More than 2,000 supporters of Kyrgyzstan’s deposed president rallied yesterday near a southern town wracked by a burst of ethnic violence that prompted the interim government to declare a state of emergency in the area.
Several residents said the acting defense minister and a regional governor were attacked and briefly held hostage outside the town of Jalal-Abad.
Jalal-Abad was rocked on Wednesday by ethnic clashes that left two dead and more than 70 injured, prompting authorities to boost military reinforcements and announce a two-week state of emergency in the town.
The interim authorities that came to power after the ouster last month of President Kurmanbek Bakiyev have earned widespread popular acceptance. However, the unrest has persisted around Bakiyev’s former stronghold in the south, where the interim government is struggling to restore order.
The protesters assembled yesterday morning at a racecourse in the Suzak district outside Jalal-Abad to demand that the unofficial leader of the local Uzbek community be handed over for his alleged involvement in the torching last week of Bakiyev’s family home in the nearby village of Teyit.
Bakiyev fled the country last month for Belarus, but interim authorities say his family is still financing disturbances aimed at unseating the provisional leadership.
Acting Defense Minister Ismail Isakov and Jalal-Abad Governor Bektur Asanov were seized as they sought to calm down the crowd at the Suzak racecourse. Both men were later released, but officials said Asanov was being treated for injuries at a local hospital.
Most of the crowd dispersed peacefully toward the afternoon.
The meeting follows an attempt on Wednesday by a large group of ethnic Kyrgyz to storm a private university that serves as the center of the minority Uzbek community. People in the crowd accused prominent Uzbek businessman Kadyrjan Batyrov of inciting racial tension.
Batyrov, who paid for the construction of the Peoples’ Friendship University, has emerged as a significant power-broker amid the disorder roiling the Kyrgyz south.
Residents said the exchange of gunfire on Wednesday lasted up to an hour.
Tensions have long simmered between ethnic Kyrgyz and Uzbek — both Sunni Muslim groups — in the former Soviet nation’s restive south.
Early yesterday, a convoy of armored personnel carriers and other military vehicles arrived in the town to enforce a heightened security regime that is due to remain in effect in Jalal-Abad and the Suzak district until the start of next month.
The interim government has also established a curfew on the areas affected by Wednesday’s violence from 8pm to 6am.
Jalal-Abad regional government spokesman Zamirbek Sadyrov said a unit of special forces carried out an operation yesterday to evacuate the university building of armed Batyrov supporters.
Speaking from the regional government headquarters in the center of Jalal-Abad, Sadyrov said the situation in central Jalal-Abad had returned to normal.
Despite some attempts at looting by gangs of marauders the night before, the town’s sprawling local market operated as normal yesterday morning and most shops in the main thoroughfare had reopened their doors for business.
Authorities also announced that presidential elections will be held in October next year. Interim president Roza Otunbayeva will perform the duties of head of state until power is officially handed over at the start of 2012. Moves to keep Otunbayeva as interim president for an additional 18 months will require approval in a constitutional referendum next month.
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