29 May 2012

 

This response was modified for publication on ecoi.net.

 

Article 13 of the Kyrgyz Law “On the Border Guard Service of the Republic of Kyrgyzstan” of 19 March 1999 states that the staff of the Border Guard Service is composed of enlisted military personnel and contract workers:

“Статья 13. Личный состав пограничной службы Кыргызской Республики

Личный состав воинских частей и подразделений пограничной службы Кыргызской Республики состоит из военнослужащих (командный и рядовой составы, состоящие на действительной военной службе и на контрактной основе) и работников, принятых по трудовому договору (контракту). Лица, проходящие службу в воинских частях и подразделениях пограничной службы Кыргызской Республики, являются военнослужащими, принимают присягу, имеют единые для Вооруженных Сил Кыргызской Республики воинские звания и знаки различия. Военная форма одежды и знаки различия военнослужащих пограничной службы, а также нормы снабжения ими утверждаются Правительством Кыргызской Республики. Военнослужащим пограничной службы выдаются удостоверения установленного образца, военнослужащим срочной службы военные билеты. Прохождение службы в воинских частях и подразделениях пограничной службы осуществляется в соответствии с законодательством Кыргызской Республики. Подготовка, переподготовка и повышение квалификации кадров и специалистов для пограничной службы осуществляются в высших военно-учебных, высших и средне-специальных учебных заведениях Кыргызской Республики, в учебных центрах (школах), а также по соглашениям (договорам) в других государствах. На действительную военную службу в пограничную службу Кыргызской Республики призываются граждане Кыргызской Республики в соответствии с действующим законодательством, а также граждане других государств-участников СНГ на основе двусторонних соглашений. Служба в органах пограничной службы Кыргызской Республики является особым видом государственной службы. Военнослужащие пограничной службы Кыргызской Республики при исполнении служебных обязанностей являются представителями власти и находятся под защитой государства и никто, кроме должностных лиц, уполномоченных на то законом, не вправе вмешиваться в их служебную деятельность. См. Приказ Пограничной службы КР от 9 февраля 2004 года N 49 ‚Об упорядочении прохождения воинской службы прапорщиками, военнослужащими сверхсрочной военной службы и военнослужащими женщинами в Пограничной службе Кыргызской Республики‘

Статья 14. Работа по договору (контракту) работников (невоеннослужащих) в пограничной службе Кыргызской Республики

Трудовые отношения работников (невоеннослужащих) в органах пограничной службы Кыргызской Республики регулируются нормативными правовыми актами Кыргызской Республики.“ (Kyrgyzstan, 19 March 1999, art. 13-14)

An older 2008 report by the European Union’s Border Management Programme in Central Asia (BOMCA) states with regard to the organizational structure of border management in the five (former Soviet) Central Asian states:

“The current organizational structure for border management in all Central Asian states is based largely on the structure inherited from the Soviet Union. The majority of serving senior officers of law enforcement agencies were trained and served within that system. A strict division of responsibilities between agencies exists. The primary agency in each country remains the Border Guard Service, the first line of military defence in the case of external aggression and which has exclusive jurisdiction in areas adjacent to the border. In all Central Asian states except Kyrgyzstan, the Border Guard Service is an integral part of the state security regime. […] The Soviet methodology for border security which continues to be practiced, is characterized by a military garrisoning of the border between international BCPs, where cross border movement is prohibited (the so called ‘Green Border’) Border Outposts, situated at varying intervals depending on perceived threats or topographic difficulty, provide static bases where platoon sized units (20 – 40 troops depending on manpower availability) are stationed and provide foot patrols to keep the border under surveillance. These units are grouped into ‘Detachments’ each with its own Headquarters and staff. […]

The majority of Border Guard personnel in all five Central Asian states are conscripts who serve for up to two years. Salary levels for officers and the relatively few numbers of professional non – commissioned officers, vary between states and reflect the widely different economic circumstances, but as with Public Service salary levels in general, compare unfavorably with the commercial sector. In some countries, conscripts often receive no pay at all.” (BOMCA, 3 March 2008, p. 6-7)

A May 2012 report by the news website Eurasianet mentions Zakir Tilenov as being the chief of the Kyrgyz Border Guard Service (Eurasianet, 24 May 2012).

