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Kyrgyzstan

The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition | Date: 2008

Kyrgyzstan , officially Kyrgyz Republic, republic (2005 est. pop. 5,146,000), c.76,600 sq mi (198,400 sq km), central Asia. It borders on China in the southeast, on Kazakhstan in the north, on Uzbekistan in the west, and on Tajikistan in the southwest. Bishkek , the capital, and Osh are the chief cities.

Land and People

Kyrgyzstan is a mountainous country in the Tian Shan and Pamir systems, rising to 24,409 ft (7,440 m) at Pobeda Peak on the Chinese border. Ninety-four percent of the country is over 3,300 ft (1,000 m) above sea level, with an average elevation of 9,020 ft (2,750 m). Lake Issyk-Kul lies in the northeast. The climate is continental with great regional variations; there are glaciers in the north, and the subtropical Fergana Valley lies in the southwest. The Kyrgyz, a Sunni Muslim, Turkic-speaking pastoral people, constitute about two thirds of the population; the rest are Uzbeks (about 14%), Russians (about 12%), Ukrainians, and other minorities. Some 20% of the people are Russian Orthodox Christians. About two thirds of the population is rural. Kyrgyz and Russian are both official languages, and Uzbek is also spoken.

Economy

Over half of Kyrgyzstan's population is engaged in agriculture and herding. There is rich pasturage for sheep, goats, cattle, and horses. Most of the cultivated area is irrigated. Cotton, tobacco, potatoes, sugar beets, vegetables, grapes, fruits, and berries are grown; sericulture is carried on, and grain crops are cultivated in the nonirrigated areas.

Kyrgyzstan has deposits of gold, rare earth metals, coal, oil, natural gas, nepheline, mercury, bismuth, lead, zinc, and uranium. Industries include food processing, nonferrous metallurgy, forestry, and the manufacture of agricultural machinery, textiles, appliances, furniture, and electric motors. In addition, the Kyrgyz are also noted for such traditional handicrafts as wood carving, carpet weaving, and jewelry making.

The nation's leading exports are cotton, wool, meat, tobacco, metals (particularly gold, mercury, and uranium), natural gas, hydropower, and machinery; the chief imports are oil and gas, machinery and equipment, chemicals, and foodstuffs. The main trading partners are China, Russia, the United Arab Emirates, and Kazakhstan.

Government

Kyrgyzstan was the first of the former Soviet Central Asian republics to acquire democratic institutions. It is governed under the constitution of 1993 as amended. The president, who is head of state, is elected by popular vote for a five-year term and is eligible for a second term. The government is headed by the prime minister, who is appointed by the president. The unicameral legislature consists of the 90-member Supreme Council or Jogorku Kenesh; members are popularly elected by proportional representation for five-year terms. Administratively, the country is divided into seven provinces and the capital area.

History

Formerly known as the Kara [black] Kyrgyz to distinguish them from the Kazakhs (at one time called Kirghiz or Kyrgyz), the Kyrgyz migrated to Kyrgyzstan from the region of the upper Yenisei, where they had lived from the 7th to the 17th cent. The area came under the rule of the Kokand khanate in the 19th cent. and was gradually annexed by Russia between 1855 and 1876. The nomadic Kyrgyz resisted conscription into the czarist army in 1916, leading to an uprising in which 100,000 and perhaps many more died and many fled to China. The Kyrgyz also fought the establishment of Bolshevik control from 1917 to 1921. As a result of war devastation, there was a famine in 1921-22 in which over 500,000 Kyrgyz died. The area was formed into the Kara-Kirghiz Autonomous Region within the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic in 1924, becoming an autonomous republic in 1926 and a constituent republic in 1936.

In 1990, Askar Akayev, president of the republic's Academy of Sciences and a non-Communist, was elected president by the legislature. After fighting off an attempted coup in 1991, the government declared Kyrgyzstan independent of the Soviet Union. Kyrgyzstan subsequently became a member of the Russian-dominated Commonwealth of Independent States , and a new consitutution was approved.

