Kyrgyzstan's interim government pledged on Monday not to use weapons against civilians in the ex-Soviet Central Asian republic, but threatened to use "napalm against bandits."
First Deputy Prime Minister Almazbek Atambayev said the interim government was working to stabilize the situation in the country and to avoid causalities among the civilian population.
"We will not use weapons against civilian population," he said. "But I am ready to use even napalm against bandits."
Ousted President Kurmanbek Bakiyev fled the capital on April 7 amid violent protests that saw the opposition take power, but the situation in Bishkek remains tense.
A wave of new violence engulfed the suburbs on Monday, when some 2,000 people armed with sticks set several cars on fire and threw rocks at houses in nearby villages.
They tried to seize some 700 hectares of land outside Bishkek, saying it was theirs to build houses on, but landowners drove them away. The rioters then moved toward the capital, but were stopped by police. After negotiations with the head of the municipal administration they agreed not to enter the city.
Bakiyev took refuge in his home village near the southern city of Jalalabad before flying to neighboring Kazakhstan last week. On Monday, a Kazakh Foreign Ministry spokesman said he had left for an unknown destination.
The southern region, where support for Bakiyev is strongest, also experienced outbreaks of unrest on Monday, with supporters of the former president storming the Jalalabad police department, the Kyrgyz 24.kg news agency reported.
"They are throwing Molotov cocktails at the building and the police have fired warning shots," the agency reported.
Atambayev blamed the unrest on Bakiyev allies.
"A slightly unstable situation in the Jalalabad can be explained by the fact that [weapons] were imported there by criminals, by Bakiyev's lot," Atambayev said. "These criminals, who could not fly with Bakiyev, stayed in Jalalabad."
ASTANA, April 19 (RIA Novosti)
