administering the dope slap

In December a Russian journalist was murdered.

Gennadyi Pavlyuk, a well-known political journalist and media-expert, was pronounced dead December 22 in Almaty, Kazakstan. Pavlyuk’s death is the latest in a string of suspicious incidents and violent attacks against freelance reporters in Kyrgyz Republic. According to Radio Free Europe’s Kyrgyz branch, “Azattyk,” on December 16 in the city of Almaty (Kazakstan), Kazakh police responded to a report, arriving to a scene where unconscious Pavlyuk was found on the ground by a residential building, after falling off the sixth floor. (See more)
Kazakh police confirmed that Pavlyuk’s death was violent. RFE/RL reported that his feet and hands were bound behind his back with duct tape.
Pavlyuk has been working as freelancer for various Russian news agencies in Kyrgyzstan. He is also a founder of a popular and independent news outlet Parus.kg in the country.

I wrote a post about Kyrgystan and Kazakhstan...
after reading a Sorcha Faal report (yes I know just stay with me for a sec...)...
which mentioned a secret Mossad base in Kyrgystan.

It was this paragraph that I found so interesting:

Important to also note in these reports is that the US spray plane shot down in China was reported to be targeting a secret Israeli base located in the Central Asian Nation of Kyrgyzstan, which many Ashkenazi Jews (Ashkenazi Jews make up approximately 80% of Jews Worldwide) consider their ‘spiritual homeland’ after their long exile their under Soviet Communist rule, and where Russian Intelligence Analysts report the Israelis are nearing the end of their decades long deciphering of the ancient Epic of Manas manuscript (with close to half a million lines the Epic of Manas is twenty times longer than Homer’s Odyssey and Iliad combined) that they believe contains our World’s oldest warning to our present age and which (coincidentally?) agrees with the ancient Mayan peoples that the year of 2012 will see the ending of our present age.

A month earlier I wrote about Birobidjan and the Northern Caucasus and the Khazars, excerpting from Koestler:

...The history of the Ashkenazi Jews was widely known and appreciated in the former Soviet Union. Ashkenazi militants traced the area where the Turkic Khazars originated before their migration to Southern Russia to Birobidjan, an Eastern Siberian area as big as Switzerland bordered by the Amur river, by China and Mongolia. Around 1928 they started building settlements with the Soviet government's help and in 1934 the Autonomous Republic (Okrug) of Birobidjan Yevrei came into being with official languages of Yiddish and Russian. It is still there as an Autonomous Republic to this day, offering the only historically legitimate settlement area for Ashkenazi Jews willing to exercise their "right to return"...

And concluding:

Of course I can't speak for anyone else but I find this amazing.

In fact, today, Birobidjan is a virtual Jewish paradise. The home of two synagogues, Birobidjan City has 77,250 inhabitants. Yiddish theaters opened in the 1970s. Yiddish and Jewish traditions have been required components in all public schools for almost 15 years, taught not as Jewish exotica but as part of the region’s national heritage.”

The Birobidjan Synagogue, completed in 2004, is next to a complex housing Sunday School classrooms, a library, a museum and administrative offices. The buildings were officially opened in 2004 to mark the 70th anniversary of the founding of the Jewish Autonomous Oblast (JAR). Concerning the Jewish community of the region, Governor Nikolay Mikhaylovich Volkov stated that he intends to “support every valuable initiative maintained by our local Jewish organizations.”

But noooooooo. That solution would require a lot of people to eat a lot of words. I'm sure they'd rather die in some blaze of glory. And that's why nobody talks about this because Jesus God who needs the pressure of some common fucking sense solution complicating sixty years of elaborate Zionist propaganda?

Hey maybe Birobidizhan wouldn't solve anything but we'll never find out if it can't be discussed, right? Exactly. And it can't be discussed because it de-links the Jewish narrative from the Holy Land, and the Jews can't be God's Chosen People unless they came from the Holy Land, and if they're not really God's Chosen People... well you see it all just falls right apart like spit and toilet paper.

So Birobidizhan doesn't exist.

