By Anatol LIEVEN

Despite Russian hints, there is no evidence that the United States was involved in the latest violent protests in Kazakhstan. However, there now exists a strong temptation for America to get involved — and it is a temptation that must be firmly resisted by the Biden administration.

Aspects of the latest unrest remain unclear. It has been suggested that it was partly caused by struggles within the Kazakh elites between supporters and opponents of former President Nur-Sultan Nazarbayev, who until this week retained considerable power over the government.

The most important underlying reason for the unrest however is entirely clear. It lies in the gross mismatch between Kazakhstan’s huge revenues from energy exports (more than $30 billion in 2021), the vast wealth of its elites and the poverty of the mass of its population, with an average household income last year of only $3,200. As a Kazakh trades unionist told The New York Times:

“Kazakhstan is a rich country, but these resources do not work in the interests of the people, they work in the interests of the elites. There is a huge stratification of society.”

Regional factors also played a part: the hugely expensive move of the capital from the biggest city, Alma Aty, to a new capital, Astana, then renamed — to add insult to injury as far as Alma Aty is concerned — Nur-Sultan after Nazarbayev. The failure to distribute the benefits of energy revenues to the western region of Menghystau where most of the oil and gas is produced is also a factor. The government decision (now suspended) to lift the cap on domestic fuel prices was only the last straw for many ordinary Kazakhs.

The temptation for the United States to become involved in backing unrest in Kazakhstan stems from two sources (apart from the innate tendency of the democratism industry in the West to idealize any protest against an authoritarian regime as “democratic” and to lend it unthinking support). First of course is the desire to make trouble for Russia. Already, while U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has criticized Russia’s dispatch of troops to Kazakhstan, sections of the Western media and commentariat are celebrating the diversion of Russian military force and attention from Ukraine.

July 27, 2015: President Nursultan Nazarbayev, center front, visiting the Kazakh room at the Palais des Nations, Geneva. (UN Geneva, Violaine Martin)

Kazakhstan borders on Chinese Sinkiang, and a large part of Sinkiang’s population is ethnic Kazakh. Over the past year, the Kazakh government has had to make intensive efforts to prevent anger within Kazakhstan at China’s repression in Sinkiang from boiling over into mass protests.

If the Kazakh government collapses or is gravely weakened, it would be very surprising if hard line elements in Washington did not see this as an opportunity to use Kazakhstan as a base to undermine Chinese rule in Sinkiang — even if (as in Syria) this led them into de facto alliance with Islamist extremist forces.

Crime & Blunder

For America to use Kazakhstan in this way would be both a crime and a blunder, that would recall the worst aspects of U.S. policy in Africa, Asi, and Central America during the Cold War. It would in fact cast America in the role in which American commentators like to cast Russia — that of a cynical troublemaker, absolutely indifferent to the consequences of its actions for unfortunate populations on the ground.

Kazakhstan’s permanent and inescapable geopolitical position was well summed up for me by a Kazakh official back in 1995, when America was seeking expanded influence in Central Asia. He said that of course the Kazakh government wanted U.S. investment and good relations with the United States but:

“You have to understand that every sensible Kazakh has a map in his head. What that map shows is that Russia is there, and China is there, and Kazakhstan is in the middle. And America does not appear anywhere on that map.”

An even more morally and politically serious reason why Washington should not seek to weaponize unrest in Kazakhstan against Russia and China relates to Kazakh ethnic nationalism. The greatest achievement of the Kazakh regime since independence has been to consolidate Kazakh independence and national identity without inspiring ethnic chauvinism against the country’s Russian minority. Moscow in turn has never sought to encourage that minority to revolt.

The potential for ethnic conflict however remains enormous. In August of 2021, criticism from Russia led the Kazakh government to take action against “language patrols” of Kazakh nationalists forcing shops to use the Kazakh language and humiliating Russians in public for not speaking Kazakh.

