Revolution in Kyrgyzstan

Rivals groups fight at Kyrgyz high court

Jun 1, 2005


By Olga Dzyubenko

BISHKEK (Reuters) - Rival groups fought for an hour with sticks, stones and horsewhips at Kyrgyzstan's Supreme Court on Wednesday, as a crowd stormed the building to throw out protesters who had occupied it since late April.

The incident underscored the volatility of the impoverished Central Asian state more than two months after the government fell in the face of popular unrest over disputed elections.

A Reuters' correspondent saw some 200 attackers -- many of them with sticks -- throwing out blankets and mattresses used by about 100 people who seized the building in late April.

After an hour of clashes, in which some men threw stones and women flogged each other with horse-whips, unarmed police and soldiers managed to separate the sides.

One witness said she had seen several injured taken away in ambulances. Police declined to comment.

"National Guard servicemen are now in control of the building," police colonel Temirkan Subanov told journalists at the scene, littered with the belongings of the ejected protesters.

But the situation was tense and many of those involved were seen roaming in nearby streets.

"I stand for justice, and the Supreme Court must resume its work," said a woman, who was among the attackers and who declined to give her name.

"The ones who occupied the building were only drinking tea inside the court. Now it's high time for those (judges) appointed by the authorities to re-start their work."

The protesters had taken over the building to press demands that the court resign.

The clashes also highlighted the tense divide between the mountainous nation's more developed north and the ethnically and culturally mixed south.

The attackers were from the north, arriving in buses to restore what they called "the people's power." Their opponents were mostly from the south.

Former President Askar Akayev -- forced into exile by March riots -- has repeatedly accused the new leadership of inflaming regional rivalry. The West has urged Kyrgyzstan to hold a free and democratic July 10 presidential poll to win credibility for a new leader.

Supporters of losing Kyrgyz lawmakers picketing Supreme Court again
02.06.2005


BISHKEK, June 2 (Itar-Tass) - Supporters of the losing candidates in Kyrgyzstan's parliamentary election last March returned to the Supreme Court on Thursday to picket the building and demand the resignation of its chairman Kurmanbek Osmonov and several his subordinates.

Some 50 people are blocking the main entrance, while about 20 gathered near the escape way. "We'll leave only after our demands are met; even if we have to die," a picketer told Itar-Tass.

The protesters have been blocking the Supreme Court since April 22. Judges were barred from entering their offices. But on Wednesday, some 300 people, who said they were "ordinary citizens" forced their way into the building and threw out the rally participants.

The conflicting parties were stoning each other, while the defenders were splashing petrol on the advancing groups threatening to set them on fire.

Police who were watching nearby did not intervene.

The defenders later said 15 of their colleagues had been injured. Three of them received serious injuries, they claimed.

On Thursday, a triple circle of National Guards was detailed to protect the Court's main entrance. Riot police wearing bullet-proof vests sealed off the adjacent streets. They let the picketers continue their action, but barred them from entering the building.

Some picketers said several judged had sneaked into the building in the morning, but others were stopped by the protesters.

There have been no indications as to when Kyrgyzstan's Supreme Court might resume work.

Kazakh President Takes Steps to Ensure an Easy Re-election

By CHRISTOPHER PALA
International Herald Tribune
Published: June 26, 2005

ALMATY, Kazakhstan - Last year, the International Republican Institute commissioned a poll here that found that despite gripes about corruption, the citizens of this booming former Soviet republic were optimistic about the future and supported President Nursultan Nazarbayev.

By inviting Western oil companies to invest billions in huge but hard-to-reach oil deposits that the Soviets had ignored, Mr. Nazarbayev, 65, a former steel engineer who has ruled for 15 years, has created one of the most vibrant economies in the former Soviet Union. He is expected to handily win re-election to yet another term in December.

Still, he appears to be taking no chances. The Parliament, which he controls, has been churning out repressive laws that among other steps will force out many international nongovernmental organizations and sharply curtail the rights of protesters and religious groups.

