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Kyrgyz protests keep the pressure on Askar Akayev

"Akayev doesn't care about the people. He should leave office peacefully."

Kamal Zakirov, a retired carpenter

Kyrgyz President Askar Akayev fired the interior minister and prosecutor-general on Wednesday, his spokesman said, as a wave of opposition protests across the south kept up pressure on the president to resign over alleged vote fraud.

Spokesman Abdil Seghizbayev said that officially, Interior Minister Bakirdin Subanbekov and Prosecutor-General Myktybek Abdyldayev were dismissed at their own request, but that the dismissals were linked "to the events in the south and their poor work on preventing those events."

Seghizbayev said Akayev had named the security chief of his administration, Murat Sutalinov, as the new chief prosecutor, and Bishkek police chief Keneshbek Dushebayev as interior minister. Dushebayev was instrumental in preventing protests from swelling in the capital around the time of the elections, and his appointment could be aimed to suppress the further spread of unrest.

The protests began after the first round of parliamentary elections on Feb. 27 and swelled after March 13 run-offs that the opposition and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) said were seriously flawed. Protesters this week seized control of government buildings in two of Kyrgyzstan's seven regional capitals and a number of smaller locales.

Activists expanded their grip over the south on Tuesday, seizing the headquarters of the Kadamjay district administration in the Batken region town of Pulgon. Interior Ministry spokesman Nurdin Zhangarayev said about 300 protesters forced their way into the building, although he said he didn't know whether any were armed.

An opposition spokesman in Bishkek, Narynbek Kasymov, said some 600 protesters peacefully took control of the building, and that police had gone over to their side.

An opposition rally was scheduled to begin in Bishkek at 3pm.

The latest opposition advance came after the newly installed Parliament asked Akayev to consider emergency rule to quell the protests, which were sparked by alleged vote-rigging in the parliamentary elections.

Akayev has vowed not to resort to emergency measures, but he could cite the legislature's request Tuesday as an indication that the people of the former Soviet republic in Central Asia want a crackdown.

The OSCE chairman, Slovenian Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel, offered Tuesday to help bring an end to the tensions. The chairman's envoy, Alojz Peterle, was expected in Bishkek late yesterday to seek a platform for negotiations, the OSCE office in Bishkek said.

About 1,000 opposition supporters rallied outside the opposition-controlled regional administration headquarters in Jalal-Abad on Wednesday, shouting "Akayev, out!" and holding banners calling for his resignation.

"Akayev doesn't care about the people," said Kamal Zakirov, 76, a retired carpenter wearing a high, pointed traditional Kyrgyz felt hat. "He should leave office peacefully."

Kyrgyz politics is heavily clan-based, and Akayev has strong support in his native north. If the fractured opposition can carry its protests north across the mountain range bisecting the country and toward the capital, Bishkek, tensions could explode in a strategically important country where both the US and Russia have military bases.
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