Protesters setting up a yurt in Aktobe, Kazakhstan, Jan. 4. (Esetok, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons)

Under both Russian imperial and Soviet rule Kazakhstan was exposed to repeated waves of Russian and Ukrainian settlement and state repression, until by the 1960s ethnic Kazakhs were a minority. During the famine of the early 1930s caused by Stalin’s collectivization of agriculture, Kazakhs suffered proportionately more deaths than any other Soviet nationality. Since the 1980s, the decline in the Russian birth rate and Russian and other European migration from Kazakhstan has reduced the European minorities to just over 20 percent; but Russians still form the majority in the far north of the country.

The absence to date of ethnic conflict in Kazakhstan reflects two other, crucially important patterns in post-Soviet history. The first is that Vladimir Putin is a Russian state nationalist in the old Russian imperial and Soviet tradition, dedicated to Russian power (naturally, as embodied in the person of Vladimir Putin) but he is not a Russian ethnic nationalist. This is evident both from his own writings and the thoroughly multi-ethnic character of his regime. The second is that rather remarkably, among all the instances of mass ethnic violence that followed the fall of the U.S.S.R., none were directed against ethnic Russians outside Russia.

The United States has backed anti-Russian ethnic nationalism in the Baltic States, Ukraine and elsewhere, but this has never taken the form of ethnic pogroms. Given the violent events of the past week in Kazakhstan, there can be no confidence at all that further protests in Kazakhstan may not take the form of ethnic chauvinism and attacks on ethnic Russians.

Small-scale violence and the threat of it against Russians did occur in Kazakhstan and elsewhere. Thus in 1992, I interviewed a Russian engineer who had fled that year from a town in southern Kazakhstan (where Russians were already a small minority). He said that every evening when he walked home from work, Kazakh youths would fall in step with him and tell him that if he and his family did not leave, they would rape his daughters.

“I did not know if they really would have. As far as I know, I was not unpopular,” he said. “But the risk was there. And above all, I knew that if that happened, the Kazakh police would have done nothing. So we left.”

The deployment of Russian troops to Kazakhstan to support the government is likely to increase anti-Russian feelings; and if, God forbid, ethnic violence does erupt in Kazakhstan, it could help to produce a future Russian government far more chauvinist than that of Putin. This would be a disaster for Russia, Russia’s neighbor, and above all Russia’s own ethnic minorities. And if Washington were seen to be supporting violence against ordinary Russians, then America will be faced in future with a danger far more formidable than that of Putin: an infuriated Russian nation.

consortiumnews.com

State-run media and opposition supporters offer an absolutely different coverage of the events. Kazakhstan`s General Prosecutor`s Office said that a group of 'hooligans', all identified as oil workers fired three months ago over a pay dispute with the employer, attacked citizens on central square. The oil workers themselves blamed the police for provoking violence during a rally. While the official death toll was reported at 10 people, other sources insist that from 25 up to 70 people were killed during the clashes. Many buildings, including those of the mayor`s office (akimat), KazMunaiGaz, some hotels, were damaged, cars were set on fire and shops and banks looted. 

In the evening of December 16^th military forces were brought into Zhanaozen – by that time the town had been practically controlled by the protesters. As of 1 a.m on Saturday, the rally continued on central square, while clashes with the police were reported in the outskirts. Shots were heard all night. Members of the national-patriotic and the socialist opposition parties voiced their support for the protesters. 

Unrest in Zhanaozen was preceded by a series of terror attacks in other Kazakh towns. On October 31^st a bomb went off near a local mayor`s office in Atyrauss district. Later on an unknown man blew himself up near a block of flats in Sary-Arka area. The terrorist was a 24-year-old citizen of Atyrau, Baurzhan Sultangaliyev. Police searched his flat to find another homemade bomb and manuals to make explosives. Responsibility for the attacks was claimed by Jund al-Khalifat (Soldiers of Khalifat) little- known Islamist group. It released a statement then which said that both attacks were carried out to warn the Kazakh authorities against approving a ban on namaz prayers in state-run organizations. 

