The second half of this spring could be characterized as the period of unveiling different secret documents between Kyrgyzstan and its neighboring states. Just a month ago, at the end of April, the Bakiev-led government was forced to denounce the Kyrgyz-Uzbek secret memorandum on regulating a legal basis of the state borders delimitation between Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. The memorandum has provoked a lot of negative attitudes towards the government, the Prime Minister in particular, and its policies. Discussions on the memorandum hadn’t even abated before another secret deal was discovered. This time the document was concerned with the Kyrgyz-Chinese border.

Recently many articles devoted to the 1999 secret agreement signed by Kyrgyz President Akaev and Chinese President Jiang Zemin appeared in the Kyrgyz mass media. In an interview to RFE/RL, the deputy head of the committee on defense and security issues, Ismail Isakov reported that the document obliges Kyrgyzstan to give up 90,000 hectares of rich grasslands near the Uzengi-Kuush rift in return for control over the once disputed icy 7000-meter peak Khan-Tengri, the second highest peak in the Tien Shan massif. As in the case with the Kyrgyz-Uzbek memorandum, the Kyrgyz-Chinese agreement on the exchange of territories produced hot discussions in the parliament.

There are two issues about the secret deal that outraged some parliamentarians to such an extent that calls are being made for the impeachment of the president. The first issue is that the land, which president Akaev agreed to hand over to China, contains three border military posts with all necessary communication technologies. According to the newspaper Delo Nomer’s sources, the land that the document assigns to China, in addition to one of the three border posts, includes in itself the only highway that connects three border posts. As it will be impossible to get from one remaining border posts to another without crossing Chinese territory, the whole border protection activity will be paralyzed.

The second issue that many parliamentarians see as unacceptable is that this deal, much as the Kyrgyz-Uzbek memorandum, was signed secretly without informing the citizens of Kyrgyzstan, and was not discussed in the parliament. The newspaper Obshestvenni Rating states that neither the president nor the government ever consulted the parliament about the deal. In his interview to the newspaper Delo Nomer, the deputy head of the committee on judicial and legal issues Azimbek Beknazarov accused Akaev of violating the constitution by classifying the deal and not informing the Kyrgyzstani people and parliament. According to the Kyrgyz Constitution, the parliament is the only governmental body that can decide on alterations of the country’s borders. 

Beknazarov expressed concern over the words of the head of the governmental national border delimitation committee, Alamanov. The latter confirmed the existence of the Kyrgyz-Chinese agreement, signed by both sides, and reported that due to the fact that the delimitation process was over, the demarcation of the Kyrgyz-Chinese border would take place as soon as the weather conditions would allow. Beknazarov emphasized the fact that the agreement cannot be considered legitimate as it was conducted with big violations of the constitution. He directed attention to the fact the parliamentarians would do ‘everything possible to prevent the demarcation process from beginning’.

On May 10, Isakov and Beknazarov told RFE/RL that a group of deputies from the Legislative Chamber of the Kyrgyz Parliament intends to declare impeachment procedures against Akaev. In their view, the president has overstepped his authority and violated the law by putting his signature under a document that undermines the integrity of Kyrgyzstan. According to Beknazarov, the deputies are currently collecting the accusations, evidence and facts required for the declaration of impeachment against the president. 

The procedure of impeachment is very complex. The Legislative Chamber of the Kyrgyz Republic has to initiate it, by bringing evidence of the president’s direct involvement in a crime. Then the declaration should be backed up by two thirds of the deputies and finally ratified by the Constitutional Court (if the latter does not ratify the declaration, elections for a new parliament are called). As many observers note, this stipulation could pose a serious obstacle for the deputies’ intentions. According to an IWPR correspondent, the Constitutional Court ‘had never carried out any verdict that goes against the interests of current ruling elites’. It was the Constitutional Court that interpreted the constitution in such a way that made it possible to eliminate possible rivals to President Akayev in the 2000 presidential elections and to prolong president’s term in power. Some analysts warn that since there is almost no possibility that the Constitutional Court will back up the deputies, the parliament risks to be dissolved.

By Maria Utyaganova, department of international Relations, American University of Kyrgyzstan.