 I am the director of the Afghanistan and Central Asia program for USIP. We hope that you're staying healthy during these challenging times and we're delighted to have you with us this morning. The discussion about the ongoing political unrest in Kyrgyzstan takes place during a critical and dynamic period and we're pleased to have a panel of leading experts with us today to assess the situation from a national, regional, and international perspective. We can pull you to take part in today's conversation by asking a question using the chat function located just below the video player on the USIP event page. We ask that you please include your name and address when you are joining us from when you ask a question. Does that number is on camera? I'm sure it's on camera. And each other on Twitter with today's hashtag, hashtag Kyrgyzstan USIP. USIP's work in Central Asia focuses on countering violent extremism and conflict prevention. We accomplish this by working on the ground with government stakeholders, experts, and civil society leaders, as well as youth, from each country to share and promote best practices and approaches. USIP also conducts research on drivers of conflict and how to alleviate them. In the four weeks since Kyrgyzstan's parliamentary elections on October 4, and the mass demonstrations that immediately followed, the Kyrgyz Republic has gone through dramatic changes. President Jim Bekoff has resigned and the Central Election Commission announced that the parliamentary election results would be annulled. Now, Sada Joparov, who was released from prison by protesters at the onset of demonstrations, has been named Acting President and Prime Minister. Joparov recently announced his intention to step down at the end of the year in order to run for president in January. Today, USIP's expert panel will discuss these developments and their implications for peace and stability throughout the region. It will be moderated by Gavin Helt, who is a senior expert with USIP in the Central Asia program. He served previously as the senior democracy and governance advisor in the USAID, Asia, and Middle East bureaus, and he has decades of experience living and working throughout Central Asia, and was one of the US government officials who responded to the last revolution in Kyrgyzstan in 2010. Before hearing from the panel, it is my pleasure to introduce our keynote speaker, Jonathan Hennick, who is Deputy Assistant Secretary for Central Asian Affairs and Public Diplomacy in the Press with the State Department's Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs. Deputy Assistant Secretary Hennick is a member of the Senior Foreign Service. He previously served as Acting Deputy Coordinator of the Global Engagement Center, as well as the Principal Deputy Coordinator and Acting Coordinator for the Bureau for International Information Programs, among many other posts in his distinguished career. Deputy Assistant Secretary Hennick, the floor is yours, and we look forward to hearing your remarks. Terrific. Thank you, Scott. Thank you, Gavin. And thanks to the US Institute for Peace for hosting this very timely panel on the Kyrgyz Republic. I'm going to just speak briefly about how the United States sees this region and specifically the recent events in the Kyrgyz Republic, but I'll try to keep my remarks short because I'm really interested in hearing from the other panelists. Let me just start by saying that the United States has critical interests in Central Asia. Among these, of course, are the promotion of democracy and respect for human rights, working to open up markets and identify investment opportunities for US businesses, and efforts to counter terrorism, combat organized crime, and smuggling. We are pursuing these interests through robust bilateral and regional engagement in the region, where we believe that our interests are best served by promoting economic prosperity, by promoting democracy and rule of law, and by defending the independence and sovereignty of the countries of the region. Moving on to the Kyrgyz Republic specifically, we have watched the dramatic and sometimes violent events of the past three weeks in Kyrgyzstan with great concern. We are relieved to see that the political situation has somewhat stabilized, and its leaders can now focus on the difficult task of conducting new elections, promoting their economic recovery, and fighting COVID-19. There have been allegations in Russian disinformation that somehow the West and specifically the United States promoted these events in Kyrgyzstan. I want to assure you that it's categorically not the case. We support the Kyrgyz Republic's sovereignty and democratic form of government. It is up to the Kyrgyz people to make decisions about their democratic future, the composition of their government, and how and when elections are organized and conducted. Presidential elections now appear to be set for January 10th. We applaud the decision by acting President Joparov to relinquish his powers as acting president ahead of these elections, as is required by the Kyrgyz Constitution. We understand that parliamentary elections may be held later in 2021, and we hope to see freer and fairer elections in 2021. It is vital that Kyrgyz leaders uphold the Constitution and rule of law. The Kyrgyz Republic's leaders must continue to fight against the influence of organized crime and corruption in politics and the electoral process. In particular, we support the government's efforts to arrest and prosecute organized crime bosses, come to back Kobayev and reinbeck Matraimov. The State Department has offered a $1 million reward for information leading to the disruption of Kobayev's criminal network. At the same time, Radio for Europe Radio Liberty affiliate Azatik has documented illegal smuggling and money laundering scheme involving Matraimov and the export of over $700 million from the Kyrgyz Republic. We call on the Kyrgyz government to detain and prosecute these criminal leaders in the interests of public safety. We also urge all of the Kyrgyz Republic's neighbors and international partners to respect the Kyrgyz Republic's sovereignty, as we intend to do. We are proud, as well, of our long-standing support for the Kyrgyz Republic. The United States has invested over $2 billion in total assistance for the Kyrgyz Republic against its independence, including more than $5 million this year to assist in its fight against COVID-19. We are in constant conversation with our counterparts in the Kyrgyz government about how the United States can support future elections, anti-corruption efforts, and help address the impact of the pandemic. The ability of the international community to support these vital objectives depends, in part, on the continued democratic and anti-organized crime progress of this new government in Bishkek. And let me conclude my remarks there, and I look forward to hearing from the panel members and answering any questions afterwards. Thank you. Thank you, Jonathan. And hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. This is a very timely and important discussion. My name is Gavin Health, and I'm a senior expert on Central Asia at USIP in the Asia Center. For those of us who've been through this movie before, what's going on in Kyrgyzstan has parallels with the last two times this happened, and it would be easy, I think, on the surface to say it's the same old story. There was pent-up frustration in each of these cases, in this case, particularly because of COVID-19 and the lockdowns and the loss of labor remittances from Russia. There was a trigger event, a fraudulent parliamentary elections that represented a power grab by different