BISHKEK (TCA) — Environmentalists are asking the President of Kyrgyzstan to declare 2019 the year of ecology. This was announced at the recent roundtable on air pollution problems in the capital Bishkek. Parliament members, representatives of the Achyk Asman (Clean Air) youth environmental movement, civil society, and the media took part in the discussions.

It is encouraging that industrial production is developing in the country, mainly at small enterprises, but they often do not take into account environmental aspects. The State usually draws attention to the environment only when problems arise, Achyk Asman head Ermek Adylbekov said.

Kyrgyzstan remains among the seldom countries in the world where nature is still relatively well preserved. It would be a big mistake of the Government and an irreparable loss for the nation if the environment deteriorates as a result of human negligence and mismanagement, MP Dastan Bekeshev said.

Kyrgyzstan is an agrarian country. But even the development of agriculture leads to a deterioration of the ecological situation in the country. Incorrect cultivation of arable land, introduction of pesticides, outdated irrigation and drainage systems, which have not been updated since Soviet times – all this negatively affects the ecological situation in Kyrgyzstan, Bekeshev said.

The MP also expressed outrage at the way the country uses clean water. “We mindlessly use drinking water spending it for washing cars and other things,” he said.

Cutting trees

The Bishkek authorities are massively cutting trees, which leads to environmental degradation in the city, said the head of the Green Party movement Erkin Bulekbaev.

In 2017, about three thousand trees were cut down for the expansion of roads, which caused discontent from environmentalists and local residents. Bishkek authorities explained that the firewood was given to poor families, as well as the felled trees were sold and the money has been spent for the city’s needs. Last year, 2,938 trees were felled in Bishkek, of which 840 trees were in emergency, the city administration clarified.

However, residents and activists suspected city officials of corrupt sales of timber for their own benefit.

Environmentalists believe that mass tree cutting will affect the ecology and health of Bishkek residents.

According to the city administration, instead of cut down trees they planted more than 10,000 seedlings. However, most of those seedlings did not take root.

No matter how many trees are planted, this will not change anything, because the problem is in the competence and professionalism of the city officials, well-known environmental scientist Emil Shukurov said. Landscapers kill the environment, primarily by their incompetence, he added. Many of the imported seedlings could not accommodate to local natural conditions, because they are designed for another environment, he explained.

The trees bought by the city administration are dozens of times more expensive than local trees, so they cannot afford to landscape the whole city, but some specific areas only.

All trees in the city grew out of ordinary seedlings. This means that previous landscapers knew how to grow them, while the current ones do not cope with their work, Shukurov said. The officials say that 50-year-old trees have outlived their time, and they need to be demolished. Meanwhile, the life expectancy of a tree with proper care reaches almost 100 years. Shukurov blamed the city authorities “who turn our Bishkek into a sawmill”.

Transport

Transport is the main cause of air pollution, followed by heating in the private sector and construction, Daniyar Sulaimanov, head of the Sanitary and Environmental Inspection of the Bishkek administration, said.

According to the State Agency for Environmental Protection and Forestry of Kyrgyzstan, 25 percent of owners of motor vehicles in the city use cheap fuel without catalysts. There are about 400,000 cars in Bishkek, and in certain seasons their number reaches 600,000. The city is not designed for such a quantity of vehicles.

At the beginning of the year, the State Agency established an interdepartmental commission which developed a plan for the protection of atmospheric air which includes establishing of environmental posts to measure the emission of harmful substances by cars and to bring to justice the violators in Bishkek.

Currently, developed countries are switching to a more environmentally friendly fuel, Euro-6, but in Kyrgyzstan there are discussions about switching to Euro-4 or Euro-5. The Economy Ministry and the local Junda refinery are against the transition to environmental fuel from January 1, 2019. “Money won the ecology,” MP Bekeshev concluded. The Junda refinery processes crude oil imported by rail from Kazakhstan.

84% of cars are old in Bishkek, the MP said. An increase of the tax for old motor vehicles will help solve the problem of atmospheric pollution, he believes. But local population is not ready for this, a survey conducted in social networks showed.

Heating

There are 65 boiler houses in Bishkek, and only 10 of them have been modernized. This year the city administration plans to continue their modernization and transfer to natural gas. Solar collectors were installed at two boiler plants, which reduced the consumption of coal by 1,400 tons and the emission of greenhouse gases.

