Revolution, in a Couple of Hours
In Kyrgyzstan, Plans for Patient Organizing Dissolved as Protesters Unexpectedly Took Control
By Karl Vick
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, March 27, 2005; Page A15
BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan, March 26 -- The plan called for yurts, and patience.
A small army of protesters weary of the stiffening, unresponsive rule of President Askar Akayev was to assemble on a great plaza outside the presidential headquarters in the capital. The plan, according to organizers of the demonstration, was for participants to listen to speeches, chant slogans and, as the sun set, begin a vigil, reclaiming their country by sleeping in yurts, the domed, supremely portable tents made of skins and sticks popular in Central Asia.
The camp-out would put a Kyrgyz stamp on a rebellion that opposition leaders said was inspired in part by recent uprisings in Georgia and Ukraine, two other former Soviet republics where the populace had grown unhappy with the autocrats in power. In both countries, mass demonstrations sparked by disputed elections went on for weeks, wearing down the incumbent while opponents honed plans for an orderly transfer of power.
But nothing went quite as planned in Bishkek on Thursday.
When the first few thousand protesters arrived at the plaza, the president sent thugs to break up the demonstration. Incensed, a few dozen young protesters returned and simply broke past police guarding the presidential headquarters, known as the White House. To the cheers of thousands assembled below, the youths broke a window and chucked out a portrait of Akayev, who, after nearly 15 years in power, disappeared from the scene.
It all took a couple of hours.
"Nice words, 'coup d'etat,' 'revolution,' '' said Kurmanbek Bakiyev, an opposition figure who was installed as acting president that night. "But what happened on the 24th of March was not planned by anyone beforehand, neither by people who came to the rally nor by others.
"Nobody expected and nobody prepared for this event."
That much was clear almost immediately. As soon as darkness fell Thursday, hundreds of young men turned to looting, unleashing a spasm of destruction that emptied or burned more than 100 stores in a capital abruptly devoid of uniformed police.
The next morning, the hallways of parliament filled with the sound of workers hammering shut the front doors. Inside, two legislatures were meeting: One was elected five years ago. The other was seated this month, after disputed elections that set in motion the wave of outrage.
The rebellion sprang up almost simultaneously in several remote places, and came together in cities in the notably poorer south. When it crested in the mountains that bisect Kyrgyzstan, what shattered was the brittle government of a man whose son drove a Hummer in a country with a per capita income of about $300.
"It was a natural outcome," said Emil Aliev, a senior official in an opposition party called Dignity. "The main forces were a very severe social and economic situation, in the background of wide-scale corruption."
Akayev came to power as a reformer. Trained as a physicist, he had led the country since 1990. Kyrgyzstan became independent when the Soviet Union broke up in 1991, but ties with Russia remain strong. The United States has heaped aid and praise on the little country, which, under Akayev, tolerated a free press and encouraged the proliferation of nonprofit civic groups, regarded as the cornerstone of a democratic society. Under Akayev, Kyrgyzstan also broke out of a state-controlled economy, welcoming foreign investment in a country of 5 million blessed with staggering beauty but few of the mineral resources of its neighbors.
"He did a lot for Kyrgyzstan," Bakiyev, the acting president, said of Akayev.
But after more than a decade in office, Akayev's rule took on trappings of dynasty. His family grew visibly wealthy, with Akayev reportedly taking a share of a gold mine and his son opening a string of luxury specialty stores -- the looters' first target Thursday.
And although Akayev, 60, promised to relinquish the presidency as required by the constitution at the end of his third term in October, he had not acted like a man heading for retirement.
Parliamentary elections in February proved pivotal. Akayev's government disqualified prominent opponents, while his daughter and son were eased onto the ballot. International observers called the Feb. 27 ballot badly flawed. A runoff two weeks later produced a chamber dominated by novices with economic or clan ties to Akayev.
"We filmed the chairman of the election commission telling people to vote for certain candidates, sitting beside the ballot box: 'Okay, you, vote for this person,' " said Marat Sultanov, a former chairman of the central bank and finance minister turned lawmaker.
Sultanov's supporters took to the streets on March 13 in Chong Alay, in the southwest near the border of Tajikistan, a corner of the country so remote the people do not have television.
"The main thing is, people didn't want to be humiliated any more," Sultanov said.