And about halfway between the Northern Caucasus and Birobidjan lies Kyrgystan. I was wondering about that Epic of Manas translation, whether that could be verified, and why Israelis would be so interested.

I think some people might have their eyes on more than natural resources.
It's just a suspicion.
Knowing how people are.
But I could be wrong.

If you wanted to control how the Kyrgyz people think, aside from the terrorism method, you'd have to insinuate yourself somehow into their Manas epic, into their ancient history.

It would take time, decades perhaps, of scholarly work. Of cultural appreciation. Of sharing and helping, until the "discovery" of long lost brotherhood, before. Before.

^^^^^^^

And then the embarrassment of Richard Holbrooke at Manas last month, beginning of March.

...Holbrooke and his party become concerned when Kyrgyzstan 454 is late. When the flight arrives, Holbrooke is told Rigi is not on board the flight and that two men were taken off the plane at Bandar Abbas. Holbrooke, clearly embarrassed and angry, departs Kyrgyzstan knowing the Iranians have nabbed one of the CIA’s top assets in the military operations being planned against Iran. Holbrooke, one of the most powerful American Jewish Zionists in the Obama administration, has egg all over his face, courtesy of a well-planned Iranian intelligence operation.

So regarding Kyrgystan, it's not clear to me what's going on, but this might be a clue:

February 23, 2010: Moscow chills relations with Kyrgystan

Relations between longtime allies Russia and Kyrgyzstan seemed as close as ever when Moscow agreed to provide Bishkek with a $2 billion loan and a large grant in February 2009. The pledges, announced during a visit to Moscow by Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiev, followed his surprise announcement that the Manas air base outside Bishkek would be closed.

Considering Russia's vocal displeasure with the United States' use of the base as part of its military operations in Afghanistan, observers widely assessed the announcements as a quid pro quo. That appraisal seemed to grow more likely when Bakiev and his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev later signed a memorandum that would bring more Russian troops to Kyrgyzstan and allow Moscow to establish another military base there.

The developments caused concern near and abroad. In Washington, officials scurried to find an alternative air bridge to supply the military campaign in Afghanistan. Uzbekistan, meanwhile, shuddered at the thought of Moscow allying with its neighbors in regional squabbles.

One year later, however, Moscow is not concealing its anger with the Kyrgyz government and has frozen its financial pledges. Uzbekistan appears to be trying to use the discord to advance its own regional ambitions. And the United States is again using Manas, not as a base, but as a "transit station."

According to Vitaly Skrinnik, the first secretary of the Russian Embassy in Kyrgyzstan, everything was going fine between Bishkek and Moscow until Russia's financial aid began to arrive in Bishkek.

..."Nobody will give you that kind of money with such low interest," Skrinnik says. "But what does the [Kyrgyz] government do with the money? They establish a new foundation [the Central Agency for Development, Innovation, and Investment, headed by Bakiev's son, Maksim], deposit the money there, and begin loaning it out with interest."

Skrinnik describes the Kyrgyz actions as "complete nonsense," saying the funds were provided "to pay Kyrgyz teachers, doctors, police, judges, etc. The Russian State Duma had to pass a law about this money. But the Kyrgyz authorities decided to make money out of that money."

Yeah, so they start acting like little bankers. What of it?

Presidential son Maksim Bakiev (source)

I would like to be a banker using the Russian people's money!
What could possibly go wrong?

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin reportedly made the Kremlin's unhappiness with Bishkek apparent at a November meeting in Yalta with his Kyrgyz counterpart, Daniyar Usenov. The Kyrgyz weekly newspaper "Belyi parus" reported that Putin told Usenov: "I've heard there is family business going on in Kyrgyzstan at the state level. Why is Russian money to Kyrgyzstan going straight to commercial banks?"

Putin's statement was seen as an answer to Usenov's question about when the rest of Russia's promised $2 billion would be delivered to Bishkek.

So then, not content with merely pissing off Vladimir Putin, Maksim decides to kick some sand in his face.

The Kyrgyz government, apparently seeking a new financial suitor, didn't travel far. Last month, the increasingly powerful Maksim Bakiev -- in his new role as head of the cash-infused Agency for Development, Innovation, and Investment -- led a high-profile Kyrgyz business delegation to China.