The reasons may largely be found across Kazakhstan's borders - in Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine and Georgia, where entrenched leaders who presided over corrupt governments were ousted after rigging elections. In all cases, foreign and domestic nongovernmental organizations were instrumental, though to varying degrees, in countering the effects of a muzzled press.

In addition, amendments that are expected to become law would impose such burdensome requirements on nongovernmental organizations - many of which promote seemingly benign causes like helping the disabled - as to make it impossible for them to continue functioning, the heads of several groups said.

"It's completely unnecessary because there is no crisis here," said Valentina Sivryukova, president of the Confederation of NonGovernmental Organizations and a supporter of Mr. Nazarbayev.

Valery Kotovich, a member of Parliament who sponsored the amendments, denied they would establish conditions different from those in the West. "We just want to make sure these organizations work under strict control because some are covers for extremist groups," he said. "If I went to your country, do you think I could operate an organization without strict controls?"

On June 15, the day the amendments were approved in the lower house of Parliament, George Soros, the American financier and philanthropist, came to Almaty for a conference to urge Mr. Nazarbayev to reverse course. "Uzbekistan's massacre in Andijan provides a terrifying demonstration of where a repressive course may lead," he said, referring to the melee on May 13, when Uzbek troops fired indiscriminately on a protest there, reportedly killing several hundred people.

Yevgeni Zhovtis, the leader of the Kazakhstan International Bureau of Human Rights, said the government wrongly believed that organizations supported by the West were "some kind of fifth column they need to control." But, he said, "by oppressing the moderates who work on building a civil society, the president is simply encouraging the extremists he's most afraid of."

Last Updated: Monday, 11 July, 2005, 00:19 GMT 01:19 UK

Decisive win for Kyrgyz president

Bakiev, a former opposition leader, has led his country since March
Kyrgyzstan's acting president, Kurmanbek Bakiev, has won a landslide victory in a presidential election.

With most of the votes counted, Mr Bakiev has almost 90% support, giving him an insurmountable lead, the election commission said.

He took control of Kyrgyzstan when former President Askar Akayev was forced to resign, amid allegations of corruption and misrule.

The vote has been ruled valid because turnout reached the required 50% mark.

Mr Bakiev's success is due to a pact he made with his rival, former Prime Minister Felix Kulov, says the BBC's Ian MacWilliam in the capital, Bishkek.

Mr Kulov withdrew his candidacy in return for a promise to be offered the post of prime minister in a new government.

Despite passing the necessary threshold, the turnout appears to be low. Four hours before the polls closed, only 53% had cast their vote.

Some people in the former Soviet republic have complained that the acting president had no strong competitors.

Mr Bakiev's five competitors in the presidential race were all relatively unknown. The closest of his opponents polled only about 4%.

But Mr Bakiev hailed the poll, which he said provided every citizen of the country with the right to choose.

"For the first time in recent years, the elections are actually elections," he said after casting his ballot near his home in the capital, Bishkek.

"Nobody is pressuring anyone, nobody is threatening anyone," he added.

The demonstrations that eventually drove Mr Akayev into exile were triggered by disputed parliamentary elections in February and March.

The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) sent about 300 observers to monitor the vote, but their verdict will not be announced before Monday.

The election is being closely watched by the US and Russia, which both have military bases in Kyrgyzstan, our correspondent says.

Russia and China have been are making it increasingly clear they want to limit the US presence in Central Asia.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which monitored Sunday's presidential election in Kyrgyzstan, said the vote marked tangible progress toward democracy. The elections were held less than four months after former President Askar Akayev fled the country in the wake of violent anti-government protests.

The head of the OSCE's long-term mission to Kyrgyzstan, Ambassador Lubomir Kopaj, hailed what he says is the country's swift progress toward meeting international standards for democratic elections.

