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Title: Kazakhstan Author: CrimethInc. Date: 2022 Language: en Topics: Kazakhstan; uprising; analysis Source: Retrieved on November 6, 2022 from [[https://crimethinc.com/zines/kazakhstan-anarchist-reports]]
A full-scale uprising has broken out in Kazakhstan in response to the
rising cost of living and the violence of the authoritarian government.
Demonstrators have seized government buildings in many parts of the
country, especially in Almaty, the most populous city, where they
temporarily occupied the airport and set the capitol building on fire.
As we publish this, police have recaptured downtown Almaty, killing at
least dozens of people in the process, while troops from Russia and
Belarus arrive to join them in suppressing the protests. We owe it to
the people on the receiving end of this repression to learn why they
rose up. In the following report, we present an interview with a
Kazakhstani expatriate who explores what drove people in Kazakhstan to
revolt â and explore the implications of this uprising for the region as
a whole.
âWhat is now happening in Kazakhstan has never happened here before.â
âAll night there were explosions, police violence against people, and
some people burned police cars, including some random cars. Now people
are marching around the main streets and something is happening near
Akimat (the parliament building).â
The last message we received from our comrade in Kazakhstan, an
anarcha-feminist in Almaty, shortly before 4 pm (East Kazakhstan time)
on January 5, before we lost contact.
We should understand the uprising in Kazakhstan in a global context. It
is not simply a reaction to an authoritarian regime. Protesters in
Kazakhstan are responding to the same rising cost of living that people
have been protesting all around the world for
. Kazakhstan is not the first place where an increase in the cost of gas
has triggered a wave of protestsâexactly the same thing has happened in
,
, and
around the world, under a wide range of administrations and forms of
government.
What is significant about this particular uprising, then, is not that it
is unprecedented, but that it involves people confronting the same
challenges we confront, too, wherever we live.
The urgency with which Russia is moving to help to suppress the uprising
is also significant. The Collective Security Treaty Organization [CSTO],
a military alliance comprised of Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistanâwith Russia calling the shotsâhas committed
to sending forces to Kazakstan. This is the first time that the CSTO has
deployed troops to support a member nation; it refused to assist Armenia
in 2021, during its conflict with Azerbaijan.
It is instructive that the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan did not
warrant CSTO intervention, but a powerful protest movement does. As in
other imperial projects, the chief threat to the Russian sphere of
influence (the âRusosphereâ) is not war, but revolution. Russia has
profited considerably from the civil war in Syria and the
, playing Syria and Turkey against each other to gain a foothold in the
region. One of the ways that Vladimir Putin has held on to power in
Russia has been by rallying Russian patriots to support him in wars in
Chechnya and Ukraine. Warâperpetual warâis part and parcel of the
Russian imperial project, just as war has served the American imperial
project in Iraq and
. War is the health of the state, as
put it.
Uprisings, on the other hand, must be suppressed by any means necessary.
If the millions of people in the Rusosphere who languish under a
combination of kleptocracy and neoliberalism saw an uprising succeed in
any of those countries, they would hurry to follow suit. Looking at the
waves of protest in
and in
, we can see that many people are inclined to do so even without hope of
success.
In capitalist democracies like the United States, where elections can
swap out one gang of self-seeking politicians for another, the illusion
of choice itself serves to distract people from taking action to bring
about real change. In authoritarian regimes like Russia, Belarus, and
Kazakhstan, there is no such illusion; the reigning order is imposed by
despair and brute force alone. In these conditions, anyone can see that
revolution offers the only way forward. Indeed, the rulers of all three
of those countries owe their power to the wave of revolutions that took
place starting in 1989, bringing about the fall of the Eastern Bloc. We
can hardly blame their subjects for suspecting that only a revolution
could bring about a change in their circumstances.
Revolutionâbut for what purpose? We cannot share the optimism of
liberals who imagine that social change in Kazakhstan will be as simple
as chasing out the autocrats and holding elections. Without
thoroughgoing economic and social changes, any merely political change
would leave most people at the mercy of the same neoliberal capitalism
that is immiserating them today.
