Kyrgyzstan leader flees amid uprising
Opposition seizes control of president's office; looting ensues
BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan -- Racing past cordons of police and soldiers who offered little resistance, thousands of demonstrators stormed the governmental palace in this impoverished, mountainous Central Asian nation yesterday, forcing the president to flee out a side door as ecstatic protesters looted his offices and clamored for a new government.
Within three hours, an orderly rally by Kyrgyz citizens opposed to President Askar Akayev blossomed into a jubilant revolution with Akayev's headquarters as its epicenter. Demonstrators streamed up seven flights of stairs to the president's wood-paneled office, where they took turns sitting in his chair and rifled his desk drawers. In an anteroom, torn photos of Akayev posing with foreign dignitaries littered the carpet.
By late afternoon, the whereabouts of the 60-year-old Akayev -- who had led Kyrgyzstan since 1990, before it gained independence in the Soviet collapse -- were not known. US officials said they could not confirm reports by the opposition and Russian news agencies that he had resigned and left the country.
The upper house of parliament met last night and chose former opposition lawmaker Ishenbai Kadyrbekov as interim president until a new election could be held.
Speaking inside a presidential conference room where protesters had shattered windows and demolished furniture, opposition leader Topchubek Turgunaliyev declared: ''The power of Akayev is over! You are the first heroes to come into the president's hall!"
''Tomorrow," Turgunaliyev shouted, ''your elected leaders will be running the country!"
The uprising set the stage for Kyrgyzstan to become the third former Soviet republic in 16 months to undergo regime change as a result of popular uprisings against rigged or flawed elections. While the sudden revolt did not follow the script of Georgia's ouster of Eduard Shevardnadze in 2003 or the Orange Revolution that lifted Viktor Yushchenko into Ukraine's presidency last year, it shared a common element: a military and government that recoiled from the prospect of moving against its own people.
Soldiers in the building's lobby were armed but had been ordered by Akayev not to shoot protesters, a presidential aide told the protesters. With demonstrators filling the halls and ransacking virtually every office they came upon, Kyrgyzstan's military leadership saw no other choice but to leave.
''For the sake of security for both sides, I decided to take the soldiers out of the building," said General Abdulgami Tokchayev as he led a group of battered, bandaged soldiers down one of the building's stairwells. ''I made the decision."
Outside the massive, Soviet-era building known to Kyrgyz people as ''the White House," a sea of demonstrators lingered for hours to savor the moment. Some leapt onto the military's abandoned armored personnel carriers to hug fellow protesters; others gleefully yelped as they wandered about the plaza, carrying looted computers, telephones, vases, and books in their arms.
''This is the moment we have waited for for so long," said Abdul-Latif Tagubayev, a member of Kyrgyzstan's youth movement, Kel-Kel. ''The people of Kyrgyzstan are the ones to thank -- they are the ones who achieved this. Power is now in our hands."
Kyrgyzstan's opposition began calling for Akayev's resignation after the country's Feb. 27 and March 13 parliament elections, won overwhelmingly by Akayev's allies. International observers said both elections were tainted by vote-buying, media bias for pro-Akayev candidates, and the improper removal of opposition candidates from ballots.
Demonstrations gathered steam in the poverty-stricken southern cities of Jalal-Abad and Osh, where protesters seized police headquarters and other government buildings, and had claimed control over those regions. Early this week, busloads of demonstrators from the south arrived in Bishkek, the capital.
By yesterday, thousands of protesters carrying daffodils and wearing pink and yellow armbands and headbands -- the colors of two major opposition parties -- had begun a 10-block march from the outskirts of Bishkek to Ala-Too Plaza and Akayev's headquarters.
Once at the plaza, thousands of protesters amassed around a red granite platform, where opposition leaders queued up to give speeches urging protesters to demonstrate with discipline but maintain their resolve to rally until Akayev resigned.
About 1:20 p.m. local time, a scuffle broke out among demonstrators and activists affiliated with Akayev's Alga Kyrgyzstan Party. Within minutes, the scuffle behind the platform had escalated into an all-out brawl, as dozens of Alga activists wearing blue ribbons raced into the crowd, bludgeoning demonstrators with long sticks.
By 2:15 p.m. local time, demonstrators began moving on the cordon of soldiers. They picked up granite tiles and pieces of curb, broke them into pieces, and hurled them at soldiers, who cocooned themselves in their riot shields in defense. 