Posted on 03/23/2005 4:07:57 PM PST by F14 Pilot
Like a giant political tsunami swamping defunct old dictatorships in its path, the after-effects of Ukraine's "Orange Revolution" are sweeping across Central Asia. But it remains an open question, to say the least, whether stable, successful democracies will emerge from the upheavals.
Only two months after Viktor Yushchenko was triumphantly elected by a 52 percent to 44 percent vote in the re-run second round of the Ukrainian presidential election in January, the shock waves of democracy are cracking open Kyrgyzstan, one of the five, remote, land-locked former Soviet republics in Central Asia.
Opposition forces were reported in control of the two main cities of southern Kyrgyzstan Wednesday and an embattled President Askar Akayev fired two of his top officials in a vain effort to quell the turmoil. Even worse from his point of view, opposition democratic activists appeared to be succeeding in their efforts to bring street protests from the southern cities into the capital Bishkek.
Akayev fired Interior Minister Bakirdin Subanbekov and Prosecutor-General Myktybek Abdyidayev, with a presidential spokesman blaming their "bad work" as the reason for their dismissal. But the move seem only to boost the confidence of the democratic protestors who, like their predecessors in Ukraine in November and December, have taken to the streets in anger over elections in Feb. 27 and on March 13 this year that, they allege, were clearly rigged by Akayev and his ruling clique.
The southern cities of Osh and Jalal-Abad that have been the focal points of the protests were reported uncharacteristically quiet Wednesday. However, the central government still has not regained effective control of Osh. The British Broadcasting Corp. reported that protestors remained in control of the city's television station, the airport, and official buildings and security forces were nowhere to be seen in the inner city.
(Excerpt) Read more at washtimes.com ...
Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya (partially), Lebanon, Saudi Arabia (partly), Egypt (partly), and now Kyrgyzstan...
Damn, that W sure knows how to screw things up, doesn't he??? /sarc
It depends on whether ISlamists take over.
A question which has always haunted me ....
How do you pronounce "Kyrgyzstan"?
One more thing: whose side are we on here?
Correct me if I'm wrong, anyone, but I believe we're on the side of the anti-government folks. If they take over, we should immediately send a shipment of much-needed vowels.
"President Askar Akayev fired two of his top officials in a vain effort to quell the turmoil."
Probably they told him he needs to step down, and so he fired them. He's a megalomaniac. Or maybe I have the wrong guy...
DNDMSB -- I can type your entire handle without even batting an eye now, and I still have no idea what it means. ;')
(cur-gizz-stan)
Central Asia is a dictatorized area.
Bump
I pronounce it "Keer-geez-stan."
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