Akayev, who remained president, fostered ties with China and other neighboring nations and initiated an ambitious program of free-market reforms. He retained his post in the 1995 elections, which were denounced by opposition leaders but given guarded support by UN observers. Also in 1995, Kyrgyzstan, along with Belarus and Kazakhstan, signed a pact with Russia providing for close economic cooperation. In 1996, Akayev won a referendum on amending the constitution to increase the presidency's powers. Islamic militants seized several towns near the border with Tajikistan (where a civil war began in 1992) in 1999, and in 2000 Kyrgyzstani forces fought Uzbek guerrillas based in Tajikistan that had infiltrated into the Fergana Valley. Akayev was reelected president in Oct., 2000, in a contest that observers said was marred by intimidation and ballot fraud. A Feb., 2003, referendum approved constitutional changes and affirmed Akayev's current term in office. The vote was prompted by unrest prior to 2003, but the constitutional changes and outcome of the vote were denounced by those opposed to Akayev.

The 2005 elections for parliament ended in a lopsided victory for Akayev's supporters, a result that sparked unrest in a nation already beset by persistent poverty and corruption. In March, opposition demonstrators seized control of the southern cities and regions of Jalal-Abad and Osh, and the uprising spread to Bishkek. Akayev fled the country for Russia (and officially resigned the following month), and Kurmanbek Bakiyev, a former prime minister who had resigned in 2002 and then opposed Akayev, was appointed prime minister and acting president. Despite the supreme court's annulment of the elections, the departing parliament decided to accept the results, and the new legislators took office.

In the months leading up to the July, 2005, presidential election, the country experienced an increased level of civil unrest as the provisional government struggled somewhat to establish its control, and the unrest continued sporadically through the rest of 2005. The July vote resulted in a landslide victory for Bakiyev, who had agreed in May to appoint his most significant political rival—Felix Kulov, the provisional government's former security services coordinator—as prime minister. Kulov was confirmed as prime minister in September.

At the end of 2005, the political situation remained somewhat tenuous, with the president seeking to consolidate his power and influence despite his pledge to reduce his powers and parliament seeking to increase the prime minister's powers. Corruption and crime, meanwhile, had become worse than it had been under Akayev; reform efforts stalled; and by 2006 interethnic tensions and violence appeared to be increasing. Increased antiterror operations in S Kyrgyzstan, directed mainly against Uzbeks, appeared in part designed to suppress an Uzbek campaign for enlarged civil rights and aggravated ethnic strains.

Unhappiness with Bakiyev led to several large demonstrations against him in 2006, and a loss of support in parliament. In May, 13 government ministers resigned after being criticized by the parliament, but then remained in office after meeting with the president. Omurbek Tekebayev, a former parliament speaker and opposition leader, was arrested in Poland in Sept., 2006, on drug charges, then was released when the heroin was determined to have been planted. The president's brother and the deputy director of the state security service were implicated in affair, which was seen as a government effort to discredit its opponents.

The president and parliament continued to joust over constitutional reform, with each side preferring that it have the stronger powers in any new national charter. In November, however, after a week of opposition demonstrations in the capital, parliament passed a compromise constitution that reduced the president's powers, and the president signed it. In December, Prime Minister Kulov's government resigned, ostensibly to accelerate the election of a parliament under the new constitution so that the new parliament might elect the prime minister (as required under the new constitution), but parliament subsequently adopted revisions to the November constitution that restored some of the president's lost powers and also allowed the president to appoint a new cabinet until a new parliament was elected. Bakiyev then twice appointed Kulov prime minister, but parliament refused to approve the choice. In late Jan., 2007, a compromise choice, Azim Isabekov, the agriculture minister, was appointed prime minister and confirmed, but he resigned in March after the opposition, who had become increasing critical of the government, refused to join in a coalition. Bakiyev then appointed opposition politician Almaz Atambayev as prime minister, but many in the opposition continued to resist joining a coalition government, mounting demonstrations instead and calling for the president to resign and parliament to dissolve. In May, 2007, there was an apparent attempt to poison the prime minister, possibly over a government decision to nationalize a semiconductor plant, but he survived after treatment.

In Sept., 2007, the constitutional court ruled that the 2006 amendments to the constitution were invalid because a referendum was required. The following month, however, a referendum approved the changes, but independent observers questioned the result, saying that there was evidence of an inflated turnout and ballot stuffing. Subsequently, parliamentary elections were called for December, which were won overwhelmingly by the president's Best Path Popular (Ak-Jol Eldik) party. The largest opposition party was denied any seats and accused the government of fraud; despite winning 8% of the vote nationally, the election commission said it failed to win the .5% required in each region. Western observers said the election failed to meet international standards and were critical of the regional vote requirement. Igor Chudinov was named prime minister.

Bibliography

See S. Akinev, Islamic Peoples of the Soviet Union (1986).

Author not available, KYRGYZSTAN., The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition 2008

The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Copyright 2008 Columbia University Press