Kyrgyz opposition leader claims control a day after president ousted in massive protests
By BAGILA BUKHARBAYEVA

AP Worldstream
Mar 26, 2005

Kyrgyzstan’s interim leader chose key officials for a new government
and moved quickly to try to quell widespread disorder and looting
following the ouster of longtime President Askar Akayev.

Hundreds of youths wandered the rain-slickened streets of Bishkek in
mobs, wielding sticks and throwing stones at cars. Helmeted police
in bulletproof vests chased them and fired shots in the air.

Akayev’s whereabouts remained a mystery, although a statement
purportedly from him said he was out of the country temporarily,
denied he had resigned, and denounced what he called the opposition’s
“unconstitutional coup d’etat.”

Opposition leader Kurmanbek Bakiyev emerged from the Parliament
building and said he had been named acting prime minister and
president.

“Freedom has finally come to us,” Bakiyev told a crowd in Bishkek.
Celebrations also were reported in southern Kyrgyzstan, where the
popular uprising began earlier this month in the impoverished Central
Asian nation.

But looting continued in the darkened capital Friday night, with
shots fired near the central department store on the main avenue,
witnesses said.

“The city looks as if it has gone mad,” said Felix Kulov, a prominent
opposition figure who was released from prison during Thursday’s
uprising and appointed coordinator of law enforcement.

At Akayev’s lavish residence on Bishkek’s outskirts, a security
guard who identified himself only as Col. Alymkulov said the house
was empty and untouched by looters.

Bakiyev’s appointment as acting president was endorsed by a newly
restored parliament of lawmakers who held seats before this year’s
disputed elections, which fueled protests against Akayev.

Bakiyev chose mostly prominent opposition figures for the posts of
foreign, defense and finance ministers and chief prosecutor. For the
job of interior minister, he picked Myktybek Abdyldayev, a former
chief prosecutor who had been fired Wednesday by Akayev.

He appointed them as acting ministers, thereby avoiding the need for
approval by parliament’s upper house.

Bakiyev also signed an order appointing a communications minister and
governors of the northern Chui and the southern Osh and Jalal-Abad
regions, which were the epicenter of anti-Akayev protests.

The new leaders’ immediate challenge in the strategic nation _ it
has both Russia and U.S. military bases and borders on China _ was in
halting vandalism and looting that left major stores in Bishkek gutted
and damaged by youths who roamed the capital overnight. Kulov urged
police, who have virtually disappeared from the streets, to return
to work or face punishment, but he acknowledged few had shown up.

“It’s an orgy going on here,” Kulov told reporters. “We have arrested
many people, we are trying to do something, but we physically lack
people.”

A shopping center on the main avenue was destroyed by fire and
strewn with wreckage, as smoke hung in the air. At another shop
gutted by fire, children and the elderly searched through what was
left after looting overnight. Cars were picked clean, their windows
and tires gone.

After weeks of intensifying protests in the south, propelled by
widespread anger over the disputed elections, events moved quickly
on Thursday and Friday, with crowds taking over government buildings
in the capital with little resistance and the sudden flight of Akayev.

The Red Cross reported dozens injured in the turmoil Thursday, while
lawmaker Temir Sariyev said three people had been killed and about
100 injured overnight.

“An unconstitutional coup d’etat has been staged in Kyrgyzstan,”
Akayev said in the statement distributed to some media in Kyrgyzstan.

“My current stay outside the country is temporary,” the statement
said. “Rumors of my resignation are deliberate, malicious lies.”

In the e-mailed statement, with the sender listed as the Kyrgyz
presidential press service, Akayev said he had given orders not to
use force during the uprising, ignoring the advice of his aides,
and that he had left the country to avoid bloodshed.

Akayev’s spokesman, Dosali Esenaliyev, said he did not know of the
statement’s existence, and its authenticity could not be determined.

The Russian news agency Interfax said Akayev and his family were in
neighboring Kazakhstan, but it later cited unspecified sources as
saying he had left that country.

Kulov said Akayev “had a chance to resign, but he fled.”

“He wanted to go to Russia, but the Russians didn’t accept him,”
he said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said the Kremlin wouldn’t object if
Akayev wants to go to Russia. Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander
Yakovenko said Moscow doesn’t know where Akayev was.

Bakiyev told the crowd in Bishkek that Akayev was “not on the territory
of the republic. I don’t know where he is.”

Akayev’s departure made Kyrgyzstan the third former Soviet republic
in the past 18 months _ after Georgia and Ukraine _ to see popular
protests bring down long-entrenched leaders widely accused of
corruption.

Putin, on a visit to Armenia, said “it’s unfortunate that yet again
in the post-Soviet space, political problems in a country are resolved
illegally and are accompanied by pogroms and human victims.”

He urged the Kyrgyz opposition to quickly restore order, and praised
them for helping develop bilateral ties during their earlier work in
the government.

The 60-year-old Akayev had led Kyrgyzstan since 1990, before it gained
independence in the Soviet collapse.

The takeover of government buildings followed similar seizures
by opposition activists in the country’s impoverished south. The
protests began even before the first round of parliamentary elections
Feb. 27 and swelled after March 13 run-offs that the opposition said
were seriously flawed. The ballots put Akayev’s son and daughter
in parliament.

Several thousand people in the southern town of Jalal-Abad celebrated
Akayev’s ouster, said Gamal Soronkulov, opposition chief of security
in Jalal-Abad. He said police started patrolling the town and that
security has been stepped up to avoid the looting that plagued Bishkek.

The town’s main square has been renamed Liberty Square, Soronkulov
said. Jalal-Abad saw the first seizure of a government building by
the opposition on March 4.

Opposition supporters in Osh, Kyrgyzstan’s second-largest city,
were preparing to hold similar celebrations Saturday, a police
official said.

There was no sign the new leadership would change policy toward the
West or Russia.

Acting Foreign Minister-designate Roza Otunbayeva said she would recall
the country’s ambassador to the United States, Baktybek Abdrisayev,
who has refused to recognize the new government.

Kyrgyzstan has been a conduit for drugs and a potential hotbed
of Islamic extremism. There was no indication, however, that the
opposition would be more amenable to Islamic fundamentalist influence
than Akayev’s government has been.

___

Associated Press writers Steve Gutterman and Kadyr Toktogulov
contributed to this story from Bishkek.