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DZHALAL ABAD, KYRGYZSTAN -- Thousands of people stormed government buildings and at least four policemen were reported beaten to death yesterday as protests against President Askar Akayev swelled in southern Kyrgyzstan.
The opposition, protesting against what it says were rigged parliamentary elections, effectively seized control of the southern Kyrgyzstani town of Dzhalal Abad, after Friday's protests in nearby Osh and two other southern regions.
A police source in Bishkek, the capital, said four policemen had been beaten to death in Dzhalal Abad in clashes that erupted after police fired shots but failed to stop the demonstrators.
"The police opened fire, and I saw with my own eyes that four people got hit by ricochets," said demonstrator Abdul Kambarov, his cheek cut and trousers ripped.
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The opposition said six of its protesters were injured.
"I was sitting on the main staircase when the special forces stormed the building. I grabbed the legs of one of them as he was running up stairs and another one beat me in the face with a rubber truncheon," said Dzhumakhan Amadalyeva, 59, her face heavily bruised.
But although Mr. Akayev warned last week that any attempt to copy the so-called Orange Revolution in Ukraine could lead to civil war, Prime Minister Nikolai Tanayev said the government wants a peaceful resolution.
"We have never gone against our own people, especially not with weapons in our hands," he said yesterday.
In fact, it appeared at times to the be the police who were in danger.
Later in the day, protesters surged back to the city's main administration building. Amateur video showed a police chief asking the crowd to let his forces, mostly inexperienced young men, to leave the scene unharmed. Protesters formed a corridor to let them out but made them leave riot gear behind.
By late evening, drunken youths were roaming the streets and there was no sign of police or troops.
The opposition's complaints centre on their routing in the parliamentary election, which international observers have also criticized as flawed. The protests have been becoming increasingly bloody, but have largely been confined to the country's south, which is dominated by ethnic Uzbeks who carry strong resentment toward the wealthier, and mostly ethnic Kyrgyz, north.
"We want Akayev to understand what's going on. Either he resigns now or he gives us an assurance he will resign in October," said Bektur Asanov, a losing parliamentary candidate.
"We have now paralyzed the regional authorities. We are demanding that the Supreme Court makes a decision, like it did in Ukraine," he said.
Mr. Tanayev, the Prime Minister, said he had spoken to Mr. Asanov and they had agreed to hold talks to try to end the dispute with "civilized methods."
"In the police, we have no rubber bullets, no gas. We don't even have enough truncheons. Not the President, not me, and not the Interior Minister will allow weapons to be used against our own people," he told local television.
The opposition says Mr. Akayev could use his majority in parliament, which includes two of his children, to change the law and stand for a third term in an election later this year.
But Mr. Akayev, a physicist seen as the most liberal of the presidents in the five former Soviet republics of Central Asia, has said he will stand down when his final term ends.
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