Kyrgyzstan’s interim leader has condemned Belarus’ decision to provide refuge to ousted Kyrgyz president Kurmanbek Bakiyev, calling him a “criminal” and demanding his extradition.
“Kyrgyzstan’s people may not react positively to Belarus taking in such a man, who has the lives of many people on his conscience,” interim government leader Roza Otunbayeva told reporters late on Tuesday.
“This criminal must be handed over back to our country. If that does not happen, there is Interpol,” said Otunbayeva, whose interim government took power two weeks ago after the popular uprising which ousted Bakiyev.
Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko confirmed on Tuesday that Bakiyev was in Belarus, ending days of uncertainty over the toppled leader’s whereabouts.
Bakiyev and several members of his family had arrived in Minsk and were “under the protection of our state and personally of the president,” Lukashenko told the Belarussian parliament.
The ousted Kyrgyz leader was flown to Belarus by Lukashenko’s own personal security service, the head of the service, Andrei Vtyurin, told the Interfax news agency yesterday.
“We should give special thanks to the pilots for landing the plane in severe weather conditions, when the airport was practically closed in connection with the volcanic cloud covering the territory of Belarus,” Vtyurin said.
Lukashenko, a strongman leader who has ruled Belarus since 1994 and is often criticized in the West for tolerating no dissent, had voiced anger at the uprising which overthrew Bakiyev.
Bakiyev left Kyrgyzstan last week for Kazakhstan. The Kazakh foreign ministry said Monday that he had left, without specifying his destination.
The Kyrgyz interim government wants to put Bakiyev on trial for the shooting of demonstrators during the popular uprising that led to his overthrow, in which 85 people were killed.
Meanwhile, Otunbayeva warned looters and armed assailants that police would use deadly force against them, following ethnic riots near Bishkek that killed five people earlier this week.
“In accordance with law, law enforcement officials will use deadly force in case of armed assaults against civilians, their homes and private property, attempts on their health and life, as well as attacks on civilian and military objects,” she said.
The interim government has struggled to impose order in recent days as mobs of angry, impoverished people have descended on the Kyrgyz capital to demand plots of land. On Monday, five people were killed when a huge mob surged into the village of Mayevka, just outside Bishkek and attempted to seize land from ethnic Russian and Turkish residents.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev ordered his defense minister to take steps to guarantee the safety of Russian citizens in Kyrgyzstan following the attempted land grabs.
EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton said Tuesday the EU was ready to offer the interim Kyrgyz government political and financial help if it embraced democracy.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS