nizhniy Pyanj. In the meantime, Tajikistan is looking for investors to build its part of the railroad.

4. Uzbeks losing valuable investments due to fall in uranium prices (Uzbekistan, June 10, 2010-issue 620) By Dilshod Ashurmatov

TASHKENT (TCA) — Uzbekistan has postponed bids for exploration of seven uranium fields in the Central Kyzylkums for an unspecified term. The reason for the postponement is the current condition of the world market and the absence of foreign investors.

In March, Uzbekistan’s State Committee on Geology and Mineral Resources (SCGMR) planned to announce public tenders for the exploration of seven uranium fields in the Central Kyzylkums. However, after analyzing the uranium market, the government decided to postpone bidding until better times. Certainly, the crisis is the main reason for the current situation. According to experts, the world uranium market is under the influence of two divergent factors. On the one hand, there is a projected deficit of raw materials and plans to build new nuclear power plants in many countries. On the other, the global financial crisis is forcing reconsideration of costs by many mining companies. Since the beginning of this year, the price for uranium has fallen by 8.4 percent, totaling $40.80 per pound, after the previous fall by 19 percent in 2009. Currently, the price for uranium is 70 percent below the record cost of $136 per pound in June 2007. “In a crisis, prices for uranium fluctuate, and all are waiting to see what will happen,” said Yoshiyasu Nagahori, general manager of Japan’s Sojitz, which signed an agreement with SCGMR in 2008 to explore one of the promising uranium fields. Under these circumstances, the Navoi Mining and Metallurgical Combine (NMMC), state-owned producer of uranium in Uzbekistan, said that by 2012 it is going to invest $165 million to modernize uranium production.

Before the 1990s, NMMC was producing up to 3.5 tons of low enriched uranium annually. In the mid 90s, due to deteriorating prices for uranium on the world market, uranium production at the plant dropped to 1.7 tons. By 2006, the production rate had grown back to around 2.3 tons. The main hope for the combine was the commissioning of new fields in the Central Kyzylkums. According to Kuvandyk Sanakulov, NMMC general director, seven new uranium mines are to be launched within four years increasing the uranium production by 50 percent. According to the IAEA, Uzbekistan is rated seventh in the world in terms of uranium reserves, and fifth in terms of production. Uzbekistan’s potential uranium resources, estimated at 186,000 tons, include 27 fields. In order to develop some of these fields, it is necessary to have high-cost technology for separating uranium from vanadium, which is also contained in these deposits in substantial amounts. In such circumstances, leaving a bulk of resources for itself, Tashkent offered foreign partners to develop ‘non-liquid’ uranium. In 2007, for the first time in many years, the Uzbek government talked of expanding uranium exports and increasing revenues from uranium. Then, NMMC signed an agreement with Japan’s Itochu Corp. to supply annually up to 400 tons of uranium oxide concentrate to Japan over the next five years. In May 2009, a similar agreement was signed with South Korea. The contract includes the supply of 2,600 tons of uranium worth $400 million to Seoul through 2016. Tashkent relies on these eastern partners, thus trying to weaken the control of the U.S. as the exclusive importer of Uzbek nuclear materials. Today, SCGMR has a number of initial agreements on participation in the development of uranium deposits with three Japanese companies - Itochu, Mitsui and Sojitz, and South Korea’s Korea Resources. Since 2006, the Korean company had been exploring the Jantuar field. However, according to a source at Korea Resources, its results have not confirmed uranium reserves which were guaranteed by the Uzbek side. The investors have not yet decided what to do next. In 2009, Japan’s Itochu completed research of ore at the field to develop technology to extract uranium and vanadium separately. However, considering the rising cost of expenses for necessary equipment, the Japanese have suspended talks for an indefinite term. Russia has also stopped its activities concerning the joint development of Uzbek uranium. In 2006, the Tekhsnabexport joint stock company signed a protocol with NMMC to establish a joint venture to explore and mine uranium. According to the Uzbek side, initial investment between $30 million and $40 million would produce 500 tons of uranium per year. However, the Russians considered the ‘arenated’ Aktau field not large enough (4,400 tons) and unprofitable to develop it, and the proposed ‘black-shale’ was rejected immediately. In turn, Tekhsnabexport’s request to give several deposits owned by the NMMC to the joint venture was denied. In September 2009, SCGMR signed documents with China’s CGNPC Uranium Resources to establish the Uz-China Uran joint venture to develop uranium deposits in the Central Kyzylkums. However, a draft of the joint venture was never included into the state investment program for 2010, which shows the uncertainty of its existence. “Once in the early 2000s, catching good market environment, Uzbekistan has fully refused assistance from foreign investors in gold mining, today, in the wake of the current prices, Tashkent is trying to do the same with uranium production,” said Ilkhat Tushev, analyst at Central Asia Investments.

