KYRGYZ OPPOSITION RESPONDS TO THE RECENT BLOODY EVENTS.

The
tragic events, which happened in the southern Jalalabad province of Kyrgyzstan
on March 17-18, provoked great concern and criticism of the Kyrgyz public as
well as the international community and certainly of the Kyrgyz opposition. 
As a response to these bloody events, the People’s Congress of
Kyrgyzstan, which unites the four opposition parties Ata-Meken, El, Erkindik
and Ar-Namys, held a meeting on March 23. 
The participants of the meeting took five decisions, which if all are
implemented, would bring radical changes to the political life of country.

Apart
from the members of the People’s Congress, the leaders of the Communist
party, Respublica party, Asaba party and Legislative Assembly deputies Azimbek
Beknazarov and Ishenbai Kadyrbekov took part in the meeting. 
The five decisions that the participants came up with demand the
following: 1) the Kyrgyz President and the government must resign; 2)
presidential elections must be held ahead of time and voters’ signatures
must be collected for this purpose; 3) apart from parliamentary and state
commissions, a special public commission must be formed to investigate the
circumstances of the March 17-18 events; 4) the results of the investigation
must be examined by a public court; 5) a public congress must convene, in
which all sectors of society be represented. 

The
leader of the Erkindik party and the Chairman of the newly established public
commission Topchubek Turgunaliev explained the reasons why these decisions had
been taken.  According to
Turgunaliev, the Kyrgyz President and the government must resign because he
has neither political nor moral right to rule the nation any longer. Because
neither the parliamentary nor the state commissions are likely to be
effective, a special public commission should be established. The work of the
parliamentary commission is suffering due to the internal divisions and
disagreements. The state commission in its turn must be dissolved as it
consists of those people, who are themselves responsible for the killings of
people. The public commission consists of Parliament deputies, journalists and
human rights activists. A public court, which will be formed at a public
congress, will examine the results of the investigation and it will try people
responsible for the bloodshed.  It
will involve lawyers and experienced and authoritative representatives of the
society.  “We know that the
government may ignore what we are doing and the public court’s decision. 
The fact that the government is calling its own people, who were acting
within the frame of their constitutional rights, extremists, terrorists and
demagogues, is forcing us to take these actions. Our goal is to find out the
truth and deliver it to the people of Kyrgyzstan as well as to the
international community”, said Turgunaliev.  

Meanwhile,
the public commission has started an investigation into the circumstances of
the March 17-18 events. Its members met with the people involved in the events
– with the wounded people, their relatives, as well as the relatives of the
killed people and with local doctors and policemen. At a press conference held
on April 2, the commission members told what they have come up with so far.
According to Turgunaliev, who leads the public commission, the bloodshed was
planned by the authorities.  The
district authorities asked doctors of the local hospital in the morning before
the events began, to be ready to receive wounded people. The police
implemented a special operation known as “Typhoon”, which gives the police
the right to kill people. According to the public commission, the Kyrgyz
President was aware of these plans.  

The
People Congress and people, who are supportive of the actions of the Congress,
are implementing what they have decided. 
The public congress will convene on April 17-18. 
The Congress will soon start the campaign of collecting voters’
signatures to hold early presidential elections. 
Thus the second decision partly, the fourth and fifth decisions are to
be implemented soon, while the third one is already being implemented.
However, the public is anxious about the first decision too, as without its
implementation it is afraid it will not see those “radical” changes.