DownWithTyranny!: Trouble In Kyrgyzstan

Not many Americans have ever heard of-- let alone been to-- Kyrgyzstan. It's an old part of the Soviet Union kind of tucked away down south and mixed in with Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan... the fifth Stan, being Afghanistan or, as everyone concerned but Pakistan would prefer, Pashtunistan. Oh and then there's Baluchistan. I always imagined that Ken Silverstein's brilliant book about how foreign governments lobby corrupt members of Congress and the media, Turkmeniscam: How Washington Lobbyists Fought To Flack For A Stalinist Dictatorship, was about Kyrgyzstan. Some adventure travel organizations offer tours of the Stans... tempting. But not now, especially not Kyrgyzstan, which had a revolution or a coup or something yesterday.

Kyrgyzstan ranks among the 20 most corrupt places on earth, according to the International Corruptions Index, tied with the two Congos, Angola, and Guinea-Bissau, though slightly less corrupt than Tajikistan, Laos and the Central African Republican (where the ex-Emperor, Bokassa I, was eating his opponents at one time... literally). Kyrgyzstan is also one of the poorest countries on earth. The rent the government gets from the U.S. airbase, Manas 16 miles away from Bishkek, is one of its biggest revenue sources.

It's still unclear what happened yesterday or who's in charge. The U.S. Embassy is closed down and rumors are flying in every direction. Scores of people in Bishkek, the capital, have died in the fighting. The opposition claims Prime Minister Daniyar Usenov had resigned and that the president, Kurmanbek Bakiyev had fled the capital by plane and was trying to rally support in his hometown, Osh, in the south. Both the Russians and the Americans are trying to spin it as "everything's under control" and Bakiyev is still in the capital. And the blood all over the street is just... tomato juice? Apparently the uprising, which started in Talas and spread to Naryn and Bishkek has now spread around the country. Regional governors have been taken into custody or forced to resign. The Interior Minister, Moldomusa Kongatiyev, who went to Talas to calm things down, has been reported to have been beaten to death and also to have been captured by rebels. The NY Times reports that "the police used live ammunition, tear gas and stun grenades against a crowd of thousands that massed in front of the presidential office in Bishkek, according to witness accounts."

Tensions had been growing in Kyrgyzstan over what human rights groups contended were the increasingly repressive policies of President Bakiyev, but it appeared that the immediate catalyst for the violence was anger over a reported quadrupling in the prices for utilities.

Mr. Bakiyev made no public comment on Wednesday, and an official at the airport in Bishkek said in a telephone interview that Mr. Bakiyev took off from the airport in the early evening. The airport official said Mr. Bakiyev was flying to Osh, a major city in the southern part of the country, but that could not be confirmed.

On Wednesday afternoon, fighting continued in the streets of Bishkek and other provincial centers. Video shot by protesters and uploaded to the Internet showed scenes of people clashing with and in some cases pushing back heavily armed riot police.
Reports from Bishkek said crowds of opposition members had entered government offices as well as those of the national television channels.

Dmitri Kabak, director of a local human rights group in Bishkek, said in a telephone interview that he was monitoring the protest on the central square when riot police officers started shooting. He said he had the sense that the officers had panicked and were not being supervised.

“When people started marching toward the presidential office, snipers on the roof of the office started to open fire, with live bullets,” Mr. Kabak said. “I saw several people who were killed right there on the square.”