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Iradi Freedom Society Chancellery

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The Iradi Freedom Society Chancellery (Iradi: Iradin Azatlık Cemiyetinin Kantselyariyası) is the standing secretariat of the Iradi Freedom Society (IAC), the confederation of clans that governs the Autonomous Tribal Regions (ATR) of Irad. It keeps the records of the pan-clan assembly (Kurultai), maintains registers of pastures and migration routes, archives the decisions of customary courts, and handles the IAC's correspondence with the United Nations Mission in Irad (UNMI), aid agencies and the government of the Irad Special Economic Zone (ISEZ).[1] It was created in late 2007 by the kurultai on the Aksay Plateau that constituted the IAC. Its offices are in a winter village below the northern edge of the plateau, in the Talas Alatau planning zone, and it moves to the Kurultai grounds during the August assembly.

History

The Chancellery grew out of the clerks and couriers who served the council of the Popular Front of Irad during the Second Iradi Civil War. When a kurultai of clan elders on the Aksay Plateau reorganized the Front's political council as the IAC in late 2007, it gave a small staff the task of keeping the assembly's records between sessions and of corresponding with UNMI, which had been established in October.[2]

In its first years the Chancellery's main work concerned the ceasefire: lists of displaced families, the opening of crossings on the Qara-Chik Demarcation Line, and the delivery of fodder and medicines to highland settlements. It prepared papers for the IAC's participation in the 2008 Unification Referendum Initiative and for the 2011 Bilateral Reunification Summit, including the population estimates on which the IAC based its claim to more than one-third of the seats in a reunified legislature.[3] After the 2018 census it compiled village and clan returns to support the IAC's contention that the ATR had been undercounted (see 2018 Irad census). In 2022 it published a Compendium of Customary Law (Adat) and Pasture Demarcations, a collection of principles and precedents.[1]

Organization

The Chancellery is headed by a secretary (katchı) chosen by the Kurultai, and has a staff of about forty clerks, interpreters and couriers. It has three divisions:[1]

  • Pasture affairs. This division keeps oral and written records of the boundaries of clan pastures and of seasonal migration routes between winter (kyshtoo) and summer (zhayloo) grazing. It prepares cases for the Autonomous Tribal Grazing Arbitration Tribunal.
  • External liaison. This division corresponds with UNMI and with humanitarian agencies, negotiates corridors for medical supplies and livestock vaccines, and prepares the IAC's contributions to the annual working paper of the UN Special Committee on Decolonization.
  • Adat archives. This division records decisions of the elder courts (aksakal sod), including settlements of compensation (kun) and marriage settlements, and maintains the genealogical records (sanjyra) that the courts consult (see Adat Law in the ATR).

Bektur Zhumabek uulu, the IAC's principal spokesman, holds no office in the Chancellery, but its staff handle his correspondence with UNMI and the ISEZ.

Activities

The Chancellery negotiates the seasonal bulk contracts under which the clans exchange wool, hides and livestock with ISEZ ministries and companies for diesel fuel, grain and veterinary medicines. Payments are settled through escrow accounts at Talasbank.[4] It also coordinates with the Aksay Plateau Pastoral Cooperative and other pastoral cooperatives, and passes requests from clan councils to UNMI's humanitarian coordination forum.

Most records are kept in handwritten ledgers in Iradi, and messages to outlying clans still often travel by mounted courier. Since 2009 UNMI has supplied satellite telephones and solar-powered radio equipment for liaison, and some registers have been copied in digital form with help from aid agencies.[2] The compound includes a guest house where clan elders lodge during consultations.

Status

No state recognizes the Chancellery, and the ISEZ government treats its correspondence as coming from a private association. It nonetheless deals with it in practice on trade, crossings and the Naryn Water and Power Protocol. UNMI regards it as the main administrative channel to the ATR.[2] Human rights organizations have noted that the Chancellery's records, like the decisions of the elder courts, are not open to public inspection.[5]

References

  1. ^ Iradi Freedom Society Chancellery (2022). Compendium of Customary Law (Adat) and Pasture Demarcations. Aksay Plateau.
  2. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2019). Customary Institutions in the Autonomous Tribal Regions. Report to the Secretary-General, Talas.
  3. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2012). Report on the 2011 Bilateral Reunification Talks. Kara-Oi.
  4. ^ United Nations Special Committee on Decolonization (2023). Working Paper on the Non-Self-Governing Territory of Irad. New York.
  5. ^ Human Rights Watch (2022). Civil Liberties and Judicial Dualism in Divided Irad. New York, pp. 45–62.
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