THE KYRGYZ GHOST OVER BELARUS

The change of power in Kyrgyzstan in April this year became a major world event of this half of the year. Mass ethnic bashing, which took place in June, suggests that the process, which began on the 7^th of April with the ousting of the president K. Bakiev, is far from being over.

The Kyrgyzstan events have had a binary effect on the Belarusian community. These events became a topical example of a possible scenario of the change of power. It stands to reason, the reaction to these events was not straightforward and univalent: some got filled with terror or fear that a similar event could happen again but in Belarus, others wanted Minsk “to pick up the slack” of Bishkek, still others stated that Belarus was not Kyrgyzstan and such scenario in Belarus was not possible. But in any case it has had an impact. Recall, during the presidential election 2001 the electoral revolution in Serbia in 2000 was a pattern, an example to be followed by the opposition and a reason for the authorities’ fears. The “Orange Revolution” in Ukraine in 2004 played the same role during the presidential election 2006. The experience of Kyrgyz bloodshed and the succeeding slaughter in the South of the country could hardly be as appealing as “the velvet” of the revolutions in Serbia and Ukraine; anyhow this experience has not left Belarusians indifferent.

However, the Republic of Belarus got involved into the Kyrgyzstan events directly, too – in consequence of president A. Lukashenko’s decision to offer refuge to the ousted Kyrgyzstan colleague. Statements K. Bakiev made from Minsk, the request of the Kyrgyzstan Prosecutor’s Office for his extradition and the refuse of the official Minsk to extradite him, the irritated reaction of Moscow to Belarus’ offer of refuge to the ex-president of Kyrgyzstan, allegations about his involvement in the ethnic slaughter in the south of Kyrgyzstan – all that showed that Belarus got directly involved in the dramatic events in a far Central Asian country and geopolitical games around it.

What was the reaction of the Belarusian community thereto? The answer to this question can be found in the survey data obtained by IISEPS in June this year.

Just immediately after the Kyrgyz events president A. Lukashenko qualified it as an anti-state coup. Nevertheless, only 23.2% of respondents shared this opinion of the head of state. Meanwhile, as near as every second (47.2%), answering the question, “What is your assessment of the events of the 6^th-7^th of April in Kyrgyzstan, which were followed by bloodshed and resulted in the change of power in this country?”, selected the variant “This is a popular uprising against the corrupted power”.

But herewith just a small minority (9.1%) agreed with the opinion that the power in Belarus might be changed the same way as in Kyrgyzstan this year, the opposite point of view was accepted by 79.8% of respondents.

To put it otherwise, Belarusians, by a relative majority, expressed understanding of the motives of the Kyrgyz, who under the sniper’s gun were running to assault of the President’s Palace, but by an absolute majority, expressed the opinion that this scenario is impossible in Belarus.

The specific feature of the change of power in Kyrgyzstan was that Russia immediately supported the new government of the country – quite many people believe that Moscow had been involved in those events directly or indirectly.

What factors influenced the assessments of the Kyrgyz events by Belarusians and probability of the Kyrgyzstan scenario in Belarus? As can be seen from Table 1, the key factor restricting the assessment of the Kyrgyz events as well as the probability assessment of the replay thereof is the experience of everyday interaction with the state. Those who feel themselves most unprotected from the arbitrary actions of ”the near power”, i.e. militia, courts, taxation bodies, are most inclined to see in the Kyrgyzstan events a popular uprising against the corrupted power. Besides, those who do not trust the head of the state are equally inclined to the same assessments, too. However, among those not trusting the President the number of those, who think the repetition of the Kyrgyzstan events in Belarus is probable, though considerably higher than an average in the sample group, is still less than among those who feel themselves unprotected against the arbitrary actions of the authorities. It appears that offences inflicted by ‘the near power’ create in people if not readiness, so at least a liking of the idea of a bloody uprising to a greater extent than dislike of the head of the power pyramid and a wish for changes.

Table 1. Relation of the answers to the questions about the assessments of the Kyrgyzstan events and probability of the Kyrgyz scenario in Belarus to the attitude towards the president, to the evaluation of the degree of protection from arbitrariness of authorities and to the geopolitical choice, %

* The table is read across

The geopolitical choice also has a vivid effect, herewith, despite the fact that Russia in this case has assumed the position opposite to the position it usually assumed during ”colour” revolutions, the supporters of the integration with Russia are more inclined to negatively assess the change of power in Kyrgyzstan as compared to the proponents of the European choice.

Herewith, a positive attitude towards the leaders of Russia practically has no effect on the assessments: those, who have a liking for D. Medvedev and V. Putin, assess the Kyrgyzstan events and the probability of the repetition thereof almost in the same way as the respondents at large.

As noted above, the second influencing factor of the Kyrgyzstan events on Belarus is the decision of president A. Lukashenko to offer refuge to the ousted Kyrgyzstan leader K. Bakiev.

