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Riot police and protesters clash in Russia region
22 Sep 2004 15:02:01 GMT
Source: Reuters
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(Updates with 106 detained, prosecutor quotes, background) By Richard Balmforth MOSCOW, Sept 22 (Reuters) - Riot police were out in force in the capital of Russia's southern Kalmykia region on Wednesday after violent clashes with opposition protesters seeking the resignation of its long-standing leader. More than 100 people were being held after Tuesday night's unrest in Elista when police broke up an opposition rally calling for Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, the Buddhist region's long-serving and eccentric leader, to quit. Analysts said the Kremlin appeared to want to get rid of Ilyumzhinov. Regional prosecutor Sergei Khlopushin brushed off opposition charges of police misconduct and said the 2,000 protesters had been clearly warned their rally was illegal as it was staged close to buildings housing the courts and regional government. "The number of detained stands at 106. The majority of them will be handed over to the courts," he told Interfax news agency. The protesters accused Ilyumzhinov, in power in the Caspian region since 1993, of leading it in an unlawful manner and flouting basic rights. The protest followed President Vladimir Putin's proposal this month to do away with direct election of regional leaders like Ilyumzhinov and to appoint them instead. Commentators said the unusual prominence given to the clashes on Russian central television -- given the tendency by the state-controlled media to play down negative news -- suggested clear Kremlin pressure on Ilyumzhinov. Mark Urnov, who heads the Expertisa analytical think-tank, said the Kremlin was at odds with the maverick leader because of his independent line and rampant corruption in Kalmykia. "I think, especially in light of the plans of reorganisation of the system of direction in the regions, that central authorities are now trying to get rid of Ilyumzhinov", he said. "We can expect protests to be played up by all possible means." MET SADDAM'S SON Ilyumzhinov is one of the few regional leaders in Russia to have retained his independent image gained during the chaos of the immediate post-Soviet period in the 1990s. And a string of foreign meetings, including with Saddam Hussein's son, Uday, have kept him in the news, along with his status as head of the World Chess Federation FIDE. Putin, since his election in 2000, has set out to clip the wings of wayward leaders in Russia's 89 regions, who built up fiefdoms and personal wealth under predecessor Boris Yeltsin. An opposition representative denounced the action by OMON special police which he said was launched after protesters had already begun to wind down the rally in Elista's main square. "People ... lay down on the ground, but the police began to kick them, push them, fire rubber bullets and beat them with truncheons," Batyr Kitinov said on Ekho Moskvy radio. "They herded people through the streets. The town was cordoned off and has been virtually in a state of siege since yesterday." Opposition sources, quoted by television, said five protesters were in hospital with injuries, three in a serious condition. Khlopushin said police had acted because "a group of aggressively behaving people broke through the cordon of police and went onto the town's central square".
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