BISHKEK -- There is a monument in the center of Kyrgyzstan's capital that honors the people killed amid political turbulence more than a dozen years ago.
It shows three cast-bronze figures pushing a wall of darkness away from a larger, light-colored marble wall, symbolizing good.
Not long after word broke of an extraordinary meeting at the end of last week in Dubai chaired by Kyrgyzstan's current president, Sadyr Japarov, that all five of his predecessors attended, social-media users were busy photoshopping the monument.
One reversed the image to show the bronze figures pushing the wall of darkness back toward the light. Another doodled stick figures, apparently representing Kyrgyzstan's disgraced former leaders, crossing a bridge between the two walls, from darkness to a checkered-flag finish on the other side.
In a February 20 Facebook post on the gathering, Japarov wrote that the idea of the meeting was to bring unity to the country.
"Of course the former presidents spoke bitter words, aired grievances, and admitted their mistakes. But most importantly they were able to forgive each other. This was my goal," Japarov said in his post.
In Kyrgyzstan, many people see their former leaders as stained by corruption and, in some cases, with blood on their hands.
Those concerns apply particularly to Kyrgyzstan's second president, Kurmanbek Bakiev -- Japarov's Belarus-domiciled former boss -- who was in 2014 sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment in a trial over the deaths of scores of protesters in April 2010.
Revolutions And Betrayals
Even taking the people of Kyrgyzstan out of the equation, there would have been lots of forgiving to do between those present at the surprise meeting.
Japarov was only the third Kyrgyz leader in the room to come to office on the back of political turbulence in Kyrgyzstan's 31-year history as an independent state.
First President Askar Akaev, now 78, was overthrown in the 2005 Tulip Revolution that brought Bakiev to the presidency.
Five years later, Roza Otunbaeva and Almazbek Atambaev rose to power at Bakiev's expense in the April revolution of 2010 -- Kyrgyzstan's bloodiest with more than 100 people killed.
Otunbaeva secured an 18-month interim presidency via a referendum that overhauled the constitution, emboldening parliament and preventing incumbent leaders from running for office a second time.
Atambaev became president when her term ended in the second half of 2011.
A second peaceful transfer of power and a first between elected leaders followed in 2017, as Atambaev's then-ally Sooronbai Jeenbekov secured a first-round victory with strong backing from the outgoing head of state.
But relations between those two deteriorated quickly.
In 2019, parliamentarians voted to strip Atambaev of his immunity as an ex-president, a move that allowed him to face trial on graft charges.
Atambaev was then arrested during a raid on his private residence, where armed supporters had gathered to protect the former president and where a security officer was shot dead during the clashes.
He was only released from jail on health grounds one week ago.
Japarov, who then dethroned Jeenbekov during yet another political crisis in 2020, denied that he had influenced the court's decision to release a man during whose presidency he was himself arrested and jailed.
But he did say of Atambaev's release: "We should be able to forgive."
'Too Much Blood Has Been Shed'
These are the twists and turns of Kyrgyzstan's 21st-century history that make a meeting of Kyrgyzstan's current and former leaders so remarkable.
But was the clear-the-air meeting really as successful as Japarov claims? And was unity the only goal of the unusual get-together?
Atambaev's account of the meeting raised immediate doubts about both of those things.
Kyrgyzstan's fourth president said he had no idea what he was walking into when he flew to Dubai for the meeting just a few days after walking free from jail, believing he was only going to meet with Japarov and his security chief, Kamchibek Tashiev.
"I am also for peace and unity in the country, which I stated. And I appreciate the good intentions of President Japarov," Atambaev said in a post-meeting statement shared by a close ally on Facebook.
"But at the end of the meeting a situation arose, in which I had to leave…without saying goodbye to anyone. If the need arises in the future I will, of course, provide details."
Atambaev then appeared to hint at what that situation was, when he added: "The establishment of peace and unity in our country and the return of the Bakievs to Kyrgyzstan are two big differences. Combining them will bring a completely different result. Too much blood has been shed; there is too much that should not and cannot be forgotten."
Japarov already broke precedent by allowing Kyrgyzstan's first president, Akaev, to travel to the country in 2021 from Russia, where he has lived in exile since his ouster.
In January 2022, Kyrgyzstan's prosecutor-general said that all outstanding charges against Akaev had been dropped, allowing him to travel to Kyrgyzstan with no fear of arrest.
Akaev has responded to this new privilege with gushing praise for Japarov.
In an interview with RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service, the career physicist-turned-politician reiterated his support for the president again and again, while noting his "wisdom" in convening the meeting.
Like Atambaev, he said he had not known he would be meeting his fellow former leaders in Dubai, but he contradicted Atambaev's account of what happened.
"I can say with authority that everyone sat to the end and ate. And everyone supported Sadyr Japarov's initiative," Akaev said, adding that the return of the Bakievs to Kyrgyzstan had not been raised by the president.
Japarov reinforced that point during an interview with the state media outlet Kabar on January 20.
"There is a court judgment against Bakiev. If he returns [to Kyrgyzstan] he should be arrested," said Japarov, who claimed to have used his own money to arrange the summit.
His office did not respond to a request for comment from RFE/RL.
Akaev's return to Kyrgyzstan was controversial, not least because beyond widespread evidence of corruption his reign saw six civilians shot dead during a protest in the provincial town of Aksy events in 2002.
The uprising that unseated him was relatively bloodless, however.
The bloody 2010 uprising also set the scene for clashes between ethnic Kyrgyz and Uzbeks in southern Kyrgyzstan that left hundreds of people dead two months later.
At the time of the revolution, Japarov had a plum job, serving as the director of the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption under the State Personnel Service.
After gaining power, Japarov called for a reinvestigation of the guilt for the April revolution, although there has been no visible movement on that front and his addresses on the anniversaries of the tragedy have not absolved Bakiev in any way.
But as one politician jailed under Bakiev argued this week, Kyrgyzstan's second president simply isn't the kind of person that Kyrgyzstan's sixth president should be seen meeting at all.
"Instead of bringing [Bakiev] to Kyrgyzstan and imprisoning him, [Japarov] gives him tea in Dubai. What nonsense! This meeting is a crime in itself!" complained Ismail Isakov, a former defense minister and parliamentarian.
Bakiev is not known to have released any statement about the meeting. RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service has attempted to reach out to the former president for comment.
