Kyrgyzstan Vice President Akaev: The coup in Kyrgyzstan was cheap for the Americans: EADaily

The “Tulip Revolution” in Kyrgyzstan in 2005 was very cheap for the United States. The former President of Kyrgyzstan Askar Akayev said this in an interview with Rossiyskaya Gazeta.

A former Kyrgyz leader recalled that “color revolutionaries” are used by the United States to replace leaders they don’t like in several countries and on different continents. According to him, he complained to Washington for two reasons: first, for the initiative to create a Russian air base in Kyrgyzstan in 2003, against the will of the United States. And secondly, for refusing to land the American Avax reconnaissance aircraft at Manas International Airport in 2004.

“And then the United States acted according to a well-known situation, which was successfully tested earlier in Georgia (2003) and Ukraine (2004). A huge, wild information campaign began to insult me ​​and my family members in the independent media. The United States provided generous financial aid to the unstable radical opposition to fight against the legitimate power of the republic. Additionally, the US Ambassador to Kyrgyzstan Stephen Young personally and openly led the preparation of the opposition forces for the so-called “Tulip Revolution”, – said Akayev.

He said that at that time, through third countries, the media received an idea of ​​a report from Young, who urgently requested $30 million from the State Department to discredit the Kyrgyz president’s family and rumors shocking to spread that his wife wanted to be the next head of state.

“It is known that on March 24, 2005, a group of conspirators led by Bakiyev, Otunbaevoi And My Atambaev (all three were presidents of Kyrgyzstan – approx. EADaily) carried out a coup d’etat, relying on the criminal forces of drug lords, as well as financial and intelligence support from the United States. The criminal aspect of the coup in later years caused many problems: a series of high-profile contract killings; aggressive harassment of representatives of the criminal world in public politics; linking crime to state power. All this made the political situation of the country much worse for many years,” – said Akaev further.

He noted that the “Tulip Revolution” in Kyrgyzstan cost the United States very cheap – from 10 to 50 million dollars, while it cost the people of Kyrgyzstan a lot: almost 15 years of non- stability and chaos, as well as economic stagnation.

“Those years are rightly called the ‘lost decade,'” – Akaev said about this.

The money, he said, was transferred to the opposition, who, having realized that it was not possible to rouse the masses to a real revolution, “of course went to the services of the drug mafia and criminal structures to make a coup d’etat normal.”