Text of report by the Kyrgyz newspaper 'Delo No'

[Newspaper headline] Disturbances in Kara-Buura District
Mass disturbances broke out after the [runoff] parliamentary elections in
Kara-Buura electoral district No 44. Reports from Talas Region give the
following picture:

At about 1300 [1800 gmt] on Monday, 13th March, residents of Kara-Buura as
well as neighbouring Bakay-Ata and Manas districts started gathering near
the District administration building. By 1430 there were over 500 of them.
The participants in the rally were unhappy with the results of the
elections held a day before and chanted: "[Feliks] Kulov! Kulov! [the
leader of the main opposition Ar-Namys Party] We do not want [Alymbay]
Sultanov!". Meanwhile, Alymbay Sultanov - Kulov's opponent [who won in the
district] - himself, who before the election as deputy of the Legislative
Assembly headed the Talas Regional Internal Affairs Department, was
celebrating his victory at a party in a building next to the District
administration.

The rally participants demanded a meeting with the chairman and members of
the district electoral commission. Having failed to meet the officials,
they tried to break down the doors into the building. Reinforced police
detachments and rapid reaction groups began to arrive in Kyzyl-Adyr, the
centre of Kara-Buura District. There were isolated clashed between them and
the protestors.

By the evening the crowd managed to knock out the doors and fully blocked
the building, taking hostage the head of the Kara-Buura District Internal
Affairs Department, M. Abaskanov, and the head of the District national
security department, B. Kozubayev. By night they decided to continue the
rally indefinitely. Some of the protestors went for tents and warm clothes.
"The hostages" were released.

On 14th March the number of the participants in the rally grew to almost
1,000 because more people were arriving from the Region's villages. The
latest reports say that the crowd has been getting more organized and a few
leaders have emerged there. They have put forward specific demands: to deem
the election results invalid because, they say, there were vote rigging and
numerous other violations and the election campaign was accompanied with
the intimidation and bribing of voters. The rally participants also demand
that government and law-enforcement officials publicly apologize for all
that.

Members of the Regional Ar-Namys Party office say that they have nothing to
do with the incident.

P.S. It became known just before the issue was to go to print that over 70
elders from 62 villages had set off to Bishkek in two buses in order to
pass on the demands of the participants in the rally to the Central
Electoral Commission and the president's apparatus. [p2]

Source: 'Delo No', Bishkek, in Russian 15 Mar 00 p 2
BBC Mon CAU 150300/** BB/MV