At the other end of the country, an incumbent candidate, Arstan Maliev, was disqualified from the race. Residents blocked highways in protest in two towns, and two-thirds of ballots came in unmarked, Sultanov said.
Events in the southern city of Jalal-Abad, Bakiyev's base, presaged the fall of the capital. On March 21, a crowd of 3,000 overwhelmed security forces and took over the main government building.
"That was the beginning," said Edil Baisalov, leader of the opposition Coalition for Democracy and Civil Society, made up of civil groups.
Demonstrators soon took over Osh, the largest city in the south. But as the protests grew, Akayev only stiffened, brushing aside talk of negotiations.
"Power structures can't show weakness when faced with color revolutions," he declared March 23, referring to Ukraine's Orange Revolution and Georgia's Rose Revolution.
Members of the opposition -- calling themselves the People's Movement of Kyrgyzstan -- began discussing taking the rebellion to the capital. A coordination council of 40 people was named that included many prominent politicians, among them Bakiyev, a former prime minister.
But the country's most prominent political prisoner, Felix Kulov, was operating independently. Kulov, a former mayor of Bishkek and KGB chief, issued orders from jail by coded letters and a smuggled cell phone with Internet access, said Aliev, his deputy in the Dignity party. The party turned out hundreds of marchers.
Civic activists such as Baisalov also played a crucial, if sensitive, role. The earnest, lanky activist had been inspired by the uprisings in Georgia and Ukraine, and had even visited Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, to study the Orange Revolution. He recalled the words of victorious opposition leaders from both countries when they later met at a Carpathian resort, jointly heralding a "third wave" of democratic transformation would sweep the globe.
"We knew what they were talking about," Baisalov said. "We knew that wave was going to hit us."
But Baisalov said he also knew the uprisings were criticized as being promoted by Western powers. Keenly aware of the American aid dollars in his own group's budget, he said he cut off personal contact with Bakiyev's group and others around March 17.
Each opposition group's thinking, however, ran along the same lines. The plan for Bishkek, according to opposition figures interviewed this week, was to slowly grind down Akayev, much as the movements in Ukraine and Georgia had done to their leaders.
On Wednesday night, as demonstrators arrived from outlying regions by bus and car, organizers gathered in the capital. "The rally was supposed to press President Akayev for negotiations," Bakiyev said.
The day started with a rally outside the clinic of an eccentric physician. When the marchers approached the White House, they were met by thugs wearing track suits and wielding clubs.
Blood flowed, and although there were no fatalities, the clash was a turning point. Instead of dispersing, the young protesters who had taken the brunt of the attack regrouped and marched back. By now, the crowd had swollen by several thousand, with bystanders joining the throng as it proceeded through the streets.
"The White House was taken by about 40 people," said Bakit Bakitaev, a government worker who watched the final assault. The protesters proceeded so fast that they never had time to agree on a color: The young men at the front donned yellow headbands; other marchers dressed in pink.
"The people followed like they were watching a soccer game," Bakitaev said.
Those wearing yellow headbands were beaten back twice by the 500 police and soldiers manning the iron fence around the executive office building. On the third attempt, the supporting crowd lurched forward as well, quickly overwhelming the guards.
"I am very much disappointed that we had a premature revolution," Baisalov said.
Questions about legitimacy loom. Bakiyev attended his first news conference Saturday flanked by officials from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, a 55-country body based in Vienna, which gave its blessing to the new government. The United States and Russia have also signaled support.
"Kyrgyzstan now is in a very complicated legal space," Bakiyev acknowledged. "The coalition ceased its operation yesterday. Now we have a government."
Citing the constitution, he said the old parliament would remain in power until its term expired April 15. At that point, power would shift to the new parliament elected under Akayev.
A new president will be elected June 26, Bakiyev said, again citing the constitution.
Meanwhile on the street, rumors flew of "a thousand horsemen" headed for Bishkek. It was, in fact, a column of several thousand counter-protesters marching toward the capital on foot from Akayev's home town. A day earlier, the deposed president had insisted he still held office.
"So we have two presidents, two governments, two parliaments," said Omurbek Tekabayev, a lawmaker who was reelected, and thus assured a seat in both legislatures. "The opposition really was not ready." |
