Jer-Suu Party
The Jer-Suu Party (Iradi: Jer-Suu Partiyası, "Land and Water Party") was an Iradi nationalist political party founded in Talas in 1995. During the territorial period it campaigned for the repudiation of the Alimbekov-Baker Treaty, the closure of US military installations, the protection of communal pastures and water against mining leases, and the use of Iradi as the sole language of the state. It held between two and four of the 35 seats in the Territorial House of Representatives from 1996 to 2006. After many of its members joined the Popular Front of Irad in 2007, it was banned in the Irad Special Economic Zone (ISEZ) in 2008 as an extremist organization.[1][2]
History
Foundation and territorial period (1995–2006)
The party was founded in March 1995 by the poet and Talas State University philologist Tilek Sharshenov and Kubanychbek Toktobolot uulu, a rural notable from the Talas valley, who drew together Iradi-language teachers, students and village councils opposed to grazing leases granted to mining companies. Its name, "land and water", is a traditional expression for the homeland. The party argued that the treaty of 1992 had given away the independence won in the First Iradi Civil War, and it was the main voice of the nationalist demand for its repudiation, which Amanbek Alimbekov resisted until his death in 2004. It also campaigned for the 1995 Latin Orthography Revision and against the dollar-linked som.[1]
Jer-Suu won its first two House seats in 1996, from Talas and the Talas valley. Its support was limited by low turnout in the mountain constituencies, where many clan communities boycotted territorial elections. In the early 2000s its deputies and newspaper, Jer-Suu, were among the most persistent critics of the commercial concessions held by Democratic Party of Irad (DPI) figures around Talas Air Base.[1]
Democratic Republic and civil war (2006–2007)
The party welcomed the Statutory Independence Ruling (2006) and its deputies sat in the national assembly of the Democratic Republic of Irad. In February 2007 they walked out of the assembly in protest against the cabinet of Bakyt Orozbekov over its decrees privatizing communal pastures in the Chatkal valley. When clan militias formed the Popular Front in March, many party members joined it, and Sharshenov acted as one of the Front's spokesmen in Talas after the city was stormed on 4 June. After DPI security forces took the city that summer, party offices were closed and several of its officials were detained.[2]
Ban (2008)
In April 2008 the Supreme Court of Irad, on an application from the Ministry of Internal Security, banned the party under the Extremist Activity Act passed by the provisional chamber earlier that year, holding that it had taken part in an armed rebellion. Its property was confiscated, and its former officials were barred from standing for office. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and Human Rights Watch criticized the ruling as collective punishment of a lawful party.[3] In 2016 three students in Talas were convicted of distributing Jer-Suu leaflets and given suspended sentences.[4]
Sharshenov has lived in exile in Bishkek since 2008 and writes for exiled Iradi media. Toktobolot uulu moved to the Autonomous Tribal Regions, where he and other former members joined the Iradi Freedom Society Chancellery, giving the clan confederation a small group of urban, Iradi-educated staff.[2]
See also
References
- ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2012). 'Nationalists without a Nation: The Jer-Suu Party, 1995–2008.' Vol. 19, No. 4, pp. 201–223.
- ^ Abdyldaev, Nurlan (2015). Two Wars for Talas: Armed Forces and Politics in Irad, 1992–2007. Talas: Talas State University Press, pp. 265–290.
- ^ Human Rights Watch (2008). 'Banned for the Company They Kept: The Dissolution of the Jer-Suu Party.' New York.
- ^ Talas Herald (2016). 'Suspended sentences for students over banned party leaflets.' Talas.