forces in the regime. Corruption and repressive politics were concentrating into a family. Former politicians who had been discarded by the current regime or exiled or suppressed by the sitting president climbed back on the van wagon and tried to find a place in the next regime. And as we saw in the last couple rounds of this in 2010, one of those leaders came out on top of the pile to sort of form a new government. But what we're looking at today, I think, in this political chaos of 2020, is we're trying to find out what's different than before. We've gathered a great panel here that can help us sort that out. I'll ask each of them to comment on how they interpret what's going on in Kyrgyzstan over the last three or four weeks, and I'll ask them specific questions to draw out their particular expertise on this. After a round of questions with them, we'll open it up to questions from you, the audience. And as a reminder, you can take part in today's discussion by asking a question using the chat box function located just below the video player on the USIP event page. So first, I'd like to turn to Kinesh. Kinesh has been the search for common grounds country director in Kyrgyzstan since 2013 and the Central Asia programs director since 2015. Kinesh manages the search program related to conflict sensitive journalism, promoting freedom of religion, alternative narratives to recruitment, youth and women empowerment in Kyrgyzstan and preventing radicalization, leading to violent extremism. Kinesh and search have been USIP's partner in the work that we've been doing on reintegration of families returning from Iraq and Syria to Central Asia. Kinesh is originally from Tajikistan and graduated from Osh State University in Kyrgyzstan and has a master's in public administration from the University of Colorado at Denver. So Kinesh, one of the first things that struck me that's different when this started a few weeks ago was the role that young people were playing, especially using social media. I've watched from my COVID isolation over the last six months how spontaneous civil society organized on the internet and through social media have been responding to fill some of the governance gaps in the holes in the COVID response that were left by a government that was overwhelmed by the impact of that. In 2005 and in 2010, it seemed like the contest was all about getting your people in Dallas to square in front of the White House as quickly as possible, but this time around there seems to be an equally important struggle that's going on in social media and cyberspace. You and I were what's happening from the square as the events unfolded and I'd really like to get a sense of your viewpoint on how this all began and how that impulse is different than it was in previous times. Kinesh. Great, thank you. Thank you Gavin. Hello distinguished panelists today and hello audience. And it's my privilege today to share some of the observations from the ground. And as mentioned by Gavin, I managed the programs of the Search for Common Ground. Search for Common Ground is a peace building organization working in Central Asia since 2011. Gavin, going back to your question, I think even though I mean there are some parallels to the previous so-called revolutions, but this time what I observe are in three different settings. One is, I would call it the power of youth or the power of civil society bringing the government institutions accountable to their actions. And everything started off with the political parties who were observing the systemic vote buying and the election fraud and when their analysis and warning has been shared with the government institutions but there was no reaction and on the day after the elections when the initial results came out and it was really brutal. The political parties, mainly the youth wings or the young people who joined these political parties first time ever with the greatest number in the entire independence of Kyrgyzstan has stood up and organized the people to protest the rigged elections and results. And this was different. And another one what I see is different is again related with how the civil society or especially the young people, volunteers organized is at the day when the country was again in the chaos and especially everyone was really feared of looting which has happened in 2005 and 2010. But this time a group of more than 5000 volunteers and mainly from the coming who are residing in Bishkek came together and these are like the volunteers came to protect the city from looting and they have stayed there for at least critical 5-6 days when the situation was really difficult when we didn't see police or the law enforcement in the street. So the power of young people or volunteers was just immense. And what was interesting Gavin is that when police came out to their regular duties and when situation was coming back again to its normal and these people just went home and they didn't expect anything from the state institutions. And it is exactly like during the COVID time when the country was in a critical situation the people came together to save the country. And this is very different this time. And the third one around young people is these elections or these elections results brutal frauds have actually mobilized the city and rural urban and rural population and mainly the young people around one cause. And this has been a uniting force when everything started. And then the same urban and rural divide has been again used by some political forces to divide them again. But what was really interesting that how first time ever and they came united. So this is in my view very different. The second one I would like to say that the power of social media. And it was enormous this time. And what we can see is the struggle or the struggle between the Facebook and the class. Struggle between the telegram and what's up. But the mobilization is immense. And mobilization is going on both sides. And even even today the social media media has become one of the very, very powerful tool to bring in the current acting president. And his team as well. And even today, we've been observing how the mayor of Bishkek, for example, Balbak Tulebaev has been appointed through the power of social media. And this is very different from the previous two events. And the third one, I would say what is really different is the principles. Principles that have mobilized the population is still in force. And the people stood up for the free elections against the election fraud and vote buying. And those principles are still being discussed mostly in the social media. But then it has been, it's taking the state institutions also into accountability. And what is also different in the principles is the new way, I mean, the overall expectation that old and new way of politics. And even some groups named this time the political events as the Hope Umut. And it has been named again today by the group of activists that this is really a hope for the country to leave the old system of politics, everything. And then step forward with the new sets of rules. So and then the, in the previous two events, the role of funds, money, vote buying has been used again. But this time the people stood up and it stood up because this was, you know, enough. The Kyrgyzstan people stood up for their dignity, for the justice. And this is very different. And the last one is that, you know, this is an overall kind of expectation. I think the this vibrates around within the society that people have been what I hear more and more in different circles that what people say is that the Kyrgyz citizens have been doing their part very honestly in