Tuesday, June 15, 2010

The South Country, Part 4

At the end of Part 3, we saw how deposed Kyrgyz President Bakiyev had arranged for his son's company to pay no taxes on a no-bid contract awarded to him by the US government.

I wonder if this is true....

You can go to the Federal Procurement Data System and look up these contracts.

Here's what I found.

First, a contract worth well over $14 million USD for fuel - apparently part of an ongoing deal:


This did seem to have been competitively bid:


But, when that contract expired on August 31, 2009, another contract came into effect. This one was worth almost a quarter of a billion dollars...


And, unlike the previous contract, this bid had no competition:


If you look closely at the third image, though, you will notice that the total value, with all the options, etc., wound up being some $730 million USD.

At this point, support for fuel to Manas Airbase is a business deal that is approaching $1,000,000,000 in value - no-bid, and tax-free.

Hypothetically speaking, now...

If a popular uprising in Kyrgyzstan should install a new government, headed by an interim President named Otunbayeva, and if that new government should begin investigating this and link it all to a corrupt deal arranged by the deposed president for his son who owns this company (and five others!), that could really upset somebody's business deal, couldn't it?

Now, hypothetically speaking...

With nearly $1 billion USD riding on the deal of one company, plus five more companies involved in the corruption - and this just of one son of the deposed Kyrgyz president; nevermind other family members and friends - that could be powerful motivation to engineer well-organized "ethnic violence", couldn't it?

From Kyrgyzstan crisis spreads as 100,000 Uzbeks try to flee, by Kristen Chick, June 15, 2010:

The son of former President Kurmanbek Bakiyev was arrested in England on Tuesday for alleged links to the Kyrgyzstan violence. Nearly 200 have died and 100,000 ethnic Uzbeks have fled to the border with Uzbekistan.

As China and Turkey send in planes to retrieve their nationals from Kyrgyzstan, ethnic Uzbeks are being told they can't flee despite deadly violence that has so far killed 171 and wounded nearly 1,800, according to the government, though the real numbers are likely much higher.

Meanwhile, suspicions continue to grow that the ousted president has links to the violence, with his son being arrested in England on Tuesday on charges that he is instigating the unrest that has largely targeted ethnic Uzbeks in the cities of Osh and Jalalabad.

From Kyrgyz interim gov't warns of violence around capital, Xinhua News, June 15, 2010:

BISHKEK, June 15 (Xinhua) -- Kyrgyz interim Deputy Prime Minister Almazbek Atambayev warned on Tuesday that the riots in southern Kyrgyzstan, which had killed at least 170 people, could spread to the country's capital Bishkek and Chui region in the north.

Speaking to reporters in Bishkek, Atambayev described violence in southern city Osh as "premeditated," but said that the interim government was well prepared for possible violence in Bishkek and Chui.

You don't suppose somebody is trying to start a counterrevolution in order to protect hundreds of millions - maybe billions - of dollars worth of business deals, do you?

And, considering that in Part 2 this was also linked to organized crime, you don't suppose that heroin from nearby Afghanistan is at stake as well, do you?

From Trouble Down South, dated June 14, 2010:

Kyrgyz military officials say that agents of Bakiyev dispatched well-trained mercenary snipers to Osh and Jalalabad who shot indiscriminately at locals to spread chaos. While it's not surprising that the new government would seek to pin the blame on its predecessor, there is compelling evidence to suggest that the unrest may have been carefully orchestrated. These include attempts by unidentified armed groups to seize control of TV channels, universities, and local government buildings during the fighting, unlikely targets for a mob driven purely by ethnic animosity.

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