Thursday, March 31, 2005. Page 1.

Kyrgyz Press Helped to Speed Akayev's Fall

By Greg Walters
Staff Writer

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan -- Mike Stone, head of the Freedom House printing press in Kyrgyzstan, said he did not want to use the phrase "mission accomplished" when talking about the collapse of the Kyrgyz government last week. But in a way, he said, his little nonprofit publishing house, squatting on a back street in Bishkek, did exactly what it set out to do. As Stone put it: "We printed everything that walked in the door." Stone's presses, which are on lease from the United States government, have been publishing the only opposition newspapers in Kyrgyzstan for over a year.

These newspapers kept dissent alive in Kyrgyzstan, analysts say, and helped expose the corruption and corrode the legitimacy of ousted President Askar Akayev.

It is still not clear what direct role the opposition papers played in last week's events, when a protest in downtown Bishkek erupted in violence and Akayev fled to Moscow. But in at least one way, they did speed the fall of Akayev's regime: The opposition papers were practically the only way people in the north of the country had to find out about the unrest shaking the south.

Only a single television station, controlled by the government, reaches the entire country. Taking control of that station was the second priority for the opposition in last week's uprising, after surrounding the president's headquarters. Bishkek's other three local television stations are technically in private hands but are widely said to be under the indirect control of Akayev's family.

"The independent media kept alive the notion of opposition, which only exists underground in places like Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan," said Eugene Huskey, an expert on Kyrgyz politics at Stetson University in Florida. "They were very important in the last few years as the only institutions that were able to speak truth to power." The Freedom House presses, which publish about four opposition papers with a combined print run normally lower than 150,000, came under heavy fire from the Akayev clan in the days leading up to the Feb. 27 parliamentary election.

On Feb. 22, the power was mysteriously cut from the building, only to be temporarily restored with a loan of generators from the U.S. Embassy. After loud complaints both from the embassy and from U.S. Senator John McCain, who sits on the board of directors of the printing house, the electricity was finally switched back on a week later.

Kyrgyz journalists, naturally, say it was not the presses, but the newspapers they printed, that sparked the uprising.

"When the revolution happened, when they were marching through the White House, people took my hand and said, 'This is your revolution,'" said Rina Prijivoit, chief political editor at the Russian-language Moya Stolitsa Novosti, which comes out thrice weekly in Bishkek.

"It's not comfortable for me to say this. I feel like I'm bragging. But it is the truth." On Feb. 11, Moya Stolitsa Novosti, which has had more than 50 lawsuits brought against it in the last few years, printed a front-page spread of the palatial residence Akayev was building for himself. The paper also printed a long list of companies they said were controlled by Akayev's family.

That cover touched off a bitter war between the government, the newspapers, and Stone's presses.

Akayev struck back on national television, threatening to sue Moya Stolitsa Novosti for libel and castigating "the American printing house, Freedom House." If he had taken the paper to court, he would have easily won. Akayev's family is said to own property through third entities, and legally is not connected to the property it is said to control. Libel is a crime punishable by jail time in Kyrgyzstan.

Lieutenant General Bolot Januzakov, Akayev's representative on the printing house board of directors, who is known locally as "the gray cardinal," told Stone he had to stop printing the inflammatory newspapers.

But the presses went on, even increasing their press run as the unrest in the country spiraled out of control.

Yet even as Kyrgyzstan's new leadership promises to ensure freedom of the press, Prijivoit and other journalists here say there are troubling signs a free press is not a priority of the new government.

Earlier this week a scandal erupted at Kyrgyzstan's national television station, which was taken over by the opposition at the same time it was storming the presidential compound.

A small group of journalists at the station claimed their new managers, appointed by the former opposition, are hard-line Islamists bent on giving the station's programming a religious slant.

"Today, 80 percent of the workers in our television station are against our new leadership," said Zhainagul Maksimova, head of regional programming in Kyrgyzstan's Chui region. "They are too religious. We hope the leadership of the country will support our position." Only five days after Akayev fled the country, Masimova said that her viewers "should not believe what they see on television." Prijivoit said that after a brief period of three or four days when national television was interesting, today it is already not worth watching.

Elvira Sariyeva, managing director of the media support NGO Internews, said she knows the station's new directors and does not believe them to be Islamic extremists.

But she urged the government to ensure the station's independence by turning it into a public station with a board of advisors appointed by parliament.