Kyrgyzstan: Bloggers seek stability amidst a frenzy of rallies · Global Voices
Chris Rickleton

“Yes we can see that active forces want to divide us on the basis of North and South, divide us on ethnic grounds, split us into two camps and make us weaker…I ask you, find in yourselves hope and understanding… Only together, brick by brick, will we be able to create a truly democratic and economically developed modern state where law and order will prevail…and where the identity of the multi-ethnic people of Kyrgyzstan will not be lost.”
“If only Kurmanbek Bakiev could have shown such love for his country,” the blogger had concluded wistfully.
Ten days on and Tyuleev supporters were taking to the street, voicing their anger at the provisional government for replacing their protagonist with the less popular Isa Omurkulov[ru]  in the aftermath of the coup on April 7. While a rally organized by Alzambek Atambayev later on during the same day drew an even larger crowd, it is evident that Tyuleev, who served as Mayor of the city for 2 years, is not without his 	sympathizers.
Still more people, however, saw these demonstrations as additional, unnecessary upheavals, occurring just as it seemed the provisional government had restored a modicum of stability to the country as a whole.  Among these were students [ru] of the American University of Central Asia (AUCA), some of whom were  taking final examinations when they were forced to evacuate the university as a result of the nearby demonstrations.
“They say that in our country there was a revolution. They even 	invented a new term – the “people's revolution” to define a coup d'etat. But was the revolution made by the people? It's just shifting the responsibility for an anti-constitutional intervention and the overthrow of the state system by specific individuals onto a generalized notion of the people.”
The blogger went on to make it known that he 	didn’t support President Bakiev, but that the nation itself was 	partly at fault for being passive in the face of widespread corruption and electoral fraud. “Every country deserves the leader they get,” he summarized grimly.
On the positive side, rumours predicting [ru] scenes of mass unrest in the capital on Monday May 17, failed [eng] to bear fruit. The new week commenced with a memorial for those that died on April 7 in Bishkek, and a demonstration against ethnic discrimination in Dostuk, Jalal-Abad oblast.