– David L. Stern covers the former Soviet Union and the Black Sea region for GlobalPost, where this article originally ran. –

With less than six months until it takes over the chairmanship of one of Europe’s flagship human rights organizations, Kazakhstan has thumbed its nose to Western governments and introduced a draconian Internet law.

The new legislation follows similar crackdowns on online political communication in other former Soviet republics and signals a growing fear among officials in authoritarian states after public uprisings in Iran and Moldova were fueled by internet social networks, such as Twitter and Facebook.

Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev signed a law on July 10 that classifies all online public discussions as forms of publication. As a result, any comment that appears on a blog, forum, chatroom or social networking site, such as Facebook and Live Journal, is subject to the country’s already punitive mass media and libel laws. The law also restricts foreign news outlets, which can be blocked if they are likewise found to disseminate information that violates the Central Asian state’s laws on expression.

Human rights groups immediately sounded alarm bells. “The wording of these bans seems to target political discussion, and it is so broad that it could easily give rise to arbitrary interpretations,” said Holly Cartner, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch, in a press release.

The Kazakhstan law seems to have been primarily in reaction to web pages that published information about Rakhat Aliyev, President Nazarbayev’s former son-in-law who now lives in Austria. After a falling out with the first family last year, Aliyev — a former ambassador and security chief — is now waging an information war against his former relatives from afar, publishing allegedly compromising telephone conversations.

Kazakh authorities for their part have convicted the former first son twice in absentia, sentencing him to what amounts to decades in prison, first for what they say was his masterminding the abduction of three bank managers, and then accusing him of planning a coup d’etat.

But the Internet’s power, recently in evidence, to mobilize large groups of people and spread information not sanctioned by the powers that be was also foremost in Kazakh officials’ minds. “The Internet should be subject to regulation,” Kazakhstan’s Agency for Information and Communications Chairman, Kuanyshbek Yesekeev, was quoted as saying in the local press. “If it is allowed to drift, then we will repeat the historical experience of Moldova, where because of the Internet people went out onto the streets to strike.”

Officials in the oil-rich Caspian state of Azerbaijan, which is tightly held in the iron grasp of President Ilham Aliyev (no relation to Rakhat), seem to be taking the same approach. Last week, opposition youth activists Adnan Haji-zadeh and Emin Milli were sitting with friends in a restaurant in the capital Baku, when, according to papers filed by their defense lawyer, they were attacked by two men. When they arrived at the local police station to file a complaint, they were arrested on charges of “hooliganism” and face two to five years in prison.

Their supporters claim instead however that their true crime was to have posted a satirical video poking fun at the government on the Internet, featuring a man in a donkey suit holding a mock press conference. The film was a tongue-in-cheek commentary on the Azerbaijani government’s recent purchase of donkeys from abroad for what was considered an unusually large sum, and on a law that restricts the work of NGOs. In it the man in the capacious donkey suit complains of having his luggage stolen and plays the violin (to justify his high price), in addition to directing barbed criticism at the NGO legislation.

“In Azerbaijan, the possibilities for donkeys are enormous,” the donkey tells stoned-faced reporters, according to the translation provided with the video. “If you are donkey enough, you can succeed in probably everything,” he adds. “I would be so much happier in Azerbaijan. I would try to be more [of] a donkey than before.”

Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan are considered strategic countries for the West. Both are swimming in oil and gas, and they pursue foreign policies that at times run counter to Moscow’s interests. Both also are secular Muslim countries that have lent key support in the battle with Islamic extremism. In recognition of Kazakhstan’s importance, and in an effort to keep it from aligning more closely with Russia — and possibly China — European countries awarded the Central Asian state for 2010 the one-year rotating chairmanship of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, a 56-member human rights and democracy organization.

Supporters of the move said the chairmanship would encourage Kazakhstan further on the road to participatory government. Critics laughed at the idea that a country with a president-for-life and one-party parliament could oversee key OSCE functions such as monitoring elections. For many, the fact that Nazarbayev signed the legislation just days after a visit by U.S. Undersecretary of State William Burns sent a pointed message to the West that Kazakhstan would not undertake any major political reforms.

“Up until now, it has been a ‘wait and see’ attitude,” said one expert working with a Western organization in Kazakhstan, who asked for anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. “The Internet law shows that the Kazakhs are not good partners that can be trusted in the chairmanship position,” he added. “They can really damage the organization.”

