Global General
Opposition says it leads Kyrgyzstan after uprising
(Agencies)
Updated: 2010-04-08 10:35
 |
Large Medium Small |
|
|
President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, who came to power in a similar popular uprising five years ago, was said to have fled to the southern city of Osh, and it was difficult to gauge how much of the impoverished, mountainous country the opposition controlled Wednesday.
|
||||
The opposition has called for the closure of the US air base in Manas outside the capital of Bishkek that is a key transit point for supplies essential to the war in nearby Afghanistan.
A senior US military official says some flights were briefly diverted at the base, but as far as military officials in Washington know, the base was never closed. Scheduled troop movements in and out of Afghanistan were not affected. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because base operations are sensitive.
During the day, protesters who were called into the streets by opposition parties stormed government buildings in Bishkek and battled with police amid volleys of tear gas. Groups of elite officers then fired with live ammunition.
The Health Ministry said 40 people died and more than 400 were wounded. Opposition activist Toktoim Umetaliyeva said at least 100 people were killed by police gunfire.
Crowds of demonstrators took control of the state TV building and looted it, then marched toward the Interior Ministry, according to Associated Press reporters on the scene, before changing direction and attacking a national security building nearby. They were repelled by security forces loyal to Bakiyev.
After nightfall, the opposition and its supporters appeared to gain the upper hand. An AP reporter saw opposition leader Keneshbek Duishebayev sitting in the office of the chief of the National Security Agency, Kyrgyzstan's successor to the Soviet KGB. Duishebayev issued orders on the phone to people he said were security agents, and he also gave orders to a uniformed special forces commando.
Duishebayev, the former interior minister, told the AP that "we have created units to restore order" on the streets. Many of the opposition leaders were once allies of Bakiyev, in some cases former ministers or diplomats.
Bakiyev may have fled to Osh, the country's second-largest city, where he has a home, Duishebayev said.
Since coming to power in 2005 amid street protests known as the Tulip Revolution, Bakiyev had ensured a measure of stability in the country of 5 million people, but the opposition says he has done so at the expense of democratic standards while enriching himself and his family. He gave his relatives, including his son, top government and economic posts and faced the same accusations of corruption and cronyism that led to the ouster of his predecessor, Askar Akayev.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin denied any involvement in the uprising.
"Russian officials have absolutely nothing to do with this," he said in Smolensk in response to a journalist's question. "Personally, these events caught me completely by surprise."
He also criticized Bakiyev's government for repeating Akayev's mistakes.
"When President Bakiyev came to power, he was very harshly critical of the fact that the relatives of the deposed President Akayev had taken positions throughout Kyrgyzstan's economy. I have the impression that Mr. Bakiyev is stepping on these same rakes."
