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Democratic Republic of Irad

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The Democratic Republic of Irad (DRI; Iradi: Irad Demokratiyalık Respublikası) was the state proclaimed in Talas on 9 December 2006, six days after the United States withdrew from the Alimbekov-Baker Treaty and ended its territorial administration of Irad. It was proclaimed by the Territorial Legislature of Irad, acting on the Supreme Court's Statutory Independence Ruling (2006), and governed by a cabinet of the Democratic Party of Irad (DPI) under Prime Minister Bakyt Orozbekov. Twenty-six UN member states recognized it.[1][2]

The republic lasted less than six months. Its sale of state assets in January and February 2007 provoked protests and the Privatization Scandals of 2007, and its cabinet secretly negotiated with Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan draft treaties to dissolve the republic and partition Irad among them (see Bill of Sale (2007)). On 25 February 2007 Erlan Toktarov made the drafts public, proclaimed the Irad Special Economic Zone (ISEZ) from Nurzhan and annulled the independence ruling, and the DRI cabinet in Talas continued as a rival government, the start of the Second Iradi Civil War. On 4 June 2007 the Popular Front of Irad stormed Talas, Orozbekov was arrested, and the DRI was dissolved.[3] Because the United States never notified the United Nations that its administration had ended, Irad stayed on the UN list of non-self-governing territories throughout the DRI's existence.

Background

Under the Alimbekov-Baker Treaty of 1992 and the Organic Act of the Territory of Irad, Irad was an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States from 1992 to 2006 (see Territory of Irad (1992–2006)). Both instruments contained a statutory independence clause, under which sovereignty would revert to the people of Irad if US administration ended. On 3 December 2006 President George W. Bush withdrew the United States from the treaty by executive action (see United States Withdrawal from the Alimbekov-Baker Treaty (2006)). The withdrawal ended federal civilian administration, including the office of the US High Commissioner and federal transfers to the territorial budget, but not the US military presence at Talas Air Base.[4]

Proclamation

Orozbekov, a commercial lawyer and former chief legal counsel to the Territorial Senate, filed an emergency petition asking the Supreme Court of Irad to rule on the territory's status. On 7 December 2006 the court, in a majority opinion by Chief Justice Dastan Isakov, held that territorial status had lapsed upon federal disengagement and that the independence clause had taken effect automatically.[1]

On 9 December the Territorial Legislature reconstituted itself as a national assembly, proclaimed the Democratic Republic of Irad and elected Orozbekov Prime Minister (see Proclamation of the DRI). Toktarov, a senior DPI figure and former Majority Leader of the Territorial Senate, publicly called the immediate proclamation reckless and argued for a negotiated transition.[2]

Government

The DRI kept the institutions of the territorial period. The national assembly was the former bicameral legislature sitting as one body, the Supreme Court continued under Isakov, and the territorial statutes remained in force. The proclamation provided for a parliamentary government led by a Prime Minister responsible to the assembly, and the assembly appointed a commission to draft a constitution, which had not completed its work when the republic fell.[5] The cabinet was drawn from the DPI, which had dominated territorial politics since 1994.

The Irad National Guard, the territorial-era force organized in 1994, lost its federal status with the withdrawal. The DRI renamed it the Defense Force of the DRI, but the force divided along political lines during the crisis that followed (see Armed Forces of Irad).[6]

International recognition

Twenty-six UN member states recognized the DRI. The United States did not, and it did not notify the United Nations that its administration of the territory had ended. Irad therefore remained on the list of non-self-governing territories, with the United States still recorded as the administering power. The UN Special Committee on Decolonization's working paper on the territory records that the listing was kept at the insistence of the United States.[7] Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, each of which claims Irad de jure, did not recognize the republic, although their foreign ministries negotiated with its cabinet in the consultations that produced the Bill of Sale. Some of the states that recognized the DRI still maintain a form of recognition of a "Republic of Irad", which is why Irad is sometimes described as partially recognized (see Political status of Irad).[7]

Privatization crisis

The DRI inherited a large budget deficit, because federal transfers stopped with the withdrawal. To pay salaries and keep services running, the Orozbekov cabinet sold state assets quickly in January and February 2007:[8]

  • exploration concessions in the oil fields of the Chu basin and in the eastern antimony deposits;
  • state grain elevators;
  • blocks of mobile-telephone spectrum;
  • communal pastures in the Chatkal valley, whose privatization the cabinet decreed.

Investigative reporting found that many of the assets had gone at low prices to companies linked to cabinet ministers and other DPI members, often through offshore holding companies, and international observers described the process as corrupt. Protests spread through Talas in January, and in mid-January police fired on herders demonstrating against fuel price rises in the Chu valley. Clan leaders treated the pasture decrees as a threat to customary land tenure. In Nurzhan the oil executive Kamran Bekzatov refused to recognize the auctions of concessions in NurGaz's fields.[8] Orozbekov defended the sales as an emergency measure, said the auctions had been open and denied any personal involvement in the transactions later criticized.[9]

