United States Commission On Security And Cooperation In Europe (Helsinki Commission) Holds Hearing: Kyrgyzstan's Revolution: Causes And Consequences

COMMISSIONERS:

U.S. SENATOR SAM BROWNBACK (R-KS) CO-CHAIRMAN U.S. SENATOR GORDON H. SMITH (R-OR) U.S. SENATOR KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON (R-TX) U.S. SENATOR SAXBY CHAMBLISS (R-GA) VACANT U.S. SENATOR CHRISTOPHER J. DODD (D-CT) U.S. SENATOR RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD (D-WI) U.S. SENATOR HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON (D-NY) VACANT

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH (R-NJ) CO-CHAIRMAN U.S. REPRESENTATIVE FRANK R. WOLF (R-VA) U.S. REPRESENTATIVE JOSEPH R. PITTS (R-PA) U.S. REPRESENTATIVE ROBERT B. ADERHOLT (R-AL) U.S. REPRESENTATIVE MIKE PENCE (R-IN) U.S. REPRESENTATIVE BENJAMIN L. CARDIN (D-MD) U.S. REPRESENTATIVE LOUISE MCINTOSH SLAUGHTER (D-NY) U.S. REPRESENTATIVE ALCEE L. HASTINGS (D-FL) U.S. REPRESENTATIVE MIKE MCINTYRE (D-NC)

WITNESSES/PANELISTS:

ZAMIRA SADYKOVA EDITOR RES PUBLICA

DR. MARTHA OLCOTT SENIOR ASSOCIATE CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL PEACE

DANIEL KIMMAGE CENTRAL ASIA ANALYST RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY

YULIA SAVCHENKO TALK SHOW HOST PYRAMID TV, KYRGYZSTAN

The hearing was held at 1:15 p.m. in Room 428-A Russell Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C., Sam Brownback, co-chairman, moderating.

[*] BROWNBACK: Good afternoon. I want to welcome all of you here to this hearing on Kyrgyzstan.

After Georgia's Rose Revolution in 2003 and Ukraine's Orange Revolution in 2004, Kyrgyzstan has now followed suit in 2005.

There appears to be some confusion whether these historic events should be categorized as yellow, pink or tulip revolutions, so I will refrain from assigning them any particular color.

Although the collapse of the regime of President Akayev was stunningly fast, it was not entirely unexpected. Of all the central Asian countries, analysts have singled out Kyrgyzstan as a state most likely to experience the latest surge of people power in the commonwealth states.

The success of opposition-led efforts to galvanize a popular uprising after the flawed parliamentary elections of February-March has demonstrated that central Asia though mired in repression and accustomed to autocratic rule is no less susceptible to the contagion of democracy than countries in other places around the world, in the Caucasus or Eastern Europe.

We should not be surprised that the people of Kyrgyzstan have finally said enough to official corruption, rigged elections and chronically poor governance.

All over the world, including regions long thought to be unsuited for democracy, popular movements have arisen in recent months.

Palestinians and Iraqi elections have shown the clear desire of Arab peoples for clean, accountable, representative government.

I have no doubt that other peoples in the Arab world share that same dream. As soon as the opportunity emerges they will express their longing for the same chance at a better life.

It is regrettable that the revolution in Kyrgyzstan was accompanied by looting and disorder, unlike the Rose and Orange revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine. Certainly those who stormed businesses and swiped goods did not varnish Kyrgyzstan's reputation.

Still, I do not agree with those who describe events in Kyrgyzstan as a riot, not a revolution.

For the first time in years, people in a Central Asian country have refused to accept passively another rigged election.

From now on, whoever comes to power in Kyrgyzstan will have to be more accountable to the people, which is an essential prerequisite of democratic governance.

I'm saddened by the fate of President Akayev whom I have met several times. In the context of Central Asia, he struck me as a relatively enlightened man. Ultimately, however, he failed to meet the expectations of his people who were extremely frustrated by years of official corruption and the prospect of more of the same.

I understand he has publicly voiced regret that he did not use force to keep his job. That view does not speak well of him, and I hope he will rethink his position as time passes.

I also hope that the leaders of other former Soviet republics draw the appropriate lessons from the Georgia, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, soon-to-follow other names of nations syndrome.

The precedent of mass protest movements is important in itself.

BROWNBACK: Even if conditions differ significantly in all these states -- there will be parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan this November and Kazakhstan is scheduled to hold presidential elections next year -- the leaders of these countries should see the writing on the wall and commit to holding free and fair elections by international standards.

They should do so in practice and not just in rhetoric. Otherwise, we'll be holding hearings in the future of various colored revolutions in those countries as well.

Kyrgyzstan's revolution raises many questions which U.S. policy- makers will have to address. Does this revolution auger well for the building of a more democratic, lawful society?

Will Kyrgyzstan's example inspire similar events in neighboring countries?

Could the turmoil in Kyrgyzstan undermine Bishkek's cooperation with the United States in the war on terrorism?

Will Moscow work with Washington in helping Kyrgyzstan's new authorities develop a more democratic, less corrupt state, or see the ouster of its close allies a threat to its strategic interests?

And what can Washington do beyond what it is already doing to consolidate democracy and respect for human rights, the dignity of the individual, in Kyrgyzstan?

Today's witnesses will examine these and other questions. I'm delighted with the panel that's joining us here today on this very important and certainly timely topic.

Today's witnesses are Zamira Sadykova -- I'm apologetic for that, I'm much better with Smith and Johnson and Lee, I apologize -- Dr. Martha Olcott, Daniel Kimmage and Yulia Savchenko.

Unfortunately, the Department of State was unable to provide a witness for this hearing, but we hope to get the official perspective at some point in time in the near future.

I want to thank you all very much for joining us, and the audience as well. And we will begin with the testimony of the first witness.

Ms. Sadykova, thank you for joining us here today. SADYKOVA: Thank you very much to inviting me here to this hearing, because it's very important for us, for our country and for our civil society.

First of all, I would like to express gratitude on behalf of the whole civil society in Kyrgyzstan for the attention and sympathy which we have experienced from your country and from the U.S. Congress in particular from the very outset of gaining our independence and developing democracy.

I will not enumerate all the help which you have rendered to the creation of our civil society institutions and independent mass media. I just want to say that this has greatly contributed to setting up a solid foundation for society based on principles of human rights and freedoms declared by the Helsinki Act of 1975 year.

Initially, this was supported by the first president of Kyrgyzstan, too, but has forsaken his nation and fled from the country on the 24th of March election, which shocked the international community.

The March events cannot be called unexpected. At least they were not for me, as a journalist who has been for years in the thick of political events, covering the whole spectrum of opinions.

We were strongly impressed by the statement made by President Bush right after his inauguration, that your country will not allow the tyranny of dictators who have emerged especially in the developing countries.

