US Embassy Personnel in Bishkek Are on Hot Seat

A US Air Force transport aircraft sits on the tarmac at Manas International Airport, where the United States maintains an airbase to support the military mission in Afghanistan. US officials are hoping the lack of dialogue with the erstwhile opposition will not lead to a shutdown of the transit point. (Photo: David Trilling)

Top officials at the State Department in Washington are said to be "fuming" with US Embassy personnel in Bishkek for supposedly failing to maintain strong ties with erstwhile opposition politicians who now are leading figures in the Kyrgyz provisional government.

The mid-April visit to Bishkek by Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Robert Blake was nominally an attempt by the US government to reach out to Kyrgyzstan’s new leaders. But another central purpose of Blake’s trip was to evaluate and critique the embassy’s recent performance.

According to well-placed Western sources in Bishkek, embassy personnel became preoccupied with keeping former president Kurmanbek Bakiyev happy, in effect turning a blind eye to his rapid move in an authoritarian direction. Bakiyev was driven from power on April 7 amid rioting in Bishkek. [For background see the EurasiaNet archive].

As part of the general effort to please Bakiyev, the US embassy appeared to let its relations with opposition politicians and civil society activists fall into a state of disrepair.

Speaking at an April 22 congressional hearing, one expert witness, Professor Eugene Huskey, claimed that US Ambassador Tatiana Gfoeller had rebuffed meetings with Almazbek Atambayev when he was a member of the opposition during the Bakiyev era. Atambayev is now deputy head of the provisional government. Huskey also claimed that US embassy personnel made Kyrgyz civil society activists feel as though they were "untouchables." [For background see the EurasiaNet archive].

The chief motivation for this diplomatic approach was to keep the US transit center at Manas, outside Bishkek, open, said one source familiar with American diplomatic thinking. In February 2009, Bakiyev expressed a desire to close Manas, but he ended up extending the base’s lease after the United States agreed to a significant rent hike. [For background see EurasiaNet archive].

"They [US embassy personnel] have left themselves open to accusations that all they cared about was maintaining the status quo. They were obsessed by the base" the source said.

In Washington, a "sense of unhappiness about perceived passivity" in the Bishkek embassy’s approach had been building for more than a year, the source added. Disapproval has now transformed into a profound sense of embarrassment at Foggy Bottom, as the sudden demise of Bakiyev’s administration exposed US policy flaws before they could be addressed.

Compounding the State Department’s displeasure, a US congressional subcommittee has opened a probe into the Pentagon’s contracting practices at Manas. That investigation could very possibly shed light on further US embassy missteps. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

"Washington is fuming with how events have unfolded. The Congressional investigation is extremely unwelcome attention," the source claimed.

What US embassy personnel did or did not know, and how they chose to process what information they may or may not have had, is likely to be a key aspect of the congressional investigation into Manas contracts, sources close to the investigation tell EurasiaNet.org.

Gfoeller, the US ambassador in Bishkek, has kept a low profile in recent weeks. Sources close to the embassy say the envoy is busy engaging in "behind-the-scenes diplomacy."

Ambassador Gfoeller has not been available to either local or foreign journalists for background briefings. That job has been delegated to other senior embassy staff.

An upcoming visit by Michael McFaul, US President Barrack Obama’s senior advisor on Russian and Eurasian affairs, is likely to intensify the focus on the embassy’s performance. One Washington insider described McFaul as "the point where intelligence and diplomacy intersect."