Meanwhile, the uranium market, in contrast to gold, is more promising in terms of getting the final product. According to expert Dilmurad Kholmatov, the refusal of foreign partners to participate in the development of uranium deposits leaves Uzbekistan below the production of highly processed uranium products.

5. Good luck, Roza! (Kyrgyzstan, June 10, 2010-issue 620)

BISHKEK (TCA) – The following article is about Kyrgyzstan’s interim president Roza Otunbayeva and the challenges facing her government and the country. The article was first published in Paris by “Revue Defense Nationale”. The author is Rene Cagnat, a writer, Ph.D. in political science and former French military attache in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. The article does not necessarily reflect the opinion of this newspaper, and is interesting since it presents the opinion of a foreigner who has a deep knowledge of Central Asia and has been living between Paris and Kyrgyzstan for 10 years. By RENE CAGNAT

Roza Otunbayeva is apparently a tough character: she will need to be if she is going to lead her provisional government to a safe harbor. In Bishkek the obstacles to the exercise of power, internal and external, are sizeable and numerous.

Internal obstacles

The tens of thousands of poor wretches, who survive on the outskirts of Bishkek in the daily search for occasional jobs, set in motion the inaugural assault on the very first night of the existence of the new government on April 7. The city centre and the inner suburbs with their luxury shops, hotels, casinos and the smart residences of the privileged fascinated the unemployed and hooligans, who looked for any weakness in police coverage to break windows and help themselves. The criminal underworld, grown rich chiefly from the drug trade, has the financial resources to recruit from this mob whenever they want and launch it on the smart districts. In future, this mob could be subject to manipulation, particularly over the question of land reform. The traditionally nomadic Kyrgyz people have moved out of their traditional areas in their hundreds of thousands. They have swarmed into the fertile Chui valley, not far from Bishkek, and have their eyes on the plots cultivated by farmers (often Slavs or Caucasians) and on the lands under indirect state control. These land-grabbers have recently invaded seeded fields, hoping to build mud-bricked temporary huts there. Endless ethnic divisions are another serious preoccupation. The Kyrgyz are traditionally split into ‘northerners’ and ‘southerners’. The southerners, more numerous, are grouped around their capital, Osh. For the northerners (from Chui, Talas, Issyk-Kul and Naryn), the southerners are viewed as not being true Kyrgyz, because of the influence of their Uzbek neighbors. These Uzbeks form the largest national minority, with 15 percent of Kyrgyzstan’s population. They are in compact urban groups, as in Osh and Uzgen: sedentary by tradition and strongly Islamic. There are also Kazakh, Uigur, Meskhetian Turks and Tajik minorities. Between all these minorities and the Kyrgyz majority, albeit generally fairly benevolent, tensions may appear in troubled times. In Kyrgyzstan, the rampart of post-Soviet society is the militia. This paramilitary organization, considerably larger than the Army, is both a gendarmerie and a police force. Unfortunately, it has acquired an appalling reputation because of its privileges, abuses, and corruption. This organization, powerful and effective when it wants to be, is an instrument that can put a brake on the democratization process and encourage a slide into dictatorship. Severely tested by the revolution, it is not a fan of the new government. Whose orders does it follow in the south? The Bakiyev brothers are still on the run. In Bishkek, hasn’t the militia laid out its conditions in an ultimatum to the interim government? If the government doesn’t comply, the militia could go on strike.