SADYKOVA: This was a strong message, which gave us confidence that our expectations and rights are being perceived in the right way.

But now, one could not call the intense persecution and prosecutions of civil activists, human rights defenders and independent journalists, anything else but display of dictatorships on the part of the regime of Akaev.

The president, Akaev, has lost his constitutional right to remain at his post as far back as in 2000. However, the octopus of corruption, which his whole family has been caught by, forced him in violation of the constitution to prolong his powers.

All of the administrative resources they use in the preparations of the elections. But what roused the indignation of people of our country even more was the fact that we were now perceived as slaves whose votes could be bought.

Money for the election campaign of candidates from the pro-Akaev party, Alga-Kyrgyzstan, was not declared in reports on electoral funds.

Nobody knew that what happened on March 24 would happen so quickly. Although based on the behavior of President Akaev, the fact that he fled so fast, it is possible to support that he was probably the only person who understood the situation.

The opposition only intended to start protest actions, so that the authorities would annul the results of the elections. But they did not plan the storming of the government house.

Unlike the opposition, judging by the events of that day, Akaev had at first planned provocations and clashes among the participants of demonstrations, and then deserted his office and abandoned his nation in the hope that after him the civil war would break out.

Attacks against the demonstrators could have grown into armed conflict. Judging by the actions of the law enforcement bodies and soldiers of the armed forces, the firing weapons and the assembled equipment, anything could have been expected.

But the participants of the protests meeting were forced to plunge inside the building of the government house in order to escape there from possible bullets.

The peaceful nature of this action, which has been caused by some, "a the seizure of the government's building," is proven by the fact that all government materials were kept safe and transferred to the appropriate bodies of people's brigades, which were formed right there.

I would like to assure you one more time, as a witness to the events, that nobody has seized the power in Kyrgyzstan. It was abandoned and fled from.

Kyrgyzstan, her true revolution, even it some call it the tulip or yellow revolution, it was, but it was truly a revolution of the people.

SADYKOVA: We were proud of the people of Georgia and Ukraine, who managed to assert their rights and freedom of choice.

In response, we heard threats about exports of revolutions which implanted by the authorities in all their recent public speeches. But we saw that these were the peaceful acts of civil participation in the preservation of democratic values declared by these countries.

We wanted the same in spite of the fact that we are a Muslim country. Adherence of the people of Kyrgyzstan to democratic values, which we have managed to prove indeed by having asserted them in March 2005, once again says that democracy can be developed regardless of the religious views of the major part of the population in a country.

In 1998, we were the first to experience the threat emanating from Islamic terrorists and accepted with joy participation in the anti-terrorist coalition by opening the military base of the coalition in Manas.

We have felt ourselves protected, but the leaders of the political opposition started being accused of political extremism only for having been organized into a single block on the eve of the parliamentary elections.

All this time, you understand that Coordination Council of People's Unity controlled the situation in the country and continued its work right after it became known that President Akaev fled out of the country.

A temporary government was formed. It was impossible to delay because disorders could have started in Bishkek. These were proven by the actions of looters who started to attack shops and trade centers.

But these incidents cannot be called mass phenomena. Psychologists affirm that this could have been caused by the stress, panic and chain reaction, but also could possibly have been provoked by somebody knowingly.

I personally feel that this phenomenon was the result of deep poverty into which the corrupted power of Akaev has plunged the major part of the population.

During these days, attention of all leading world channels was riveted to our small country. I was hurt to see how Kyrgyzstan was gaining its fame. But believe me, what happened in Bishkek by no means spread throughout the whole country. Leaders of the Coordination Council of People's Unity managed to redistribute forces in order to restore the management of the country.

SADYKOVA: On the same day, the old parliament urgently assembled and named the leader of the opposition, Kurmanbek Bakiyev, as the prime minister and vested power in him.

The Constitutional Court recognized as legitimate this transfer of power.

A few days ago, you know, our runaway president, hiding in Moscow, has finally signed his resignation. New presidential elections are scheduled on 26th of June this year.

The crisis has been overcome. National government is being restored. But the revolution would not have been a revolution if it would not raise the necessity of constitutional reforms. After all, what happened in Kyrgyzstan was caused by the usurpation of power by Mr. Akaev and his full control over the judiciary.

Now the most important thing is to preserve the trust of people toward the power which came into being on 24th of March. There are major objectives before it: to preserve stability and calm in the society, not to allow economic indicators to fall, to create conditions for holding presidential elections on 26th of June.

For all of this, your strong support is needed.

It has been recently said that the West supported the Kyrgyzstan opposition and that America financed the revolution in Kyrgyzstan. You perfectly know that it is not the case.

It is now that we request your assistance -- financial, humanitarian. It is needed by our country, by our government and our society.

It is definite that Kyrgyzstan will now support civil society, freedom of mass media, transparency of state government.

In the light of the forthcoming presidential elections and discussions of the constitutional reforms, I would like to see a strong role the OSCE enabled to carry out independent and impartial analysis of what we have and what we still need to be assisted with in the development of democracy.

SADYKOVA: Up to now, the OSCE mission in Bishkek has been poorly equipped, the work has been carried out without spirit, and the OSCE simply could not realize its mission to the fullest extent in the establishment of dialog between the power and opposition.

We would like to see expansion of the existing OSCE center in Bishkek into a significantly larger-scale OSCE mission in Kyrgyzstan in order to assist in ensuring a peaceful and orderly transition process and to promote the long-term development of democratic institutions, good governance and respect for human rights.

The OSCE is uniquely positioned to respond to continuing confusion and turmoil in the wake of the recent popular uprising in Kyrgyzstan.

The OSCE brings the support of 55 countries, including U.S., Russia, European Union and other Central Asian states, as well as relevant expertise in elections, rule of law, democracy-building and good governance.

Kyrgyzstan has been a leader in Central Asia, in cooperation with the OSCE.

And there are precedents to such a mission, including the establishment of the OSCE presence in Albania in response to unrest in 1997.

The OSCE presence in Albania had some 45 international staff and field offices throughout the country. This would likely be an appropriate size for an enhanced OSCE mission in Kyrgyzstan.

We understand that there may be some reluctance to move forward with such a proposal, considering the impasse in the OSCE over the budget, as well as Russian discontent with OSCE election assistance programs.

However, we are willing to work with Russia and with our neighbors to get a permanent council decision enlarging the staffing, resources and mandate of the current center in Bishkek.

We would like a significantly enhanced mission that would: assist with dialog among all political parties and factions; support the technical preparations for and observation of new elections to ensure that there is public confidence in their electoral process; develop programs to fight corruption and promote good governance; assist with legislative and judicial reform; conduct parliamentary capacity-building programs, including through training programs; train law enforcement officials to ensure professional policing and ensure respect for human rights; monitor human rights and issues related to extremism or ethnic tensions, particularly in the Ferghana Valley region; support the further development of civil society and political parties; assist with the development of independent mass media.

