The United States sponsors the American University in Kyrgyzstan, whose stated mission is, in part, to promote the development of civil society, and pays for exchange programs that send students and non-governmental organization leaders to the United States. Kyrgyzstan's new prime minister, Kurmanbek Bakiyev, was one.
All of that money and manpower gave the coalescing Kyrgyz opposition financing and moral support in recent years, as well as the infrastructure that allowed it to communicate its ideas to the Kyrgyz people.
The growing civil society, meanwhile, began to have an awakening effect on the country's population just as Mr. Akayev and his family grew increasingly enamored of their power. "If none of this had been here, the family would have remained in power and people probably would have remained passive, as they have in other Central Asian countries," said Jeffrey Lilley, who runs the local office of the International Republican Institute, a United States-financed pro-democracy organization.
Alexander Kim, editor in chief of the opposition newspaper that printed the photos of the president's house, knows the problem well: in 1999, Mr. Akayev's son-in-law took control of Mr. Kim's first newspaper, which he and other employees had bought from the state during the privatizations earlier that decade.
He says the son-in-law used fraudulent means, but he was never able to prove it in court. So Mr. Kim went on to found another newspaper, which went through several incarnations as the government tried to prevent him from publishing. He has been helped by about $70,000 in American government grants, mostly to pay for newsprint.
The problem, though, was finding a press: they were all controlled by the government and refused to print newspapers from the opposition.
Then Mike Stone, Freedom House's representative in Kyrgyzstan, arrived.
"When Freedom House opened their printing press, it was the end of our problems," Mr. Kim said.
Shortly before parliamentary elections were held in Kyrgyzstan, an opposition-run newspaper ran photographs of a palace under construction for since-deposed president Askar Akayev. This newspaper received grants from and was printed on a printing press financed by the US government.

The US government itself confirms this. In fact, nearly one year ago in May 2004, Lorne Craner, US Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor revealed:
The US has been financing pro-democracy programs in Kyrgyzstan under the FREEDOM Support Act of 1992.''We did a project recently... in Kyrgyzstan where there had only ever been one printing press. We funded the operation of another printing press there so that newspapers that were once unable to print day by day -- due to censorship and lacks of facilities -- are now able to print much more often, basically every day now.''

Kyrgyzstan became the nation with the highest per-capita foreign assistance level in central Asia after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Most of the money came from the US, under the FREEDOM Support Act, passed in 1992 to help former Soviet republics in transition. Money ear-marked for Kyrgyz pro-democracy programs totaled about $13.3 million dollars last year.

According to a US State Department statement, the programs receiving the money "focus on improving political processes and accountability of government institutions, strengthening civil society and public advocacy, and supporting independent media."

Deposed president Askar Akayev accused the US of plotting to topple him.Akayev, in an interview with RIA Novosti, said that the opposition which had taken over the government in Kyrgyzstan was supported "with financial and technical support from the USA."

As proof, he cited a report which was posted on the Internet and attributed to the US ambassador in Kyrgyzstan. "The scenario was carried out to a tee. In it he writes that president Akayev has to be toppled, removed. And because the country is key, a neighbor of China, with a Russian military base, it's necessary to increase influence there."

''The New York Times'' described this report as "crudely forged" and Kyrgyzstan's new leaders have pledged to keep both the US and Russian military bases in the country and maintain friendly diplomatic relations with Russia.