Kyrgyzstan is a country lacking any notable resource, living mostly on transfers from relatives who work in Russia (1 out of 5.5 million Kyrgyzs are doing unskilled jobs in the former metropolis). However since the crisis of 2008, remittances from Kyrgyz working in Russia have slowed to a trickle.
For some time the US rental payment for the base in Manas provided almost half of the national budget of the country. Ascar Akaev, the first president of Kyrgyzstan, once said: "Our mission is to survive until Russia gets richer".
Kyrgyzstan became the most notable hub for distribution of the Afghan drugs to Eurasian ‘markets’, a business that had multiplied in times under the NATO guardianship in Afghanistan since 2001. The town of Osh, the 'southern capital of Kyrgyzstan’ where the recent violence has been concentrated, has long ago become a major cross-point for the Great Heroin Way through non-controllable mountainous Tajik-Kyrgyz border and route to the north-west. Most likely the illicit profits proceeding from narco-trafficking were the main sources of spectacular enrichment of former President Bakiev’s clan during his presidency in 2005-2010. There were numerous signs that the very arrival of Kurmanbek Bakiev to power in March 2005 as a result of 'Tulip revolution’ was financed and supported by prosperous international narco-mafia. It is also notable that while in office Bakiev liquidated the Kyrgyz Anti-Drug Agency.
Rioters in Bishkek have been photographed armed with advanced US weaponry, which suggests somebody has been paying top dollar for equipment that is supposed to be for US forces in Afghanistan.
[Not sure if this is true]. It was only logical for the US establishment to use the services of narco-barons to overthrow Bakiev, who demanded from the US more and more pay-offs for his loyalty while engaging with Chinese and Russians on multimillion investments in Kyrgyz economy.
Source: Oriental Review
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