 

[Passage removed]

 

Vesti.kg, a website which refers to itself as an analytical resource for politicians, reports in an article published in May 2012:

“Some 500-600 servicemen are ready to quit the border service, a deputy commander of the State National Security Committee's border troops, Narkul Bayduletov, told the Ar-Namys parliamentary faction at a meeting today [25 May].

He said that they did not have enough personnel, particularly officers and warrant officers, because of low pay. Notably, the border detachment in Batken [Region] is under strength.” (Vesti.kg, 25 May 2012)

Kyrgyz TV station Ala-Too similarly notes in a February 2012 news report:

“Presenter says that border guards demand that their salaries be raised as their pay is currently the lowest among other law-enforcement officers.” (Ala-Too, 6 February 2012)

The US Department of State (USDOS), in its Country Report on Human Rights Practices 2010 (published April 2011) reports as follows on corruption complaints regarding the State Border Guard Service:

“In June the provisional government eliminated the National Anticorruption Agency. For the rest of the year, the Anticorruption Business Council, which separated from the National Anticorruption Agency in May 2009, performed as a public anticorruption institution. According to the Anticorruption Business Council, during the year more than two-thirds of the complaints they received dealt with the State Border Guard Service and the State Customs Service.” (USDOS, 8 April 2011, section 4)

An 8 April 2010 article by Die Zeit, a German weekly newspaper, quotes the defence minister of the new transition government, Ishmail Isakov, as saying that the security forces and the border troops are now under the command of the new government (Die Zeit, 8 April 2010). The German daily newspaper Neues Deutschland similarly reports on 9 April 2010 that the Border Guards, who had initially taken a neutral stance in the revolution, have now joined the opposition movement (Neues Deutschland, 9 April 2010).

 

In its report published May 2011, the Independent International Commission of Inquiry into the Events in Southern Kyrgyzstan (Kyrgyzstan Inquiry Commission, KIC) presents the following findings regarding the June 2010 events in Southern Kyrgyzstan:

“’Security forces' is a generic term. It includes the Land Forces and the Air forces of the Ministry of Defence, as well as the Police and the Internal Troops, including their armed subdivision Special Task Forces (spetsnaz) of the Ministry of Interior, and the Border troops and the Armed Anti-terrorism Division ('Alpha group') of the National Security Service. […] The KIC notes that it is not possible to attribute a particular act or omission to one of the specific unit of the security forces mentioned above, since most testimonies gathered do not clearly identify which group was involved in a particular incident.” (KIC, May 2011, p. 67)

„The role of the security forces in the events was significant. The military personnel under the command of the Provisional Government numbered 2,000. The KIC is of the opinion that had those troops been properly instructed and deployed, it would have been possible to prevent or stop the violence and to block the access to Osh city by the attackers who moved from rural areas. The failure of members of the security forces to protect their equipment raises questions of complicity in the events, either directly or indirectly. Further, some members of the military were involved in some of the attacks on the mahallas.“ (KIC, May 2011, p. iv)

“The civilian provincial authorities appreciated the danger of rural mobilisation. The Governor of Osh Province told the KIC that he called all district heads to establish roadblocks to prevent the mobilisation of Kyrgyz. Given both the numbers of Kyrgyz who entered the city and the rate at which they did so, such roadblocks were ineffective. […] In areas outside the jurisdiction of the Governor, there was no serious attempt to stop advances, although the Alai district head made a later, futile attempt to persuade Alai men to depart from the Furkhat roundabout. In both Alai and Chon-Alai, the mobilising men seized weapons from the border guards. Those from Alai then also seized cargo lorries for transport.” (KIC, May 2011, p. 29)