SADYKOVA: Recent events in Kyrgyzstan is only the beginning of the integration of our country into the family of democratic and developed world. U.S. Congress and administration can do a lot to help us in that journey.

Thank you again for your attention and attention for our country.

BROWNBACK: Thank you very much, Ms Sadykova.

I wanted to point out -- and I didn't at the outset -- anybody who has followed Kyrgyz's politics is very well familiar with you and with your work: government opposition and work on independent journalism in Central Asia for the past 15 years.

She's the founder and longtime editor of "Res Publica," an opposition-oriented newspaper, which has been under constant pressure from the Kyrgyz authorities prior to the revolution that took place there.

In 1995, she was banned from journalism for a year, and in 1997, was sentenced to prison for 2 1/2 months. In 2000, she received an award from the International Fund for Women for courage in journalism, and she has now been named the Kyrgyzstan ambassador to the United States.

After this hearing she will go to the State Department to begin the formal process of accreditation. She actually appears here today as a private citizen, but one with an incredible story and background.

And I'm delighted to have you here. And I'll look forward to having some exchange in the question and answer in the dialogue that we have.

I'd like to ask the other witnesses, if we could, we will take your full statement into the record. Now, if you could mostly summarize -- if we could run this clock at seven minutes, we'll give you some timeframe to be able to -- it's not a hard and fast rule -- but I would like to get that so that we can get into some dialogue.

The next person to testify will be Dr. Martha Olcott.

She's very familiar to this commission having testified many times on Central Asia.

She is a senior associate of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Before that she was for many years a professor of political science at Colgate University and a special consultant to one of my favorite foreign policy experts, former secretary of state Lawrence Eagleburger.

She's a leading expert on Central Asia, authored many books on the topic including "Kazakhstan: Unfulfilled Promises."

I look forward to your testimony.

Dr. Olcott?

OLCOTT: Thank you so much. It's a pleasure to be here today. And it's a pleasure to be sitting next to Zamira under these circumstances after many years of talking about what could or could not or should happen in Kyrgyzstan.

I've put a much longer statement into the -- I've submitted a much longer written statement. Now, let me just briefly summarize it.

The mass protest in Kyrgyzstan against Kyrgyzstan's flawed parliamentary elections that led to the ouster of President Akaev were as momentous in their own way as the Rose or Orange revolutions.

They demonstrated that the Central Asian masses have the same aspirations to choose their leaders, as those living in the European parts of the former Soviet empire do, and that Central Asians also expect that the exercise of their right to vote will not be compromised, neither in the nomination process, nor at the ballot box.

OLCOTT: It also very importantly demonstrated that long-term U.S. and OSCE investments in projects designed to build citizen participation at the grassroots level are worthwhile, that the presence of deeply rooted nongovernmental organizations, once they reach a critical number, can play a decisive role in political struggles by serving as the instrument to challenging public protests in peaceful ways.

But the conduct of the Tulip Revolution tells us very little about whether the Kyrgyz elite is capable of organizing and sustaining democratic reforms in their country. As we know, they were unified around a single goal: the ouster of former President Akaev.

The next stage is much more critical. The situation in Kyrgyzstan could still degenerate or disintegrate into something that's little more than a division of spoils between long-competing political groups, some of whom are democratic, some of whom are much more concerned to have access to power rather than have its access to power is obtained.

The Kyrgyz elite has to demonstrate that they have in fact made a revolution. The test of this will not be in the area of international relations. Kyrgyzstan's old friends will remain their new friends. And this is as it should be.

It won't be through the announcement of ambitious new economic reforms. Kyrgyzstan has already gone through a fundamental economic reform program.

A key challenge in the economy will be to attack corruption, corruption in the economy, corruption which often originated with the very officeholders themselves. It will be incumbent with the new group of officeholders to be and example of probity, rather than the example of corruption that their predecessors all to frequently were.

The task before the new elite, I would argue, is strictly political. Their first burden is to demonstrate that they can hold transparent, free and fair presidential elections, and then move on to necessary constitutional reform, reforms which will hopefully lead at their conclusion, not only to enhance power for a parliament and a balance of power at the national level -- a balance of power between center and periphery -- and judicial reform, were points that Zamira made, but will also lead to new parliamentary elections, because the current group that was seated out of the necessity of the exigencies of the moment was not elected freely and fairly and will never enjoy legitimacy. Obviously, U.S. -- the OSCE nations can help the Kyrgyz leaders in this process by providing a great deal of technical assistance. But these are reforms -- the reforms that advisers can help them derive -- that must be accepted and put to life and be invigorated by the actions of the Kyrgyz themselves, but the Kyrgyz elites themselves.

OLCOTT: It is not our assistance that will make them a success or a failure. Whether they succeed or fail, the Kyrgyz, what happens in Kyrgyzstan will be a profound impact on Central Asia.

Certainly, the Kazakh opposition will feel inspired to try harder to oust their president at the next elections. And hopefully this same president will anticipate this and press harder and make himself an example by holding elections that are free and fair, and opening up political space in the advance of the elections.

I'm not even going to talk about Azerbaijan, but I do want to talk some about the influence on Uzbekistan.

The influence on Uzbekistan, tragically, is likely to be just the opposite. The regime could close down further, seeking what they have always termed has to be their own path to change, making it more difficult for what they term foreign forces -- or what we term Western-funded NGOs -- to act in their country.

This really will create a considerable challenge for the U.S., as we have never been able to convince the Uzbek government what I firmly believe is true, that it is in the interest, not just of the U.S., but most importantly, in the interest of the Uzbek government to allow nongovernmental political groups space in their country.

And I feel that it's incumbent on the OSCE commission and on the U.S. policymakers to maintain a stance of keeping pressure on in Uzbekistan and in other states in the region to allow U.S.-funded NGOs to act in their countries.

At the same time, though, we should be realistic. What Kyrgyzstan shows to us is that it is precisely the long-term effort that has impact.

The critical factor in Kyrgyzstan was that NGO groups were so deeply rooted that there was no prospect of outlying them in the election campaign, even though their life was made miserable oftentimes.

This same capacity to mobilize, this same being part of the life in the country, does not exist in Uzbekistan. And even if we get the door open to continued funding for these groups, social upheaval in Uzbekistan could well occur before civil society or institutions are sufficiently deeply enough rooted to institutionalize that process in peaceful ways, to lead to peaceful transitions.

I also, as I move to my conclusion, don't rule out the prospect that violence, upheaval could still occur in Kyrgyzstan.

OLCOTT: Civil society institutions, even when deeply rooted, cannot ultimately deal with the frustration of demonstrators who believe that their elites have been unresponsive.

In conclusion, the spotlight today is not on the Kyrgyz masses -- they've done their job, they've demonstrated that they support democratic goals -- it is on the Kyrgyz elite.

