For many Kazakhs, the whole story behind last week’s unrest is as hazy as the haze that engulfed the country’s largest city and the epicenter of violence, Almaty, at the same time.
people were unable to access accurate information, as an Internet blackout blocked almost all access to the outside world during a sad days of violence In which military vehicles rolled down the streets, government buildings were torched and threats were made on state television “bandits and terrorists” will be eliminated without mercy,
Now both order and internet have been largely restored, but there are still more questions than answers. One thing that is clear is that many old beliefs about KazakhstanThe resource-rich Central Asian state has been turned upside down.
Just last month as the country celebrated its 30th anniversary of independence, official speeches highlighted the image of a peaceful, prosperous nation that had avoided widespread political unrest and claimed an independent and “multivector” foreign policy.
Kazakhstan seemed to have successfully managed even the difficult transition out of power from its long-serving president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, who led the country’s independence from 1991 to 2019 till his elected successor, Kasim-Jomart Tokayev,
A month later, and the picture is very different. Peaceful protests turned into violent clashes, with Tokayev announcing that he had ordered security forces to “shoot to kill without warning”, and soldiers from the Russia-led military coalition on the ground after being called in by Tokayev. Huh.
Amidst all this, dozens of deaths and eyewitness accounts suggest the actual number of casualties may be much higher than the 26 “armed criminals” and 18 security officers who the Interior Ministry said were killed. More than 4,000 people have been detained.
All week there was a suspicion that there might be more at play than a plain popular rebellion, and this was confirmed by the announcement on Saturday that Karim Massimov, a powerful former security chief and prime minister, was arrested on suspicion of treason.
The move only increased speculation that the initial opposition could have been used by groups of the country’s political elite to fight their way out. A source in Kazakh business circles credited the scenario to the situation, describing a state of heightened tension in recent months between figures close to Nazarbayev and his successor, Tokayev.
“In the last six to 12 months, the tussle had escalated, which was crippling decision-making,” the source said. “It’s been bubbling for a while.”
One of the more surprising episodes of the week was Tokayev’s transformation from a quiet placeholder to a fiery autocrat, promising to brutally crush the rebellion.
“We were dealing with armed and well prepared bandits, both local and foreign. Outlaws and terrorists, who must be destroyed. It will happen in the near term,” Tokayev said in an uncompromising address to the nation on Friday, noting that there were 20,000 such “bandits” in Almaty alone. He also posted a message in English on Twitter: “In my original view No talks with terrorists: we must kill them.” This was later removed.
“Previously, he had come across as a downright quiet diplomat, but the rhetoric we saw on Friday was that of a general leading an army,” said Chatham House Associate Fellow Kate Mallinson.
Amnesty International described Tokayev’s promise to shoot without warning as “a recipe for disaster”, and there is now a question of how much the government’s response will differentiate between peaceful protesters and violent groups. Tokayev alerted Kazakhstan’s already troubled civil society when he said the free media played a role in fueling the unrest.
“There is still very little independent information and a lot of uncertainty. However, one thing is clear: the peaceful protest was real and spontaneous,” said Diana T. Kudaibergenova, a sociologist at the University of Cambridge. “People took to the streets to voice their grievances and we See some self-organization, especially in western Kazakhstan.”
The protests began in the West last weekend, triggered by rising fuel prices, and quickly spread to other cities, including Almaty. There, many in the streets reported that the demonstrations on Wednesday and Thursday had been hijacked by violent groups, some of whom appeared to be well-organized, and who attacked government buildings and destroyed the airport for some time. confiscated for
Tokayev spoke vaguely about the “foreign-trained” attackers in his address, but gave no details and did not specify who they were working for.
Many questions remain about Nazarbayev’s role in the week’s apparent backstage feuds. Tokayev announced on Wednesday that he was removing Nazarbayev as head of the Security Council, without specifying whether this was with or without the former president’s approval. Throughout the week there were constant rumors that Nazarbayev and his family had fled the country.
On Saturday, Nazarbayev’s spokesman Edos Ukibe dismissed the rumors as “deliberately false and speculative information”. He said Nazarbayev was in close contact with Tokayev and wanted the nation to rally around the new president. But the man himself remained silent during the most dramatic week in the history of the young country.
It was this surprising absence of a politician identifying Kazakhstan for the past three decades. When he stepped down in 2019, the new capital he ordered to be built in 1997 was The name was changed to Nur-Sultan in his honor., But for all the excesses of the cult of personality, Nazarbayev’s Kazakhstan for a long time was a far more blatant autocracy than in the post-Soviet Central Asian countries.
Many Western diplomats had a positive view of his leadership, despite democratic shortcomings, partly because of the lucrative opportunities the country provided for Western businesses. “He was able to balance Russia and China and other external influences, and he implemented some real reforms,” a Western diplomatic source said.
At the same time, a small elite close to Nazarbayev became very wealthy, while many ordinary people still lived in poverty. Over time, the resentment only intensified. “In Kazakhstan, the market economy means capitalism, which means big money, which means big bribes for the best-connected,” as a former US ambassador put it in a leaked diplomatic cable from 2010, a top Kazakh Clarifying the conversation with the businessman.
Whatever the end result of last week’s turmoil, a statue of Nazarbayev is being photographed in the town of Taldykorgan, and the crowd chants “Old man, out!” is chanting. That is likely to radically change the legacy he had hoped for.
Also at stake is an independent foreign policy which was one of his most prized achievements. When, on Wednesday evening, Tokayev sought support from the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a Russian-led military alliance, the request was approved within hours. At a time when all eyes were on it Troops gather near Russia’s border with Ukraine, suddenly faced a different Russian intervention.
Both the Kazakh and Russian sides have insisted that the contingent would be limited in size, scope and duration, and so far, claims of Russian occupation have been insisted upon. But even if the troops are gone in a few days, the balance of power in the region is likely to change irreversibly. “Nothing comes for free with Putin, and there will be a byproduct,” Malinson said. As well as geopolitical implications, the sudden collapse of the Kazakh security forces and Nazarbayev’s legacy could also have significant implications for Russian domestic politics.
“Russia and Kazakhstan are two similar political models: post-imperialist resource-based individual autocracies,” said Moscow-based political scientist Ekaterina Shulman. The “Nazarbayev option” was considered a possible method for Vladimir Putin To safely part ways when his current term ends in 2024, but it now seems a much less attractive option than it was a week ago.
Those involved in political decision-making in Russia would conclude from recent events in Kazakhstan that even managed infections are dangerous, and that security forces should be further strengthened, Shulman said.
“If you have a pet idea, everything that happens will feed into your pet idea,” she said, noting that the Kremlin has to deal with external threats through preserving current power structures and suppressing dissent at home. has been determined to be removed.
As attention turns to behind-the-scenes fighting and geopolitical implications, some within the country are urging that the human tragedy of the past should not be forgotten. On Saturday, a group of Kazakh civil society organizations wrote an open letter to the authorities: “Unrest and violence have no place in peaceful demonstrations … We call on the authorities to thoroughly investigate every part of this tragedy.” “