And in any case, Putin will not give up so easily. Real social changeâin
the Rusosphere as in the Westâwill require a protracted struggle.
Overthrowing the government is necessary, but not sufficient: in order
to defend themselves against future political and economic impositions,
ordinary people will have to develop collective power on a horizontal,
decentralized basis. This is not the work of a day or a year, but of a
generation.
What anarchists have to contribute to this process is the proposal that
the same structures and practices that we develop in the course of the
struggle against our oppressors should also serve to help us create a
better world. Anarchists have already played an important role in the
, showing the value of horizontal networks and direct action. The dream
of liberalism, to remake the entire world in the image of the United
States and Western Europe, has already proved hollowâthe United States
and Western Europe are implicated in many of the reasons why efforts to
realize this dream have failed, in Egypt and
and elsewhere. The dream of anarchism remains to be tried.
In response to the events in Kazakhstan, some supposed
âanti-imperialistsâ are once again parroting the timeless talking point
of Russian state media that all opposition to any regime that is allied
with Putinâs Russia can only be the result of Western intervention. This
is particularly egregious when the nations in Russiaâs sphere of
influence have largely abandoned any pretense of socialism, giving
themselves over to the sort of neoliberal policies that sparked the
revolt in Kazakhstan. In a globalized capitalist economy, in which we
are all subjected to the same profiteering and precarity, we should not
let rival world powers play us off against each other. We should see
through the whole charade. Letâs make common cause across continents,
exchanging tactics, inspiration, and solidarity in order to reinvent our
lives.
The ordinary people in Kazakhstan who rose up this week showed how far
we can goâand how much further we have to go together.
Early on January 6 (East Kazakhstan Time), after internet blackouts made
it impossible to complete an interview with participants in the movement
in Almaty, we conducted the following interview with a Kazakhstani
anarchist advocate living abroad.
For context, what anarchist, feminist, and ecological projects or
movements have existed in Kazakhstan in the 21st century?
Early on, there was an opposition to the first ex-communist president,
Nursultan Nazarbayev, who ended up leading post-Soviet Kazakhstan.
Beginning in the 1990s, he started becoming more authoritarianâfor
example, dismissing a more political plural parliament twice in 1993 in
order to obtain loyal members of parliament, extending his first
presidential term, and changing the structure of governance to acquire
stronger executive powers through referendums that were deemed rigged in
1995. This earned Nazarbayev opponents within the political elite itself
from across a wide political spectrum including Communists, Social
Democrats, Centrists, Liberals, and Nationalists who collaborated to
call for a more democratic constitution with limited presidential
authority and a multi-party legislature.
As for movements from below, there were anarchists, who were more of an
underground movement, and there was a unusually loud socialist movement
group, whose leader Ainur Kurmanov ended up fleeing Kazakhstan in the
end. There were nationalists and radical Islamists as well, but again,
they werenât really that prominent and they too were sort of
underground.
As for environmentalists, if they did have some public attention through
media or promotion, it was mostly from advocacy groups or, as theyâre
called âpublic associationsâ there. In Kazakhstan, only six political
parties are registered by the government right now, and they are the
only ones legally permitted to participate in general elections; the
others that have tried to form political parties end up seeing their
required registration processes systematically rejected by the ministry.
However, whenever the Kazakh authorities do in some circumstances
proclaim their political pluralism to the public, they make a show of
this using loyal public associations, especially during presidential
elections.
Are there any opposition parties in Kazakhstan?
Regarding opposition parties, there are basically none in Kazakhstan
that are deemed legal. There used to be such independent functioning
political parties back in the 1990s and early 2000s, but they were all
shut down or banned by the government, along with independent press and
media. Today, there are people who claim to represent the opposition,
but they live abroad in countries such as Ukraine. They have no real
connection to the street.
