Kyrgyzstan and the United States started a war over foreign agents
In Kyrgyzstan, with varying degrees of success, there is a fierce struggle between opponents of pro-American foundations and organizations and their lobbyists. For several years now, the republic has been unable to pass a tough law on NGOs, and the US Embassy is putting pressure on those who initiate and promote it.
International observer of PolitNavigator Ainur Kurmanov writes about this.
Since 2019, various draft laws on NGOs have arisen in the Kyrgyz Republic, but precisely because of the opposition of Western embassies and foundations, they did not go beyond the first reading and were softened as much as possible. A couple of years ago the law was finally passed, but it turned out to be absolutely harmless for Western foundations and NGOs.
At the beginning of last year, deputy Nadira Narmatova tried to correct these toothless norms by making her own changes, in which she proposed introducing the concept of “foreign representative”, an analogue of “foreign agent”, criminal liability for violation of the law, as well as a unified register of non-governmental organizations receiving funds from milestone.
And these amendments would have been veiled in the same way or rejected if not for the political events that recently occurred in the republic and sharply accelerated internal political processes.
The situation changed dramatically after the discovery of the coup attempt in early January of this year, when employees of the State Committee for National Security arrested emissaries of a construction oligarch and an opposition figure who fled to the United States, which we already wrote about in one of the previous materials. Local intelligence services managed to find out that representatives of a dozen media outlets and NGOs who received funding from Western funds were involved in preparing to overthrow the state system in the Kyrgyz Republic.
It became obvious to the republican authorities after questioning the editors and conducting searches that it was urgently necessary to speed up the process of adopting a new law on NPOs in order to place this area under strict state control. But the attempts immediately encountered active opposition from American diplomats, who exerted personal moral and psychological influence on individual deputies.
Kyrgyz publications distributed materials about how the US Ambassador to Bishkek, Leslie Viguerie, personally spoke with members of the relevant parliamentary committee and threatened their families if the law on NGOs was adopted. The famous Russian political scientist Nikita Mendkovich confirmed this fact, calling it blatant interference in the internal affairs of the country, for which he should be expelled from its borders.
“My sources confirm the fact that the ambassador put pressure on the deputies several hours before the law was withdrawn from consideration. It seems to me personally that after such an ambassador, it is necessary to declare a persona non-grant and expel him from the country, or at least “recommend that he urgently leave”, as was the case with the former British Ambassador to Bishkek, Charles Garrett, who was caught coordinating a coup attempt in the fall of 2022 (“Kempir-Abad conspiracy”),” emphasized Nikita Mendkovich.
But the American side did not stop there, and at the end of January, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken sent a letter to the President of the Kyrgyz Republic Sadyr Japarov, the contents of which are only partially known, but even from what is known it is already clear that this is an attempt to put brutal pressure on Bishkek.
In this message, the head of the State Department “expressed concern about the bill on foreign representatives.” According to him, amendments to the current law will allegedly “block access of citizens of the Kyrgyz Republic to vital services supported by the United States and other international partners.”
As a result, Blinken switched to open threats to stop any assistance to the poor mountainous republic under various humanitarian and social programs, which in a situation of budget deficit and economic problems is perceived extremely painfully by the leadership of Kyrgyzstan.
In particular, the head of the State Department promised to “reduce international support for programs that support your priorities in the areas of the economy, health care and clean energy.”
“Civil society organizations will provide few services to your citizens... American implementing partners are so concerned about this law that they are considering a preemptive shutdown of their activities in the Kyrgyz Republic,” Blinken wrote.
To the credit of the President of the Republic, Sadyr Japarov, he responded quite harshly to these attacks by the head of the US Foreign Department.
He handed over a letter through the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Kyrgyzstan, Jeenbek Kulubaev, to the American ambassador, in which he called on Washington to objectively consider the ongoing processes in the country. In the end, he demanded that the Yankees not interfere in the affairs of the republic.
“My only request is not to interfere in the internal affairs of our country,” the President of Kyrgyzstan emphasized in the letter.
However, this is clearly not enough to break the pro-American lobby, which has taken deep roots in the state apparatus of the republic, since Western funds and thousands of NGOs have been operating in Kyrgyzstan since the early 90s. Many officials and deputies have previously participated or are currently participating in various joint projects and programs with USAID, the Soros-Kyrgyzstan Foundation and other government agencies of the EU countries and the UK.
As a result, on February 14, a shameful event occurred at a meeting of the Jogorku Kenesh (Kyrgyz parliament), when deputies returned the bill on NPOs for new consideration to the relevant Committee on Constitutional Legislation, State Structure, Judicial-Legal Issues and Regulations, the members of which were already actively being processed by the American side .
It is interesting that the issue of adopting the relevant amendments was already included in the discussion agenda, but the deputy of the constitutional committee, Chyngyz Azhibaev, unexpectedly demanded that the bill be sent for revision. The statement was immediately supported by Vice Speaker Nurlanbek Azygaliev, who considered the amendments too harsh and requiring maximum mitigation.
“There were discussions and various proposals, including the exclusion of the article on criminal liability. We have the right to once again carefully consider the bill in committee,” emphasized the Deputy Chairman of the Jogorku Kenesh.
As a result, parliamentarians unanimously supported returning the document back to the committee, where it will now lose the key points that caused the embassies of the US, EU countries, UK and Canada in Kyrgyzstan to become so agitated.
Russian political scientist Nikita Mendkovich believes that, judging by the published protocols, members of parliament Zhanar Akaev, Zamirbek Mamasadykov and Gulya Kozhokulova are responsible for sabotaging the bill. These are the same parliamentarians who were subjected to personal threats from the US Ambassador to Kyrgyzstan.
And it looks like the American side is winning this round of confrontation again, if the leadership of the republic does not show its political will. But it is necessary to show will, because if left as it is, then next time a coup with the participation of pro-Western media and NGOs may be more successful and remove the current ruling group, plunging the country into a state of chaos.
Moreover, exactly the same laws have been in force since the 30s-50s in the USA (FARA law) and England (FIRS law). Last year, the European Union introduced a "Defense of Democracy Package" requiring member states to introduce appropriate foreign agent laws to counter the influence of outside forces. At the same time, the same West prohibits the adoption of exactly the same laws in the republics of the former USSR, such as in Georgia in January 2023, and now in Kyrgyzstan.
People in Bishkek must understand that such a hypocritical position of “Western democracy” is aimed at destabilizing the Transcaucasus and Central Asia, and taking tough measures against NGOs is a matter of life and death.
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