Foreign Correspondence

[Amaunet]

Kyrgyzstan government says it will crush unrest

Acting President Kurmanbek Bakiyev was put in power by an unruly mob. Now that his authority is being threatened by an unruly mob he has given the go-ahead to crush unruly mobs. Unruly mobs have short life spans.

-Am


June 18, 2005 4:05 PM

By Dmitry Solovyov

BISHKEK (Reuters) - Kyrgyzstan's government warned on Saturday it would take tough new measures to crush unrest, after protesters angry at the exclusion of their candidate from elections briefly seized the main government building on Friday.

"We have been too shy to show force to the people. From now on, we will use force in a pretty tough way," Acting Deputy Prime Minister Adakhan Madumarov told a news conference, in response to a question from a German journalist.

"In your report, say hello to Germany so they send us democracy tools like water cannon and tear gas grenades."

The government describes Friday's protests as an attempted coup by supporters of former President Askar Akayev, who fled into exile in Moscow after an uprising in March.

Hundreds of troops and police were still deployed around the main government building in the capital Bishkek on Saturday.

Acting President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, whose face smiles down from billboards all across Bishkek, is widely expected to win a July 10 presidential election.

His government is keen to avoid any comparison between the March uprising which brought it to power -- a rebellion it describes as a democratic revolution -- and Friday's events.

"One can be talking today of a counter-revolution financed by the former regime," Acting Deputy Prime Minister Daniyar Usenov told the news conference.

He conceded that Friday's unrest showed the government had yet to establish full control over the volatile country.

"We realize not all district heads or regional governors support today's state power ... I have no doubts that if yesterday's coup attempt had succeeded, a certain judge would have ruled already in the evening that it was all lawful."

Local media said prosecutors would travel to Moscow to question Akayev about the riots.

Bishkek's leafy streets were calm on Saturday, despite earlier fears of looting of the kind that followed the March 24 uprising. It was business as usual for shops and cafes.

Police, troops and civilian volunteers guarded the "White House" government area, hiding in the shade from sweltering heat. Large groups of mounted police patrolled the town.

Friday's protesters said their action was provoked by the central election commission's refusal to register Urmatbek Baryktabasov as a candidate for the presidential poll.

The authorities say Baryktabasov is ineligible to run because he holds a Kazakh passport. They say the protesters were paid by people close to the Akayev family keen to use his exclusion as an excuse to seize back power.

The Friday events have rattled nerves already stretched by the crushing of protests in neighboring Uzbekistan last month, when troops fired on demonstrators and killed hundreds of people.





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