There is also some sort rivalry within them: Iâve heard all of them
accusing each other of collaborating with the government or intelligence
agency. A typical characteristic of the controlled opposition in
Kazakhstan is that the so-called declared oppositions try to lure
dissatisfied citizens into doing things that donât actually pose any
threat to the government, things that give the illusion of making
change, like telling people to engage in peaceful dialogue with local
officials or to participate in the election by purposefully ruining the
ballot as a way to âprotestââany tactic that gives the illusion of
fighting the government, when in reality it is just a waste of time.
In recent years, this sort of opposition actually started to appear
inside country, as well; out of nowhere, there were random activists
forming political movements and holding pickets without experiencing any
form of persecution, whereas ordinary people who have no connections are
always detained by police immediately whenever they tried to protest.
One unusual opposition groupâI canât tell whether it is controlled
oppositionâis called Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan. It is led by a
former businessman and politician living in France named Mukhtar
Ablyazov. If you search his name, youâll see articles about supposed
money laundering cases and lawsuits. He was a cabinet minister in the
1990s, until he broke ranks with the government that was predominately
loyal to President Nazarbayev. He was jailed by the Kazakh government,
but eventually released; he ended up fleeing from Kazakhstan and living
in exile like other disloyal officials of Nazarbayevâs. Since then, he
has led the political opposition with the most support on social media.
Most anyone associated with his movement has been persecuted and
arrested; this has been happening ever since he re-established the
movement again in 2017 on various social media platforms. Every protest
he has organized from abroad has been repressed, with a massive police
presence in public areas. There have been cases in which the internet
was partially restricted nationwide.
In any case, what is happening in Kazakhstan now is completely
unexpected.
What tensions within Kazakhstan preceded these events? What are the
fault lines in Kazakh society?
What really sparked the mass unrest took place in the town of Janaozen.
This town produces oil profits, yet the people there are among the
poorest in the country. The town is known for the bloody events of
December 2011, when there was a labor strike and the authorities ordered
the police to shoot demonstrators. Although the tragedy ended quietly,
it still remained in many Kazakhsâ minds, especially among the townâs
residents. Since then, more small strikes have taken place there in the
oil industriesâthough those were peaceful and didnât lead to bloodshed.
Since 2019, strikes and protests have become more common there. At the
same time, due to economic factors, people have become more active in
politics across country as oil prices plunged worldwide, impacting
Kazakhstan economically. As the Kazakhstani currencyâthe tengeâbecame
weaker, people could afford less and less.
There are also serious problems in Kazakhstan: lack of clean water in
villages, environmental issues, people living in debt, public mistrust,
corruption and nepotism in a system in which any objection can easily be
shut down. Most people have gotten used to living in these conditions
while the economy has served billionaire oligarchs who have ties with
government officials and other prominent people. In the early 2000s,
people in Kazakhstan had a glimpse of hope as the economy grew thanks to
natural gas reserves; as a consequence, many peopleâs standard of living
rose. But it all changed in 2014, when oil prices dropped worldwide and
the war in Ukraine led to sanctions against Russiaâwhich impacted
Kazakhstan, since it is dependent on Russia.
There were some small protests from 2014 to 2016, but they were easily
suppressed. From 2018 to 2019 they grew more, thanks in part to the
aforementioned opposition businessman, Mukhtar Ablyazov, who used social
media to gain traction. Political protests and activism were organized
under the banner of the Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan party. This did
lead to longtime President Nazarbayev resigning after ruling for almost
three decades, but he had his position taken over by his long trusted
ally, the current President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. Tokayev barely
received any trust from Kazakh citizens; he was viewed as Nazarbayevâs
political puppet, as he barely took any steps towards widely demanded
reforms and took no executive action against government officials that
the public despises.
Kazakhstanâs political system and President Nazarbayevâs leadership have
defined Kazakhstani society for the entire history of its independence.
