http://wire.antiwar.com/2010/04/09/kyrgyz-victims-mourned-us-base-fate-on-hold-4/
Kyrgyz victims mourned, US base fate on hold Kyrgyz victims mourned, interim leader says US air base fate not a top priority for new govt
YURAS KARMANAU
AP News
Apr 09, 2010 13:40 EDT
Thousands of grieving, angry mourners flooded the capital’s main square Friday to honor victims of Kyrgyzstan’s revolt — with many blaming the country’s absent president for ordering security forces to fire on those protesting his government.
At least 76 people died in the violence and more than 1,400 were injured, the Health Ministry reported Friday. That figure included 67 people injured overnight in clashes between looters and security forces.
Flights, meanwhile, resumed at the U.S. Manas air base in this Central Asian nation after being halted Wednesday during the uprising. Manas is a key support center for the international military campaign against the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Covering their eyes and folding their hands in prayer, families and friends sobbed for the lives that were lost in the sprawling Ala-Too Square, where protesters were shot dead at an opposition rally as some stormed the main government building in Bishkek, the capital.
President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, who fled Bishkek to seek support in his clan’s southern power base, was often a focus of their anger.
“We grieve over our heroes. They are real heroes who have sacrificed their lives for the future of Kyrgyzstan,” said Khatima Immamaliyeva, a 44-year-old office worker holding a red carnation and crying. “Bakiyev must bear responsibility for the deaths.”
Another mourner, 26-year-old Azimbek Sariyev, said “my friend Talas perished. I hope he hasn’t died for nothing. We have ousted Bakiyev, and won’t allow the rulers to mock us.”
U.S. Central Command spokesman Maj. John Redfield said normal flights had restarted at Manas as of Friday afternoon, according to a statement e-mailed to The Associated Press. Around 1,100 troops are stationed there, including contingents from Spain and France, in support of NATO operations in Afghanistan.
Kyrgyzstan also hosts a Russian military base and is the only nation where both Cold War foes have bases.
Roza Otunbayeva, the head of the opposition’s self-declared interim government, said the base agreement will be continued at least for the near future. Opposition figures in the past have said they wanted to close the U.S. base, located at the international airport serving the capital.
The status of the base has been a significant strategic question since the uprising Wednesday.
“We have no intentions whatsoever to deal with the American base now. Our priority is the lives of the people who suffered. A top priority is to normalize the situation, to secure peace and stability,” Otunbayeva said as she visited a hospital in Bishkek that had treated many wounded.
She also said the interim government would not negotiate with Bakiyev, whose regime the opposition has accused of corruption.
Since coming to power in 2005 amid street protests known as the Tulip Revolution, Bakiyev had ensured a measure of stability. But the opposition said it came at the expense of democratic standards and accused Bakiyev of enriching himself and his family, just like Askar Akayev, the ruler he overthrew.
Akayev, who now teaches mathematics at Moscow State University, said this week’s revolt was a natural outcome of the policies followed by Bakiyev’s government.
“For the last five years, he has ruled without heed to the constitution, has reinforced his own power and put in place an authoritarian and repressive regime,” he told The Associated Press in Moscow.
“I think that a very sorrowful fate awaits him because in having given the command to open fire on the population he has signed his own death warrant,” Akayev said.
Bakiyev told a Russian radio station on Thursday that “I don’t admit defeat in any way.” But he also said he recognized that “even though I am president, I don’t have any real levers of power.”
“What has taken place is a veritable orgy carried out by armed groups and I do not believe this is a defeat for me,” Bakiyev said.
He spoke from the southern Jalal-Abad region, where Bakiyev’s popularity is said to remain high — raising concerns he might try to secure his survival by exploiting the split between the more urban north and rural south.
Otunbayeva, the interim leader, said the new leadership would do everything possible to prevent a civil war.
“We are controlling the situation here, we are mobilized, alert,” she said. “We have the means, the resources and the possibilities. We have people’s support.”
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