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Kyrgyz Opposition Gets on Putin's Nerves
// To Get Rid of Their Own President
Kiev 2004 – Bishkek 2006
The latest revolution in Kyrgyzstan began yesterday. A peaceful meeting of thousand gathered in front of the presidential palace. Then the authorities' nerves gave out. The head of the presidential administration came out and announced that the interior minister had been changed for someone suggested by the opposition. In the evening, the protesters' leaders announced that President Kurmanbek Bakiev had disappeared. Later there was information that he and Prime Minister Felix Kulaev had left for the presidential dacha. Kommersant special correspondent Mikhail Zygar was a witness to these events.
Revolutionary in a Yurt
Ala-Too, the central square of Bishkek, looked like the Kiev Maidan on Sunday morning. A stage had been set up deep inside ad emblazoned with the symbols and slogans of the opposition movement For Reform!. There is the tent city, with about 200 two-person tents, and to the left of the stage, at least ten Kyrgyz yurts. There had been nothing like that a year and a half ago during the Tulip Revolution.
A day earlier, I looked into one of the yurts, one with a metal door. There Rosa Otunbaeva sat at a computer. She had been Kyrgyz interior minister several times, including for the first half year of Bakiev's rule. There was a large, colorful book on the Orange Revolution in one corner.
“I brought that,” Otunbaeva said cheerfully, “A Ukrainian minister gave it to me.”
We sat on plastic chairs in the middle of the yurt and she began to tell me what the opposition was fighting for.
“Besides a change of authorities,” she said, “we want a change of the political paradigm! Bakiev has seized all the power that Akaev had and is intoxicated.” Sun shone in through the hole in the top of the yurt onto Otunbaeva's face. “We have to change the whole algorithm of authority. Many of our neighbors have chosen a parliamentary form of rule: Mongolia, Turkey, India. We will show that, even in Central Asia, there can be a democratic country.”
Anti-Berezovsky Revolution
No fewer than 5000 people had been on the square since the early morning. For four days, only out-of-towners had come to the square, while residents of Bishkek, who had not forgotten last year's violence clashes, looked on suspiciously. But yesterday the locals came out as well.
Opposition leaders explained the meaning of the changes President Kurmanbek Bakiev wanted to make to the Constitution. “It's a constitution for family rule,” shouted former minister of industry Almaz Atambaev.
Former speaker of parliament and long time enemy of the president Omurbek Tekebaev found something even worse. “Look how he signed it,” Tekebaev called shaking a handful of papers. “He wrote President of the Kyrgyz Republic Askar Akaev!'” The crowd snickered.
The leaders announced that it was time to go to the presidential palace, on the other side of the square, about 300 meters away. Police holding shields surrounded the palace as the crowd approached. On the other side of the high metal fence around it were two divisions of the national guard. The crowd occupied the approach to the palace. A small truck was engulfed by people and the opposition leaders gathered on it. The crowd shouted “Ketsen!” (Away!). Then the speeches started.
“The slogan of today's meeting,” parliament member Temir Sariev told the crowd, “is Kyrgyzstan with Russia, Bakiev with Berezovsky.'”
More snickering.
There has been talk in Bishkek for a long time about Bakiev's secret ties to Boris Berezovsky. Several months ago, information appeared in the press that Berezovsky had flown from London to Bishkek at the personal invitation of the president's son Maxim Bakiev.
“Are you purposefully focusing attention on the information about Berezovsky's trip to Bishkek to deprive Bakiev of Kremlin support?” I asked parliamentarian Melis Eshimknaov as the meeting was reaching high pitch. “Do you think that will help you gain Kremlin support.”
“Of course we are trying to get on Putin's nerves, to show him that his ally has connections with his blood enemy!”
Just then lawyer Oleg Trofimov began speaking from the truck. “Bakiev would seem to be an enemy of the people,” Trofimov began. “About 500,000 of our Kyrgyz brothers live and work in Russia. What will happen if they cannot send money to their families? But Kurmanbek Bakiev has pushed our relations with Russia almost to the breaking point with his connection with Berezovsky! Say no to Bakiev and Berezovsky!”
Revolutionary Police
After standing about an hour in front of the presidential palace, the leaders decided to move on to KTR, the state broadcasting service. The protesters had been there the evening before as well, but in about one-tenth their current number. But half way there, the leaders suddenly decided to return to the president's palace.