While the U.S. can provide them with humanitarian assistance, technical assistance, it's the Kyrgyz elite that have to make the tough choices; it's they that must demonstrate that they are responsible and democratic partners of the U.S. And they can do this by creating the preconditions for democratic presidential elections, and then moving on to timely constitutional reform.

Their actions may well -- if they do this, not only will they have the confidence of the U.S., but they will actually set about and achieve the goals that President Askar Akaev set for the Kyrgyz nation in his very first years of independence, when he argued that Kyrgyzstan could become a beacon of democracy in Central Asia.

It's tragic that he failed to see through his own early vision, but the people in place now have the responsibility, the burden, and if they succeed, everybody's absolute joy at their success of making these dreams a reality.

Thank you.

BROWNBACK: That is true.

I look forward to some of the discussion on this.

I've been involved in that country for some time, and it did seem to me that they were on the right track, everybody thought the wind was behind their sails on making reforms, and then it just got off track and didn't complete on through. I want to look at more why.

Daniel Kimmage is a Central Asian analyst for Radio Free Europe/Radio Free Liberty. He has been at that organization since 2002 when he began writing about Russian affairs.

Since December 2003, Mr. Kimmage has been concentrated on Central Asia, editing the Central Asia Report. He also writes about terrorism and the evolving ideology of jihad in Central Asia and the Middle East.

He's widely published; fluent in Arabic, Farsi, French, German and Uzbek -- English, I'm sure, as well.

(LAUGHTER)

Mr. Kimmage, thank you for joining us.

KIMMAGE: Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank you for inviting me to appear before this committee.

I have also submitted a longer statement, and I will summarize my testimony here.

After Dr. Olcott's excellent summary of the political situation, I'm going to take a step back and look at some of the broader implications of events in Georgia, Ukraine and now Kyrgyzstan.

In May 1993, Kyrgyz President Askar Akaev visited the United States and met with President Clinton, who singled him out for his model leadership and praised him for his government's bold pursuit of economic stabilization and democratic reform.

KIMMAGE: A little less than 12 years later, President Akaev fled his country as Kyrgyzstan's opposition celebrated the end of what it condemned as a corrupt and undemocratic regime.

The president's optimism in 1993 was not misplaced. It rested on encouraging signs and genuine hopes. But I would argue that the eventual failure of those hopes to come to fruition should warn us today against any irrational exuberance in the face of the latest chances.

We certainly hope that democracy is on the march in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan. But for now, we should take a hard look at the one very clear and indisputable lesson from these events, which is that the post-Soviet political systems in each of these countries faced and failed a very crucial test, and that test was a test of fair and free elections.

Now, for those who want more detail, the OSCE provided excellent assessments of elections in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan. I will read one brief quote which is from their report on Georgia, it says: "The elections process was characterized by a clear lack of political will by government authorities to organize a genuine and democratic elections process."

You can find similar verdicts in their assessments of Ukrainian and Kyrgyz elections.

The root of this problem is a phenomenon called, "managed democracy." And managed democracy is what happens when a ruling elite feels obligated to hold elections to buttress its legitimacy, but does everything in its power to control their outcomes.

The practice of managed democracy is essentially a grab-bag of dirty tricks. The state-controlled media serves up puff pieces to promote certain candidates and smear campaigns to denigrate other candidates. Elections commissions ignore gross violations and punish minor ones. The list is very long.

But the purpose is short and sweet, which is to reduce the necessary evil of elections to a predictable exercise. It allows elites to devote their time to more pressing pursuits, such as the exploitation of public office for private gain.

This system is fatally flawed. And the flaw is that it removes accountability and thus the incentive for the political elite to communicate with constituents and base governance on the electorate's real concerns.

Secondly, as issues that should be treated in the public, political realm are left to fester or are resolved through back-room deals, this inevitably sparks popular dissatisfaction, which then creates an inventive for the elite to intensify its management of the political process. And you get a vicious cycle.

KIMMAGE: Sooner or later, something has to give, as we saw happen in Georgia, Ukraine and now Kyrgyzstan. Elections are a flash point because they put the spotlight on the machinery of managed democracy even as they raise the very issues the dysfunctional political system has neglected.

The particular course of events in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan was influenced by local considerations, but this was the common element.

Now the causes of Kyrgyzstan's revolution are not difficult to spot. They include a perception that the Akaev government was massively corrupt, that economic benefits were distributed with gross inequality, that Akaev and the ruling elite were actively manipulating democracy and that the state-controlled media was distorting the real situation in the country.

The outcome of this revolution at this early stage is much less clear.

The interim government has been off to a bit of a slow start. It has been hampered by a less than transparent approach to appointments, infighting, and an ability thus far to articulate policy changes that would mark a clean break with the Akaev era. But the situation is very fluid and it is much too early for any verdict on the post- revolutionary government.

Now, the implications for the rest of the region are also difficult to discern, but we should bear in mind we can't simply extrapolate the Kyrgyz situation to other countries.

Kazakhstan held parliamentary elections in September of 2004 that were substantially flawed and evaluated as such by international organizations. Tajikistan recently held parliamentary elections. No upheaval really resulted in either country. And there are specific reasons for this that we could go into.

But I would note that both Kazakhstan and Tajikistan fall under the general rubric of managed democracies and have the same significant state-sponsored stage-managing of the political process and thus, are susceptible to the same outcomes we have seen elsewhere.

A failure of managed democracy is much less likely in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, because there is much less democracy to fail. That does not mean that we could see upheaval in Uzbekistan for the reasons that Dr. Olcott noted in her testimony. KIMMAGE: In closing, I would like to stress that beyond Central Asia, the proven failure of managed democracy in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan points to an uneasy future for the largest and most important managed democracy of all, which is Russia.

In Russia, we find many of the features of this flawed system: state control over national television, an increasingly virtual political environment that lacks the viable channels for communication between government and governed, and a squabbling elite that uses the mechanisms of the state for its own ends, often rendering them useless for legitimate purposes.

The point is not that Russia or any other country is next in a parade of democratic revolutions. Rather, the cautionary moral of this story is that the ongoing breakdown of managed democracy bodes ill for the stability for all countries, including Russia, where this dubious experiment continues in willful ignorance of the lessons of Georgia, Ukraine and now Kyrgyzstan.

Thank you.

BROWNBACK: Very thoughtful.

Well, finally, the final presentation will be Yulia Savchenko. She's a fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy in Washington. She's a television anchor and journalist in Kyrgyzstan -- has achieved public recognition for hosting the talk show, "No Edits." That's on Pyramid TV.

And Ms. Savchenko began working for Pyramid during her undergraduate years at the Kyrgyz-Russia Slavic University, first as news reporter and then as an investigative journalist, an editor of the news department and now hosts her own show.

Her own show features various perspectives and debates on issues of political and social interest.

Last fall, it was called the best public affairs TV program in Kyrgyzstan, and is a breakthrough in the area of participatory public policy-making in they country.