the last 30 years paying taxes. And these are just ordinary people, right? And fulfilling all the obligations of the citizenry. And now all people are expecting the government institutions to perform against those expectations. So the principles of accountability and transparency are enormous. So these are like a few observations just to start with Gavin. All right, thank you. Thank you very much, Kinesh. Now I want to turn to Dr. Ivan Safranchuk, who is a leading researcher at the Center for Central Asian and Afghanistan Studies at Gimua Moscow State Institute for International Relations. He's a senior associate of the Russian Eurasian program at CSIS. He has a very illustrious background, which I won't read out completely. But Ivan, what I wanted to do is ask about the neighborhood. In the in 2005, Russia took a role in taking in the first president that fell Oscar archive and I believe he's a math professor now and at Moscow State University. In 2010, Russia put pressure on Kermin Bakbaki of the second president, the top old Apogee. I think we've called it tried to play the America card against Russia and lost. This time around Russia faces a complex environment. There are hot spots in Belarus and Ukraine and the South Caucasus and that was even before things started to happen in Kyrgyzstan. I think that we've seen Russia announce the suspension of financial assistance to Kyrgyzstan. I believe I've seen Japarov announced that he will support Russian foreign policy externally, even if Kyrgyzstan takes its own course internally. I just really like to get a sense from you of how these events in Kyrgyzstan look from a Russian perspective. And how you interpret what's going on and what Russia's interests are in this context. Ivan? I want to thank you, Sieb, for this invitation and for the opportunity to share some of my views on what is going on. I would start from saying that every coup becomes a revolution if it is successful. So that's why it looks like it happened to be a successful coup. That's why we introduced revolutionary elements into all that. It was sort of inevitable. It was logical. It was an objective development and so on and so on. I don't want to say that this is not true. Absolutely. But I think that at this point probably we're a little bit already exaggerated. Until very recently, Zhein Bekov was quite acceptable for the majority of the Kyrgyz elite. He made some mistakes during the electoral campaign. He made some very serious mistakes between the spring and the elections in October. And he became quite vulnerable internally. Probably he decided to mobilize, to concentrate, to consolidate too much power in his hands and in the hands of his close associates. He went into conflict not only with Atambaev people, with people of the former president. He also went into conflict with some of his recent allies and close partners who supported him against Atambaev. So he made some mistakes inside the inter-elite struggles. And I wouldn't say exactly that the Kyrgyz society was sort of fed up with Zhein Bekov and it was a full scale revolution. I think that was a very active faction or maybe a couple of factions in Kyrgyzstan which used an opportunity when Zhein Bekov became very vulnerable during this electoral campaign and they overthrew him. So de facto it's more a coup rather than a revolution. And I think it's important for how Russia looks at it because it looks to be more a handmade coup rather than an objectively developing and objectively right revolution. For Russia it is very important whether there are outside forces behind this happening or these are mostly internal developments. In particular it is important for Russia because Russia sees some outside forces behind the events in Belarus and in Nagorno-Karabakh. In Nagorno-Karabakh it is more open and obvious. In Belarus it is less obvious but Russia strongly believes that there is a foreign hand in the events continuing in Belarus. And from this perspective it's very important for Russia whether there are outside powers for some geopolitical purposes who helped the coup in Kyrgyzstan or this was mostly local indigenous events. I think that for now Russia comes to the conclusion, that is my understanding of the Russian position. Now Russia comes to the conclusion that the events in Kyrgyzstan are most indigenous. They are not orchestrated and directed from outside. But still for Russia the risk continues to exist whether these events and the effects of these events can be used by outside powers for geopolitical purposes. I would stress that from political and juridical perspectives the situation in Kyrgyzstan is very controversial. The matter is that no group alone, no clan alone can now win in Kyrgyzstan through elections or through street battles. They need to make coalitions. But all coalitions for now are very fragile. And the legal basis of what is going on now in Kyrgyzstan is also very, very controversial. And that is important because the only source of legitimacy for now is politics. If authorities are inclusive enough, if people in power now are inclusive enough and they make coalitions so that nobody is left outside strong enough to challenge them, then they will be legitimate. If the current authorities will try to behave as if they are legitimate just because they are in power and they can be too tough on all others, I think there will be enough forces in Kyrgyzstan to challenge this authority. And their legitimacy will be very, very questionable. So legitimacy now is fully dependent on political arrangements and political coalitions which the current authorities build. From an economic perspective, what is going on in Kyrgyzstan is a clear-cut disaster. They are going into winter with a lot of economic problems. And it will be a very big challenge how they go through this winter. But one more point I want to raise. We usually say that Kyrgyzstan is the most democratic country in the region. But at the same time we usually say that Kyrgyzstan has very weak institutions. And in a way it is inconsistent because democracy depends very much on institutions and procedures. And what is interesting for me, and with this I will continue the line what is different in this case from the previous cases, what is interesting for me is that Atom Baev, when he was the president for five years, he very much revealed maybe not institutions as they are in western countries, but he revealed what we usually know under the name Deep State. These are power structures, these are law enforcement structures, but these are also other parts of their state bureaucracies. I think that Atom Baev was investing maybe too much attention into Deep State and less attention into institutions. But if institutions are weak, maybe Deep State is not that bad thing to exist. Zhinbekov was weakening to some extent the Deep State, but Deep State in Kyrgyzstan revealed by Atom Baev remains visible. And during this coup we saw that state authorities, they were paralyzed, they were paralyzed, but they did not disappear, they did not fully collapse, like in 2005 or 2010. And we see that the group which came now to power is taking very active, is now trying to very actively exploit the existing Deep State for their narrow political purposes. And actually I think that is quite bad and that is dangerous. I would repeat what I said before, their legitimacy and their capacity will not depend on them just stating that they are now in power and defending themselves with the Deep State. Their fate will depend on political arrangements with the rest of the political elite and with the general public. That's why I think there is a risk that in this interim period