On November 9^th the Kazakh Prosecutor`s General Office admitted that the Soldiers of Khalifat was operating in the country (previously, all reports about Islamist activity taking place in Kazakhstan was strongly denied). Investigators concluded that the militant group was inspired by Said Buryatsky`s ideology. Buryatsky, an influential figure among North Caucasian militants, was killed by the Russian forces in March, 2010. The Soldiers of Khalifat was founded in summer of 2011 by Kazakh citizens Renat Khabibuly, Orynbasar Unasov and Damir Nabiyev reportedly “to unleash a jihad in Kazakhstan”. Currently, they all are being trained on the Afghan-Pakistan border. On October 25^th and November 1^st the group`s leader Renat Khabibuly issued a statement, threatening the Kazakh authorities and claiming responsibility for the attacks in Atyrau. 

On November 12^th a Hollywood action movie-style event happened in the town of Taraz, Dzhambul district. Unemployed Maksat Kariev, 34, shot dead two national security committee agents, who had been watching him, and then attacked a gun store, killing a security guard and lethally wounding a customer. He stole weapons, hijacked a car and killed road police officers, who had been trying to detain him. He also took a Kalazhnikov gun and a Makarov pistol from them. Then the killer returned home, took an RPG-26 grenade launcher, arrived at the local national security department and started shooting at the building. When he was driving back, he wounded two mounted police officers and then blew himself. His act of suicide bombing left a nearby police officer dead, thus bringing the death toll from his attack to 7. 

In early December another anti-extremism raid took place in the country`s Almaty district. On December 3 a group of extremist was blocked in a house in Boraldai village. The raid resulted in the killing of five militants, including their leader. Two officers of the Arystan national security committee department were also killed. After the raid was over, the house was searched to found two RGD-5 grenades, two Kalashnikov rifles and two Makarov pistols. The General Prosecutor`s Office source said that on November 8 the armed gang killed two policemen and planned to carry out a series of attacks in Almaty. The gang`s leader Agzhan Khasen, 34, had been on the run since October 28^th. 

Eight Kazakh citizens residing in the Aktybinsk district, aged 20-26, were sentenced to many years in prison on terrorism charges. They were sentenced to prison terms from 4 to 19 years for participating in extremist activity and illegal storage or arms and explosives. Investigators believe that the convicted could have been involved in several murders. One of the militants was shot dead when resisted the police. A Russian citizen from the Orenburg district was among the convicted. 

As of today, terrorist activity in Kazakhstan is divided between the western and the southern parts of the country. Both regions are mostly populated by Kazakh people, while the situation in the Russian-populated north and north-east remains relatively calm. Extremism in Kazakhstan is being inspired by Islamist movement in the Russian North Caucasus, where confrontation between armed gangs and the army has lasted for many years. Geographically close, these two regions have made a problem of terror a common threat for Russia and Kazakhstan. Religious extremism and criminal activity have practically overlapped. Becoming aware of this, the Kazakh authorities closed all prayer rooms in prisons. But the move evidently came too late as the process of radical Islam merging into everyday crime had started long before. 

Unrest in Kazakh cities is gaining pace ahead of next month`s parliamentary elections in the country and presidential elections in the years to come. Terror threat has long become a major issue of concern in the country`s domestic policy. And one should not ignore that in the north Kazakhstan has the world`s longest 7,000 km and poorly guarded border with the Russian Federation…

In late December, the Kazakh parliament proposed to hold a referendum to extend Nazarbayev’s power and to make relevant amendments to the Constitution. The president did not agree. Nevertheless by mid January 5,012,000 people (55.2% of voters in the republic) had put their signatures for the referendum. That is why, on January 14, the parliament managed to override the president’s veto and unanimously adopted the amendments to the Constitution, concerning the referendum to extend Nazarbayev’s power till 2020. The President submitted those amendments to the Constitutional Council for consideration and the council declared them illegal on January 31 due to “obscure wording”.