Russia’s Gazprom gasifies the residential areas of Bishkek, which will help reduce harmful emissions into the atmosphere. There are 49 residential areas in Bishkek, which mainly use coal and synthetic substances as fuel in the cold season.

To solve the problem, MP Bekeshev suggested applying a differentiated electricity tariff. If the State increases the cost of electricity, people will burn any garbage, poisoning the environment. “In five years the Government will have to spend a lot of money on the fight against the consequences of emissions from coal combustion,” he concluded.

At the same time, the city administration is actively subsidizing free coal to low-income families. More than 4.5 thousand families in Bishkek annually receive free coal worth 20 million soms. The MP advised to spend this amount for subsidizing the electricity tariffs.

BISHKEK (TCA) — Resolving the legacy of uranium mining in Central Asia is becoming urgent, and further action is needed to prevent the release of radioactive and toxic waste not only locally but also to protect transboundary rivers from pollution. It will protect the Fergana Valley, which is of high significance for the economic development of the region, the Delegation of the European Union to the Kyrgyz Republic said on May 28.

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BISHKEK (TCA) — Chinese President Xi Jinping will chair the 18th Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Summit, China’s State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi announced on May 28, Xinhua news agency reported.

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KABUL (TCA) — Amid heightened tensions between Afghanistan and Pakistan, senior military and intelligence officials from the two neighboring countries have agreed to enhance joint efforts to fight terrorism, RFE/RL reported.

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ALMATY (TCA) — A court in Kazakhstan has ordered the closing of the news site Ratel.kz in a case criticized by media watchdogs as part of a campaign of official harassment against independent media outlets, RFE/RL’s Kazakh Service reported.

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ALMATY (TCA) — As President Nazarbayev will turn 78 this year, the power succession issue is becoming even more relevant in Kazakhstan, prompting a re-emergence of the country’s opposition on the political scene. We are republishing this article on the issue, written by Joanna Lillis, originally published by Eurasianet:

After a long hibernation, organized political opposition is making a comeback in Kazakhstan.

For over five years, the country’s political scene has been utterly moribund. The parties that are allowed to exist sing from the same hymn sheet as the authorities. Dissenters have either found their organizations banned or have withered away into insignificance.

Now, two movements have surfaced with a similar goal, but very different approaches.

One is the Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan, which commonly goes by its acronym DVK, and is led by Mukhtar Ablyazov, a France-based ex-banker bent on toppling President Nursultan Nazarbayev through direct action.

More recently, another markedly less combative outfit, Forum Jana Qazaqstan – or Forum New Kazakhstan – joined the fray.

Jana Qazaqstan publicly declared its existence at a press conference in Almaty on May 17, following an inaugural get-together in Brussels in April. The movement is conceived as a broad church pooling the energies of prominent figures from different walks of life who want to nudge the country onto a more democratic path and give regular people a stake in their future.

“Jana Qazaqstan is offering an alternative with pluralistic thinking and a just and democratic society respecting human rights and freedoms, where politics and the economy work for the benefit of people,” founding member Rasul Zhumaly told the news conference.

Many of the faces in Jana Qazaqstan will be familiar to seasoned observers of the often-hapless opposition scene in Kazakhstan. There are political scientists like Zhumaly and Aidos Sarym, journalists Yermurat Bapi and Nazira Darimbet, rights campaigner Galym Ageleuov, and one-time opposition party leaders Serikzhan Mambetalin and Amirzhan Kosanov. Mambetalin, who is a British passport-holder these days, is involved in the movement despite a court order ostensibly prohibiting him from engaging in public activities.

The timing for the group’s appearance is predicated on the expectation that Kazakhstan is on the cusp of a new phase in its history. Nazarbayev will turn 78 in July. That advanced age instills his detractors with hope a change of leadership is surely imminent.

And Jana Qazaqstan says it wants the broader population to be involved in the transition process. Their concern is that without the requisite scrutiny, the whole process and the divvying out of influence and resources will all be done in smoky backrooms.

“We say that the public […] should not occupy the role of bystander and just accept what the authorities designate for us,” Kosanov explained. Society “should be a participant in this process – we are going to demand that.”

Jana Qazaqstan has eschewed militant language and is positioning itself as open to constructive engagement with the authorities. This docility has led to suggestions from some quarters that the government may in reality be pulling the strings to fashion a neutered opposition.

That solution has provided rich dividends in the past, so the suspicions are not without basis. Parliament is currently dominated by the ruling Nur Otan party, but there are two pocket opposition forces in there too with the ostensible function of simulating the appearance of a genuine multiparty chamber.