BISHKEK (Reuters) - Kyrgyzstan's newly elected president pledged on Monday to relaunch democratic reforms in his Central Asian state, whose image as an island of freedom in a mostly authoritarian area had been lost under his predecessor.

Kurmanbek Bakiyev questioned the continuing presence of a U.S. military base on Kyrgyz soil while making no mention of a similar Russian facility, signaling he would respect long-standing ties to Moscow.

"We will do everything for Kyrgyzstan's democratic principles of development to strengthen and deepen," he told his first news briefing after sweeping up just under 90 percent of the vote in a poll endorsed by international observers.

"We must do this in order to have truly independent mass media, freedom of speech, and for civil society to be active in our country," Bakiyev added.

Kyrgyzstan: Revolution Anniversary Highlights Political Failures

March 23, 2007
RFE/RL

Kyrgyzstan marks the second anniversary on March 24 of what some have dubbed the "People's Revolution" or "Tulip Revolution" in that country, when demonstrators chased long-time President Askar Akaev from power in 2005.

The images from two years ago are still clear in many people's minds -- thousands gathered outside the government building in Kyrgyzstan's capital, Bishkek.

Members of the crowd stormed the government building as police stood by and watched. By then, President Akaev was outside the country. Protests that had begun a month earlier -- initially against elections that many felt were rigged to put Akaev loyalists into parliament -- had expanded into anti-Akaev rallies.

Jubilant crowds celebrated, a previously embattled political opposition prepared to assume leadership of the country. And media in many countries touted the change of power in Kyrgyzstan as the latest in a series of "color" revolutions to oust authoritarian governments in the former Soviet Union.

Hope Fades?

It was a period of hope for Kyrgyzstan's people. The dominance of the Akaev family was broken, and many people hoped new leadership would benefit the country.

Two years later, there are still questions about whether the ouster marked a change for the better.

Bakiev delivered a televised speech late today about the "People's Revolution" as Kyrgyzstan prepared to mark the anniversary.

Bakiev told the country that he supports the idea of constitutional reforms. [..] "I am ready to urgently establish a working group to prepare new amendments and changes [in] the constitution, and to send an agreed and checked version of the constitution to the parliament to consider it -- and, if the need arises, even to put it into a referendum."

Waiting For Action

The president's optimism is not universal. [..] Bakiev spoke frequently about constitutional reform after the revolution -- especially while he was campaigning for the presidency in the special election of July 2005. But after winning that vote, Bakiev increasingly spoke in favor of delaying constitutional reform. And he openly opposed changing the constitution to strengthen the role of the legislative branch.

Street demonstrations in November 2006 forced Bakiev to sign a compromise constitution that reduced executive powers in favor of the legislature. But Bakiev allies in parliament subsequently amended that document (in December), restoring much of the power that Bakiev had signed away.

Legislator Karganbek Samakov blamed the reluctance to change on a leadership that is still entrenched in old ideas. Samakov cites the example of Georgia -- the scene of the first of the so-called "color" revolutions (known as the Rose Revolution) -- to illustrate his point.

"Nothing has changed in the life of the average [Kyrgyz] person," Samakov told RFE/RL. "Take, for example, Georgia; there was a revolution there as well. There, young [people] came to power, [and] the budget of the country increased threefold. I had great hopes for the new authorities [in Kyrgyzstan], but unfortunately I was disappointed. I think that power needs to be handed over to young reformers, young people who have a new way of thinking."

History could be coming full circle. Opposition groups are calling for President Bakiev to leave office, complaining that he has not fulfilled the ideals that sparked the events of two years ago. Demonstrations are being organized for early April, and the demands are familiar: constitutional reform, eliminating corruption, and an end to perceived rule by one family -- in this case Bakiev's. Opponents want an early presidential election.

Many of the opposition leaders calling for the early election were once Bakiev supporters -- most notably, his former Prime Minister Feliks Kulov.