I mentioned before how Nazarbayev basically became an authoritarian
ruler via various means that catalyzed the opposition against him. Under
Nazarbayev, the Kazakh government had never allowed any actual
opposition statesmen to challenge him through the countryâs presidential
or parliamentary elections. The rest of the politicians and legal
parties that were contestants in the elections were simply different
people with different faces but the same pro-government stances, all as
a poorly implemented illusion to make Kazakhstan look like a
âdemocraticâ country in which one strongman and his ruling party happen
to win every election with an unconvincing, even surrealistic majority
of votesâdespite documented cases of electoral fraud. This is similar to
the situation in Russia, Belarus, and other dictatorial post-Soviet
countries. As time passed, things really got dire as a cult of
personality was created around Nazarbayev. The government spent millions
in state budget naming and erecting streets, parks, squares, airports,
universities, statues, and the capital city of Astana after him. All
this accomplished was to irritate the public more, making Nazarbayev
look like a narcissist.
The situation in Kazakhstan became worse after 2020, when the COVID-19
pandemic hit. People lost their jobs; some were left without any way to
pay for goods, receiving very little support whatsoever from the
government, while health restrictions made people more frustrated and
distrustful of the government. And then the price of goods rose for food
specificallyâthis has taken place worldwide, but for Kazakhstan, it had
a considerable impact.
To return to the town of Janaozen, which has a history of bloodshed, the
price for liquefied gas skyrocketedâin the very place where the fuel is
actually produced. That cost has grown steadily for the past ten years,
but it finally increased even more when the government stopped subsiding
it, instead letting the market decide.
There had already been small protests about this issue in that cityâbut
on January 1, 2022, the price for the liquefied gas that is used to
power vehicles unexpectedly doubled. This enraged people. They protested
in the square in massive numbers. Law enforcement seemed hesitant to
disperse the protest. Other villages in the province rose up and started
blockading roads in protest. Then, in a few days, the protests spread
nationwide.
What started with a protest over the hike in gas prices grew largely
because of the other problems I mentioned previously. These motivated
people to go out on strike and into the streets more.
Describe the different agendas of the different groups on both sides of
this struggle. Are there identifiable factions or currents within the
demonstrations?
At first, the government ignored the gas price problems by trying to get
people used to it, even blaming consumers for the high demand.
Eventually, they lowered the price, but this didnât stop the protests.
Then the state essentially denied their involvement in letting the gas
prices inflateâbut as the protests intensified, the government began to
concede more to try to calm people down. For example, they pledged to
introduce some policies to offer people economic assistance, after
ignoring them for years.
But the protests still havenât stopped. Few people trust or support the
government. The people demonstrating simply want a better life, like
they imagine people have in developed European countries. Of course,
there are different demands from different peopleâsome seek the
resignation of the entire government, while others want a new form of
democratic government, specifically a parliamentary form without an
executive president, and still others want more jobs and industry and
better social conditions.
Some of the fiercest rioting and looting is taking place in the old
Soviet capitol of Almaty, which is the financial metropolis and the
largest city in Kazakhstan now. People are looting stores and setting
things on fire. They have burned down the Almaty administrative building
(or akimats, as they are referred in Kazakhstan) in front of the central
square, as well as the law enforcement headquarters.
In my view, the government has contributed to this situation, because
they havenât fulfilled the demand to resign peacefully and let an
opposition-run interim government form a new democratic political
system. The current president of Kazakhstan, who is a close ally of the
former and first president, Nazarbayev, is adding fuel to the fire by
refusing to transfer his power. The longer he holds on to his position,
the more violence will occur, since neither the government nor the
protesters can compromise. As long as this goes on, the people who are
doing violent acts will be able to continue to get away with it. Thereâs
lawlessness in Almaty; it seems that nobody is sure whoâs in charge
there now, since the mayorâs office was burned down and he disappeared
from public view. The entire city is barricaded with armed protesters
walking around.
The city is under a curfew, in theory, but in practice, law enforcement
is absent or has joined the protestsâso the city is like a commune
[i.e., as in the Paris Commune] from what I hear. At this point,
considering how the events are unfolding, I wouldnât call the people
there protesters, but revolutionariesâespecially seeing armed civilians
there.