On the same day the President made an address to the Kazakh nation in which he said that “the Constitutional Council did not rule out an option to hold the referendum” and proposed to hold early presidential elections. He stressed that in case of early elections his term of office will be reduced from seven to five years.

In terms of time in power Nazarbayev is the absolute leader among the heads of the states of the former USSR. His closest competitor is the Uzbek leader Islam Karimov became the president a little bit later. Since 1984, Nazarbayev was the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Kazakh Soviet Socialists Republic; in June 1989, he became the First Secretary of the Communist party of Kazakhstan and in March 1990, he was appointed the Chairman of the Supreme Soviet (head of the state). In April 1990, the deputies of the Supreme Soviet elected him as the President of Kazakhstan and on December 1 1991, he won the direct presidential elections in which no other candidate ran against him.

In April 1995, referendum extended his term till December 2000. In August 1995, the new Constitution was adopted, under which all previous terms were declared invalid. It gave Nazarbayev an opportunity to stay president for 15 years. In September 1998, Nazarbayev proposed to hold early presidential elections and to make a number of amendments to the Constitution. According to him, this would contribute to the democratization of the Kazakh society. In practice the changes in the Constitution led to further strengthening of the president's power. In particular, the term of office was extended to seven years and one of the amendments would allow Nazarbayev to seek re-election as many times as he wishes. This enabled Nazarbayev to be reflected in January 1999 and in December 2005.

The next presidential elections in Kazakhstan were to be held only in 2012 and there were no obvious reasons for Nazarbayev to force them. That is why the proposal to extend the president’s power by holding a referendum as well as the decision to hold early elections puzzled analysts. The assumptions that have emerged recently can be reduced to several versions. The first version is that after the end of Kazakhstan’s chairmanship in the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the completion of the summit of this organization in Astana in December Nazarbayev’s rating was on top and he wanted like to use that moment to extend his power with minimum efforts. The optimal solution would be holding a referendum but Washington, Brussels and some international organizations oppose this idea.

OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rightsstated that the referendum limits citizens’ opportunities to use their voting rights and could not replace regular elections, because if Nazarbayev’s power is confirmed there won’t be new elections at least for 15 years.

US, Germany also voiced their warnings against the referendum, while the US embassy in Astana urged the Kazakh president “not to undermine his own historical heritage”. Probably, Nazarbayev decided that he should not ignore this statement.

According to the second version, the leadership of Kazakhstan fears the repetition of the events, which recently took place in Kyrgyzstan, Tunisia and Egypt. Kyrgyzstan, which still suffers from the consequences of the revolution of April 2010, is close to Kazakhstan geographically, ethnically, religiously, socially and historically. As for Tunisia and Egypt the mass protests there broke out right before the Kazakh president announced the plan to hold early elections. The repetition of the “Tunisian-Egyptian scenario” in Kazakhstan, which seems unbelievable to many people, has been regularly mentioned in the commentaries of the experts and statements of the officials in Astana. For example, in an interview with the Liter newspaper the President’s adviser Yermuchamet Yertysbayev was asked if the repetition of the Egyptian events in Kazakhstan was possible. He ruled out such a possibility saying that in Egypt half of the population was living on two dollars a day and in Kazakhstan this was the case in mid 1990-s but since then the standard of living had increased many times.

Meanwhile the low standard of living in Egypt and Tunisia was not the only reason that triggered the recent protests. In the last several decades, Tunisia was the leader among African countries in terms of living standards and economic growth. So a visibly quiet situation in Kazakhstan may turn to be deceptive as well as the support provided by the West to Nazarbayev. In the near future Kazakhstan will have to go through the change of the head of the state in any case. The forthcoming to this stage creates conditions for the interference from outside and tenses the fight between the groups of the Kazakh political elite.

Finally, the third version: by setting early elections Nazarbayev has made a well-thought multi-step combination. He managed to be reelected in the right time and hopes that in future he will be protected from waves of new colored” revolutions.