Kyrgyz president fires interior minister, prosecutor-general as opposition seizes another town in south
12:49 2005-03-23
Kyrgyz President Askar Akayev fired the interior minister and prosecutor-general on Wednesday, his spokesman said, as a wave of opposition protests across the south kept up pressure on the president to resign over alleged vote fraud.
His prime minister, Nikolai Tanayev, was planning to visit the southern city of Osh on Wednesday to seek negotiations, Akayev spokesman Abdil Seghizbayev said, but he stressed there would be no talks with "criminal groups that are controlling the situation there."
Tanayev was going south "to look for someone constructive to talk to," the spokesman said, in the first sign that the two sides in the standoff might sit down for negotiations after weeks of opposition protests.
Seghizbayev said that officially, Interior Minister Bakirdin Subanbekov and Prosecutor-General Myktybek Abdyldayev were dismissed at their own request, but that the dismissals were linked "to the events in the south and their poor work on preventing those events."
Seghizbayev said Akayev had named the security chief of his administration, Murat Sutalinov, as the new chief prosecutor, and Bishkek police chief Keneshbek Dushebayev as interior minister. Dushebayev was instrumental in preventing protests from swelling in the capital around the time of the elections, and his appointment could be aimed to suppress the further spread of unrest.
The protests began after the first round of parliamentary elections on Feb. 27 and swelled after March 13 run-offs that the opposition and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said were seriously flawed. Protesters this week seized control of government buildings in two of Kyrgyzstan's seven regional capitals and a number of smaller locales.
Activists expanded their grip over the south on Tuesday, seizing the headquarters of the Kadamjay district administration in the Batken region town of Pulgon. Interior Ministry spokesman Nurdin Zhangarayev said about 300 protesters forced their way into the building, although he said he didn't know whether any were armed.
An opposition spokesman in Bishkek, Narynbek Kasymov, said some 600 protesters peacefully took control of the building, and that police had gone over to their side.
An opposition rally was scheduled to begin in Bishkek at 3 p.m. (1000 GMT).
The latest opposition advance came after the newly installed Parliament asked Akayev to consider emergency rule to quell the protests, which were sparked by alleged vote-rigging in the parliamentary elections.
Akayev has vowed not to resort to emergency measures, but he could cite the legislature's request Tuesday as an indication that the people of the former Soviet republic in Central Asia want a crackdown.
The OSCE chairman, Slovenian Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel, offered Tuesday to help bring an end to the tensions. The chairman's envoy, Alojz Peterle, was expected in Bishkek late Wednesday to seek a platform for negotiations, the OSCE office in Bishkek said.
About 1,000 opposition supporters rallied outside the opposition-controlled regional administration headquarters in Jalal-Abad on Wednesday, shouting "Akayev, out!" and holding banners calling for his resignation.
"Akayev doesn't care about the people," said Kamal Zakirov, 76, a retired carpenter wearing a high, pointed traditional Kyrgyz felt hat. "He should leave office peacefully."
Kyrgyz politics is heavily clan-based, and Akayev has strong support in his native north. If the fractured opposition can carry its protests north across the mountain range bisecting the country and toward the capital, Bishkek, tensions could explode in a strategically important country where both the United States and Russia have military bases.
Akayev, 60, is prohibited from seeking another term, but the opposition has accused him of manipulating the parliamentary vote to gain a compliant legislature that would amend the constitution to allow a third term. Akayev has denied that.
The new Parliament convened Tuesday, indicating Akayev will not heed complaints that the election was unfair.
Akayev said in an address to the legislature that the protesters who took control of Osh and other southern cities were "a direct threat to the people and the government. The opposition is directed and funded from outside."
Akayev previously has alleged that opposition forces were getting international funding, an echo of allegations that uprisings in Ukraine and Georgia in 2003 and 2004 were Western-backed.
Seghizbayev, Akayev's spokesman, described the protests as an attempt by "the drug mafia" and terrorists to seize power. Osh is a major transit point for drugs from Afghanistan and Tajikistan.
Osh is adjacent to Uzbekistan's Fergana Valley, where the Taliban-allied Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan conducted incursions in 1999 and 2000 with the apparent aim of establishing a fundamentalist Islamic state. However, there have been no overt indications of a religious component to the Osh protests.
The United States operates a military base, used for refueling planes in Afghanistan, outside the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek, about 300 kilometers (200 miles) north of Osh. The Russian base, named Kant, is 20 kilometers (12 miles) east of Bishkek.
Akayev was long regarded as the most reform-minded leader in ex-Soviet Central Asia, but in recent years he has shown an increasingly authoritarian bent. In 2002, his reputation was tarnished after police killed six demonstrators who were protesting the arrest of an opposition lawmaker.
BAGILA BUKHARBAYEVA Associated Press
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