In response, the government which presides at the countryâs capital of
Nur-Sultan (or Astana) has send various security âanti-terrorâ forces to
take control of the city, turning the usually peaceful town into a
nightmare war zone.
Present a chronology of the events of the past week.
The protest started in the oil-producing town of Janaozen on January 2.
By the next morning, other cities and villages in western Kazakhstan had
begun protesting in solidarity.
The most massive protests took place at night as the unrest spread to
other cities, including Almaty. Late at night on January 4, people in
Almaty marched to the main square in front of city hall. Huge troops of
police were positioned there. Clashes broke out, but the protestors got
the upper hand.
They were dispersed early in the morning of January 5, but they
regrouped again by around 9 am in the foggy morning. Some law
enforcement officers even switched sides and joined the protest as
videos from social media show. Eventually, the protesters marched to the
square again around 10 am and managed to storm the city hall, setting
the building on fire. Government security officers fled Almaty, leaving
the city under the control of the protesters.
Since then, President Tokayev sent some troops there again in an attempt
to take control via a âterrorist cleaningâ operation. I donât how itâs
playing out at every minute, but Iâve seen on social media that during
the night of January 5 or early in the morning of January 6, things in
Almaty became chaotic as people started looting and breaking into
weaponsâ deposits in order to obtain them and gunshots were reported.
In other cities, itâs more peaceful, with massive protests in the
central squares. I heard unverified information that some protesters
have taken over the local government buildings in a few other cities,
but as far as I know, those are less chaotic compared to Almaty.
In the capital, Nur-Sultan, it is quiet, but people have witnessed huge
numbers of riot police surrounding the Aqorda presidential palace.
Basically, the entire place is now a fortress.
In short, all Kazakhstan is now like The Hunger Games. If you have seen
the Hunger Games trilogy or if you know a basic summary of the plot, you
know what Iâm talking about. Protestors are attempting to take control
of various cities one by one in an attempt to topple the government.
Again, incumbent President Tokayev doesnât want to hand over power. If
that doesnât happen, I expect the chaos to continue until the government
is overthrown or the uprising is brutally suppressed, or some even worse
scenario.
Do you think the participants in these protests have any reference
points for the protest movements that have broken out in France,
Ecuador, and elsewhere around the world in response to increasing fuel
prices? What is informing the tactics they are using?
I think a lot of them are influenced by the protests that have taken
place in other post-Soviet countries like Belarus and Kyrgyzstan. It
seems that in Almaty, the residents drew on the example of neighboring
Kyrgyzstan, where people also stormed the government and burned down
buildingsâbut compared to Kyrgyzstan, the government was overthrown more
quickly. (In my view, this was partly due to it being a smaller country
with just one major capital city.) Kyrgyzstan has experienced three
revolutions so far; considering its close proximity and cultural ties to
Kazakhstan, since both countries speak Turkic languages, I think its
example has played a significant role in Kazakhstan.
What are the possibilities for what will happen next?
From my point of view, I can imagine a couple scenarios. Either the
government resignsâor is overthrownâand Kazakhstan starts down the path
to democratization, or the government suppresses the uprising with a
tremendous use of force, including involving other countries. Or an even
worse scenarioâa prolonged and destructive civil war between the
government and rebelling Kazakhs.
The president of Kazakhstan, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, is asking the CSTO
[the Collective Security Treaty Organization, a military alliance
comprised of Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and
Tajikistan] to send in âpeacekeepingâ soldiers. In short, the president
is inviting foreign troops into Kazakhstan to try to suppress the
protests. Either the armed protesters somehow repel these forces and the
government falls, or the revolutionaries give up and are crushed.
Kazakhstan faces a dark future. Itâs a war for liberty or defeat, and
defeat would mean a potential loss of more liberties and possibly
sovereignty.
What can people outside Kazakhstan do to support the participants in the
struggle?