the Deep State will serve only one side political agenda. And this is the political agenda of the acting president. I think this may become a disaster and from my personal perspective international effort now should be channeled to support the Deep State, the state authority which is to provide basic services to the population including law and order services rather than the support should be provided to a particular political faction in power or in opposition. I think that is support to the Deep State which is to serve people is now the best way to stabilize the situation in Kyrgyzstan. Thank you. Thank you, Rivan. That is interesting. The Deep State as moderator, as Madarata of the rules of the game is a very interesting assertion. In fact, the presence and actions of the security forces this time around are very different than what we have seen in previous iterations. Lastly, but not least, I would like to turn to Maria. She is a professor of strategy at the National War College at NDU. She holds a PhD in political science from Purdue University and a JD in international law from Moscow National Law Academy. Dr. Malicheva's research and teaching interests include international and Eurasian security, counterterrorism and human rights, democracy promotion in the post-soviet territory. I would say the most interesting thing for us today is the co-author of a book, Correct Security, Trafficking, Terrorism, Nexus and Central Asia along with Mulheri Markowitz. Maria, you, so to speak, wrote the book on organized crime in Central Asia. One of the things that struck me this time around is how open organized crime, criminality and a new acronym for me, Okwege, played a role in both the corruption of the elections and the aftermath of the elections and the political events in the last few weeks. We always sort of knew that organized crime was lurking in the background in 2005 and in 2010, especially during the Osh events in the south in June of 2010. Certainly on my social, I'm more on the Facebook side of the social media struggle than on the class sneaky, but in my social media feeds, I see a lot of talk about this being a coup, a brazen coup of organized crime taking over control of the state. Oddly though, Jabarov seems to make a keystone of his entire approach, a crackdown on corruption and organized crime. So what's your take on all of this and how does this play out in your mind? Maria. Yes, thank you so much for your question, Gavin. And thank you for your professional interest in the role of organized crime in Central Asian politics. You actually stole some of my thunder. So I really wanted to make a few of the same arguments, but indeed we are very accustomed to looking at the episodes of mass mobilization or organized violence through sort of a singular lens of inter-ethnic tensions or clan politics or center periphery relations. And since recently through the lens of this budding youth social activism. And I take the position that organized criminal interests always play a role in political violence and social upheaval. So the two specific ways in which crime has entered politics in Kyrgyzstan as exemplified in the most recent events there is number one, by competing for and securing seats in Kyrgyz parliament. And number two, by exploiting intra-elite competition and power vacuum to advance their interests. So let me very briefly to flesh out these two points. So Kyrgyzstan has seen a proliferation of political parties, but many analysts myself including have written that most of these parties are ideologically empty shelves for competing patronage pyramid networks and those patronage networks include political business criminal interests. And there have been plenty of examples of criminals turned parliamentarians. You can find lists and lists of those and our interview is will give us many, many, many more examples. So what makes October 4th parliamentary elections stand out is precisely what you said in how brazen and open this criminal influence has become and also how unexpectedly effective it turned out to be in that it brought a brand new and obscure party loyal to a very unpopular president and the recent spin-off party linked to a former customs boss in the middle of a money laundering scandal to victory. In the end, however, this perverse success, if you wish of these groups brought their imminent demise as well. But the role of criminal interests did not stop here. So we already talked about how the opposition to President Jen Bekov was unable to coordinate their action and unable to reach any kind of agreement. So as a result, the revolution was hijacked by the old political elite, but the old political elite was also disorganized. The fastest and the most determined of them turned out to be Sadyr Jabarov. And Jabarov is no stranger to Kyrgyzstan's political scene. He was among the revolutionaries in the 2005 Tulip Revolution. He entered the cabinet of then-president Bakiev as an advisor who was tasked with tackling grafts. But Jabarov's critics today insist that it was during this time that he assisted the former president in concealing a variety of corrupt schemes within his inner circle. Jabarov reappeared in 2002 during the inter-ethnic clashes in the south of Kyrgyzstan and that experienced, later secured him a very strong positive reputation among the Kyrgyz southern nationalists. And we also know that on at least two occasions in 2012 and in 2013, Jabarov successfully incited public unrest for which he was jailed in 2017. And so just like Mr. Matraimov, whose name was already mentioned today, Jabarov and his friend Tashiya sponsored another party that they promised to bring to victory in October 4th election. They didn't happen. The party did not touch the 7% threshold. And again, it is alleged that Tashiya is on good terms with Matraimov. And it was the member of Matraimov's party that proposed fresh from prison Jabarov to the role of prime minister at the time when several other deputies went on public records saying that they had come under intense pressure from representatives of organized crime. And these concerns about the soaring influence of the criminal underground have been voiced by international partners including by the United States as we heard today and as we read in the statement by the United States Embassy in Bishkek. So Jabarov indeed has by far the biggest social media following of any Kyrgyz politician. But I don't think that it would have been enough on its own to catapult Jabarov to all these power positions. It seems like the Jabarov Tashiya of Tandem has the support of a number of crime bosses that who seek to advance their interests in politics. But he's also supported by the radical nationalist movement like Kirk Choro, the 49th movement. Several of the members of this movement ran in the parliamentary elections as candidates from the party funded by Jabarov and Tashiya of Tandem. So if you're asking me what's different about the role of crime taken or exploiting this tumultuous situation to advance their interests, I fear that there have been kind of a movement from state protection markets that's been spread out in Kyrgyzstan to a possibility of criminal culture of the state in this republic. And this is happening on the backdrop of growing ethnic Kyrgyz nationalism and widening legal nihilism as well. And this is what's kind of troubling and worrisome in my view. Over. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Maria. I just want to remind everybody that you can ask your questions in the chat box on the live feed. We have a couple that have come in already. And I'll throw this out. It's one that I have not seen a lot on, but we've got one question for anyone who's any of the panelists. What's the role? Has China played any role in what's going on here? What is China's position on the current events in Kyrgyzstan? Have we seen any, I haven't tracked any reactions, but does anybody want to take a stab at that question? Maybe Kinesh, have you seen, have you seen anything related to China on this in the last month? No, I haven't, you know, observed much about the Chinese, let's say the position or role in it. But today, most of the media were discussing about the fact that, you know, China has released the list of, as you know, the 2021 is the very critical year for Kyrgyzstan in relation to, you know, the funding that has been received by Chinese government, right? And this is the year when the initial repayment was kicked in. And apparently the China has announced the list of the countries where, of which the state debt will be either adjusted or annulled, but unfortunately the Kyrgyzstan was not in that list. So this is kind of, I don't know what this really means, but at least this has been commented by some media today. Kevin, may I interject very briefly? I will answer this question indirectly. I think the Kyrgyz government has always tried to walk this, you know, fine line between maintaining good relationships with China, but also catering to prevalent anti-Chinese sentiment in the public. As a matter of fact, the Nationalist Forces, the Nationalist Movement, which members joined Jabara's party on the party list in the elections, so that movement has become notorious for targeting Chinese laborers, Chinese interests in Kyrgyzstan. So I think any politician in current Kyrgyz environment who is going to try to side with China or Chinese interests is going to kind of be political suicide of sorts because, you know, there is a lot of anti-Chinese sentiment at this point. So I don't think they want to keep China at the arms length, I believe. Over. We have another question that actually makes me think of a different question. What if any role have clans played in recent events? And I would add to that. Perhaps I'll throw this out to you. Again, Kinesh, in previous in previous episodes in 2005 and 2010, it seems to me that the Kyrgyz that I talked to tend to talk about politicians in terms of he's a northerner or a southerner before they talk about whether he's a Democrat or an authoritarian or a liberal or a conservative. And I haven't seen as much of that playing out is overtly this time. What about clans and the whole sort of, you know, angle of North-South politics and how that's played out this time as compared to previous times, especially with sort of what you're talking about of an urban-rural connection between youth that maybe is slightly different than before. That's a very interesting question, Gavin. I think the North-South divide or at least that is not much discussed at the moment because of the tandem has been, you know, because of the tandem. The Tashiv-Japarov are, you know, they are friends and they are together. They share the same ideas and aspirations and then also the political party which they run into elections, the patriotic party was also the composition of it and it was quite balanced. Although, I mean, now few talks are existent in the city in terms of, like, you know, what's the balance between South and North appointees, appointments into different positions. But I think overall whenever this North-South divide especially in the social media it's immediately reactive by a population that, you know, we should not, you know, they come out quite strongly. I don't know in a long run how it will be how long it can last, right? And because in the history, this has become one of the quite powerful factor when it comes, like, you know, the speaker when the speaker is from the North then the Prime Minister should be from the South kind of balances, right? Maybe it's because now it's an interim or how we call it the technical government. That's not really obvious but with the election kicking in very soon the presidential election it will be quite interesting to observe. Go ahead, Maria. Thank you. Yeah, feel free to mute me if I interject too much. I absolutely agree with Kinesh but I think that those regional divides North versus South they've become less and less relevant in the past five, seven years. So the research that I've looked at that looked at the composition of parties, for example, even though you can have a kind of a small majority of either representatives of the South or of the North parties have become more and more kind of the mergers of the interest from different parts of the country and we already talked today about the importance of those elite networks which oftentimes include members of, you know, the Southern elites and the Northern elites so the importance of forming those coalitions have become very significant to succeed in Kyrgyz politics and if we are talking about Japarov, Japarov is a Northerner but he has very strong support in the Southern and rural regions of the country. What I am gathering is that the standoff, intra-elite standoff today in Kyrgyzstan reflects a greater divide in Kyrgyz society so Kinesh noted that there are some unifying themes between the rural and urban youth there are actually also important divisions between rural citizens and urban citizens there are linguistic differences with rural citizens preferring to communicate in Kyrgyz with some of the urban youth kind of more advanced forward looking preferring to communicate in Russian so I think this is what is kind of playing out much, much more that some of the other divisions within society they kind of get translated into what we are seeing in intra-elite conflicts and divisions as well but I think the Klan politics are definitely less significant today than they were before over. After Ivan I would like to make a couple points Ivan I want to agree with the observations made by Kinesh and Maria but I am less certain about conclusions you make from these observations yes these North-South divisions in the Kyrgyz politics are less obvious in the last five maybe even something like seven, eight years after Atambaev came to power and started gaining legitimacy through presenting himself not as a northerner but also as a southerner however I would say that my suspect is I don't claim it I don't say that I am 100% sure but I suspect that this is partly because in the recent five years the Northern clans have been tremendously weakened after the previous president Jean Beckham came to power and most of Northerners go to southern politicians in coalition with them as junior partners and that's why what you usually see in Kyrgyzstan is not a a lifelong standoff between South and North the question is who is the senior partner and who is the junior partner whenever a Southern clan is in power you have a number of southerners as junior partners to the Southern clan ruling and the other way and I think that we are in the prolonged period when politicians associated with Northern clans are junior partners to the Southern clans which are very seriously entrenched in the Central power this for me does not mean that divisions do not exist anymore it for me means that actually it is quite a prolonged period of southerners being quite weakened and the question becomes whether they can regain power to become senior partners and attract southerners as junior partners or North Zhaparov in particular the current acting president for me doesn't look like a perfect person to overcome North South divisions of course you can say that he is by his birth and by his geographical association he is a Northerner but he has been in