BISHKEK – The Kyrgyz opposition said yesterday it had forced the Central Asian country’s government to resign after troops shot at protesters besieging government buildings, killing dozens.
“We have reached an agreement that the government will resign. That has not been signed on paper yet,” Galina Skripkina, a senior official in the opposition Social Democratic Party and a member of parliament, said.
President Kurmanbek Bakiyev had flown to the southern city of Osh. “Bakiyev has taken a plane from Bishkek to Osh and he has already landed there,” she said.
The announcement followed a day of violent clashes in Bishkek and other towns. Spokesmen for the government and the president were not available for comment.
Another opposition leader, Temir Sariyev, said the opposition had entered the government building in central Bishkek and Kyrgyz prime minister Daniyar Usenov had written a resignation statement.
“Bakiyev has left the White House . . . He is no longer in Bishkek,” said Mr Sariyev, who was arrested on his arrival on a flight from Moscow, but later freed by the protest.
Mr Bakiyev himself came to power after 2005 protests which ousted Kyrgyzstan’s first post-Soviet president Askar Akayev. Both men were accused by their opponents of concentrating power in the hands of their associates.
Political unrest over poverty, rising prices and corruption has gripped Kyrgyzstan since early March. About a third of the population live below the poverty line and remittances from workers in Russia have fallen during the global economic crisis.
The opposition said at least 100 people had been killed in clashes that have spread since last month across the country that hosts a US military air base supporting troops in Afghanistan.
Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin earlier denied that Russia – a major donor to Kyrgyzstan, along with Washington and neighbouring China – had played a hand in the clashes.
“Neither Russia, nor your humble servant, nor Russian officials have any links whatsoever to these events,” Mr Putin said.
Kyrgyz troops earlier shot at thousands of anti-government protesters who tried to smash two trucks through the perimeter fence of government buildings.
Around 1,000 people stormed the prosecutor-general’s office before setting fire to the building. Opposition activists also took control of state television channel KTR.
“There are dozens of dead bodies, all with gunshot wounds,” Akylbek Yeukebayev, a doctor at a Bishkek hospital said.
Many of the injured had gunshot wounds to their heads.
“They are killing us,” said one wounded man on the emergency ward.
Smoke from burning buildings and makeshift bonfires billowed around the capital of the ex-Soviet state of 5.3 million people.
Around 5,000 people were in the centre of Bishkek, some carrying rifles and holding red-and-yellow Kyrgyz flags, beyond a curfew which came into effect at 8pm local time.
The protests spread to the capital after riots which began in Talas and Naryn the day before and continued into yesterday.
UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon visited Bishkek last week and called on the government to do more to protect human rights. – (Reuters)