The only realistic way for people outside in Kazakhstan to support is by
bringing more attention to the events and maybe organizing some sort of
aid.
In the following text, a Russian anarchist reflects on the implications
of the uprising in Kazakhstan for the region. You can read a perspective
from Belarusian anarchists
.
After decades of repression, failures, and defeats, why is hope rising
again and again, as we see in Belarus, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, and now in
Kazakhstan? Why, after our relatives, friends, and neighbors fall, shot
dead by the police or the army, do people still struggle? How is it that
we still get these chances to experience the wind of change and
excitement, which gives us a taste of all that our lives could be?
We can feel some answers in the lines of Kazakh musician Ermen Anti from
a band named Adaptation:
âNo matter how much they shoot, the bullets wonât be enough.
No matter how much they crush, nevertheless the seedlings
Of fair anger are sprouting up
Prometheus children, carrying fire to the people freezing cold.â
When we look at the events of the past decades in Kazakhstan, Belarus,
Russia, and Kyrgyzstan, we need to ask what cooperation between
initiatives and movements struggling towards liberation could accomplish
on an international level. Such connections could enable us to exchange
political and cultural experiences, to strengthen the common cause which
the people of these countries should share. Yet in contrast to how much
the economies and political realities of these countries are
interconnected and interdependent, the anarchist movements are
disconnected.
Kazakhstan can be an example for what can happen tomorrow in Russia,
Belarus, and other countries in this part of the world. Today, people in
Russia fear for their lives when they think about expressing any form of
dissent. But tomorrow, we can see Zhanaozen and Almaty in the cities of
Russia, Belarus (again!), and other countries. We can forget about the
assurances that âIt canât happen hereââwhat can and cannot happen
depends first and foremost on what we can imagine and desire.
When situations unfold like what we see today in Kazakhstan, we can see
how important it is to be connected with others in our society. Today,
we are surprisedâwe often might not even be among the people in the
streets, fighting and defending each other shoulder to shoulder, or
doing other important work to support the uprising. To be ready and
connected, we need to be able to face the contradictions within our
communities and within our society as a whole. We need to be able to
communicate our ideas and bring proposals to people around us in
situations like these. Conflicts, disagreements, and isolation are
smothering comrades who could otherwise dedicate their lives to the
struggle. When I ask myself what is needed for us to see each other in
the streets and in peopleâs homes, walking together, caring for each
other and fighting together, I imagine us approaching each other in
different wayâmaking it possible for each other to struggle, to develop,
to survive.
We can ask ourselves: what do we need to change in how we approach each
other and other people, how do we approach the struggle and our
movements, in order to make them a source of life and inspiration that
can offer people ways to think, fight, and live?
For example, we remember the feminist movement in Kazakhstan, which was
the center of the public attention and discourse for some years in the
2010s, which published a feminist magazine and brought up that topic in
Kazakhstan in ways that no one had before, connecting a lot of groups
and communities along the fault line of domestic violence and
patriarchy. This is an example of how we can position ourselves to
address issues that will connect us to a wide range of other people in
our society.
We in the ex-Soviet republics have an impressive heritage of resistance
and uprisings to draw upon. We need to connect to each other so we can
access this heritage.
Solidarity and strength to everyone fighting in Kazakhstan and across
all the post-Soviet countries. As people say, the dogs may bark but the
caravan shall go on. Today, they may stomp on our necks, but the
struggle wonât cease, and those who fell in the streets of Almaty wonât
be forgotten.
Following up our coverage of last weekâs uprising in Kazakhstan, we have
translated an array of perspectives on the situation from various
Russian anarchist sources and interviewed two anarchists from Almaty,
the largest city in Kazakhstan and the place where the fighting became
most intense.
This text also includes previously unpublished photographs taken by our
contacts in Almaty.
The following sources should serve to debunk any facile
misrepresentations of the uprising from the authorities in Kazakhstan,
Russia, or the United Statesâor their misguided supporters.
