Scott Horton, the president of the International League for Human Rights, visited Kyrgyzstan from October 13-15 to monitor campaign conditions. Kyrgyzstan will hold presidential elections October 29. [For additional information about the main presidential contenders see EurasiaNet’s Election Watch]. Horton spoke with government officials, opposition politicians, NGO representatives and journalists. He spoke with EurasiaNet on October 24 about his impressions of Kyrgyzstan’s election environment. His comments follow:

EurasiaNet: How is the presidential campaign going in Kyrgyzstan?
Horton: Well, I would say the elections were a continual subject of comment by people I spoke with – both government, the legal figures, journalists, and human rights advocates there, and people in the diplomatic community. In general I would say there was a high level of frustration with the elections on the side of just about all the people I spoke with. The major issues that arose were access to media on the part of the opposition candidates, all of whom said they were being denied access, both to print media and to broadcast media, and then acts of intimidation targeting opposition figures - and I heard many, many very detailed accusations of intimidation efforts.

EurasiaNet: Do people believe there will be a free and fair vote, or do they expect manipulation?
Horton: Almost no one with whom I spoke expected that counting the votes was going to be free and fair, and the way the issue was put to me repeatedly was whether or not support for the opposition would be so large and so vehement that the government would find itself in a Kostunica/Milosevic-type situation. Most people certainly did not think that would be the case; most of the independent observers told me they felt that, while the opposition candidates were likely to gather a majority of votes between them, they felt it unlikely that they were going to generate high levels of enthusiastic support.

EurasiaNet: In other words, even if the vote were free and fair, relatively, Akaev could expect to win the election, even with a plurality, not a majority?
Horton: It’s extremely hard to judge, but the suggestions I saw were that Akaev continues to have very solid support in the Northern part of the republic, maybe even a majority of the support in the Northern part of the republic. But in the South of the republic the popular sentiments are much more oppositionist in orientation, and how all that shakes out in terms of exact numbers, few are willing to venture a guess. Those who did suggested to me that they thought Akaev would not obtain 50 percent or more of the vote – that he would fall short. But with there being three significant candidates, it could be that he would be "first past the post."

EurasiaNet: Looking beyond the election, you also examined the case of Feliks Kulov. What findings did you come away with? [For additional information see EurasiaNet's Daily Digest]
Horton: Well, the Kulov case is of course related directly to the elections, I believe, because the prosecution of Kulov kicked in and was pursued aggressively simultaneously with Kulov’s campaign for the Parliament, and the second phase has coincided with Kulov’s electoral arrangement with [opposition candidate Omurbek] Tekebaev, in which they run as a ticket, effectively. They run on a ticket with photographs of both in Northern Kyrgyzstan, showing Kulov as the Prime Ministerial nominee of Tekebaev. But I spent a lot of time looking at the procedure of this case, I spoke with the prosecution lawyers … with advisers of the president, with a number of independent lawyers and judges, and also with Mr. Kulov himself, and his lawyers. I also talked with some of the witnesses. I would say the resumption of the case raises some very serious issues: the first one is double jeopardy, because of course he was acquitted by the trial court, and the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights incorporates an article 14 (7), a prohibition on double jeopardy.

The Kyrgyz authorities take the position that the acquittal in the trial was not a "final" decision because it was appealed by the prosecution. Of course it is characteristic of the Soviet criminal justice system that the prosecutors, if they lost, had the right of appeal, just as the defense does – something not known in most countries. I certainly do not believe that this process is consistent with the requirements of the international covenant, I don’t think re-prosecution of this sort is appropriate. But looking at what happened, I examined the trial court’s decision, and I examined the decision of the appeal court, which throughout my own examination of the face of the decision of the appeals court, suggests very questionable dealings by the appeals court. In particular, there is one key paragraph in that decision that states that "the guilt of Mr. Kulov is established by the testimony of" and it lists a bunch of witness names. This appeals court, of course, never heard these witnesses, went on a basis of the transcript; I examined several of the people who monitored the trial and talked to several of the witnesses, and they all vehemently denied that they said anything that established his guilt. All of which suggests to me that the decision of the appeals court was politically motivated and politically dictated, and was not a proper judicial act.

EurisiaNet: Does this provide any indication about how the country may be governed in the future?
Horton: The evidence of intervention with the court system and political manipulation of the courts is mounting considerably. And while I was there, I was given quite a bit of further information confirming this, and it seems clear beyond doubt that the president’s chief of staff … and several other figures in the president’s administration have been actively involved in intervening with the courts, and manipulating the outcome of their decisions. The Kulov case is one, there are quite a number of others. In fact, I would say the situation has become so brazen that one of the vice premiers … actually gave an interview with a major Bishkek newspaper in which he talked about how he was unhappy with a decision that the court was reaching and how he phoned them and ordered them to issue a different decision. This is the atmosphere in Bishkek these days. Of course this very seriously undermines the rule of law, and I think it is particularly disappointing to us because Kyrgyzstan, for a number of years, had appeared to be a country that was making good, steady progress, and building a rule of law state. And now we see just how quickly all of those efforts can be destroyed.

EurasiaNet: During your visit, did anybody express concern about the Islamic insurgency, and what the future holds in terms of regional stability, and Kyrgyzstan’s stability?
Horton: Well, all the political candidates expressed concern. It’s not really so much an internal Kyrgyz insurgency as a case where Kyrgyzstan is a transit point for insurgents coming from Afghanistan and Tajikistan, and clearly focusing on Uzbekistan as a target. And if you look at a map of course you see that you’ve got to cut across a swath of Kyrgyzstan to get there, and they see that. So it is viewed, not so much as a question of internal stability and disruption, as it may be in Uzbekistan, for instance, but as a case of invasion by foreigners. There seems to be a consensus among political leaders about this. At the same time, there’s a lot of reticence, that this issue is exploited by the government to justify curtailment of civil liberties, civil freedoms, and a very strong view that that is not justified.

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Posted October 24, 2000 © Eurasianet
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