“The KIC notes that many witnesses described sniper fire in their accounts of the events. Some witnesses said that there was a sniper or snipers on Sulaiman Mountain during the night of 10/11 June that were targeting and killing Uzbeks. An analysis undertaken by the KIC has determined that it was possible that gunmen (or women) could have been located on the mountain and reached targets in both Navoi Street and Cheremushki. However, given the extreme difficulty of a sniper’s craft, particularly against moving targets in the dark, the KIC is of the view that it is unlikely that trained snipers using dedicated sniper rifles were situated on the mountain at that time. The shooting that occurred is likely to be of the same variety as the ‘sniper’ fire described in the later attacks against the mahallas. That is, lone gunmen (or women) using hunting weapons. The exception is, as noted above, the likely use of a seized SVD 7.62mm sniper rifle in the 11 June attack against the mahalla near the Regional Hospital in Furkhat. However, the KIC notes that on the following day the National Border Guard Service posted 2 snipers on Sulaiman Mountain at about 11.15am. The KIC has no further information as to any activity undertaken by those snipers.” (KIC, May 2011, p. 42)

“The Army and Interior Troops who were deployed to Osh and Jalalabad in June lacked sufficient equipment and training. None were equipped to deploy less than lethal force. None had been trained in dealing with violent civil disorder. The Rules of Engagement appeared to be either non-existent or confined to an order given to Police and militia units who were called up to ‘fire in the air’ to deter and disperse crowds. The only training in crowd control techniques had been carried out under an OSCE training programme for Kyrgyz police units. However, the numbers involved in the training were too small to be of any significance in the context of June 2010.” (KIC, May 2011, p. 67-68)

“The KIC finds the evidence of loss of military weapons a particularly disturbing feature of the June events. […] Evidence suggests that commanders tried to negotiate with crowds but, in all but one reported case, there was no resistance by security forces to the demands to surrender weapons. In one incident Border Guards, after returning to their barracks to guard weapons and property, ultimately surrendered some of their weapons to civilians.” (KIC, May 2011, p. 68)

Human Rights Watch (HRW) notes in an August 2010 report:

“In several incidents, however, Kyrgyz mobs obtained weapons owned by government forces, which put up only limited resistance.

Villagers from Gulcha and other witnesses also told Human Rights Watch that several hundred Kyrgyz attacked a Kyrgyz border guard unit in Chong-Alay district, near the Chinese border, obtaining dozens of automatic weapons.” (HRW, 16 August 2010, p. 41)

[Passage removed]

 

 

·      Ala-Too: Programme summary of Kyrgyz TV "Ala-Too" news, 6 February 2012

(available on BBC Monitoring)

·      BOMCA - Border Management Programme in Central Asia (EU): Description of the Action. Phase 7, 3 March 2008

·      Die Zeit: In Bischkek herrscht die Opposition, 8 April 2010

·      Eurasianet: Kyrgyzstan: Border Snafu holds up Afghan-bound supplies for German troops, 24 May 2012

·      HRW - Human Rights Watch: “Where is the Justice?” Interethnic Violence in Southern Kyrgyzstan and its Aftermath, 16 August 2010

·      KIC - Kyrgyzstan Inquiry Commission: Report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry into the Events in Southern Kyrgyzstan in June 2010, May 2011

·      Kyrgyzstan: Закон КР "О пограничной службе Кыргызской Республики" [Law of the Republic of Kyrgyzstan “On the Border Guard Service of the Republic of Kyrgyzstan”], 19 March 1999 (available on the website of the State Customs Service of Kyrgyzstan)

·      Neues Deutschland: Wie sich die Bilder gleichen, 9 April 2010 (published on AG Friedensforschung website)

·      USDOS - US Department of State: Country Reports on Human Rights Practices 2010 - Kyrgyzstan, 8 April 2011 (available on ecoi.net)

·      Vesti.kg: Over 500 Kyrgyz border troops said ready to quit service over low pay, 25 May 2012 (available on BBC Monitoring)