OSH B'GOSH:

Kyrgyz leader calls for elections inquiry: Akayev acts as demonstrations mount (The Associated Press, March 22, 2005)

President Askar Akayev ordered a probe Monday into alleged election violations that have triggered demands for his resignation and weeks of increasingly violent protests across this former Soviet republic.

The police, security forces and local officials in the nation's second-largest city, Osh, fled Monday in the face of about 2,000 demonstrators, some armed with clubs and Molotov cocktails, some shouting: "Akayev, go!" The protesters seized the governor's office and regional police and security stations.

About 100 protesters later took control of Osh Airport, where they met no resistance, the police said.

The opposition has also taken control of government buildings in four other cities and towns across Kyrgyzstan's impoverished south, said an Interior Ministry spokesman, Nurdin Jangarayev.

"This is a new day in our history," exulted Omurbek Tekebayev, an opposition official in Osh.

"Power in Osh has been taken over by people!" another opposition member, Anvar Artykov, told the crowd. "I congratulate you on our victory and urge you to maintain order."

It's a nation badly in need of vowels.

Posted by Orrin Judd at March 22, 2005 7:20 AM