“If we go to KTR, we'll take it in a minute,” Eshimkanov explained. “But we don't want to provoke any seizures by force.”
The police were clearly disappointed by the decision to turn back. As soon as the crowd had moved away from the palace, they began bussing most of the police to KTR, where they waited for the marchers in vain almost an hour. The crowd returned in half an hour to the almost undefended presidential palace and everyone took up their former positions. The youngest of the opposition parliamentarians, 32-year-old Omurbek Babanov, took the leading role. He had been a successful businessman under Akaev, a friend of the president's son Aidar Akaev and a gasoline magnate. Under Bakiev, he had left business (under pressure, he said), sold his gas stations to Gazprom and joined the opposition.
Soldiers! Brothers! You don't serve Bakiev and Kulov, you serve the state! Come over to the side of the people!” he called.
Under Babanov's direction, the crowd parted before individual officers in the cordon, giving them free way to the truck. After ten minutes, one police colonel couldn't take it any more and made his way to the opposition leaders. The crowd enfolded him, ushered him to the truck and boosted him up. The leaders were jubilant. The colonel took off his helmet and a traditional kolpak was placed on his head. He began to speak about how the police and people were united.
In half an hour, three more officers came to the truck together. The crowd was ecstatic. Then one of the commanders ordered the police standing on the grounds of the palace to break up. They did so in a hurry, cringing slightly at the kisses the crowd was sending to them. Kyrgyzstan! Kyrgyzstan! began playing and Babanov began waving the flag. The crowd waved its arms as if at a rock concert.
The next good news was that “Kitani,” Deputy Interior Minister Omurbek Suvanaliev, one of the most respected policemen in Kyrgyzstan and a friend of Kulov, was ready to join the side of the people.
Having conquered the inside cordon, the crowd began to work on the special forces and national guard. Babanov brought the mother of a soldier up onto the truck and she began to beg the special forces to join the people. Then they called off the national guard. The crowd went wild. People began to climb the fence and charge the gate. It looked as though they would enter the palace grounds at any second.
“Back! Back! Get off the fence!” the leaders shouted.
Revolutionary Songs and Dances
Atambaev came up on his way to negotiations with the president. He said that he had spoken to the president for five minutes and given him a list of demands: set up public television, allow the opposition access to KTR, constitutional reform, the dismissal of unpopular ministers. As soon as he was finished speaking, Babanov seized the microphone and shouted, “Bakiev wants to deceive us again. Bakiev ketsen!”
The crowd shouted “Bakiev ketsen” after Babanov.
Soon head of the presidential administration Erkin Abdyldaev mounted the truck.
“Go away!” the crowd shouted. Babanov and Atambaev asked for quiet and got it. Abdyldaev announced that the president had agreed to dismiss acting Interior Minister Osmonali Guronov and replace him with Katani.
“Katani! Katani!” cheered the crowd.
“Decisions on the remaining points will be made after consultations,” concluded Abdyldaev, who would probably soon be replaced by the new people's interior minister.
“You can trust me. I won't betray you!” Katani called out and promised to fire Bishkek's unpopular police chief Moldomus Kongantiev, brother of the prosecutor general.
News and rumors began to circulate through the square. An aksakal (elder) got on the truck an announced that the district administrations in Chui Region were ready to join the people's side.
“President Bakiev has left for an unknown destination,” an opposition leader announced.
I tried to contact presidential aides. The ones I could reach all said that they did not know where the president was. They said he was supposed to have made in appearance in connection with Press Day that evening, but did not show up.
The distribution of forces became clearer as night fell. The head of the Bishkek City Council and the Governor of Chui Region had joined the opposition. The latter even addressed the meeting and ended his message with “Bakiev ketsen!” The movement For Reform announced an unscheduled nighttime parliament session to examine the new constitution drafted by the opposition. But no quorum was formed. Twenty members loyal to the president gathered at the home of parliament member Sergey Popov to discuss their own strategy.
Everything may change today. November 7, Day of the October Revolution, is a holiday in Kyrgyzstan and the government has scheduled several workers' marches to counter the For Reform meeting. A rehearsal of the anti-meeting was held on Sunday when the Kurultai of Constructive Forces of Kyrgyzstan urged the president to dissolve the parliament and preserve the presidential form of rule in Kyrgyzstan. Bakiev has a serious chance to fight for power today.
Mikhail Zygar
All the Article in Russian as of Nov. 07, 2006
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