Kyrgyzstan violence alarm bell for other Central Asian dictatorships

The revolution in Bishkek last week, which left dozens dead, the President ousted and an uncertain future for Kyrgyzstan, has set off warning bells across Central Asia.

The Central Asian "Stans", all of which were formerly part of the Soviet Union, have been run as dictatorships since their independence.

Most of the region's people live in poverty, but the elites have been courted by the West for their strategic location close to Afghanistan, and the vast oil and gas reserves in the Caspian Sea.

It is a region of eccentric dictators, eye-watering corruption and international intrigue, with the United States, Russia and China all keen to get involved in the race for the economic and strategic benefits.

It is this same combination of corruption, autocracy and geopolitical significance that also makes analysts fear that the countries in the region are at risk of major uprisings.

In the Kyrgyz unrest, many have seen a Russian hand, while grating poverty and fury at President Kurmanbek Bakiyev's corrupt and nepotistic rule also played their parts.

Kyrgyzstan has now seen two revolutions in the past five years.

The "Tulip Revolution" of 2005 ousted the former President Askar Akayev, and last week's bloodshed appears to have removed his successor, Bakiyev, for good.

In Uzbekistan, under the rule of Islam Karimov, who has been President ever since the break-up of the Soviet Union, the country has become one of the most unpleasant dictatorships in the world.

The population lives in fear, with ordinary people terrified to speak out or criticise the regime.

Many of the complaints that the people of Kyrgyzstan have against Bakiyev are also present in Uzbekistan.

In Kyrgyzstan, Bakiyev was hated by many for the catapulting of his 32-year-old son Maxim into a top government post, as well as the high-ranking positions given to other family members.

In Uzbekistan, a similar process has been under way.

The President's daughter, Gulnara Karimova, is a glamorous, Harvard-educated socialite based in Geneva and, according to critics, controls the regime's billions of dollars of assets through the Zeromax company.

She is also said to have provided the money for one of the regime's biggest vanity projects - the Bunyodkor football club, based in the capital, Tashkent.

The side, which plays in the obscure Uzbek League, has paid millions to lure stars such as the Brazilian Rivaldo to play for them, and last year recruited former Brazil and Chelsea boss Luis Felipe Scolari to manage the team, giving him the highest salary of any football manager in the world.

Amid all of this, ordinary Uzbeks live in crushing poverty, with no free press and in fear of the rapacious security services.

The country's border with Kyrgyzstan has been shut off since the unrest began last week, and the Uzbek authorities have ensured that local media do not cover the uprising.

In May 2005, roughly two months after the Tulip Revolution that brought Bakiyev to power in Kyrgyzstan, protests erupted in the Uzbek town of Andijan, not far from the border with Kyrgyzstan.

Uzbek troops fired into the crowds, and it is estimated that several hundred people died.

The Government refused to hold an independent inquiry into the events at Andijan, and claimed that the uprising was organised by terrorists, but those who were there speak of unarmed civilians being sprayed with machinegun fire and later buried in mass graves.

Now, with revolution again in the air in Kyrgyzstan, the Uzbek regime will be hoping that there is no repeat.

Analysts in Central Asia suspect serious instability when Karimov, who is 72, dies.

The problem of succession has reared its head in other Central Asian republics, three of which are still ruled by ageing former communist party bosses.

In Kazakhstan, President Nursultan Nazarbayev appears to be grooming one of his own daughters for the presidency.

The one country where a sitting President has died is Turkmenistan, one of the world's most isolated and closed states.

Saparmurat Niyazov, the local party boss who took charge when the country became independent, renamed himself Turkmenbashi - Father of all the Turkmen - and as his rule went on, more and more bizarre laws came into place.

The names for the days of the week and months of the year were changed. Gold statues of the leader were erected all over the country, including one in the centre of the capital, Ashgabat, which revolved to follow the sun each day.

Ashgabat became one of the most surreal cities in the world, as the billions of dollars that flowed in from the sale of the country's vast gas resources went on building marble and gold palaces. Despite all the wealth, the people were not treated well.

When Niyazov died, Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, Niyazov's personal dentist and later Minister of Health, managed to take the reins of power in a relatively smooth transition, and the Turkmen people proved so docile after years of brainwashing they accepted the changes.

- INDEPENDENT