The founders of Jana Qazaqstan reject the idea they are part of any such scheme.

Jana Qazaqstan has also come under fire over the involvement of Akezhan Kazhegeldin, a former prime minister who fled Kazakhstan in 1997 after a run-in with Nazarbayev. Members deny Kazhegeldin, who attended the Brussels meeting, is Jana Qazaqstan’s financial backer and claim they require only modest financing, which they say they can provide themselves.

For all the allegations that Jana Qazaqstan might be a catspaw, its founding statement pulled no punches about what it sees as the legacy of Nazarbayev’s rule.

Kazakhstan missed an opportunity to become a “second Kuwait” and instead languishes “at the level of the poorest African countries,” the charter stated. The litany of complaints listed in the document included corruption and the squandering of petrodollars on vanity projects. There were also harsh words about the “retreat from basic principles of democracy and freedom, pluralism and equality.”

But while the movement is voluble when criticizing, specific policy recommendations are thin on the ground.

One broadly stated goal is to draft a fresh constitution and new laws governing the political process. These, they say, would pave the way for “the first fair, free and democratic elections in the history of independent Kazakhstan.”

And they are not shying away from tapping into the latent potential of nationalist sentiment for political capital, as evidenced by their calls for a debate to re-evaluate the Soviet totalitarian past and a process of “decolonialization.” The involvement of prominent community leaders like Dos Kushim will lend legitimacy to these efforts.

For all its claims to be embracing novelty, Jana Qazaqstan has so far performed dismally in trying to drum up a credible online presence.

As of May 24, Jana Qazaqstan’s Facebook page had nearly 800 followers, but its reach elsewhere on the internet is decidedly tragic. It had only one Twitter follower and seven Telegram subscribers. It was performing only a little better on YouTube, with 72 subscribers, and Instagram, with 35 followers.

There are currently no plans to create a political party. For the time being, the focus is on registering as a public association. Even that modest ambition may face pushback, however.

“In conditions when the authorities show utter intolerance toward dissenting views, toward the slightest criticism of themselves, they may obstruct our initiatives,” Kosanov said.

At the other end of the opposition spectrum, Ablyazov has adopted more of a take-no-hostages style. He has emulated Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in his embrace of YouTube and regularly appeals for direct action by his supporters. The strategy so far has been to coax disgruntled protesters onto the streets with the end-game of bringing about a rapid transition.

“I am just realizing the goal I set myself a very long time ago, and that is to achieve regime change and the establishment of a democratic state,” Ablyazov told Eurasianet in a Skype interview on May 16.

This abrasive style has mainly had the result of hardening Astana’s determination to quash him by all means possible.

DVK has only been around for a year – as a reincarnation of a reform movement spearheaded by Ablyazov in 2001. It was set up in April 2017 after Ablyazov was released from a Paris prison at the end of a legal extradition campaign mounted by Russia – Kazakhstan’s close ally – and ultimately dubbed politically motivated by a French court.

Even before its first year was out, DVK got banned and designated an extremist organization by a court in Kazakhstan. Anybody found distributing party literature or even casually sharing a DVK post online could face harsh penalties.

Although Ablyazov acknowledges his goals are radical, he does not agree his methods are outside the bounds of acceptable political activity.

“Our aims and objectives are totally constitutional,” he said. “I have always said that we will achieve regime change through peaceful means.”

Developments in Armenia – where mass protests forced the prime minister to resign last month – have inspired Ablyazov to further action. He hopes optimistically to achieve regime change before the end of the year.

In truth, however, all the Ablyazov-incited protests have been decidedly modest and could in no credible manner be described as threats to the prevailing order.

All the same, the government has displayed signs of profound anxiety by rapidly and aggressively shutting down even the most feeble turnout. The extent of the paranoia has on occasion reached perverse heights. During spring equinox celebrations in Astana in March, people carrying festive blue balloons the shade of Kazakhstan’s flag were hauled off the streets by police rendered suspicious by Ablyazov’s previous appeal for his supporters to wave turquoise balloons at street events. On May 10, the few who responded to Ablyazov’s call to protest were swiftly detained.

Ablyazov is promising more demonstrations on June 23 and on July 6. The latter is a multipurpose public holiday that will mark the 20th anniversary of Astana being designated Kazakhstan’s capital as well as Nazarbayev’s birthday.

If the past is a guide, protesters can expect rough treatment.