Euphoria swings to anxiety in post-coup Kyrgyzstan

Gunfire, wailing sirens, dark deserted streets and groups of young men with armbands helping police confront looters: so began the Kyrgyz capital's second night after the country's sudden shift of power.

Hundreds of pillagers wandered the rain-slick streets in mobs, throwing stones at cars and seemingly seeking a repeat of the previous night, when the city was theirs.

But this night, police were back on duty -- cruising the streets in marked cars and barking shouts for order through megaphones. Groups of stick-wielding young men hovered outside shops and offices -- this time to guard them.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2005/03/27/2003247951

"What do we do now," must be echoing throughout the nation.

These folks are ripe for more of the same manipulation and hardship they casted off ...

The success of Central Asia's first post-Soviet revolution was starting to look distinctly shaky last night, as Kyrgyzstan's self-appointed coalition struggled to form an interim government and assert the power it had won so precipitately earlier in the week. Reports from the capital, Bishkek, said that bands of youths, some armed, roamed the streets and sporadic looting continued. Local observers spoke of a growing sense that no one was in charge.

The ousted Kyrgyz president, Askar Akayev, meanwhile, was reported to be in Moscow, having flown there from his first point of refuge in neighbouring Kazakhstan. A defiant statement issued in his name and distributed by email yesterday said that he left the country "for humane reasons, so as to avoid bloodshed and prevent casualties". But his tone soon turned threatening. He remained president, he said, and "any attempt to deprive me of my presidential powers by unconstitutional means will be a state crime". He had been overthrown by "adventurers and conspirators".

While Mr Akayev's sudden re-emergence yesterday - and so far it remains "virtual" rather than physical - served to remind many about why he had been overthrown, it may also have sowed doubt in some quarters about the legitimacy, and the permanence, of the regime that has replaced him.

Under Kyrgyzstan's constitution - passed in 1993 after the republic had independence thrust upon it by the collapse of the Soviet Union - an absent or incapacitated President is replaced by the Prime Minister. In this case, however, the Prime Minister resigned shortly after Mr Akayev fled the country. Other senior ministers had just been dismissed by the President as punishment for the unrest that followed the parliamentary elections, as had the chief of police.

Independent UK