In March of 2004, a crackdown by the Kyrgyz authorities temporarily shut down her show.

I'm delighted that you're here to join us today.

There will be no edits here.

SAVCHENKO: Thank you so much for having me here. And I'll try to be as brief as possible in assessing the post-revolutionary hardship in Kyrgyzstan.

I would say that the instant analysis by many political observers is to classify Kyrgyzstan as part of the global domino effect of democracy. But the forces at work in Kyrgyzstan are markedly different than those that produced change in both Georgia and Ukraine.

SAVCHENKO: In sharp contrast, change in Kyrgyzstan has been led by a far less disciplined force with no widely recognized leader and no clearly defined program.

It should, thus, not be viewed as another in a string of velvet revolutions. Events in Bishkek are shaping up to be revolutionary in a more classic sense.

Allegations of vote-rigging served as the catalyst for the Kyrgyz revolution, but it was pent-up frustration among the population over persistent poverty and pervasive government corruption that packed the revolution with its explosive power.

Many supporters of the revolution aren't necessarily interested in democracy; they are just preoccupied simply with providing for themselves and their families.

Since this start of the end game for the Akaev administration -- when protesters seized government buildings in Jalalabad and Osh in the wake of the second round of parliamentary voting on March 13th -- the president's political opponents never demonstrated that they had firm control over the crowds of demonstrators.

Political leaders, including the new interim president, Kurmanbek Bakiyev, have admitted that when anti-government protesters gathered on March 24th in Bishkek, they had no idea that the day would end with the collapse of Akaev's administration.

Now, suddenly finding themselves thrust into power, these same political leaders started pulling in different directions.

On the one hand, they need to cooperate in order to foster a sense of order. At the same time, they will doubtless experience competitive pressure in the coming days and months as many of them jockey to position themselves for the presidency.

The most prominent figures of the current revolution and further power contests are Kurmanbek Bakiyev, former prime minister of the country, and Felix Kulov, also the prime minister and the mayor of Bishkek.

Bakiyev has managed to position himself as the leading figure of the opposition movement. The 56-year-old former prime minister has been appointed interim prime minister and acting president.

The leader of the People's Movement of Kyrgyzstan, Bakiyev also took charge of the Coordinating Council of People's Unity, the body set up to make the disparate regional protests flow up into one.

Bakiyev is a serious contender for the post of president, with an election announced for June. He enjoys widespread support in his home region of Jalalabad in the south of Kyrgyzstan. And the fact that he's married to a Russian will appeal to minorities who feel excluded from Kyrgyz politics.

SAVCHENKO: Yet, there is a downside to his popular image. Until three years ago, Bakiyev was an active supporter of Akaev.

In March 2002, while he was prime minister, police fired into a crowd of demonstrators in the southern village of Aksy. The resulting deaths caused a furor and sparked mass protests not dissimilar to those seen in recent weeks.

Bakiyev resigned after Aksy, but critics still question his role in the decision to use violence against civilians, a point which may be used against him in the future.

Kulov is a long-standing personal opponent of Akaev's, and his release from prison brings him back to the center of political events.

Now 53, the former general was once Akaev's vice president. He served as interior minister and then mayor of Bishkek and then was imprisoned in the year 2000 on embezzlement charges that are widely perceived in Kyrgyzstan as politically motivated. There was a sense that as mayor of the capital, Kulov was simply getting too popular and Akaev began to see him as a dangerous rival.

Sprung from prison on the day Akaev fled, Kulov was assigned general responsibility for law enforcement, national security and defense, without being given a particular ministerial post.

Several days after the order was restored on the streets of Bishkek, he resigned, unhappy with new official appointments made by Mr. Bakiyev.

Yesterday, Kyrgyzstan's supreme court annulled one of two criminal charges that sent Kulov to jail. After that, he immediately announced about his intentions to run for the presidency.

With this announcement, the presidential race has come into sharper focus. Kulov's candidacy sets up a sectional battle surrounding the looming presidential race, as he is generally viewed as representing Northern political and economic interests, while Bakiyev is recognized as the candidate of the South.

Today, we came to the point when it's safe to say that the legislative and power crisis Kyrgyzstan experienced during these latest days has somehow approached its logical conclusion.

Finally, we have one more or less legitimate parliament and Askar Akaev finally agreed to resign after all attempts to denounce the revolution and proclaim it anti-constitutional.

This seemingly put an end to the legislative crisis. Many observers, however, believe that Akaev's resignation may only be a prelude to new problems.

Now that Akaev has resigned, many experts believe that rivalries among political parties and individual politicians are likely to intensify.

SAVCHENKO: The latent problem is a deepening confrontation between Felix Kulov and interim President Kurmanbek Bakiev; besides, there is a confrontation within the new Kyrgyzstan leadership, as several politicians have declared their intentions to run for the presidency.

Western analysts tend to perceive any revolution in the former Soviet Union is something that will create democracy. But in our case, no one among these new leaders is talking about democracy. We have a very colorful opposition, but they are not proclaiming democratic principles as a core of their activity.

What also makes the situation really awkward is the fact that the current parliament, elected with huge violations of all possible norms that finally sparked the revolution, was considered the legitimate one.

So the revolution got half of its wish: Akaev is gone, but the disputed parliament remains. So some observers are asking, "What was the purpose of the so-called revolution in Kyrgyzstan if the parliamentary elections that sparked the unrest are now considered legitimate?"

I would also like to stress that the currently legitimate parliament was elected just as we were changing the structure of our ruling system, moving from a strong presidential system to a strong parliamentary one.

The current constitution of the country, amended by the initiative of Askar Akaev two years ago, gives more rise to the new unicameral parliament.

According to amendments, the president transferred part of his authority to the legislature. It means whoever is elected as a new president of Kyrgyzstan, he's likely to become a nominal figure that is subordinate to a parliament with a pro-Akaev majority.

So right now this situation is really absurd. After the revolution, we discovered ourselves in the pre-revolution situation, only without Akaev. What happened is imply the redistribution of authority among different influential groups within the elite.

And of course, the lack of unity among leaders of the country endangers the future of legislative changes, because it was supposed to have a constitutional reform in Kyrgyzstan and to hold presidential and parliamentary elections. Pulling all in different directions former allies united in front of one enemy, President Akaev, during the latest days, had been revealing their skyrocketing ambitions the they only desire to beat up their ex-friends and today's rivals.

The date of the upcoming presidential elections has been several times questioned by those candidates running for presidency.

SAVCHENKO: The formal excuse is not to conduct elections in rush. The real reason is to gain some time to prepare for the election race personally.

No one in this situation tends to perceive the reality of the country facing the crisis of legitimacy and seeking for one legitimate president who can start working out the complex economic and political situation instead of maneuvering in the corridor of political slogans and competitors eager to tailor the presidential chair for themselves.

