The massive demonstrations first in the southern cities of Osh, Jalalabad and then the March 24 overthrow of Mr.Akaev’s 14-year rule took place quickly and was largely unexpected. The looting of almost all the major foreign and local supermarkets and stores in the night of the same day in Bishkek, with an estimated damage of US$100 mln, left the city in a difficult condition and the Bishkek residents bewildered. Reflecting upon this, the forum started with looking at major factors determining the overthrow of the former Kyrgyz government.

While analyzing the causes that contributed to such an unexpectedly swift change, panelist Elnura Osmonalieva from Allavida, an international development organization in Bishkek pointed at three major factors: longstanding poverty, oppression and corruption in the country. Based on her first hand experience as a journalist and election observer in southern Kyrgyzstan where the demonstrations initially started, Ms. Osmonalieva assured the audience that the last parliamentary elections of February 27 were fraught with numerous violations. It is already proven that the former Akaev administration used armed force against peaceful demonstrators in Jalalabad. This, she said, along with the three aforementioned factors raised major discontent among the population and added up to the restive situation in the country. AUCA professor of psychology Aaron Brudny explained the violent overthrow of the government as an “outburst of energy” among people that had been long depressed by the authorities. In addition to this, revolution as such or whether to call it a revolution or not was a topic of further discussion in the auditorium.

Kumar Bekbolotov, a representative from the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) in Bishkek, completely rejected the idea of calling the events as a revolution. “Simple replacement of government officials does not mean a revolution, there are no revolutionary changes yet” said Bekbolotov. He further emphasized that it is neither a revolution nor a coup d\'etat but rather a simple takeover. Since the demonstrations and march to Bishkek were sparked in the south of Kyrgyzstan, some people among the attendees of the forum even raised the issue of whether it is a seizure of power by the south – the longstanding South-North gap in Kyrgyzstan.

Comparing the so called “tulip revolution” in Kyrgyzstan with velvet revolution in Georgia and orange revolution in Ukraine and discussing the possible domino effects in other Central Asian countries constituted another major topic of debate during the forum. Comparing the revolutions in Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan, Edil Baisalov, chief of Coalition for Democracy and Civil Society, noted that the scenario of the revolution was different in these two countries and that the revolution in Kyrgyzstan was not going to be over yet. In Mr. Baisalov’s opinion, the revolution could have been easily prevented if Mr. Akaev’s so-called “vaccine” against any type of revolution had worked. Mr.Baisalov vehemently argued that this vaccine consisted of organized looting by pro-Akaev groups that night, blaming the peaceful demonstrators the next morning for all the damages incurred. But Mr.Akaev’s plan of preventing the revolution failed. Tim Epkenhans, Director of the OSCE Academy in Bishkek, noted that corruption and rigged elections identical to those in Kyrgyzstan could cause a change of power in other Central Asian countries too. Mr. Epkenhans argued that conflict potential is particularly high in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, and that events would not necessarily consist of a spillover effect of the takeover in Kyrgyzstan but rather erupt as a result of dire living conditions.

Talking about the possible future scenarios for Kyrgyzstan, John Heathershaw, a Ph.D. candidate at London School of Economics and Political Science specializing on peace building in Tajikistan argued that three factors could exacerbate the situation: continuance of uprising against the interim government (no formal recognition of interim government yet), worsening of the socio-economic situation (e.g. high inflation) and competing mass demonstrations, which in turn could be used by regional groups struggling for power to mobilize the public in their favors. As a result, this might end up leading to an identity conflict as well.

Overall, this conference provided a common space for academics, journalists and students to come together and analyze critically the events that have shaken Kyrgyzstan lately. All in all, the panelists presented different views on the defining issue of the revolution, determining the causes and predicting the consequences, but one factor united them all – optimism about a future liberal and democratic Kyrgyzstan. But this optimisms remains to be matched by fact, given almost daily minor-scale demonstration in front of the White House and the Kyrgyz parliament Jogorku Kenesh, as well as land squatters on the outskirts of Bishkek.