POST-REVOLUTIONARY SYNDROME IN KYRGYZSTAN – THE STRUGGLE FOR POWER CONTINUES
By Fredrik M. Sjoberg (7/13/2005 issue of the CACI Analyst)
BACKGROUND: On Sunday July 10, Kyrgyzstan elected Kurmanbek Bakiev as its new president with the astonishing figure of 89 percent in an election that was a considerably improvement over the February parliamentary elections, according to the OSCE. This was considered by many as the final act in the “Tulip Revolution” that started with the fraudulent elections in February and led to the ousting of longtime president Akaev. The most basic dividing line in Kyrgyz politics is the north-south divide, the south being politically marginalized since Soviet times and more traditional and characterized by a large Uzbek minority.CENTRAL ASIA’S CHALLENGING MARCH TOWARD DEMOCRACY
By Richard Weitz (6/29/2005 issue of the CACI Analyst)
BACKGROUND: Uzbekistan shares some characteristics that contributed to the collapse of the incumbent regimes in Georgia, Ukraine, and most recently Kyrgyzstan. In particular, the current Uzbek government is similarly politically repressive, economically ineffective, and plagued by corruption. The lack of effective mechanisms for peaceful political change, or even accepted methods for leadership succession, has led some of the regime’s opponents to seek to depose it by force.SALAFI-JIHADISTS GEOPOLITICAL PERSPECTIVE OF CENTRAL ASIA
By Murad Batal Shishani (6/29/2005 issue of the CACI Analyst)
BACKGROUND: This article builds on two major works by two thinkers in the Salafi-Jihadist movement. The first is “Fursan Tahta Rayat An-Nabi” (Knights under the Prophet’s Banner), by Ayman Zawahiri, was published as a series in the London-based Arabic newspaper “Al-Sharq Al-Awsat” in December 2001. The second is “Al-Muslimoun fi Wasat Asia wa Ma’rakat Al-Islam Almukbila” (Muslims in Central Asia and Islam’s Next Battle), by Abu-Mus’ab al-Sori “the Syrian” in November 1999 and published on many Islamist free websites.THE ANDIJAN DISTURBANCES AND THEIR IMPLICATIONS
By John C.K. Daly (6/29/2005 issue of the CACI Analyst)
BACKGROUND: The sparse information percolating out of eastern Uzbekistan leaves little doubt that the encounter between Uzbek security forces and demonstrators in Andijan on May 13 led to a massive loss of life. The number of casualties is in dispute; Tashkent maintains that 173 Uzbeks were killed in the clashes while human rights and Muslim activists place the numbers far higher; one Hizb ut-Tahrir offshoot, 1924.org, claims the wildly inflated figure of 20,000 dead.Visit also
Staff Publications
Silk Road Paper S. Frederick Starr, Greater Central Asia as A Component of U.S. Global Strategy, October 2024.
Analysis Laura Linderman, "Rising Stakes in Tbilisi as Elections Approach," Civil Georgia, September 7, 2024.
Analysis Mamuka Tsereteli, "U.S. Black Sea Strategy: The Georgian Connection", CEPA, February 9, 2024.
Silk Road Paper Svante E. Cornell, ed., Türkiye's Return to Central Asia and the Caucasus, July 2024.
Book Svante E. Cornell, ed., "The Changing Geopolitics of Central Asia and the Caucasus" AFPC Press/Armin LEar, 2023.
Silk Road Paper Svante E. Cornell and S. Frederick Starr, Stepping up to the “Agency Challenge”: Central Asian Diplomacy in a Time of Troubles, July 2023.
Silk Road Paper S. Frederick Starr, U.S. Policy in Central Asia through Central Asian Eyes, May 2023.