Constitutional reform, I'd like to stress, could be essential for Kyrgyzstan right now. Today we have a unique chance to lay the foundation of a social state system which will be monolithic, stable and independent from leaders' ambitions, and will prevent the return of a personal, authoritarian regime.

But obviously not so many people are willing to shift for the changes.

Thank you so much for your attention.

BROWNBACK: Thank you. And thank you for the thought that you put forward. Thank you for the entire panel.

I want to have kind of a free-flowing dialogue and discussion, if we could.

I have some familiarity with the country and I've been to Kyrgyzstan twice. I've worked with the leadership, I've put forward a bill, so-called Strategy Act, that was passed by Congress, trying to get some integration and work within the region and working back and forth with us.

Kyrgyzstan, this one really troubles me in the fact that it shouldn't have ended this way from where it started. I think that, Mr. Kimmage, you were the one that talked about President Clinton's '93 statement to President Akaev and laudatory statements.

When I first got involved in the region, you know, this was clearly the case of the one that was moving forward the fastest, the rhetoric was right, the setting seemed to be right, was sizing up that you thought, "You know, this really should be the model country moving towards democratic, open, stable society development." And then it careened off wrong, badly.

When were the decisions made that started taking it the wrong way, first, and what were they?

Mr. Kimmage, do you have a...

KIMMAGE: I would just contribute the comment that I think the decisions that began to take the country in the wrong direction were likely not public decisions, because I think at the root of this problem lies corruption.

BROWNBACK: I'm going to just have a dialogue back and forth -- in that sense, it is much like Georgia where Shevardnadze was seen as a good president and all, but there was always this underlying corruption issue that was there, and just finally it boils to a certain point that we've had it?

KIMMAGE: I don't know if there was always the underlying corruption. I think that it certainly ended up in a very similar position where, if you look at statements in the lead-up to the revolutionary events, there's this perception of absolutely total corruption and a perception that had simply gone too far.

So I think you ended up in a similar position, you know.

BROWNBACK: Dr. Olcott?

OLCOTT: I think that the mid-'90s were really critical.

I agree with some of what Daniel said, that I think that both the behind-the-scenes always played a more important role than what was going on in front of the scenes. And I think that when somebody finally digs up President Akaev's papers, if they ever do, and bank statements, that it will be clear that there was corruption at the beginning, probably around the gold transactions that was the big part of Kyrgyz economic reform.

But I don't think that President Akaev became terrified by that. I think by the mid-1990s, it was clear that none of the surrounding states were going to become democratic and that there were going to be very high costs to him personally from dissatisfaction within the Kyrgyz elite if...

BROWNBACK: So he just kind of assumes his surroundings then?

OLCOTT: I think he did assume his surroundings.

I mean, there's a lot of talk that he was influenced by his wife and stuff -- and I talk about this in the testimony -- I always see him as a much stronger figure than many others do. I think he made a lot of conscious choices.

But I think it's just as he became aware that economic reform was going to become more difficult than he expected and he became -- and I think the economy was a big driver, that when people came in in '92 and '93 and he accepted the macroeconomic reforms and he severed Kyrgyzstan's currency from Russia, the first and stuff, I think he believed the reformers, both inside Kyrgyzstan and outside, that this is going to work and it was going to work quickly.

OLCOTT: And then the regional economy really collapsed. Kyrgyzstan's reforms turned out to be much more complicated than they were presented to him, and even as the advisers themselves, the international advisers, perceived.

And corruption, local-level corruption, just grew worse and worse. And at the same time...

BROWNBACK: As the economy wasn't growing like it needed to, that the people just kind of -- I'm going to get what I can?

OLCOTT: Exactly. I think that was an important trigger. People just felt it was easier to be dishonest than to be honest, because at least by being dishonest you take care of mine, you take care of me and myself. And by being honest you weren't going to get the outcome you wanted.

I even think that at some point this happened in his own head, that he felt, by the mid-'90s, that it was just easier to be thug-like like many of his neighbors -- soft thug-like, you know. I mean he sent Zamira to jail. But you didn't have the same deaths that you had in other places.

And that this is just -- the countervailing pressure just wasn't so great. Friendship with the U.S. wasn't producing heaven on earth for Kyrgyzstan. The neighbors were beating on him in private for having gone this way. And the economy was going sour slowly. And it went even more sour after 1998.

But that doesn't make the man not responsible for his own actions. It just makes them comprehensible.

BROWNBACK: I understand.

SADYKOVA (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): I agree with everything that has been said so far by others here. However, as a journalist who has studied what was happening in Kyrgyzstan for many years, I would like to add a personal note.

He was a man who depended very much on other members of his family.

His family and his clan played a very great role in his decisions. And he himself has deepened the clan competition in the country.

SADYKOVA (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): And this is what my colleague, Ms. Savchenko, mentioned, that many of the problems that remain unsolved in Kyrgyzstan are regional -- south, north and between clans.

And the new parliament, the one that has just been elected, is a clan parliament.

And therefore, when and if constitutional reforms are instituted, one of our demands or desires is that this clan influence be brought under control by proportional representation of regions and clans and parties -- proportional regional and party representation.

BROWNBACK: I want to move now to the issue of the lessons that other countries in the region will learn from this.

And, Dr. Olcott, I found your analysis of this quite interesting. And as I heard it, OK, that sound pretty logical to me, of the people that I know in the region, of the Kazakhs, the Uzbeks. The Tajiks I know less about, and the Turkemen, I don't know who knows anything about what's going on there.

But it seemed to me on this one, on Kyrgyzstan, with what had just happened in Georgia, what had just happened in Ukraine, what was literally happening in Lebanon, that this should be very clear -- if you're going to be a country that's aspiring somewhat on the democracy model, or let's say even you don't, it's pretty clear you've got the civil society that's developing somewhat in your country and you know that this is taking place.

And if you're going to run an election that's not free and fair and open by domestic standards at least, and certainly not by international standards, you're going to have some trouble here -- or the potential for trouble would seem to me to be quite high.

I'm just putting myself in the leadership position in Kyrgyzstan. I've seen these things taking place in other countries. I know I have a civil society, at least the early stages of development in Kyrgyzstan. The potential of a revolution taking place would seem to be quite a bit in the cards if I don't hold a free and fair election.

So why isn't that held? Why doesn't that happen?

BROWNBACK: Mr. Kimmage, or whoever would feel -- Dr. Olcott?

OLCOTT: Yes. I'm going to ask the question I asked myself late into the night this whole last three weeks.

BROWNBACK: This is a bright man. Dr. Akaev is a physicist. He's a bright man.

OLCOTT: I think I would say three things. I think one thing that we mentioned in our testimonies that didn't come out so much in discussion is that the political crisis of 2002, from the time of the Aksi disturbances, was never resolved.

And this is what drove Bakiyev into opposition.

