TEYIT, Kyrgyzstan - Kyrgyzstan's deposed president on Sunday defended the legitimacy of his rule and urged the United Nations to send peacekeepers to help stabilise the strategically vital Central Asian nation. President Kurmanbek Bakiyev told The Associated Press in an interview at his home village in the south of the country that he had not ordered police to fire at protesters in the capital. "My conscience is clear," he said. Bakiyev fled the capital, Bishkek, on Wednesday after a protest rally against corruption, rising utility bills and deteriorating human rights exploded into police gunfire and chaos that left at least 81 people dead and sparked protesters to storm the government headquarters. Looking self-assured and calm, Bakiyev denounced the protest as a "coup" and angrily rejected the self-proclaimed interim government's demand to step down. "I'm the head of state," he said. The stalemate has left Kyrgyzstan's near-term stability in doubt, a worry for the West because of the U.S. air base in Kyrgyzstan that is a crucial element in the international military campaign against the Taliban in Afghanistan. Bakiyev strongly urged the U.N. to send a peacekeeping force to Kyrgyzstan, arguing that the nation's police and the military are too weak to keep the unrest from spreading. "The people of Kyrgyzstan are very afraid," Bakiyev told the AP in an interview in the yard of his family compound in Teyit, surrounded by almond and apricot trees. "They live in terror." The head of interim government, Roza Otunbayeva, said Sunday that Bakiyev must face trial, rescinding an earlier offer of security guarantees for him. The statement reflected the toughening of the new authorities' stance as they grow increasingly impatient with the ousted Bakiyev's refusal to step down. Speaking to a crowd of supporters Sunday at his family mansion, Bakiyev warned the government against an attempt to arrest him, saying that it will lead to bloodshed. Servants treated the crowd to a traditional rice dish and dumplings. Outside, gangs of young men barricaded a road leading to his house with cars, but they didn't have any weapons. Across the mountains from Bakiyev's stronghold, a deputy head of the self-declared interim government, Omurbek Tekebayev warned Bakiyev (Koor-mahn-BEK Bah-KEE-yev) against using force. "If he attempts to destabilize the situation and shed blood, he would put himself outside the law and we would conduct an operation to destroy him as a terrorist and a criminal," Tekebayev told the AP in the capital, Bishkek. Bakiyev called for an international probe into the circumstances of violence in Bishkek. "An independent international committee should be sent here to conduct a full investigation into the events of April 7," he told the AP. "If the committee says that I'm guilty, I'm willing to accept full responsibility."
