Dividing Spoils in Kyrgyzstan

Nearly a year after President Kurmanbek Bakiev was forced to flee Kyrgyzstan, arguments rage about how properties belonging to him or his associates should be disposed of.

When the Bakiev administration was ousted last April and subsequently accused of wrongdoing, a series of luxury resort complexes on the shores of Lake Issykkul were re-nationalised on the grounds that the land had been acquired or privatised illegally. But some local people object, saying their community should benefit from the properties. They are particularly hostile to a plan to transfer ownership of the Aurora Plus resort facility to Kyrgyzstan’s parliament, saying elected members should have better things to do than relaxing by the lakeside.

Experts say the controversy reflects wider public anxieties about the way assets are transferred and divided up like the spoils of war every time Kyrgyzstan undergoes regime change. The result is a series of privatisations and re-nationalisations conducted in a less than transparent manner.

The audio programme, in Russian and Kyrgyz, went out on national radio stations in Kyrgyzstan, as part of IWPR project work funded by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.