BISHKEK: Kyrgyz police fired tear gas yesterday to stop protesters storming government headquarters in what their leader called a coup bid after the new premier rejected demands to nationalise a gold-mining venture with a Canadian company.
The volatile Central Asian state has seen several assaults on the government since Kyrgyzstan’s independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. The bloodiest protests, in March 2005 and April 2010, toppled two presidents, who then fled abroad.
Yesterday’s rally, with its direct call to overthrow the government, was the most violent in the capital Bishkek since the April 2010 revolt that ousted President Kurmanbek Bakiyev.
The clashes erupted two days after new Prime Minister Zhantoro Satybaldiyev travelled to the Kumtor gold mine operated by Canada’s Centerra Gold Inc and gave assurances the venture would not be nationalised.
His pledges to defend foreign investment vital to Kyrgyzstan’s economy angered local nationalists, who failed to muster enough support in parliament in June to pass a law that would have placed the Kumtor mine under state ownership.
Police used tear gas and stun grenades to clear some 2,000 demonstrators from Bishkek’s central Ala Too square after about 200 people climbed a fence surrounding the building housing the government and parliament.
“We must occupy the offices of ministers and members of parliament and spend nights there ... in order to create a new state system which will truly serve the people,” Kamchibek Tashiyev, leader of the parliamentary faction of the nationalist Ata Zhurt party, told supporters from the back of a truck.
Brief scuffles broke out, with Tashiyev’s mainly young supporters pelting police with stones.
“I will assume all responsibility, follow me!” Tashiyev shouted through a megaphone.
“Bureaucrats in the government promised that they would take Kumtor back and it would work for the good of the people ... Kumtor belongs to our nation, and we must change the entire state system and replace this government.”
Police managed to repel protesters into side streets while several hundred others - some on horseback - took up guard along the perimeter of the white-marble government building popularly known as “The White House”. Kyrgyzstan’s GKNB security service, police and prosecutors will jointly investigate Wednesday’s clashes and decide whether some protesters should be charged, a police spokesman said. Tashiyev’s whereabouts after the clash were unknown.
Reuters
