BISHKEK - Russian community leaders in Kyrgyzstan voiced anxiety on Tuesday at the continued spread of anti-Russian leaflets around this Central Asian country's capital since president Askar Akayev's ousting.
Leaflets calling on the Russian minority to leave this former Soviet republic have appeared in letter boxes and on public transport across Bishkek since protestors overran Akayev's administration building on March 24.
"Russians get out... leave your property and homes, you won't be able to sell them -- we'll take them for free," one such leaflet read.
In recent days unknown activists have threatened to plant a bomb in Bishkek's Russian-language Slavic University, said Valery Vishnevsky, head of a popular Russian community association, the Slavic Fund.
"Where are the special forces? Why hasn't the prosecutor arrested anyone?" Vishnevsky demanded.
"Since March 24 the number of Russian speakers leaving has increased between three and five times -- people don't see any prospects in this country," Vishnevsky told AFP.
Russians have been a presence in this mountainous territory since long before the Soviet era and now number around 11 percent of Kyrgyzstan's overall population of five million.
Many of the leaflets have highlighted Russians' reluctance to get involved in the protests that unseated Akayev and led to the setting up of a new administration under interim President Kurmanbek Bakiyev.
On Tuesday Foreign Minister Roza Otunbayeva told students at the Slavic university that "no one should divide the population along ethnic lines," adding that the government hoped to encourage Russian investment.
Russia has had an airbase close to the capital Bishkek since 2003, some 25 kilometres (15 miles) from another used by the US military.
04/19/2005 13:49 GMT