such strong alliance with the Southern clans and with nationalists from the South that politically I think Zhaparov is so much part of the Southern of the Southern clans, elites or whatever you call them that I would not call him the best person to overcome divisions the fact that he is a representative of the South rather than a balanced figure between the North and the South thank you so oh Kinesh, yes sorry very very quickly I would like to leave some three very quick points I think this North South divide or is slowly disappearing because of two factors one is the people's mobility and now the more and more people around my age or maybe above the intermarriages and other relationship is diffusing this North-South divide especially so among the young population and the secondly again it's again related the second factor is the internal migration because of the economic and other factors the internal migration has been huge from South to North and like now in Bishkek or Chuy area the Southern South is very important role and the third one I think just to respond to Ivan's point on the Japarov's profile and the character I would mostly say that Japarov has two features one is the overall support from ordinary people and his profile has been constructed in the last eight years when he was in prison and it was constructed on the social media and mostly in Facebook and the main drives behind that was injustice injustice the kind of new form of character that's why Japarov is very very popular throughout all regions of Kyrgyzstan among the ordinary people and of course I mean to add to that Tashiv because he's from the South and also adds to that and then the third one is the ethno-nationalistic rhetoric this political party is really fostering is another factor thank you I'm going to internationalize this a little bit we've got a question that I think I will address both to Dashenik and to Ivan even before the recent political events and Kyrgyzstan's economy was severely impacted by covid the loss of remittances what are the plans that the US and Russia have to provide financial support and economic assistance to Kyrgyzstan Jonathan do you want to take a first shot at that sure so as I think I noted in my opening remarks we've already provided I think over five million dollars in assistance and that really builds on over 20 years of working extremely closely with health officials and experts in the Kyrgyz Republic where we have worked with them on infectious disease and so really have a very good idea of where they have strengths and where they continue to need assistance and so we've been providing that if we have a center for disease cooperation office in Almaty that covers the Kyrgyz Republic and they're in regular contact with the infectious disease experts in the Kyrgyz Republic in terms of economic recovery we are obviously in close contact with the Kyrgyz Republic right now we have as a member of the G20 and the Paris Club we are participants in the get service suspension initiative and have offered we can to suspend debt relief payments and we are obviously as the major shareholder in the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development we're working through those organizations as well to provide assistance where needed to an earlier question though Gavin I would say we hope that China will also as a member of the G20 provide service relief to the Kyrgyz Republic but we in terms of our bilateral assistance and you know the work we're doing through the multilateral development banks stand ready to assist the Kyrgyz Republic in the coming months ahead over Ivan you want to take a shot at that yeah I think that Russia is very supportive to everything what Jonathan said what is happening in international organizations through IMF World Bank and so on besides that Russia is doing a lot bilaterally also Kyrgyzstan within the more general international effort and on more unilateral basis Russia suspended most of the bilateral debt Kyrgyzstan had to Russia Russia regularly provides just direct subsidies to the Kyrgyz budget with which civil servants and elementary budget budgetary payments are made usually such subsidies they are provided in the end of the year so that civil servants bureaucrats teachers educators medical doctors and so on medical staff can the biggest part of the bureaucracy so that they just receive their salaries in the end of the year the very big question right now is that within the framework of the Eurasian development bank Russia committed 100 million dollars to Kyrgyzstan so that Kyrgyzstan was expected the previous president he was expected to receive it by the end of this year and now this amount is spending because because the legal side of the Kyrgyz authority is not clear but as far as I understand the commitment as such is fully endorsed it's just a matter of timing when exactly it happens but saying all that I would still emphasize that Kyrgyzstan is in very poor condition it's not only what China, Russia or the United States bilaterally or through international organizations each country individually or somehow this country together will do the question is very much what the private sector will do and as far as I understand most of the private business in Kyrgyzstan would like to go into cash and to take money out of the country at least temporarily at least until the situation is stabilized and I want to remind you that at the peak of the political turbulence the Kyrgyz authorities closed the country financially SWIFT was turned out so that you cannot transfer money neither into Kyrgyzstan nor out of the Kyrgyzstan because there was a very big fear that banks would be just emptied and businesses would go into cash currency and make transfers outside of the country to Kazakhstan or to Russia where there are converted currencies and the country still remains let us say financially frozen and there is a very high risk that when international transfers are fully still there will be a huge outflow of money by people but mostly by businesses it means that the country will be in desperate need for cash just for operations to continue forget about investment about building something just regular operations will be very much in problem because there will not be enough cash in operations people instead of doing regular business regular tried will try to take money out of operations for a while not to risk their currency and their stocks so that is a very big issue I think at the moment and that's why I would repeat the state so political faction in power needs somehow to send very clear signal that there will be some regular business of the government and regular business of the private sector otherwise people will just take all money out of the country as soon as there is such an opportunity finish thank you Gavin you know only through this week this is the third event I am attending including the EU, Russia and other discussions and when the money issue comes up again the financial situation indeed the financial situation is very critical in Kyrgyzstan but what I want to point out is that more and more so the civil society organizations then especially the youth groups are coming out quite strongly that questioning about as of today only through the covid assistance Kyrgyzstan has received more than 800 million US dollars but the public doesn't have reports against this so there is a strong demand coming from civil society and youth groups like to EU, Russia and others before making commitments or releasing the funds can you please fix the mechanisms of reporting and bringing in more clarity and transparency and accountability of the Kyrgyz state institutions