Morrison's interview in Saturday's LA Times. He's a true apostle or
a real mench - your choice, but definitely worth hearing. -Ed
Free Forum with Terrence McNally
Noon Sunday April 11th
Father Gregory Boyle
of Dolores Mission and Homeboy Industries
author, Tattoos on the Heart
As a pastor working in a neighborhood with the highest concentration of gang
activity in Los Angeles, Gregory Boyle created an organization to provide
jobs, job training, and encouragement so that young people -- often former
enemies -- could work together and learn the mutual respect that comes from
collaboration. Father Boyle has made a point of collecting and telling
uniquely powerful stories of life and death, and his work has supplied him
with more than anyone should know. He has so far buried 168 of his homies.
90.7fm in LA, 98.7fm in Santa Barbara
streaming globally on the web at http://www.kpfk.org
***
From: "Sid Shniad" <shniad@gmail.com>
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/LD10Ag01.html
US reaps bitter harvest from 'Tulip' revolution*
By M K Bhadrakumar
Asia Times: April 10, 2010
BEIJING - This is not how color revolutions are supposed to turn out. In the
Ukraine, the "Orange" revolution of 2004 has had a slow painful death. In
Georgia, the "Rose" revolution of 2003 seems to be in the throes of what
increasingly appears to be a terminal illness.
Now in Kyrgyzstan, the "Tulip" revolution of 2005 is taking another most
unforeseen turn. It is mutating and in the process something terrible is
happening to its DNA. A color revolution against a regime backed by the
United States was not considered possible until this week. Indeed, how could
such a thing happen, when it was the US that invented color revolutions to
effect regime change in countries outside its sphere of influence?
What can one call the color revolution in Kyrgyzstan this week? No one has
yet thought up a name. Usually, the US sponsors have a name readily
available. Last year in Iran it was supposed to have been the "Twitter"
revolution.
It is highly unlikely that President Kurmanbek Bakiyev will retain his job.
Aside from Washington, no major capital is demanding reconciliation between
him and the Kyrgyz revolutionaries.
Evidently, there has been a massive breakdown in US diplomacy in Central
Asia. Things were going rather well lately until this setback. For the first
time it seemed Washington had succeeded in the Great Game by getting a grip
on the Kyrgyz regime, though the achievement involved a cold-blooded
jettisoning of all norms of democracy, human rights and rule of law that the
US commonly champions. By all accounts, Washington just bought up the
Bakiyev family lock stock and barrel, overlooking its controversial record
of misuse of office.
According to various estimates, the Bakiyev family became a huge beneficiary
of contracts dished out by the Pentagon ostensibly for providing supplies to
the US air base in Manas near the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek.
This is a practice that the US fine-tuned in Afghanistan, originally to
patronize and bring on board important political personalities on the
fractured Afghan chessboard. In Kyrgyzstan, the game plan was relatively
simple, as there were not many people to be patronized. Some estimates put
the figure that the Pentagon awarded last year to businesses owned by
members of the Bakiyev family as US$80 million.
Just one look at the map of Central Asia shows why the US determined that
$80 million annually was a small price to pay to establish its predominance
in Kyrgyzstan. The country is one of the most valuable pieces of real estate
in the geopolitics of the region.
Kyrgyzstan borders China's Xinjiang Autonomous Region. Some time ago there
was a whispering campaign which said the Manas base, projected as the main
supply base for US troops in Afghanistan, had highly sophisticated
electronic devices installed by the Pentagon that could "peep" into Xinjiang
where key Chinese missile sites are located.
Besides, a sizeable Uyghur community lives in Kyrgyzstan and almost 100,000
ethnic Kyrgyz live in Xinjiang. Kyrgyzstan surely holds the potential to be
a base camp for masterminding activities aimed at destabilizing the
situation in Xinjiang.
Furthermore, southern Kyrgyzstan lies adjacent to the Ferghana Valley, which
is historically the cradle of Islamist radicalism in the region. The
militant groups based in Afghanistan and Pakistan often transit through
Kyrgyzstan while heading for the Ferghana Valley. In the Andijan riots in
Uzbekistan in 2005, militant elements based in southern Kyrgyzstan most
certainly played a major role.
At a time when the Afghan endgame is increasingly in sight, involving the
US's reconciliation with the Taliban in some form or the other, Kyrgyzstan
assumes the nature of a pivotal state in any US strategy toward the
expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) into Central
Asia.
To put it differently, for any US strategy to use political Islam to bring
about regime change in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan in the future, Kyrgyzstan
would be extremely valuable. Like Georgia in the Caucasus, Kyrgyzstan's
significance lies not in its natural resources such as oil or natural gas,
but in its extraordinary geographical location, which enables it to modulate
regional politics.
A challenge lies ahead for US diplomacy in the weeks and months ahead.