To those who spread conspiracy theories about the United States
attempting to stage-manage a âcolor revolutionâ in Kazakhstan, we must
point out that the protests began in response to the government
canceling its subsidy on gas, which is produced under a profitable state
monopoly in Kazakhstan. Those who defend the governments of Kazakhstan
and Russia are defending repressive forces that are imposing neoliberal
austerity measures upon exploited workers in an extraction-based
economy. The honorable place for all who genuinely oppose capitalism is
at the side of ordinary workers and other rebels who stand up to the
ruling class, not supporting the governments who claim to represent
protesters while gunning them down and imprisoning them.
This is not to say that the clashes in Kazakhstan represent a unified
anti-capitalist struggle, or for that matter a labor movement. The
of the composition of the protests acknowledge that there have been a
wide range of different participants utilizing different tactics to
pursue different agendas. Of course, if we are sympathetic to workers
who protest against the rising cost of living, we can also understand
why the unemployed and marginalized might engage in looting.
A crisis like the uprising in Kazakhstan opens up all the fault lines
within a society. Every preexisting conflict is pushed to a breaking
point: ethnic and religious tensions, rivalries among the ruling elite,
geopolitical contests for influence and power. We saw this to a lesser
degree in France during the
and in the United States during the
and its aftermath, though those crises did not proceed as far as the
uprising in Kazakhstan, where, owing to the entrenched authoritarian
power structure, any struggle is immediately an all-or-nothing venture.
If it is true, as we have argued, that the protesters in Kazakhstan were
opposing the same forces that rest of us face all around the world, then
the violent suppression of those protests by the soldiers of six
nationsâ armies poses questions that we all must confront. It seems that
such explosions are becoming practically inevitable as economic,
political, and ecological catastrophes hit one after the other all
around the world. How do we prepare in advance, in order to maximize the
likelihood that these ruptures will turn out well despite all the forces
that are arrayed against us? In moments of revolutionary potential, how
can we propose transformative questions to the others who make up this
society with us, focusing the lines of conflict along the most
generative and liberating axes even as we compete with a variety of
factions that aim to centralize their own ideologies and interests? How
do we avoid both conspiracy theories and manipulation, both defeatism
and defeat?
In the following overview, composed in collaboration with Russian
anarchists, we present the analysis of the uprising in Kazakhstan that
has come out of the ex-Soviet region, then share an interview we
conducted with anarchists in Almaty as soon as internet access was
reestablished following the crackdown.
Starting on January 1, what began as a single protest against the rising
cost of living escalated to a full-scale nationwide uprising, which for
now has been brutally suppressed by a combination of domestic and
foreign military force.
At first, the protesters sought the resignation of government, a
reduction in the price of gas, and the removal of the
ex-presidentâNursultan Nazarbayev, the Grey Cardinal of Kazakhstanâfrom
the head of the National Security Council. The slogan of the whole
country for these days became âShal ket!âââGrandpa, go away!â As the
protests gained momentum, people quickly came to the point of not
wishing to agree to anything less than a complete change in the
government, including the ouster of current president Kassym-Jomart
Tokayev.
The regime attempted to suppress the protests. Yet the protesters
managed to seize weapons from the police and fight back, looting shops
and burning down or occupying municipal buildings. President Tokaev
declared a state of emergency and sent military against the protesters
with orders to shoot on sight anyone who dared to resist. At the same
time, Tokaev officially asked the Collective Security Treaty
Organization (CSTO, consisting of Russia and several neighboring
countries) for support in regaining the control over the country.
According to Kazakhstanâs Interior Ministry,
people were arrested during the demonstrations, and at least 164 people
killed; since then,
figures have circulated. Some prominent bloggers and union leaders are
reported to have disappeared. The internet was shut down for days.
People were shot in the squares and on the street by snipers and other
soldiers.
The military suppression of the uprising, including the intervention of
the CSTO, played a key role in the outcome. As of January 10, media
reports and testimonies of people in Kazakhstan show that the fighting
has stopped in Almaty and mass gatherings have ceased in other cities.
