Revolution In Kyrgyzstan In 2010

The revolution in Kyrgyzstan in 2010 started in April and lasted till June of that year.  The people of Kyrgyzstan were fed up with the corruption that going on in their government.  What is ironic about this revolution is because it’s the second on that Kyrgyzstan, president Kurmanbek Bakiyev was elected five years ago after his predecessor Askar Akayev was overthrown because of corruption.

During the winter of that year, Kyrgyzstan had rolling blackouts and people were losing their electric service because of the price of energy.  In January, Bakiyev’s son led a delegation to reduce Kyrgyzstan’s dependence of Russian and Central Asian energy and would build the Datka-Kemin 500 kV power lines.  After the contract was signed, the people of Kyrgyzstan saw a four hundred percent increase in their heating cost and one hundred and seventy percent increase in electricity. This increased the frustrations of the people, which lead to the beginning of the revolt on April 8th.

In the weeks that lead up to the revolt, Eugene Gourevitch the managing director of a consulting firm that handled how Kyrgyzstan’s development fund would be dispersed was arrest for defrauding Telecom Italia, a telecommunication company.  This consulting firm was managed by Central Agency and agency that Bakiyev’s son Maxim ran.  After the arrest, the Kyrgyzstan government started to shut down new outlets and newspapers that ran the story.  By the first of April, at least five news outlets were shut down.

The worst day of the revolution was the 7th of April, when between three and five thousand protesters overtook the police and stole their armor, guns, and two armored vehicles, which the used to ram the gates of the White House in Kyrgyzstan.  This is when the police started firing live rounds at the protestors.  Police and protesters were wounded during this demonstration and forty on protesters lost their life.  The government declared a state of emergency and put in place a curfew from ten at night till six in the morning.

On May 19th, Roza Otunbayeva was appointed temporary president and had a reputation on being corrupt.  Even through a new president was in place, there were still riots in Osh and Jalal-Abad and Otunbayeva declared another state of emergency on the 12th of June to get the riots under control.  Over the course of these few months around two thousand people were killed and over a one hundred thousand were left displaced because of the revolution of Kyrgyzstan.    

#