The US maintains a base outside Bishkek, the Kyrgyz capital that is an important hub for sending troops and supplies to Afghanistan and it has been a lucrative moneymaker for numerous ruling elites in this former Soviet Republic. The new government has accused the US of supporting ousted authoritarian president Kurmanbek Bakiyev and helping him and his family, particularly his son, amass millions of dollars in personal wealth through business deals with the Pentagon and in particular through fuel sales at the base.
According to reports, fuel sales have been a contentious issue in Kyrgystan and have been seen as a means of enriching the country’s rulers who have become more and more repressive. According to a member of the opposition, the US has used these lucrative fuel sales deals as a means of bribing the ruling families in order to maintain a presence in the country. Appointing family members and friends to top government posts (sort of similar to Washington isn’t it.) and the cracking down on political opposition as well as the disappearance of opposition leaders, does not deter US capitalism in its global quest to bring peace and democracy to the world.
Former president Bakiyev’s son who has accumulated vast sums in his dealings with the US government in their joint plunder of the Kyrgyz people’s wealth, is presently in the US invited by the US Commerce Department to an economic forum in Washington DC. He joins a long list of thieves and murderers who are welcomed in that city. The US often uses front companies or companies owned by its friendly dictators as a means of funneling US taxpayer’s money to these people, their families and friends. Askar Akayev, Bakiyev’s predecessor, was a part owner of a company called Manas International Services, that provided fuel services at the US base. And Bakiyev’s son-in-law Adil Toiganbayev has been linked to a second company, Aalam Services Ltd. According to the Wall Street Journal.*
The Wall Street Journal reports that the Pentagon employs what it calls a “little known” company called Mina Corp to provide fuel at Manas, sharing an office in a hotel in Bishek with another firm, Red-Star Enterpirses Ltd. (if they're "little known" to the WSJ we can imagine how much we're told about them.) Both these companies are registered in Gibraltar. British capitalism is a staunch US ally in this new version of the Great Game between Russia and the US, Russia also a base there and is not happy with a US presence in what it considers its home turf, much how the US sees Latin America.** Opposition politicians argue that both the above firms are linked to members of the Bakiyev family. According to the WSJ, a U.S. Defense Department spokesperson claims that the Pentagon's contracting laws “Allow companies connected to foreign leaders and their families to bid and win contracts.” The whole system is mired in corruption. Mina Corp has a three-year $762 million contract to supply fuel at the base.
The image US citizens have of its government is skillfully crafted by a mass media controlled by the corporations whose interest it is to spend trillions of dollars of our money defending their profits abroad. Many Americans only learn the existence and whereabouts of a country when the government bombs it. The Kyrgyzstan affair is all linked in with Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and the entire region. As they waste precious resources and lives in their quest for profits they also wage a war at home on public services, jobs, and the standard of living of US workers.
The mood towards the US military presence is hostile enough for all troop flights to be diverted to Kuwait (another totally undemocratic regime propped up by the US) for the next couple of days due to security concerns at Manas. Edil Baisalov, the chief of staff for the new Kyrgyz president Rosa Otunbayeva gives some indication why this might be: “If not for the events of April 7 and the popular uprising, we believe that the US would have swallowed a complete destruction of democracy and the opposition leaders.” He says.
The nature of the new regime is unclear and it could well be that they are rivals for the loot. If they are not, the US will certainly be there with ample handouts from the US taxpayer. Naturally, the US propaganda machine will justify its actions to the US population (if it is forced to admit them) as a defensive necessity in the struggle against terrorism and all those nasty foreigners who hate us because we’re free, not counting the two million in prison, the unemployed and homeless tent dwellers. But Mr. Baisalov need not worry, Kyrgyzstan is not the first victim; it belongs to a long list of recipients of US diplomacy, Congo and Patrice Lumumba, Iran and Mohammed Mossadegh, Chile and Salvador Allende to name a few.
He’d better watch his back.
* Wall Street Journal Kyrgyz Leaders Say US Enriched Regime 4-10-10
** The Great Game was the name given to the 19th century rivalry between the British and Russian empires for the domination of Central Asia.
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