McRae takes issue with CNN coverage, explains reality of the streets

Sunday noon, March 27

Perhaps because the collapse of the government took less than an hour, the return to normal has been just as quick. Bakiyev, Otunbayeva, and Kulov are firmly in control now. Akayev sends threatening e-mails, but his fantasies of being a latter-day Manas [the nation's mythical hero] are exactly that. There is simply no support for him at all, save for a ragtag band of a few hundred coming to Bishkek to plead his case. Putin calls the revolution "illegitimate," but says he has no objection to Akayev's coming to Russia. Nothing is more insipid than lukewarm Russian tea. Akayev is finished.

In Ala Tau square yesterday, the two guards who stand Beefeater stiff next to the "Statue of Liberty" continue their vigil.They stood there throughout the taking of the White House, I am told. It is a remarkable image, really, one of continuity and pride in what has been achieved. The country's symbols remained intact. The White House was not gutted, but today, the front door remains open. Now Ala Tau square sees groups of people listening to speakers decry the looting which has taken place; other groups wait to hear the latest word from the White House. The Kyrgyz are calling this the "Tulip Revolution." Yesterday, as I walked by the shuttered kiosks in the underground walkway at the intersection of Chui and Sovietskaya, two blocks from the White House, only the florist was open, selling yellow tulips. A middle-aged housewife walked by, on the way to Ala Tau, carrying her tulips, smiling broadly. On Kyrgyz TV, the news programs feature a backdrop of tulips.

Looting has stopped. The looting was more extensive near Sovietskaya - even Zum, the major department store, was looted, but it was not gutted. The businesses that seemed to suffer the most, like the Beta Store, the Eurasia market and cafe, the Narodny shops, the Dordoi Plaza and the Silk Way were all closely associated with the Akayev family. In the run-up to the revolution, I had heard more and more discontent expressed about his wife, who seemed to take her 10% from everything, ostensibly for her education programs; and about his sons, who were notorious for carousing around Bishkek - even, I have heard, for taking women forcibly from the night clubs. Casinos were attacked, probably more because Akayev reversed himself a few years ago and allowed them to open. Needless to say, this Islamic reaction may never go so far as to close the liquor kiosks, just one symbol of the problems this country still has to face up to. The word from the embassy is very encouraging.

Bakiyev is well respected as an economist. He has promised that shopkeepers will be able to recoup their losses through government help. One of my close Kyrgyz friends at the embassy knows him well; last summer he visited the U.S. on a State Department tour. There is a good chance I may be able to meet him soon. The police were back on the streets keeping order. The government has created a citizens' militia to keep order at night. It was interesting to watch the militia being formed in the courtyard beneath my apartment -- there was a great sense of responsibility and pride among the essentially middle-aged men, Kyrgyz and Russian both, and no sense of retribution or anger.

It really is a quite remarkable thing to watch a government taken back by its citizens, the vast majority of whom feel enormous pride in their achievement, and a willingness to take on the responsibility of turning their country around. When you think about what has happened in this apparently out-of-the-way and insignificant country, you must step back in amazement. Imagine the past 14 years. The overnight withdrawal of the Soviet Union, wholesale economic dislocation (factories, schools, office buildings, even entire villages were simply abandoned), a constitutional government established (and one the Kyrgyz are intent on keeping, by the way - they believe deeply in democratic institutions), a near revolution in the south 10 years ago, and now the ouster of a discredited regime - when you think of all of that, and understand what it means not just for Central Asia, but the entire world, well, you must stand back in amazement. This was no effort of U.S. military madmen thinking they can tinker with the world through "shock and awe" from the comforts of their Pentagon offices; this was a democratic and free people acting to protect their civil liberties.

Yes, the situation here is still a dicey one, and there are enormous problems this country must face, but at the moment the pride is here again in these people. I am enormously privileged to be part of this. I am not being hyperbolic at all when I tell you that we can learn from this, but only if we have the courage to believe in our values and to trust those elsewhere in the world who want to live by them as well. What may have seemed an out-of-the-way and insignificant Central Asian backwater is now center stage. Imagine Lebanon going this way, or Palestine. Guns and bombs have seen their measure taken.

Bill

This information posted 05 APRIL 2005