With Roza Otunbayeva as chief spokesperson if not head of a new Kyrgyz "people's government," there is reason to believe that Washington will not be dissatisfied with the overthrow of her former "tulip" partner Bakiyev. She has already confirmed that the American base at Manas will not be closed.
Less than two months after the 2005 coup Otunbayeva, then acting foreign minister, met with her U.S. counterpart Condoleezza Rice in Washington during which the latter assured her that "the U.S. administration will continue to help the Kyrgyz government promote democratic processes in the country." [13]
Shortly after the March "democratic transformation," its patron saint, Georgia's Mikheil Saakashvili, boasted that "Roza Otunbayeva worked in Tbilisi in recent years and was the head of UN office in Abkhazia. During the Rose Revolution she was in Georgia and knew everything that was happening...the Georgian factor was a catalyst of many things going on there [in Kyrgyzstan]."[14]
From the U.S. perspective she appears to have reliable bona fides.
Russia has put its air base in Kyrgyzstan on high alert, though comments from leading Russian government officials - Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in particular - indicate an acceptance of the uprising which has already caused 65 deaths and hundreds of injuries.
But Russia attempted to put the best face on the revolt five years ago also.
Which direction the next Kyrgyz government takes will have repercussions far beyond the nation's small size and population (slightly over five million).
It could affect U.S. and NATO plans for the largest military offensive of the Afghan war scheduled to begin in two months in Kandahar province.
It could determine the future of the Collective Security Treaty Organization and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the two major potential barriers to Western military penetration of vast tracts of Eurasia.
The stakes could hardly be higher.
1) Stars and Stripes, June 16, 2009
2) Agence France-Presse, March 4, 2010
3) Agence France-Presse, April 3, 2005
4) The Messenger, March 31, 2005
5) The Hindu, March 28, 2005
6) Civil Georgia, May 10, 2005
7) Associated Press, April 4, 2005
8) Der Spiegel, April 4, 2005
9) Russian Information Agency Novosti, June 16, 2005
10) The Telegraph, April 2, 2005
11) Ibid
12) Associated Press, April 2, 2005
13) Interfax, June 15, 2005
14) Civil Georgia, March 30, 2005
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