But Akaev really cheated the elite at that time. There was a whole debate over constitutional reform. He practically was ousted in 2002. And he held onto his job by the skin of his teeth.

And he understood that. He understood that he had pulled a fast one in the process of drafting constitutional reform, substituting a text virtually at the last minute that included changes he wanted, and that nobody in the elite trusted him.

And so what he failed to do, I think, was to convince people, prior to that election, that he really was going to step down in October, 2005. I don't think there was a single, serious political figure in the country that thought that Akaev wasn't going to use that election to somehow remain in power.

And in his mind, he no longer -- and I think part of this is that he became much closer to Russia after 2002. And Daniel Kimmage talks this when he talks about managed democracy -- that he was sold the bill of goods by advisers from outside the country who didn't understand Kyrgyzstan, that this could work.

I know some of the people that came to advise him -- they knew nothing about Kyrgyzstan.

So to the degree to which a leader wants to believe they can get away with what they want, he just was willing to put aside his better intellectual sense and take the only path that he saw that could give him the outcome he wanted, which was being able to either stay in power or dictate the terms of his departure.

And since that was his overwhelming goal, he just blinded himself to the things around him.

But I think most people were shocked that he behaved as stupidly as he did, that he could have done things along the way that would have made that election free enough and fair enough to have gotten through this crisis and found some way to exit with some grace.

BROWNBACK: Ms. Savchenko?

SAVCHENKO: I think that at some point we need to remember about this inner circle of our President Akaev.

And, as Zamira already mentioned, after the year 1995, his family acquired this overwhelming authority over our president. And then they just acquired these incredible economic assets in the country and literally half of the economy or even more were just sold to the Akaev family.

And then it was very dangerous for all of them to lose power at this point.

And that's why Mr. Akaev was reassured by his son-in-law, by his wife -- I think by his daughter -- to stay in power by any means.

That's why elections were badly rigged even though some real problems with rigging these elections were so easily predicted.

So it wasn't about his personal will, as well. And he can be smart and bright -- and he's a scientist. But it was all about this inner circle after the year 1995.

BROWNBACK: That's sounds like the Eve doctrine to me.

(LAUGHTER)

SAVCHENKO: Yes.

BROWNBACK: It was all Eve.

Mr. Kimmage?

KIMMAGE: I want to return to your question which is, as I understood it, why are these lessons not learned time after time, which I've also asked myself.

And one of the things I would stress is the extremely Soviet understanding of politics that we find among these Soviet elites, which is to say that...

BROWNBACK: You're using the term "Soviet?"

KIMMAGE: Soviet understanding of politics. And what I mean by this that they look at all politics, be it through elections or others, as an art of manipulation, not an expression of political will.

Where we see this come out is if you look at the way events in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan are analyzed by critics in post-Soviet countries.

And you can find many articles in the Russian press -- you can find Russian state television. This is seen as part of a plot. It's seen as a manipulation through these nefarious Western-funded organizations.

So in other words, when leaders or political elites outside of these countries look at what happened in Georgia or in Ukraine or in Kyrgyzstan, they say, "Oh, look, somebody paid. Somebody pulled this off. It's a manipulation. This has nothing to do with political will."

And so the conclusion they draw is: "I simply need to manipulate better."

KIMMAGE: In other words, I don't actually need to carry out a free election. What I need to do is actually pull off a better sort of art of manipulation.

And I think this is one of the key reasons why this lesson is not learned.

And I'll just close with a little vignette. There was a discussion recently, I believe in a Russian radio station, and a group of experts were discussing -- So how do you avoid an Orange revolution in Russia or elsewhere?

And they discussed all of these very complicated schemes of countering the influence of these various, nefarious Western-funded groups. And then one analyst said, "Well, you know, it's actually very simple. Don't falsify elections. Don't lie through state media. And that's how you prevent it."

And, of course, everyone looked at him as a naive fool.

But we should bear in mind that this mentality is very pervasive. And I think that's one of the reasons why these lessons are not learned.

BROWNBACK: To me, that just seems to be so fundamental, particularly when you're in a Kyrgyzstan-type of setting. It's a relatively small country and a revolutionary change could get started pretty rapidly and conclude pretty rapidly.

That just still doesn't much sense to me.

But maybe it's generational then, too. When you describe a Soviet leadership -- that it just takes some time to take that mental cap off before you engage and say, you know, "Democracy is a good way and it isn't something you manage. It happens. And you put yourself up for it and you win or lose. And that's just the way it goes."

Let me take you to the next question of lessons for others in the region, if I could. And I do want to get some pointedness on this, because my message to the leaders in that region -- and I hope and I know through all of OSCE -- is: Conduct free and fair elections.

This is not rocket science. This is not a complicated thing. If they want help in conducting free and fair elections, we will gladly provide that.

If they want monitors to be able to tell their people that they're conducting free and fair elections, we will provide monitors.

If they want monitors from other parts of the world than the United States, we will provide monitors from other parts of the world than the United States.

Now we're not going to go to other managed democracies -- of your term, Mr. Kimmage. I think you're doing disservice to the term "democracy" by calling it managed.

Maybe you call it managed government. But I wouldn't call it managed democracy.

BROWNBACK: But we will help. We will do whatever you want.

But if you're not going to conduct free and fair elections, you will see the international community call it for what it is. It's not a free and fair election -- period.

And if people are going to start a revolution then because they didn't have a free and fair election, you're the one that made that decisions.

We will help to make sure that it's conducted as a free and fair election, as we helped, as others did in Iraq, in Afghanistan -- there will be problems with elections. There always are somewhat.

But the international community will help so that if the Kazakhs are concerned about their people not perceiving a free and fair election, we will do so to help, if that's the case. And Azerbaijan, the same way.

What could we do better or more to drive that message to these other countries that will soon be cuing up for elections and this issue come before their country?

Any thoughts from any of you?

SADYKOVA (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): For all these years, we actually had been asking for greater involvement by the OSCE in our electoral process. The problem is that the mission -- the OSCE mission -- works more with the governments than with the political parties.

And the main goal should have been to arrange or enhance or contribute to a dialogue between the government and society and the other parties.

This pre-election task, it seems to me, was let go and not accomplished.

The work that needs to be done is to bring to one table a very diverse group of all opinions, all political opinions.

And if you speak of Kazakhstan or Uzbekistan, there is no dialogue whatsoever; nobody even speaks about dialogue.

SADYKOVA (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): It is impossible to imagine that opposition members or leaders would sit at the same table with Karimov or Nazabaev.

And right now in Kyrgyzstan, as we prepare for elections again, it is very important, again, to bring all the different factions together for a dialogue so that they can work out some basic common rules of the game that then would preclude that the new elections would again lead to some kind of disturbances.

BROWNBACK: Is that being done and helped by the OSCE?

SADYKOVA (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): Well, this is one of the things that I mentioned, that the OSCE mission in Bishkek is very small and they have not been able to work in that area.

