Volunteers from self-defense squads and police patrolled streets of the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek on Thursday amid growing fears that an opposition congress may end up in another outbreak of unrest in the ex-Soviet state.
The event, to start later in the day, sparked a wave of rumors about the possibility of another violent uprising in Kyrgyzstan, which has seen several outbreaks of political and ethnic clashes this year.
The congress was organized by businessman Urmat Baryktabasov, who was put on the country's wanted list and charged with an attempt to overthrow the government after the 2005 Tulip Revolution.
Baryktabasov allegedly fled to "an Arab country" after his supporters stormed the republic's government building and held it for several hours. The move was in protest against the central election commission's decision to bar the businessman from running in the 2005 presidential elections over his dual citizenship.
Though organizers repeatedly affirmed the peaceful nature of the event and pledged to maintain public security with their own resources, the Kyrgyz people are cautious about the congress, which over 10,000 delegates from all parts of the republic will attend.
"We invited representatives of all layers of society, political parties and the authorities to discuss the present situation and perspectives of Kyrgyzstan's development," a source in the organization committee of the congress told RIA Novosti.
The situation in Kyrgyzstan remains strained following several unrests which swept through the country this year.
Violent anti-government protests in the former Soviet Central Asian republic forced then president Kurmanbek Bakiyev to leave the country with his immediate family and take refuge in Belarus in April.
Clashes between ethnic Kyrgyz and minority Uzbeks broke out in the southern city of Jalalabad in May, killing two people and injuring more than 70.
In mid-June, the country saw its worst interethnic clashes in two decades that killed some 2,000 people, according to unofficial reports. About 100,000 people fled to neighboring Uzbekistan and hundreds of houses have been destroyed in the riot-hit Osh and Jalalabad regions.
BISHKEK, August 5 (RIA Novosti)
