Page 48 - bne magazine September 2020 russia melting

48 I Eurasia bne September 2020
Lukashenko, centre, standing next to Daniyar Usenov, aka Daniil Timurovich Uritsky.
Lukashenko appears alongside “dead” ex-Kyrgyz PM after protests
of the company belongs, by means of British-registered companies,
to Asylbek Saliyev, the nephew of ex-Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, who was chased out of his job on the same day as Usenov.
Saliyev, who is still in his early 30s, owns majority stakes in two Scottish-based companies, Altastar and Maxforse. Those companies own 11 percent and 11.5 percent of BNBK, respectively, according to Naviny’s reporting.
Other stakes belong to the Belarusian government, which holds 25 percent, and companies based in the United Arab Emirates whose ultimate beneficiaries are unknown. Another 20 percent
is owned by a subsidiary of Chinese state-owned investment company CITIC Group Corporation. Other known stakeholders in 2019 were state-owned China Oil and Foodstuffs Corporation, with 9 percent, and Russia-based Viren- Invest, with 1 percent.
Saliyev is the son of Bakiyev’s brother, Janysh, who was at one time the object of an international arrest warrant
for mass murder, kidnapping and involvement in organized crime.
After President Bakiyev was ousted, he was offered asylum in Belarus
and quickly took up residence and citizenship there. But the whereabouts of Janysh remained a mystery for some time, however, until he was spotted hanging out in a Minsk
café in 2012.
It was Janysh Bakiyev that ran the Presidential Guard accused of being
Peter Leonard for Eurasianet
Of all the places that Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko could have visited in the hours after several cities in his country
were rocked by protests, he chose an agriculture biotechnology center.
And while at the facility in the Pukhovichi district, about one hour’s drive southeast of Minsk, he was shown around by a figure familiar
to connoisseurs of Kyrgyzstan’s recent past – one-time prime minister Daniyar Usenov.
Usenov is no run-of-the-mill former Kyrgyz prime minister. He was ousted from office on April 7, 2010, the day that dozens of his fellow citizens were shot dead by government forces as they protested against a corrupt elite.
Usenov is not mentioned by name in Belarusian state media reports on
www.bne.eu
Lukashenko’s tour of the premises of the Belarusian National Biotechnological Corporation, or BNBK, but he is seen in pictures, pointer in hand, explaining the company’s plans for the future.
The backstory of how this disgraced Kyrgyz official came to be involved so heavily in Belarusian agro-industry were
“Usenov denied that he is the former Prime Minister of Kyrgyzstan who has been convicted to life in prison in absentia in Kyrgyzstan and says the PM died in Malaysia in 2013”
uncovered last year by investigative journalists. Digging through BNBK’s papers, reporters at news website Naviny found that at least 22 percent
responsible for much of the shooting that led to the death of at least 87 people in the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek, on April 7, 2010. That was the most