So this is why one of my requests that I have mentioned is to follow the example of what OSCE did in Albania before the elections there, and maybe temporarily, before our election, have an increase in staff that could work on this problem.

BROWNBACK: I think that's an excellent thought.

And we just passed yesterday in the state authorization bill an expanded election mission for Kyrgyzstan from here, from the United States' governance or funding approach.

Now, that's report language for now, so we'll have to put more funding behind it. But I think that's a very good suggestion.

Dr. Olcott?

OLCOTT: I think it's very important in terms of how the U.S. can maximize its affect on these states to really distinguish one state from another, to look at Kyrgyzstan separate from Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

And Kyrgyzstan, as Zamira was just saying, the real challenge will be whether the international community -- whether the OSCE and U.S. assistance and other Western countries -- can deliver enough technical assistance through our own foreign policy allocation machines to get us there fast enough for this election. It's very soon and it's really critical.

This is a receptive audience, and I think we really could get a lot of technical assistance in there if we could agree on what -- if all the different foreign actors -- and the OSCE certainly is the appropriate umbrella -- what kind of assistance should be prioritized and get the donating up fast.

Even in the last election, the Kyrgyz were complaining they didn't get things that were promised to them in time. I mean, it was very slow getting technical assistance then. That wouldn't have changed the outcome, but this is going to be a real burden on the Western nations to do this properly, because we do have a door.

There's a different door, I think, in Kazakhstan. I was really surprised that just recently, again, the OSCE leadership mentioned again the possibility that Kazakhstan was still in the running for the chairmanship in -- I think it's 2009 they asked for it and the decision is to be made in 2006.

This really gives the OSCE, in particular, a real bargaining position with the Kazakhs.

I was shocked that this door didn't close after the parliamentary elections, but it doesn't seem to have. Well, these presidential elections are really his last time to run clean, free and fair elections.

And, again, the technical assistance is one part of the problem. It's really the will that this has been thwarted in Kazakhstan as much by the will as by -- near the top and probably at the top -- than by their incapacity.

But there at least there is possibility of dialogue between OSCE nations and the Kazakh government. They can, at least, pretend that they share some of our goal. Many of the organizations we work through are still legal in Kazakhstan.

So that is one strategy and it may not work. I think it's will rather than technical assistance, but technical assistance and the whole move to dialogue, use of the media -- his new reform program, his February speech, opens the door for renewed efforts by the U.S. and by other OSCE actors. He claims that he wants all these reforms and wants them quickly.

And, you know, it gives us a document that we can go in to Nazabaev with and say, "We're happy to help you. Others are happy to help you."

These two cases are easy. We both know how hard they are.

You open Uzbekistan, that is really an impossible case for this kind of vocabulary, partly, I would argue, because you have this basic tension.

We go in -- the OSCE goes in and says that we're interested in giving you technical assistance. We want these elections to be freer and fairer.

You have other democracy activists, some of whom are U.S.-funded, who are now illegal in these countries. And they're illegal in part because some of the people associated with them say it's impossible to work with this regime, that the only hope is to overthrow the regime.

So, in a sense, Congress and the State Department have to work through which message they want to send. Are they sending the message that we want to work with repressive regimes to have them modify their regimes with a template of things, including working with pro- government parties -- increasing their skill level -- or do we only say we will not deal with anything having to do with these repressive states, but then they're not going to take seriously that they have to have democracy-builders in there?

OLCOTT: The one tragedy, and the thing that makes me most frightened about Uzbekistan, is that it's not enough to simply work with parties; you have to have a secular elite competent to take over.

And that's the other area of training, because we haven't been working with pro-government groups in a place like Uzbekistan.

That secular elite, those people who are against Karimov in their hearts but still aren't willing to be against them in their mouths, that serve the regime they would like to see changed, they're kind of falling out of a lot of the loop of democracy-building efforts.

BROWNBACK: Ms. Savchenko?

SAVCHENKO: I just wanted to add briefly on the OSCE presence in Kyrgyzstan.

The problem is that before these elections, OSCE was very cautious, in fact, about its position. And what is necessary right now is to claim this position more definitely, because after Mr. Akaev started to crack down on all international organizations and independent media -- and he actually accused an American ambassador in supporting directly opposition in the country -- OSCE was very, very cautious. And there weren't any statements, any clear statements.

And they actually preferred to work with our government, and a lot of opposition people who were NGOs representatives accused OSCE of this position and of being extremely loyal to the Kyrgyz government.

And the latest action of the OSCE was actually to arm our military forces with some kind of guns, and it was a governmentally supported program and it was -- actually, it was the mission of the OSCE and that's how the image of the organization is created, and the image was actually spoiled.

And right now they need to think it over and probably they need to redefine their positions in terms of a more direct approach of their statements and missions.

BROWNBACK: That's a very helpful comment, particularly for us in looking at the other countries in the region and what's taking place there as well and in Russia, what's happening in that country.

I do know as I've watched this all evolve and with amazement seen the Soviet Union fall when it did -- because I just didn't think that was possible to see during -- for another 30 years. I thought was a ways off, a long ways off. And then to see it fall, I'm just astounded.

And it seems like we're in the second wave of revolution through the Soviet Union, that after the Soviet Union fell, a lot of guys fled to disparate parts of the country and set up shop. And these were people that were part of the Politburo at the time, Soviet Union, and they went to places like Kyrgyzstan and Georgia and Kazakhstan. And it started economic reforms and slow democratic reforms and opened the society up.

Relative to what it was during the Soviet Union time period, it was a profound change. But it hasn't moved fast enough.

And so now you move forward to 2000, 2004, 2005, and the people are impatient, saying, "Look, we started here. We've made a certain distance, but we're not near where we need to get."

BROWNBACK: And I would hope, really, that the leaders in that region and the leaders in our country and around the world would press them saying, it was great in the fall of the Soviet Union. Things were extraordinarily peaceful overall, given the fall and collapse of an empire that, what, 19 countries come out of.

There's been some fairly good change that's taken place during that time period. It's not near where we need and have to be to satisfy the needs and the will of the people in this region. And it's really got to step up much more aggressively at this point in time.

I'd hope that would be the lesson to all of us, and that hopefully we can see these free, fair elections and transitions to another generation of leaders that are open to, not a managed democracy, but a pure democracy, that here the people rule, not the elite.

Thank you all very much for joining us.

Ms. Ambassador-Designate, I welcome you. I look forward to receiving you in my office as the new ambassador from Kyrgyzstan. And this has been an excellent hearing.

Do you have a final thought?

SADYKOVA: We would like to invite you, Mr. Brownback, in Kyrgyzstan near the future.

BROWNBACK: Thank you for that invitation.

Hearing's adjourned.

[Whereupon the briefing ended at 02:30 p.m.]

END

April 7, 2005