"No United States laws would be violated if contracts were awarded to companies owned by relatives of a foreign heads of state."

Fuel Sales to U.S. at Issue in Kyrgyzstan

Back in 2005, the last time angry crowds toppled the government of Kyrgyzstan, the United States found itself in an awkward position: among the rallying cries was an allegation that the ruling family had benefited handsomely from Pentagon contracts. Now, substantially the same thing appears to be happening again.

Senior leaders in the interim government that took power last week are accusing the United States of allowing family members of the ousted president, Kurmanbek Bakiyev, to enrich themselves with contracts supplying jet fuel to Manas Air Base outside Bishkek, the Kyrgyz capital.

Companies controlled by the president’s 32-year-old son, Maksim, who became a loathed figure during the uprising, skimmed as much as $8 million a month from fuel sales to the base, according to senior leaders in the new government, relying on a monopoly and favorable taxes.

...officials have already begun releasing details of an elaborate payment system for up to a quarter million gallons of jet fuel used at the base each day.

They accuse the United States of having used that system to curry favor with the ousted president in order to hold onto the air base...

Officials with the military agency that buys fuel, the Defense Energy Supply Corporation, have said no United States laws would be violated if contracts were awarded to companies owned by relatives of a foreign heads of state.

...In the haste of the buildup for the war in Afghanistan after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, companies controlled by Aidar Akayev, son of Askar Akayev, who was then the president, had wound up with lucrative contracts to sell fuel to Manas, according to Kyrgyz officials.

...Turusbek Koyenaliyev, an aide to the new acting minister for economic affairs, said one company supplying the base today was Manas Aerofuels. He said it was controlled by Maksim Bakiyev, the son of the president.

...Alikbek Jekshenkulov, who was serving as Mr. Bakiyev’s foreign minister at the time, said the ruling family consolidated its control of the trade in 2006, after Mr. Bakiyev issued the first of several public threats to expel the base. The threat, he said, was used to compel the transfer of the remaining fuel contracts to the Bakiyev-family-controlled firms.

...“Nothing changed,” Mr. Jekshenkulov said. “They changed the names.”

ANDREW E. KRAMER
New York Times, April 11, 2010