unless that it might create or it might catalyze the corruption again so this is kind of coming more and more strongly we have one that is addressed to Maria but anyone can feel free to chime in on it given what you have said about organized crime what is the way to stability and meaningful rule of law how can the international community help support the rule of law in the long run Maria? my mic this is a great question and I think Kinesh can begin talking about it but let me say that all programs are very very difficult to design to be effective and meaningful implement because in the end those programs the success of those programs hinges on Donner's ability to change public attitudes and if public read large kind of accepts corruption as something it's like one of those evils that we cannot do away with it's just part of our life it's inevitable it is our means of coping with scarcities or other kinds of bureaucratic grid logs that changing the attitudes towards corruption changing the attitudes with regard to trust in the government those are very very fundamentally difficult things to accomplish that take long term to concert it well thought out effort so any of those programs aiming at building stronger law enforcement judicial systems are very very difficult to design and to implement but having said that I think even based on the discussion that we had today there are some things that can be done like one thing that Kinesh pointed out that there are ways to introduce stricter accountability mechanisms that will allow for greater transparency in how funds aid is used that's one thing the second thing is that I know that the US government and USAID they do a lot of work but I think more can be done or the emphasis, greater emphasis can be placed on working with civil society groups, youth organizations and not only those located in the capitals like Bishkek but particularly in rural areas and what we heard today is that even though there was this youth mass mobilization there was lack of coordination and collaboration among those groups so providing some kind of platforms for uniting all these forces would be helpful as well we've heard that some of that Kyrgyz ethnic nationalism and I would say that Jabarafe is a populist leader and we know that populism when it's married with ethnic nationalism often arises on the basis of widespread grievances, you know, seeing this growing discrepancy in wealth that few are becoming wealthier and the masses are still struggling with the lack of opportunities and poverty and whatnot so placing greater emphasis on some of those developmental projects developmental assistance in aid would also probably help with providing opportunities and ultimately changing attitudes but again in the end it is a very good question we've thought a lot about it I know that the US government has thought a lot about it and maybe given you yourself you've been in that field for a very long time can chime in and add something on what specific things that the donor community the community of western nations in particular can do to clamp down on corruption and the role of organized crime in Kyrgyz politics Kineshi wanted to also add to that yeah I just wanted to leave a couple points there and I think the internet this is the opportunity and the right time for the international community to promote or revise their role around strengthening the rule of law around three two aspects one is the digitalization and the Kyrgyz is a small country and the digitalization process has started there quite few years ago and from my knowledge it's going quite well and even today the technical government is talking about installing the digitalization in customs and other fields and I think this is an area that now the Kyrgyz we tend to say that the Kyrgyz major wealth is the people and the IT sector has been developing quite you know quite strongly in the recent years and this is the area I think that could be taken into account and the second one is the now there is a local demand site even today for more transparency for rule of law and that's genuinely shared by public at the moment and the international community can put a bit of pressure around using that opportunity so I would at least I see those couple areas okay thank you we've got one for Ivan that says if Moscow were not now preoccupied with Belarus Nagorno-Karabakh Ukraine and COVID do you think that the Kremlin would have played a bigger role in recent events in Kyrgyzstan that is a very good question because it opens many ways for many venues for speculation but before going into there I want to stress that I agree very much with what Maria and Kinesh said in response to the previous question but I would still re-enforce my point that I strongly believe that in the short run the best service to the Kyrgyz people can be provided by the deep state if the deep state is strong enough and I think that the international effort should be channeled to strengthen the deep state which on everyday basis serves social, economic and and law and order services to the Kyrgyz people also there should be international pressure for politicians to distinguish between their political games in Kyrgyzstan and the deep state which is working on everyday basis for the people so that the politicians do not take full control of the deep state for their political purposes and for channeling services to patronage networks but actually allow the deep state to serve all the people on a regular basis I think that is the best way in the short run to provide law and order and some economic stability coming back to what Russia would did I think that Russia is very careful not to interfere too closely in the Kyrgyz affairs it looks like Russia may be a victim of that approach sometimes but look for example as far as I understand Russia was not fully fully happy with Atombayev's choice of Zhein Bekov as his successor but Russia looks to agree ok if it's your choice it's your political partner within your party let it be it seems like probably Russia could execute some power to persuade Atombayev to make a different choice because we all now understand that it was not a very good choice for Atombayev personally and maybe for the country as a whole but you see Russia relied on the local partner to decide I think Russia accommodated with Zhein Bekov finally quite well but Zhein Bekov weakened himself and became victim of his own intrigues finally I do not believe that Russia would interfere in any way even political substantial way to save Zhein Bekov it's very hard to believe for me but I think that maybe Russia could be more active in the after-coup period to be more assertive with its position so that local politicians somehow stabilize the situation but I see that Russia actually says ok decide your own business and we are partners as country to country but we are not partners with a particular political faction so we do not go into the internal politics I understand that is the Russian position I understand that Russia could be maybe a little bit more active in the circumstances you described but I think that not too much by and large I think that Russia chooses and that is a very a very cautious choice not to go into Kyrgyz politics not to go inside it into all these internal battles Jonathan you wanted to comment? Yeah, if I could just clarify I think if I understand Ivan correctly what he maybe means is not the deep state which of course I think originally started in Turkey and refers to criminal elements that are tied to the state but I think he is talking about the state the bureaucracy to the extent that there is a bureaucracy in the Kyrgyz Republic that