External obstacles

Kyrgyzstan occupies a strategic geographical position. With this in mind, the US, in late 2001, rented Bishkek’s Manas air base from Kyrgyzstan. Russia was not happy about this intrusion into its Central Asian backyard, and in 2003 positioned itself on the Kant airbase, a bare 25 km from the Americans. Moscow has constantly pressed on Bishkek to chase out the ‘troublesome guest’. When Kurmanbek Bakiyev came to power in 2005, Moscow tried to swing the new president to its side. In early 2009, Bakiyev, allured by a promise of $2 billion in Russian credits, asked the Americans to abandon their base. But in June, faced with an offer in hard cash, Bakiyev changed his mind and Manas remained in American hands as a ‘transit base’. Bakiyev thereby sealed his own fate, since Moscow cut off its credits whilst increasingly supporting the opposition. If the ‘hidden hand’ of a special service operation was barely perceptible in the build-up to the April revolution, Moscow’s ‘helping hand’ was obvious as events unrolled, starting with de facto recognition of the new regime on 8 April. Russia and the US have now ceased to be rivals, and both support the unfortunate Kyrgyzstan: neither Washington nor Moscow is interested in the outbreak of civil war in this country. But there is still competition concerning Manas, and this will certainly have an effect during the campaign before parliamentary elections on October 10: the candidates will be split between pro-Russian and pro-American factions, depending on their attitude towards the future of the base. There are also fears of Kyrgyzstan’s neighbors about the possible emergence of democracy in this country. China, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and even Kazakhstan (notwithstanding its current presidency of the OSCE) can be counted amongst authoritarian regimes. They fear a democratic contagion similar to the one that has already occurred in Andijan (Uzbekistan) in May 2005 following the Kyrgyz ‘Tulip Revolution’. These powers are used to respond by closing their borders, and such a reaction is extremely awkward for a transit country like Kyrgyzstan. The basis of the country’s trade is the import of Chinese goods for the markets of Dordoi near Bishkek or Karasu near Osh, and their re-export to the whole of Central Asia and Russia. Closing the Kazakh border is ruinous for Dordoi. And a prolonged blockage of the passage of goods through the Uzbek border could completely destabilize the Kyrgyz part of the Fergana Valley. The Uzbek Fergana Valley, in the view of President Karimov, must be protected from ‘Islamo-democratic’ subversion from Kyrgyzstan. This border problem will be serious for the Kyrgyz provisional government, harassed from one side by countries which would like to see a renewal of democracy in Bishkek (the US and Europe) and from the other by those who would only tolerate a semblance of democracy (Russia, China and above all Uzbekistan). Credits, vital for the country’s future, will only be coming from one side or the other if the provisional government can manoeuvre with utmost cunning, given that real democracy is not yet possible in Kyrgyzstan. Another player could, in the long-term, take advantage of the permanent rivalry between the Western camp (Americans and Europeans) and the Russians and Chinese. This is the Muslim element which, in spite of the Kyrgyz people’s very weak leaning towards Islam, has recently been making considerable progress among the population. This force, prudent and shrewd, is still neutral but is discreetly mediating between Kyrgyz northerners and southerners: if a problem of partition occurs, or economic difficulties bring the Kyrgyz onto the streets, the Islamists will be in a position to arbitrate. Will the Kyrgyz Islamists let themselves be influenced by the Taliban movement? That would be extremely awkward for logistic support of NATO troops in Afghanistan.

The future is somber for the provisional government, confronted by huge economic and social problems. While the governing team is still united by the enormous challenge that it faces, it risks serious divisions this summer, when political competition will oppose its ambitious members. It is to be hoped that Roza Otunbayeva’s strong personality will counterbalance the ferments of these divisions. This woman of character and experience enjoys a measure of popularity in her country. By virtue of the fact that she was an apparatchik, Professor of philosophy and Marxism-Leninism, Roza can reassure the last ‘dinosaurs’ of the Eastern democracies. At the same time, having been Ambassador to UNESCO in Paris, Ambassador to the US and UK, and twice Foreign Minister of her country, she has made use of this opening on the West, where she has made friends. The provisional government is Kyrgyzstan’s last chance, destined for break-up if it fails. It is also perhaps the last chance for democracy in Central Asia. The game is as important as it is difficult. Good luck, Roza!

For further information: The Times of Central Asia