If a character like Kyrgyzstan's human rights ombudsman Tursunbek Akun didn't exist, you would have to make him up.
On July 18, his office distributed an email summoning journalists to a press conference to mark Nelson Mandela Day, which is held yearly to coincide with the retired statesman's birthday.
It is certainly no bad thing that Kyrgyzstan should be celebrating the life of a great man who devoted his political career to forging reconciliation, a concept utterly alien to the country's venal political class.
And pretty alien to Akun, too, while we're at it. He has said some notably worthy things about the ethnic clashes in Osh last year, it must be conceded. But one has to worry about a human rights ombudsman who criticizes an international report on the violence by complaining that it failed to realize the main cause of the unrest was that at the time of the Kokand Khanate (in the 18th and 19th centuries), the Kyrgyz were forced to seek employment from Uzbeks and other ethnic groups.
Anyway, back to Mandela Day.
With mercurial Akun running the show, one just had to expect the event to be somehow weirdly compromised, and he didn't disappoint.
Addressing reporters, he seized on the opportunity to indulge inappropriately (to the occasion and his role) in some sniping against parliament speaker Akmatbek Keldibekov. The latter reportedly announced during a recent visit to Indonesia that a Kyrgyz national arrested last year on charges of smuggling drugs was probably guilty -- a statement that has apparently put Akun's back up.
Zhibek Sakeyeva was sentenced to ten years in jail in May.
Returning to what was ostensibly the theme of his press conference, Akun delighted his listeners, and 93-year-old Mandela no doubt, by announcing that he plans to visit the great man himself in two years’ time.
And what fun they will have! For as Akun then informed reporters, July 18 is also his own birthday.
People present at the press conference report that after revealing this little gem and listing supposed shared attributes, Akun smiled contentedly to himself, as if basking in the notion that he too might one day come be viewed as Kyrgyzstan's very own Mandela.
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