BISHKEK - Road workers in Kyrgyzstan on Wednesday erected barricades on the main road leading from the nation's impoverished south roiled by opposition protests, to the north that has so far been largely untouched by the unrest.
Road workers were placing barricades made of concrete, earth and snow along a section of the road early Wednesday, infuriating the drivers of the line of cars and trucks that were forced to stop as a result.
"The police will come through to ensure security and then we'll be ordered to close the tunnel," a policeman directing traffic near the Kussin Kolbayev tunnel at the road's northernmost point told AFP.
Lines of cars formed as a result of the obstacles.
"The (President Askar) Akayev mafia have done this especially to the opposition couldn't get through," Abdyl Assanov, a taxi driver taking a family from the north part of the country for a funeral in the south told AFP.
"This has never happened before in Kyrgyzstan," he said.
Kyrgyzstan's impoverished south has for more than a week been roiled by opposition protests and Wednesday's move appeared aimed at preventing the demonstrators from the south from travelling to the better-off north that has largely been untouched by the unrest.
Supporters of Kyrgyzstan's disjointed opposition have been staging demonstrations since the results of an election held on March 13 were announced, virtually shutting the opposition out of the nation's parliament.
The opposition charges that Akayev's administration had helped fix the vote in order to pack the 75-seat chamber with supporters ahead of presidential elections in October.
03/23/2005 14:19 GMT