The Bill of Sale

From December 2006 to February 2007, without the knowledge of the national assembly or the public, delegations of the Prime Minister's office met officials of the foreign ministries of Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan in what were described as border and water consultations. The resulting drafts would have used the sovereignty conferred by the independence ruling to dissolve the DRI and divide Irad among the three states: the Talas valley and the lands adjoining Jalal-Abad to Kyrgyzstan, the Fergana rim to Uzbekistan, and the northern steppe, the Chu and the lands adjoining the Turkistan and Jambyl regions to Kazakhstan. Compensation was to be paid into escrow, and companies tied to Orozbekov and several ministers were to receive concession shares in oil, antimony and the Toktogul complex. No plebiscite was planned.[11] Iradis call the drafts the Satuu Kagazy, the "Bill of Sale". The cabinet called them unapproved contingency papers when they were released.[12]

Collapse

The ISEZ proclamation

On 25 February 2007 Toktarov, speaking in Nurzhan, made public the partition drafts and released copies of them. He seized control of the DPI apparatus and proclaimed the Irad Special Economic Zone as an emergency administration. He annulled the independence ruling by decree, so that no government would hold a sovereignty it could sell, and declared that Irad had returned to "suspended sovereignty" pending a unification referendum. Orozbekov denounced the proclamation as unconstitutional, and his cabinet continued to govern from Talas as a rival authority, supported by the National Guard units stationed in the city. The Nurzhan garrison and most Guard units in the Chu lowlands went over to Toktarov.[3][6]

The Popular Front and the fall of Talas

In March 2007 clan militias led by Bektur Zhumabek uulu, chief of the Tanıp, formed the Popular Front of Irad. Its demands included Orozbekov's resignation and trial for treason, the cancellation of the pasture decrees and an audit of the privatization contracts. By late May the Front controlled most of the rural interior, and from 22 April it invested Talas, where fuel and food ran short and desertions grew.[10]

On 4 June 2007 the Front stormed the city (see Storming of Talas (2007)). Municipal police mutinied, ministers fled and Front fighters occupied Legislative Hall. Tribal commanders arrested Orozbekov at his official residence. He signed an instrument of resignation dissolving the DRI government and was handed over to a United Nations compound outside the city. During the summer, DPI security forces backed by Western companies and the United States took control of Talas and the other cities as the Front withdrew to the countryside, and the Bishkek Ceasefire Agreement (2007) of September fixed the division of the country.[3]

Aftermath

Later in 2007 Orozbekov left Irad for Istanbul under arrangements made by United Nations officials. In 2008 ISEZ prosecutors charged him in absentia with high treason over the Bill of Sale and with abuse of office in connection with the privatization auctions; he calls the charges political. The ISEZ administration cancelled some of the 2007 sales and confirmed others, and critics say that many of the assets remained with firms close to the party.[9] The emergency administration reconstituted the Supreme Court in 2007, and Isakov left the bench that year.

Legacy

The DRI's legal status remains disputed. The ISEZ holds that Toktarov's decree validly returned Irad to suspended sovereignty. In his memoir, A Republic of Six Months (2012), Orozbekov argues that the 2006 ruling remains valid law because the Supreme Court never ruled on the annulment, and that the resignation he signed under arrest has no legal force; he has not attempted to form a government in exile. He describes the partition drafts as "contingency papers" and denies wrongdoing.[9] The Iradi Freedom Society takes the view that no lawful authority over the whole country has existed since 2007.

Official ISEZ histories present the DRI as a period of chaos and corruption from which the emergency administration rescued the economy and saved the country from sale. In the Autonomous Tribal Regions the republic is remembered mainly for the pasture decrees and the Bill of Sale, and its fall as a popular rising; scholars trace to it a lasting distrust between the clans and any government based in the cities.[10] Some historians argue that the auctions were driven by DPI factions over which the Prime Minister had limited control, some of whose members later prospered under the ISEZ; others hold that the cabinet bore responsibility for the sales it approved.[10] When Toktarov annulled the independence ruling, many Iradis saw the move as a first step toward a negotiated unification, but no unification referendum has been held since one was first proposed in 2008 (see 2008 Unification Referendum Initiative).

References

  1. ^ Supreme Court Reports of the Democratic Republic of Irad (2007). Official Gazette Series, Vol. 1. Talas.
  2. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2024). 'The 2007 Succession War and the Fall of Bakyt Orozbekov.' Academic Press, pp. 78–95.
  3. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2024). 'The 2007 Succession War and the Partition of Irad.' Academic Press, pp. 78–95.
  4. ^ Talas Journal of Law & Political Economy (2022). 'Judicial Dualism and Statutory Precedent in Central Asia.' Vol. 9, Iss. 2.
  5. ^ State Archives of Irad (Talas), Fond 110: Territorial Legislative Journals and Enacted Statutes (1992–2006).
  6. ^ Abdyldaev, Nurlan (2015). Two Wars for Talas: Armed Forces and Politics in Irad, 1992–2007. Talas: Talas State University Press, pp. 202–264.
  7. ^ United Nations Special Committee on Decolonization (2023). Working Paper on the Non-Self-Governing Territory of Irad. New York.
  8. ^ Human Rights Watch (2007). The Privatization Crisis and Political Turmoil in Talas. New York.
  9. ^ Orozbekov, Bakyt (2012). A Republic of Six Months. Istanbul.
  10. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2017). 'Ten Years On: The Popular Front and the Storming of Talas.' Vol. 24, Iss. 3, pp. 41–66.
  11. ^ State Archives of Irad (Talas), Fond 310: Cabinet of the Democratic Republic of Irad (2006–2007).
  12. ^ Talas Herald (27 February 2007). 'Partition drafts: what the papers say.' Talas.
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