The data of Table 2 show that just as in the assessment of the Kyrgyz events, neither in this question did the president meet with the majority support.

Table 2. Distribution of answers to the question, “The president of Belarus A. Lukashenko granted asylum in Belarus to the ousted Kyrgyz president K. Bakiev. What is your assessment of this decision?”

It is curious that the events of the 6^th-7^th of April were treated as a coup by 23.2% of respondents, the decision to shelter the victim of the coup met with the approval of only 17.9% of respondents; 47.2% classified those events as an uprising, but there were twice as fewer respondents (24.1%) who chose that very moral and ideological motif as the reason for disapproval of the decision to offer refuge. And the most popular proved to be a hands-off attitude – whoever is right there, whoever is to blame, let them sort it out on their own.

The president of Russia D. Medvedev at the time of signing an agreement with Ukraine expressed rather a strong denunciation of A. Lukashenko’s decision as regards K. Bakiev: “Reaching agreement on working seriously, meeting each other halfway, helping each other is one thing and making decisions about granting permanent residence to people who have lost their job is another. These are different things”. The Belarusian president replied to these words of the Russian leader by an outraged rebuff broadcast by the Belarusian mass media.

And how did the assessment of the fact that K. Bakiev found asylum in Belarus prove to be interrelated with the respondents’ attitude towards A. Lukashenko and D. Medvedev?

Expectedly, the favourers of the Belarusian president are to a greater extent inclined to support his decision to offer refuge to the ousted colleague (Table 3). However, this extent is not so high, the Belarusian unwillingness to intermeddle into others’ business as well as the fact that the globalistic mentality of A. Lukashenko is not so characteristic of his compatriots, appears to be a much stronger factor. Even among those for whom he is an idol politician, only one third approved of his decision and the same number of respondents renounced it for pragmatic reasons.

Table 3. Relation of the answers to the question “The president of Belarus A. Lukashenko granted asylum in Belarus to the ousted Kyrgyz president K. Bakiev. What is your assessment of this decision?” to the attitude towards A. Lukashenko and D. Medvedev, %

It is noteworthy that among those who do not trust the president the conceptual motif of the negative assessment of the decision on asylum for K. Bakiev, proved to be as popular as the pragmatic motif.

But what is especially interesting is that the Belarusian public opinion took no notice of the Kremlin position as regards the ousted Kyrgyzstan president. The favourers of the Russian president as compared to an average of respondents appeared to be more inclined to support A. Lukashenko’s decision, which aroused indignation with D. Medvedev.

Perhaps the new policy line of Moscow, a line different from the line Russia has been pursuing for a long period of time, has not yet gone through the heads of the Belarusian supporters of the integration with Russia. However not less, if not a more reasonable explanation is that Russia for the supporters of the relevant geopolitical choice is a symbol, a mark of their political preferences, which bears quite a mediated relation to the real country stretching to the east of Belarus.

Finally, the data of Table 4 illustrate the attitude of respondents to the refuse of the official Minsk to extradite the refugee-president to the Kyrgyz authorities.

Table 4. Distribution of answers to the question, “The new Kyrgyzstan authorities have sent to Belarus a request on extradition of K. Bakiev, whom they lay to charge that on his order more than 80 marchers had been killed during the events on the 7^th of April in Kyrgyzstan. In your opinion, should or should not Belarus extradite the ousted Kyrgyz president to the Kyrgyzstan authorities?”

And here again, what stands out is the overbalance of the pragmatic grounds in the respondents’ answers. Moral thoughtful assessments based on the assessment of the April events prove to be even less popular than in the answers to the question about the offer of refuge to K. Bakiev. As in the answers to the question of Table 2, the dominating motif appears isolationism: it’s not our business; no K. Bakiev, no problem. A kind of pragmatic approach is also revealed in the second popular answer based on the concept of national prestige. As can be seen, the number of those, who speak out against K. Bakiev’s extradition, is nearly twice higher than the number of those, who have approved of the granting of asylum to him. This upsurge occurred on the account of the proponents of the opinion that though the asylum might not have been granted, but once granted, to extradite him means to degrade national prestige. Such concept of prestige may seem quite weird to one’s point of view, but, generally speaking, prestige is not a useless thing. Meanwhile, as can be seen, in favour of K. Bakiev’s extradition to Bishkek speak out the majority of respondents.

To conclude, it is worth saying that there exist various considerations as regards the grounds A. Lukashenko was relying on, when taking the decision to grant asylum to the ousted colleague and refusing to extradite him to Bishkek. However, the data quoted above suggest that in the case of the mentioned decisions as well as in the case of assessments of the events, which occurred in Kyrgyzstan, the Belarusian president appeared to be among the minority of the Belarusian community.