continues to function and serve the Kyrgyz citizens and if in fact that is the case I would agree that there are well functioning parts of the state but I would just double down on the points made by Kinesh and Maria one of the real bright spots of the Kyrgyz Republic's development has been the emergence of civil society the emergence of freedom of expression developing independent media and I think it's the ability to have these sorts of open conversations the ability to have information shared among citizens increasingly on social media that is prompting really useful conversations and I couldn't agree more not less and we would be and one of the reasons I singled out in my comments mentioning the multilateral development banks is these are institutions that have a long track record of providing assistance in a very transparent manner as does the United States and I would hope that any assistance that the Kyrgyz Republic gets in the coming months and years is done on those terms that it's done in a very transparent way so that the Kyrgyz citizens can be comfortable their government their elected leaders are using this assistance responsibly over and actually I will put on my old democracy promotion hat and say you're talking about the deep state but I think if you're talking about a professional military a professional police force and security forces that don't get involved in domestic political targeting called the state I agree with the clarification you make but I wanted to remind you of the article in Foreign Affairs in 2017 where the so called deep state was a little bit washed out of the bad connotations with authoritarian states so I of course it is so called deep state but it is exactly professional civil service which should be differentiated from public sentiments and from political games I still use the term deep state to make that differentiation more clear and maybe a little bit provocative I think we have one more question before I get us into wrap up mode I think Kinesh this goes to you besides the language barrier the huge gap between urban and rural youth which is obvious are there any factors that have been overlooked in in this gap thank you Gavin very excellent question indeed actually this is the time first time ever rural urban divide has been obvious and except the language barrier of course now it was a bit of a shock especially to the Bishkek based young people or Bishkek based people that actually the there may be some resistance of learning or speaking the Kyrgyz language but if they want to build a bridge with the rural populace then learning the Kyrgyz language is becoming very very obvious and important but at the same time I think there are two factors behind it one is I would say the around the media literacy critical thinking skills areas and which is like quite much improved in urban type of settings semi urban areas but there is a real issue with the rural areas another one is the factor of religion or religiosity and that is again the rational religiosity rational way of interpreting the religion is becoming one of the more and more obvious in this setting so we can now just generically we can put into two baskets of rural urban divide but obviously behind that or underneath the deep education reform the basic state service provisions the rural development other issues that you know one way or the other the Kyrgyz society has to tackle in a long run okay we're just about out of time so I wanted to do a very lightning round you will not be held to these predictions but I'd like to get everybody a chance to give me their prediction about how things are going to play out over the next weeks and months and I think I'll start with Maria Maria what's your prediction well I have to disclose I am Russian by nationality and many Russians are patelists and pessimists so it has always bias my analytical predictions I am a little bit pessimistic I think there will be constitutional changes pushed through very soon that will they may even shift the balance of power to the president away from the parliament and I yeah so I think there will be kind of completion of the revolution where you know the reins of power will be picked up by all new political elite guards and that's it okay Ivan your predictions going out I my prediction is that there is a very high risk and the very high risk is that the new authority will be too assertive and too non-inclusive that they will try to push too hard for the political changes for timing of the elections and for the framework of the electoral campaign as it serves their purposes and then this will alienate them with other groups I think it is not a prediction that this is going to happen necessarily but there is a very high high risk of that happening and then we know that sometimes revolutionaries eat themselves over quite quick periods of time I think that these people now in power need to be inclusive and cooperative they are not actually winners, it's not the situation the winner takes at all it is the situation when the winner so far winner needs to serve the public, needs to serve his state and needs to cooperate with other political forces and I do not so far understand whether the current people in power understand it and if they understand it are they going to behave according to this or they will try to behave like the winner takes it all then I think the situation may be quite fatalistic as Maria said before Jonathan do you want a legislative prediction? I am reluctant to make predictions I think fundamentally I am optimistic and I do think there is an opportunity here to go after these criminal elements that have been influencing politics in the Kyrgyz Republic for too long but a lot of that again will depend on the political will of the leadership there right now and the continued involvement of the Kyrgyz people who have taken such an interest following the last elections I can boldly predict that the United States is going to continue to remain really engaged with the Kyrgyz Republic and we stand by to assist if indeed the new government there and the people take things in a positive direction so I will leave it at that and Kinesh your predictions you know and I am optimistic and you know the road to independence is never going to be straightforward it is always going to be bumpy and Kyrgyzstan is a young democracy but you know even the populist figures like Jabarov once they come to power they realize that they have to take into account a lot of different factors making the decisions and look at how his rhetoric and his stance on some major major political issues including the government structure has shifted or changed just in the last 10 days so there is this very strong vibrant civil society and people power and demand and I think two things really stand out maybe this is because of the nomadic culture of Kyrgyzstan people that you know the population stands very firmly around two principles of dignity and justice and I think one way or the other anyone who comes to the power will have to take into account the other sites of the population in order to run more effective and stable government so I will just leave it up like that for now okay my answer is don't be a fourth revolution and I hope I'm right I want to say thank you to everyone I want to say thank you to Yvonne and Maria and Kanesh, Jonathan for what I think has been a really interesting discussion we raised a lot of questions that I think will help people know what to look for at least as they try to interpret those events thank you everyone and everyone please stay safe and well and our hearts go out to Kyrgyzstan we hope for the best thank you everyone