Kyrgyz Interim Leader Vows to Use ‘Deadly Force’ against Rioters

For restoration of order in Kyrgyzstan, interim government leader Roza Otunbayeva has pledged to use ‘deadly force’ against looters and armed assaulters, said media reports.

In her address to the nation, Otunbayeva urged the Kyrgyz people to stay calm and fight those trying to weaken public order and inter-ethnic coherence, reports said.

“Law enforcement officers are entitled to use deadly force when facing armed assaults against civilians, their homes and private property, attempts on their lives, as well as strikes on civilian and military objects,” she was quoted as saying.

Her speech came two days after a violent ethnic clash in Mayevka village on the outskirts of the capital Bishkek in which five people were killed on Monday.

Nearly 1000 ethnic Kyrgyz mobs broke into the village having a mixed population of Russians, Kyrgyz and Meskhetian Turks, asking the authorities to give them arable land.

According to a Kremlin spokesman, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who supports the interim regime, issued an order after the clash to take measures to protect the safety of Russian citizens in Kyrgyzstan, reports said.

In the meantime, supporters of ousted President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, who stormed the regional administration building in the country’s southern city of Jalalabad last Saturday, installed a pro-Bakiyev governor and are in effective control, said reports.