Although Roza Otunbayeva, the head of the interim government, said on
Thursday that as far as bases were concerned "the status quo would remain",
this could change at any moment. At the least, the annual rent of about $60
million the US pays to use the base could be renegotiated.
Otunbayeva was foreign minister before the "Tulip" revolution and she also
served in various positions during the Soviet era. Kyrgyzstan is also home
to a Russian base. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was the first world
leader to recognize the legitimacy of the new government in Bishkek. The
affinity to Moscow is clear.
Also in doubt is whether the new regime in Bishkek will want to pursue
Washington's military assistance, especially the setting up of a
counter-terrorism center in the southern city of Batken near the Ferghana
Valley. This includes the stationing of American military advisors on Kyrgyz
soil, not far from the Chinese border.
Clearly, the US pressed ahead too rashly with its diplomacy. On the one
hand, it came down from its high pedestal of championing the cause of
democracy, rule of law and good governance by backing Bakiyev, whose rule
lately had become notorious for corruption, cronyism and authoritarian
practices, as well as serious economic mismanagement. (It will look cynical
indeed if Washington once again tries to paint itself as a champion of
democratic values in the Central Asian region.)
On the other hand, US diplomacy has seriously destabilized Kyrgyzstan. From
its position as a relatively stable country in the region as of 2005, when
the "Tulip" revolution erupted, it has now sunk to the bottom of the table
for political stability, dropping below Tajikistan. An entire arc stretching
from Pakistan and Afghanistan to Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan has now become
highly volatile.
In all likelihood, we have not heard the end of the story of this week's
riots in Kyrgyzstan in which about 40 people were killed and 400 others
injured. The old north-south divide in Kyrgyzstan has reappeared and it is
significant that Bakiyev fled from Bishkek, reportedly to his power base in
the southern city of Osh. The south is predominately ethnic Uzbek. Some very
astute political leadership is needed in Bishkek in the dangerous times
ahead if Kyrgyzstan's ethnic divide were not to lead to a breakdown of the
country's unity. The country's population is about 65% Kyrgyz (Sunni
Muslim), with about 14% ethnic Uzbek.
Besides, the Islamists are waiting in the wings to take advantage of any
such catastrophic slide. The socio-economic situation in Kyrgyzstan already
looks very grim. All the ingredients of protracted internecine strife are
available. Kyrgyzstan is dangerously sliding toward becoming the first
"failing state" in the post-Soviet space.
The biggest danger is that the instability may seep into the Ferghana Valley
and affect Uzbekistan. There is a hidden volcano there in an unresolved
question of nationality that lurks just below the surface, with the sizeable
ethnic Uzbek population in southern Kyrgyzstan at odds with the local ethnic
Kyrgyz community.
It remains unclear whether there has been any form of outside help for the
Kyrgyz opposition. But there is a touch of irony that the regime change in
Bishkek took place on the same day that US President Barack Obama and his
Russian counterpart President Dmitry Medvedev met at Prague Castle. On
Thursday, they signed the first major US-Russia arms control pact of the
post-Cold War era, which is supposed to set in motion the "reset" of
relations between the two countries.
Indeed, the first litmus test of "reset" might be Obama seeking Medvedev's
help to make sure the US does not get evicted from Manas, at least until his
AfPak policy reaches its turning point in July 2011, when the first drawdown
of US troops is expected. If Obama were to take Medvedev's help, color
revolutions as such would have in essence become a common heritage of the US
and Russia. One side sows the seeds and the other side reaps the harvest -
and vice versa.
But it will be a bitter pill for Washington to swallow. The Russians have
all along mentioned their special interests in the former Soviet republics
and the US has been adamant that it will not concede any acknowledgement of
Moscow's privileges. Now to seek Moscow's helping hand to retain its
influence in Kyrgyzstan will be a virtual about-turn for Washington. Also,
Moscow is sure to expect certain basic assurances with regard to the
creeping NATO expansion into the Caucasus and Central Asia.
As the recent first-ever regional tour of Central Asia by the US's special
representative for Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke, testified, Washington was
just about to accelerate the process of expanding the scope of AfPak into
the strategic region bordering Russia and China. Holbrooke ominously spoke
of an al-Qaeda threat to Central Asia, suggesting that NATO had a role to
play in the region in its capacity as the only viable security organization
that could take on such a high-risk enterprise of chasing Osama bin Laden in
the steppes and the killer deserts of Kizil Kum and Kara Kum.
Holbrooke's tour - followed immediately after by the intensive two-day
consultations in Bishkek by the US Central Command chief, David Petraeus -
didn't, conceivably, go unnoticed in the concerned regional capitals. But as
of now, the US's entire future strategy in Central Asia is up in the air.
Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign
Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka,
Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.
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