New Leadership Is Established In Kyrgyzstan
By Karl Vick
washingtonpost.com
Mar 26, 2005
BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan, March 25 — A day after chasing out a president
who ruled this mountainous former Soviet republic for 15 years,
Kyrgyzstan’s new leaders named an interim government Friday and
struggled to suppress the looting and arson that have ruined scores
of shops in the capital.
Kurmanbek Bakiyev, a former prime minister turned opposition leader,
was returned to his former post by parliament. He was also given the
duties of president, the title held since 1990 by Askar Akayev, who
disappeared Thursday as demonstrators surged into his headquarters,
known as the White House, in the third successful street revolt in
a former Soviet republic in 16 months.
The United States and Russia, which both maintain military bases
in the poor, largely Muslim country of 5 million people, signaled
Friday they were ready to do business with the new leadership that
was taking shape.
“Who’s running our country?” asked the banner headline in a newspaper
here in the capital.
Bakiyev said he was, and called on his countrymen to prevent a repeat
of the looting and violence that erupted after nightfall Thursday,
causing at least three deaths and scores of injuries.
“As the prime minister and the acting president of Kyrgyzstan, I
address you and ask you to be wise, be patient and happy,” Bakiyev
told a respectful crowd of several thousand in front of the White
House, which protesters had overrun 24 hours earlier. “Let’s work on
concrete things now.”
But Akayev appeared to argue that he was still the legitimate leader.
In neighboring Kazakhstan, where Russian media reports said he took
refuge before leaving for some other destination, a statement bearing
his name declared that “an unconstitutional coup d’etat has been
staged in Kyrgyzstan.”
It said that “my current stay outside the country is temporary.
Rumors of my resignation are deliberate, malicious lies.” The statement
said he had possessed the means to suppress the insurrection but chose
not to, so as to avoid violence. There was no way to authenticate
the statement.
A mountainous nation with a nomadic heritage, Kyrgyzstan is one of
five sparsely inhabited republics in Central Asia that were ruled
from Moscow during Soviet days. Akayev, a physicist and former
Soviet legislator, led it into independence and governed as one of
the region’s more tolerant leaders. But, remaining year after year,
he came to be widely viewed in the country as an authoritarian ruler
who used his power to enrich his family.
On Friday night, officials organized civilian patrols to bolster
the handful of uniformed police officers who returned to duty after
disappearing from the streets in face of the demonstrators’ advance.
Gunfire sounded about midnight, apparently warning shots that combined
with a rainstorm to disperse a crowd of hundreds of youths approaching
a shopping center.
“God forbid anybody would have to have such a revolution,” Felix Kulov,
a political prisoner who was freed from jail Thursday, said of the
violence. “It was a rampage of looting, just like in Iraq.” On Friday,
Kulov was put in charge of security services.
By day, the capital, which sprawls at the foot of the mountain range
that defines this striking country, was almost serene. Traffic was
steady, and city work crews in orange vests kept busy clearing debris
from the scores of stores looted or burned overnight. “Who needs to
tell us to do this? This is our work. This is our responsibility,”
said Jildash Abdikulov, who was supervising a crew in front of a
charred store.
Knots of men stood sentry outside the barricaded gates of the city’s
main market, an improvised warren of steel shipping containers and
stalls. The mood was subdued, not tense, and women and children joined
men thronging the sidewalks in the spring weather.
In the city’s main square, crowds listened for much of the day
to speakers who mounted a portable podium one after another. They
alternately congratulated the gathering for the revolution, condemned
Akayev as greedy and urged control of the streets after dark.
“We’re all really frustrated because of what happened last night,”
one woman told the crowd, which was sprinkled with young men who had
tied red cloths around their coat sleeves to show they were militia
volunteers.
A day after the government fell, there were suggestions that dissidents
in other parts of the former Soviet Union might try to replicate
the revolt’s quick, unforeseen success. In Uzbekistan, which borders
Kyrgyzstan, opposition parties issued a joint statement expressing
certainty that “the process of democratic reforms that started in
Kyrgyzstan will highly influence all parts of Central Asia.”
In Minsk, the capital of Belarus, about 1,000 people gathered near
the palace of President Alexander Lukashenko in hopes of touching off
a larger movement, but they were dispersed by riot police, according
to the Associated Press.
Russian President Vladimir Putin gave the appearance of taking the
revolution in stride. After backing the losing side in revolts in
Georgia and Ukraine, the Kremlin made no public effort to protect
Akayev, though Putin said he would be welcome in Russia.
“We know these people pretty well,” Putin told reporters during a
visit to Armenia, referring to the opposition. “And they have done
quite a lot to establish good relations between Russia and Kyrgyzstan.”
“For its part, Russia will do its best to keep up the current level
of relations between the states and improve relations between the
people,” he said.
But some Russian analysts called the development bad news for Moscow.
“The Central Asian region now faces a risk of Islamization,” said
Sergei Markov, an architect of Putin’s quasi-authoritarian governing
policy known as managed democracy, according to the Knight Ridder
newspaper chain. “In addition, drug trafficking from Central Asia to
Europe via Russia will certainly grow.”
Akayev was a favorite of Washington, which welcomed his early
initiatives to reform a Soviet-style economy and nurture democratic
institutions. But there were signs Friday that the United States was
readily accepting his demise.
As Bakiyev worked his way Friday from the plaza podium toward the
parliament building behind a human chain of security volunteers,
he told reporters he had spoken with the U.S. ambassador in Bishkek,
Stephen Young. “He says, and I agree with him, that we are going to
work together,” Bakiyev said. “We will continue our cooperation.”
The State Department said that Young had met with Bakiyev on Thursday
evening and that the ambassador had been in regular telephone contact
with him and other interim leaders.
A Western observer who lives in Bishkek said Akayev had worn out
his welcome with his own people. When protests first erupted in the
southern part of the country, an area both poorer and ethnically
distinct from Akayev’s native north, the incumbent dismissed the
uproar and refused to meet with the opposition.
“The fact is the government didn’t have much support and it just
started crumbling,” said the observer, who spoke on condition that
he not be further identified.
On Thursday, Ishenbai Kadyrbekov was briefly made acting president
because of his position as speaker of the legislative assembly, the
Interfax news agency said. But on Friday he was replaced by Bakiyev,
a native of Jalal-Abad, a city in the south and an early center of
opposition. Bakiyev served as prime minister from 2000 to 2002, before
resigning after security forces killed six protesters in a clash.
The government he began putting in place Friday is drawn largely from
other mainstream politicians who had fallen out of favor with Akayev.
Kulov, for instance, once served as mayor of Bishkek. Roza Otunbayeva,
a frequent guest on English-language news shows, has been named
foreign minister, a post she held under Akayev. She said a presidential
contest may be set for June.
Residents said this country’s sense of close kinship made Thursday
night’s violence particularly hard to accept. Smoke was still pouring
from one downtown mall at midday. Pizza shops and other businesses
were missing windows. By afternoon, shop owners were emptying their
shelves and preparing to guard stock too heavy to pack up.
Staff writer Robin Wright in Washington contributed to this report.