I know I should be working on my thesis, but I need a quick diversion. (I hope none of my readers are looking at this, wondering where my priorities are!)

I’ll get to Kyrgyzstan in another post, but right now I want to focus for a bit on Mongolia. Rather than doing a postmortem on an event, I thought I’d try and capture (as best I can from Massachusetts) what’s going on right now in Mongolia.

For convenience, I’ll split this into three posts - a recap/summary, some second-hand observations and then some more academic commentary.

That said, let’s start in media res with a disturbing occurrence reported on at Neweurasia: “Altandush,” a young protestor, lights himself on fire. What prompted this extreme action? While, as a commentor mentioned, self-immolation is not unheard of, though it is in any circumstance extreme.

Here’s a brief chronology, compiled from news sources:

April 5: Resolute Reform and Just Society protestors, along with SAPU victims, attempt to enter the government palace but are repelled by police.

April 6: Protest challenges government’s signing of a pact with Ivanhoe Mines, demands mass resignations.

April 7: 2000+ protest calling for government-wide resignation.

April 8: Former tenants of the SAPU trade center, which burned down in December 2005 challenge the government to force the trade center’s owners to compensate the victims for their losses.

April 9: Protests continue, though, as Luke pointed out, Ivanhoe followed the letter of the law perfectly.

April 10: Students accept Tg1000-5000 from the MPRP.

April 10: Protestors block ambulance, patient inside dies.

April 12: Protests turn ugly as fights break out

April 13: S. Ganbaatar, of Resolute Reform, declares that the government must act by April 18.

April 15-ish: Ivanhoe makes a whole lot of concessions, but protests continue to escalate.

April 18: Unions and big business band together to demand fiscal reform.

April 18: 3000 protest in Sukhbaatar Square. No police intervention necessary.

April 18: Protestors announce a hunger strike.The head of Altjin says that she will be able to pay some, but not all, of what the protestors demand. 11 businessmen are compensated 30% of their losses.

April 20: SAPU victims continue hunger strike as MPs meet with them and the Altjin company.

April 21: The MPRP releases a statement saying that they’re going to cooperate more with NGOs/civil society.

It seems to have calmed down a bit in the last day or so, judging by the fall-off in news. Thanks to Luke Distelhorst (another Washingtonian! And Nathan makes three) for ongoing coverage - keep up the great work!