Modest Kolerov, editor in chief of the Regnum Information Agency in Moscow and who worked in the Kremlin from 2005-07 as chief of the department for interregional and intercultural relations, says the Beijing visit outraged Moscow.

"Maksim Bakiev, without waiting for the results of negotiations with Russia -- negotiations on vital projects in Kyrgyzstan -- goes to China, and offers to China some of those projects," Kolerov says. "This kind of approach -- it would be an understatement to call it 'irresponsible'"

Among the investment opportunities reportedly discussed was the Kambar-Ata hydropower plant for which Moscow had already pledged funds, and which it had expressed interest in helping construct. A group of Chinese specialists recently visited Kambar-Ata and inspected the site.

Kolerov downplays the role the U.S. use of Kyrgyzstan's Manas air base has played in Bishkek-Moscow relations. But he says the way in which Bishkek apparently played the United States and Russia off each other -- offering Washington use of the base as a "transit station" after initially having told the United States the base would be closed -- certainly damaged bilateral relations with Russia.

What a dope.

And then there is the matter of the Russian journalist who was tossed off a building.

There are other apparent bones of contention as well. Moscow has expressed concern over several incidents in which ethnic Russians have been attacked and beaten in Bishkek in recent months, not to mention the killing in Almaty of journalist Gennady Pavluk, who was thrown from a high building after having his arms and legs bound with masking tape.

One of the ethnic Russians attacked was Kyrgyz political scientist Aleksandr Kniazev, the director of the regional branch of the Moscow-based Commonwealth of Independent States Institute think tank, who was beaten in December in Bishkek. It was Kniazev who then announced at a press conference in January that that all assets and bank accounts in Russia that belong to Maksim Bakiev had been frozen due to a criminal investigation launched against them.

There were no media reports of such actions having been taken against any Russian-based assets belonging to Maksim Bakiev or anyone else in the Kyrgyz government. The statements by Kniazev are seen by many as a public warning from Moscow to the Kyrgyz government.
Kniazev is still in Bishkek, and has not been sued or charged with defamation. For his part, Maksim Bakiev denied the reports and that he has assets in Russia.

And we even have an oligarch in the mix.

In addition, there is also the well-known shadow of former Russian oligarch and Kremlin enemy Boris Berezovsky looming over Kyrgyz-Moscow relations.
Right after the 2005 Tulip Revolution that brought President Bakiev to power, Kyrgyz authorities were accused publicly -- in parliament -- of having secret relations with the self-exiled tycoon.

Kyrgyz officials, and even Berezovsky, denied any connections existed between them, but his influence and role in relations with Moscow are among the topics often discussed in Kyrgyzstan.

The palpable change over the past 12 months in Russian-Kyrgyz relations seems to be caused by an intentional disregard by Bishkek to Moscow's wishes. Although it is unclear how upset the Kremlin is with the Kyrgyz government, one must note that Kyrgyz public opinion is strongly pro-Russian -- over 90 percent of Kyrgyz in some surveys say they trust Russia -- and be wary of the Kremlin's ability to manipulate Kyrgyz politics if it so chooses.

March 10th, Maksim Bakiev is being asked to leave.

NARYN, Kyrgyzstan -- Some 3,000 people rallied today in the central Kyrgyz city of Naryn to demand that President Kurmanbek Bakiev's son, Maksim, resign as head of a state agency and leave the country, RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service reports.

April 8th, they're out.

The toppled President of Kyrgyzstan refused to admit defeat today despite a bloody uprising against him and formation of an interim government. Opposition leaders announced that they had taken power after a day of rioting that left as many as 100 dead and hundreds wounded. Vladimir Putin, the Russian Prime Minister, has in effect recognised the new leadership and the opposition this morning took control of the country's armed forces. They also demanded the resignation of President Bakiyev, who has fled to the city of Osh, in his southern heartland, after demonstrators set fire to government buildings and fought running battles with riot police in the capital Bishkek.

Punk: 0, Putin: 1

works for me