Excerpts from report by the Kyrgyz newspaper 'Vecherniy Bishkek' web site on
17th January

[newspaper headline] A party like this exists
The Peasants' (Farmers) Party of Kyrgyzstan (P(F)PK) [Krestyanskaya
(Fermerskaya) Partiya Kyrgyzstana] was registered last September in the
Justice Ministry. Over a period of less than four months [September 1999 -
January 2000] the number of members of this party reached 50,000. This
popularity is quite normal. The main task of the P(F)PK is to protect
people's interests and give real help to businessmen. With this aim in
view, departments of human rights organizations were set up in Bishkek, Osh
[in south Kyrgyzstan] and Karakol [in southeast Kyrgyzstan].
[passage omitted: skilled lawyers are giving free legal consultations to
people. The party set up an agrarian management centre and a scientific and
technical council in Bishkek]

The main idea of the P(F)PK's economic programme is to provide people with
real resources. To do this reimbursement should be made in a targeted way.
The republic's citizens [farmers], whose aggregate annual income is below
100,000 soms [over 21,700 dollars], should be exempted from all taxes. It
is necessary to draw up and introduce a long-term consumer system of
providing credits to people, using shadow capital for this purpose and
adopting in advance a number of measures to rehabilitate it. Free zones for
the activities of foreign banks should be set up and it is necessary to
oblige these banks to invest some of their own resources without any
interest in the development of private farms and small business. Strategic
sectors of the economy must be developed without fail and a set of
privileges for domestic producers should be introduced above all in
agriculture. The main thing is that it is time to establish order in the
state and to curb corruption and crime.

Sovereign Kyrgyzstan should demonstrate its state individuality more
distinctly in order to solve internal problems more successfully. Our
country has all the possibilities to declare itself an initiator of
humanisic ideals and exporter of progressive intellectual technologies.
[passage to end omitted: the P(F)PK nominated candidates for the parliament.
The party stands for setting up a permanent consultative political council
in the Kyrgyz Republic. The party members include many initiators of the
farmers' movement in Kyrgyzstan. The party held its first congress on 15th
January 2000 and outlined ways of helping agriculture out of crisis]

Source: 'Vecherniy Bishkek' web site, Bishkek, in Russian 1300 gmt 17 Jan 00
BBC Mon CAU 200100/** JF/MK