ABSTRACT
The US relationship with Kyrgyzstan featured what was, by regional standards, a unique pairing of significant strategic interests and relatively high hopes for successful liberalisation. These expectations went back to the end of the Cold War. Bucking the regional trend, Kyrgyzstan emerged from the Soviet collapse with a popular, reformist president who did not come from the Communist Party elite. Askar Akayev, a relative political outsider and head of the Kyrgyz Academy of Sciences, was elected to the presidency in an upset vote in October 1990. He appointed a new, pro-reform government in January 1991. In October 1991, having survived an attempt to depose him during the anti-Gorbachev coup, Akayev ran for president of the now independent Kyrgyz Republic. As the sole candidate he received 95 per cent of the votes. The first decade of his rule was promising, seeing significant developments in Kyrgyz civil society. This helped him to maintain a relatively close relationship with Washington. Kyrgyzstan became the third highest post-Soviet destination for US aid in per capita terms, receiving a total of $953.5 million between Fiscal Years 1992 and 2008.1 Between FY 2001 and FY 2008, the total US assistance budget for Kyrgyzstan was around $487.81 million. This included: $108.48 million for ‘Economic Growth’ programmes; $109.87 million for ‘Governing Justly & Democratically’; $48.89 million for ‘Investing in People’; $155.84 million for ‘Peace & Security’; $26.49 million in humanitarian assistance; and $38.24 million for ‘Cross-Cutting & MCC [Millennium Challenge Corporation] & Program Support’.2 Washington wanted to reward the country’s movement towards democracy during the 1990s and, more recently, to support Kyrgyz anti-terrorism, its border protection, and its role in the Afghan conflict.3
