Kyrgyz Opposition Forms Interim Government

NOTE: In yesterday’s Daily News Article, The Wall Street Journal reported: “Protesters beat [Interior Minister Moldomusa] Kongantiev severely… Later Wednesday, Kyrgyzstan’s AKI news agency reported that Mr. Kongantiev had died of his injuries.”
The Moscow Times reports today (4/8/10): “The Kyrgyz Interior Ministry denied reports that Kongantiyev had died of his injuries.”

(by Alan Cullison and Ksdyr Toktogulov, The Wall Street Journal, WSJ.com) – BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan – Kyrgyzstan’s opposition said Thursday they have formed an interim government and would keep open a U.S. military base vital to the supply of troops in Afghanistan, but the Kyrgyz capital remained tense one day after bloody protests forced the president and his government to flee.

Kyrgyzstan’s president, Kurmanbek Bakiyev, told a Russian radio station that he had fled the capital to in the country’s southern regions, trying to rally support and deny opposition full control of the country, the Associated Press reported.

“I don’t admit defeat in any way,” he said, but added that he also recognized that “even though I am president, I don’t have any real levers of power.”
Riot police were attacked by anti-government protesters in Bishkek Wednesday.

Police were nowhere in sight on the streets of Bishkek, while mobs still roamed the streets and wandered through looted government buildings.

At a news conference in Bishkek the leader of the coalition of opposition groups, Roza Otunbayeva, said that the toppling of Mr. Bakiyev’s government would have no effect on the supply of troops to Afghanistan.

Ms. Otunbayev, a former foreign minister, said, “The status quo [on the base] remains in place. We won’t rush to decide on such issues.”

A more pressing problem for opposition figures appears to be keeping order in the capital, which was ransacked by looters in the second such change of government in five years.

But unlike in the Tulip Revolution of 2005, when the outgoing president fled the country, Mr. Bakiyev may be trying to hang on, raising the possibility of a north-south split that politicians here worry could erupt into serious conflict.

Health Ministry officials raised the death toll in Wednesday’s violence to 75, with more than 1000 injured.

The U.S. military base is a key transit point for U.S. troops and supplies bound for Afghanistan: Last month alone, more than 50,000 U.S. and coalition troops passed through Manas en route to Afghanistan, according to U.S. military officials. The U.S. agreement allowing American use of the base in Kyrgyzstan, a mountainous, Muslim nation of five million, is set to expire soon.

With clashes intensifying Wednesday, Kyrgyzstan ordered a 12-hour halt to flights in and out of Bishkek’s international airport, which also houses the U.S. air field. The order prevented the U.S. military from operating its own flights, which shuttle to and from Afghanistan, U.S. military officials said.

The opposition figures were allies of Mr. Bakiyev during a popular revolt that swept him to power in 2005, and held positions in the early days of his government. But those alliances fractured, and Mr. Bakiyev gradually lost popularity as he shunted aside political rivals and democratic freedoms and appointed family and friends to government posts.

Last month, opposition leaders called for protests to be held this week, seizing on popular anger at a large increase in utility rates in the impoverished nation, and allegations of corrupt privatizations and misuse of development funds by the government.

A Russian media barrage critical of Mr. Bakiyev fed the antigovernment mood in Kyrgyzstan, a former Soviet republic.

As demonstrations began Tuesday in two provincial cities, the government responded by arresting key opposition figures-a move that helped fuel the larger-scale outburst the next day.

Crowds gathered in the capital of Bishkek on Wednesday near the [Kyrgyz government headquarters, known as the] White House. Police tried to disperse the crowd with tear gas and rubber bullets, but protesters disarmed some of the police and seized their vehicle carriers. At one point, the protesters tried to ram their way through White House gates with a commandeered armored personnel carrier. At least two people were killed after being shot by snipers, witnesses said.

Elsewhere in the country, protests also gathered steam and regional governors capitulated before angry crowds.

Most of the arrested leaders were released late Wednesday, and headed directly to a meeting with government officials, where they said leaders including the prime minister handed over power.

In the provincial city of Talas on Wednesday, several thousand protesters stormed the police station and seized two top deputies to Mr. Bakiyev who had taken refuge there, First Deputy Prime Minister Akylbek Japarov and Interior Minister Moldomusa Kongantiyev, who was stripped and beaten for more than an hour. Mr. Japarov lost an eye, a witness said.

U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley on Wednesday said Washington still recognized the Bakiyev government. “The situation on the ground is very fluid. We continue to monitor events as they unfold and are in touch with government officials and the opposition to encourage a peaceful resolution consistent with the rule of law,” he said.

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-The Associated Press contributed to this article.

Write to Alan Cullison at alan.cullison@wsj.com and Kadyr Toktogulov at kadyr.toktogulov@dowjones.com.

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