COMMENTARY
By Gordon M. Hahn
U.S. officialdom and mainstream media grossly overestimated the extent to which the ‘colored’ Orange, Tulip and Rose “revolutions” were truly democratic and revolutions – that is, broad revolts seeking fundamental political, economic, and social systems turnovers and driven largely ‘from below’ rather than by inter-clan and intra-strate power struggles.
Following the Ukrainian people’s rejection of the leader of Orange Revolution n January––April saw the overturn of the Tulip revolution and the ouster of President Bakiev by the Kyrgyz precisely because he rolled back rather than developed democracy. Unfortunately he maintained the corrupt, regional clan-style politics extant in Kyrgyzstan and much of Central Asia and the former USSR.
The Washington Post, Stratfor and a few other media organs did their best to charge Russia with orchestrating the anti-Tulip revolution. The WP claimed that Russia “fueled” the revolt in Kyrgyzstan against the Tulip “putsch.”
Now the vaunted democratic Tulip Revolution has been relegated to a lowly putsch. The only evidence of Russian ‘fuel,’ amounted to little more than routine levers of foreign policy: presidential ‘lectures’, offering or cutting foreign aid, and media campaigns.
WP claimed “The media campaign, along with punishing economic measures adopted by the Kremlin, played a critical role in fanning public anger against Bakiyev and bringing people into the streets,” (Philip P. Pan, “Russia helped fuel unrest in Kyrgyzstan,” Washington Post, 12 April 2010). However, the WP could find no provision of arms, military equipment, or even funds to the opposition. No involvement of the Russian military or FSB. Moreover, no causality could even be established between Russia’s media and economic measures, on the one hand, and the anti-Tulip revolution, on the other.
Never mind that the revolt was sparked initially in the far away city of Talas when a mob stormed the regional government’s offices, a rather mundane event in places like Kyrgyzia. Matters escalated to the level of revolution when Kyrgyz security forces fired on demonstrators in Talas and Jalalabad; something Russian media campaigns and economic measures hardly were able to determine.
The best Stratfor could do was point out that after Bakiev had been overthrown and fled the chaotic capitol Jalalabad, 150 Russian spetsnaz troops were deployed. Speaking on the John Batchelor Show on April 9th , one of its analysts left out the fact that the spetsnaz had been deployed to its military base in Kyrgyzstan, where they could play no role even in helping Kyrgyz forces pick potatoes let alone restore order.
Even liberals in Russia rejected the idea that Russia had played a role in the revolt. Politician Vladimir Ryzhkov said: “ Moscow was, of course, dissatisfied with the US base, or, for example, with some of our businessmen's problems, or with the fact that Russian-language websites on the Internet began to be suppressed there. Yes, there was discontent, but not to such an extent as to provoke mass clashes and riots there. So, 99 per cent is the discontent of the Kyrgyz themselves” (“Experts reject claims that Russia , other countries involved in Kyrgyz unrest,” RenTV ( Russia ), 9 April 2010 cited in BBC Monitoring).
Some mainstream media did its best to combine two seemingly incompatible realities in their perception: Russia’s support of, if not leading role in Bakiev’s overthrow by seemingly democratic forces and Russia ’s pro-authoritarianism. Thus, the Economist retreated from its standard position that Russia is an inveterate enemy of democratization in the former Soviet Union . Suddenly, Russia 's leaders “see the benefits” of having parliamentary republics in the near abroad: “A dictator might be pro-Western or play off Russia against the West, says Sultan Akimbekov, a Kazakh political scientist. But in a parliamentary republic, such as Ukraine and soon perhaps Kyrgyzstan, Russia has a variety of potential allies, and thus plenty of chance to engage in intrigues and exert influence” (“Power struggle in Kyrgyzstan,” The Economist, April 17-23, 2010). In this brave new world of misperceptions, Russia is the purveyor of ‘colored revolutions’ in order to promote its chances of engaging in intrigues and exerting influence.”
Similarly, the WP quoted a Kyrgyz opposition leader who noted that Moscow has begun recently to court the oppositions in former Soviet states, changing its previous policy of buying off the post-Soviet elites and favoring authoritarian stability at all costs. Russia, the U.S., Kazakhstan, and China reacted pretty much alike in reacting to the events. This time, however, instead of being beat to the punch or caught on the wrong side of the fence, the Kremlin quickly established working contact with the new leaders. Sounds like the Medvedev thaw has hit Russian foreign policy towards the near abroad.
It seems the Medvedev-Putin thaw is liberalizing Russian foreign policy in its near abroad.
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Posted by: jobs online | March 31, 2011 at 10:12 AM