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(Pictured above: An Internet user tries to log onto social networking site Facebook in Tehran May 25, 2009. The Farsi text reads “Dear Customer, access to this site is not possible. In the event that this site has been mistakenly filtered please email filter@dci.ir with the name of the domain and any other necessary explanation.”  REUTERS/Morteza Nikoubazl)

David L. Stern covers the former Soviet Union and the Black Sea region for GlobalPost, where this article originally ran.

KIEV, Ukraine  — Was Kyrgyzstan’s decision last week not to evict American forces from a strategic air base the result of the “Obama Effect” — President Barack Obama’s reputed benign influence on how other nations now view the United States — or evidence of the new president’s hardball negotiating tactics?

The answer holds implications for the American leader’s first meeting with Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian president, when he is in Moscow July 6 to 8. Depending on whether the Kyrgyz reversal was made with or without the Kremlin’s blessing, the base issue could be a sign of how U.S.-Russian relations will develop over the next four years.

Bishkek announced that an arrangement was reached last week to allow U.S. forces to remain at Manas air base, where they staff a major re-fueling and transport hub for operations in nearby Afghanistan. Parliament, in which all but a few seats are occupied by President Kurmanbek Bakiyev’s ruling party, quickly ratified the new agreement.

Rumors of a deal had been swirling around Washington and Bishkek for more than a month, but U.S. and Kyrgyz officials maintained a strict silence that allowed no official confirmation of the back-channel negotiations. Only three weeks ago, Foreign Minister Kadyrbek Sarbayev said that the decision to eject the Americans by August still stood.

Under the new agreement, Washington’s annual rent for using Manas will be upped from $17.5 million to $60 million. In addition, the U.S. will pay some $36 million to renovate Manas International Airport, where the base is located, just outside the capital, and tens of millions more to combat drug trafficking and terrorism, and to promote economic growth. Some news reports placed the total amount of the new package at about $180 million per year. When the U.S. first opened Manas in 2001, its rent was just $2 million.

It is still unclear, however, if the base’s core functions will in any way change. A Russian foreign ministry statement indicated that cargo through Kyrgyzstan would be limited to “non-lethal” goods. Kyrgyz and U.S. officials made no mention of this, however.

Last year more than 6,300 flights took off from the base, while some 189,000 troops passed through and more than 200 million pounds of fuel were used.

But a question remains: Namely, were the Russians aware of the negotiations, or were they kept out of the loop?

The Kremlin appeared to have a vested interest in Bishkek’s original action. President Bakiev made his announcement that he was evicting the Americans just after talks in Moscow where the Russians had promised the Kyrgyz some $2 billion in aid. Many observers believed Russia, which runs an air base of its own in Kyrgyzstan, used financial enticements to achieve its long-stated goal of closing Manas, though both sides denied this.

Moscow immediately put a positive spin on the U-turn. President Medvedev said that he welcomed the decision, while the Russian foreign ministry said Kyrgyzstan was acting in its rights as a “sovereign nation.”

Not everybody was so sanguine, however. An unnamed senior Russian diplomat told Russia’s Kommersant newspaper that the Kyrgyz had played a “dirty trick” and Moscow would carry out an “adequate response.”

Konstantin Zatulin, a Duma deputy with close ties to the Kremlin and foreign policy establishment, nevertheless believes that Moscow did give its blessing to the negotiations. “Obama’s arrival played a substantive, important role <in the Kremlin’s position>. He created the ground for a new Russian-American relationship.”

Others do not doubt that some Russian officials are dissatisfied, but in the end their opinions matter little. “We have only two ‘senior diplomats’ — Putin and Medvedev,” said Aleksei Malashenko, a Eurasia expert at the Carnegie Center in Moscow, referring to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

If the Russians were on board, some experts wonder if they received anything for their acquiescence — an American concession to abandon an anti-missile defense shield in Eastern Europe, for example. This, however, would be a risky move, as it could be interpreted as a betrayal of the two countries that pushed for the shield, Poland and the Czech Republic.

But others say that the Russians were in fact not informed until the last minute. This raises the question of what measures they will take next. Just prior to the decision to kick the Americans out, Kyrgyzstan experienced a debilitating cyber-attack which some experts subscribed to the Kremlin.

On the other hand, the Americans may have simply handed the Russians a fait accompli, which Moscow, on the eve of its first summit with the new president, will have to accept.

“My sense is that they are as mad as hell,” said Stephen Blank, a professor of national securities studies at the U.S. Army War College. “They thought they had it locked up and we beat them.”

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