A Kyrgyz-Russian joint enterprise set up specifically to corner the fuel contract at the US-operated Manas Transit Center near Bishkek will begin deliveries of aviation fuel in November.
US legislators are willing to lift restrictions on the Defense Department’s ability to provide military assistance to Uzbekistan, a country with one of the world’s worst human rights records.
Provisional President Roza Otunbayeva has authorized the creation of a special oversight body that will monitor how Pentagon payments for the use of the Manas Transit Center are handled.
It seems that Janysh Bakiyev, the brother of ousted former president Kurmanbek Bakiyev, wasn’t a very nice guy: top Kyrgyz government officials are now painting Janysh out to be a sadist.
Kyrgyz Interior Ministry Zarylbek Rysaliev alleged at a press conference on September 14 that Janysh orchestrated the murder of one of his brother’s top advisors, Medet Sadyrkulov, whose charred body was found in a burnt-out car outside the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek in March of 2009.
Investigators back in 2009 said Sadyrkulov died in an auto accident. But Rysaliev characterized Sadyrkulov’s death as a premeditated murder, carried out on the order of Janysh Bakiyev. Janysh attended the slaying and personally tortured Sadyrkulov, Rysaliev claimed. Sadyrkulov once served as President Bakiyev’s “grey cardinal,” but the family reportedly turned on him after he resigned his post in January 2009 and made overtures to the opposition.
The unfolding scandal surrounding Sadyrkulov’s death has the potential to influence the presidential election, which is slated for October 30. At least 17 Kyrgyz officials have already been detained in connection with the murder – including the former-deputy head of the Border Guards Service, Zamir Moldoshev, and Aibek Abdrazakov, the ex-head of the Interior Ministry’s Anti-Organized Crime Department.
More arrests may be in the offing. The Russian newspaper Kommersant, citing a source in the Interior Ministry, reported that the former head of the Security Council, the ex-attorney general and ex-interior minister are likely to be questioned, perhaps even detained.
Uzbekistan’s desire to keep the Kremlin at bay appears to influence its participation in the Northern Distribution Network, a major supply line for the Afghan war effort.
Diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks appear to confirm that the US Embassy in Uzbekistan disregards democratic principles in its dealings with the Uzbek government.
In what appears to be an awkward attempt to humor Uzbekistan, the German Ministry of Defense has classified information already in the public domain concerning Berlin’s payments to Uzbekistan for the use of a military base in Termez, near the Afghan border.
The US Department of Defense is reviewing contracting data stored in the Federal Procurement Data System (FPDS) after a series of clerical errors in the classification of some contracts came to light.
A database for multi-million-dollar Pentagon contracts is geographically challenged, and has repeatedly confused the Central Asian petro-state of Turkmenistan for the American petro-state of Texas.