Here is the analysis that
, an anarchist platform looking on from Russia, published on their
Telegram channel:
1) CSTO intervention. All more or less sane sources among the Kazakhs
perceive this as an intervention and an attempt of âBig Brotherâ on
their sovereignty. Every hour of presence of these forces in the country
multiplies the aversion and anger;
2) Authoritarian rule has not disappeared. President Tokayev has
concentrated more power in his hands, invited foreign military, ordered
his troops to âshoot without warningâ⊠But Kazakhstanis are not used to
government brutality. It does not stop them, and the dissatisfaction
with the government is not going away.
3) The economic crisis will not cease without fundamental reforms
towards social justice. Enforcement is essentially just a postponement
of price increases. No measures to overcome poverty and reduce
inequality in society are offered by the authorities. Consequently, the
discontent they have created will not abate either.
According to the
podcast, â
â
âThe Kazakh authorities are trying very hard to save face and construct
their version of reality. The punitive operation is called
âcounter-terrorist,â as if a âterroristâ is any person who opposes the
authorities by violent means. Rebellious people, respectively, are
âmilitants and bandits, they must be killed,â and the reason for the
uprising is allegedly âfree media and foreign figures,â which is
literally what Tokayev said. We are witnessing the development of
militant propaganda virtually live on air. The lie that black is white
and war is peace, not to the point of sentimentality, and whoever
doesnât believe itâto the wall. After all, no one will feel sorry for
the âterrorists,â this is a mantra that post-Soviet dictators have
learned well.â
From the beginning of the fighting, both Kazakh and foreign media made
claims regarding the identities of the protesters. The definitions
ranged from âprotesters,â âaggressive youth,â and âmaraudersâ all the
way to ânationalist squads,â â20,000 bandits attacking Almaty,â and
âIslamic terrorists.â It is true that a variety of groups and factions
participated in the uprising. But that is not itself a problemâan entire
society was represented in the uprising, with all its differences and
contradictions. It is safe to assume that different people participated
in different actions against the regime, including fighting and looting.
From Anarchist Fighter:
The journalist Maksim Kurnikov said some very interesting things on Ekho
Moskvyâs morning broadcast. He remarked that the scheme âto take weapons
from gun stores and then attack security forcesâ is not new in
Kazakhstan.
Exactly the same thing happened in the city of Aktobe in June 2016:
several dozen young men, divided into groups, took weapons from two gun
stores, seized vehicles, and attacked a part of the National Guard,
where they were defeated. The authorities of Kazakhstan have been much
muddled about the case: It is still not very clear what the basis is for
their claims of an âIslamist connection.â
Kurnikov also spoke of paramilitary guards at illegal oil refineries in
western Kazakhstan, made up of local villagers, disparagingly called
âmambetsâ (collective farmers) by Kazakhstani townsfolk. These groups
have also at times engaged in armed confrontations with police officers.
What does all this tell us? Of course, President Tokayevâs words about
âterrorist groups carefully trained abroadâ are pure propaganda and most
likely a gross lie. That armed cells capable of seizing security
institutions and arsenals suddenly materialized from a motley crowd also
sounds unlikely. That said, we have no evidence of Islamist or
nationalist involvement in the Almaty events. However, as we can see,
organized groups capable of active armed resistance exist in Kazakhstani
society in principle. It is likely that those people who engaged in
direct confrontation with the security forces were partly
representatives of such groups and partly spontaneous self-organized
protesters. There is an analogy with the 2014 Maidan [i.e., the
], where the defense was organized both spontaneously by the crowd and
with the participation of radical organized groups that joined in.â
Claims about Islamic fundamentalists participating in the events may
well be true to some extent. But it is also certain that the authorities
will make use of any information about them to discredit all the other
groups, identities, and participants involved in the uprising. Economic
desperation and social and political persecution often drive people to
fundamentalism as well as other forms of radicalism.
According to Anarchist Fighter:
âThe question about the real balance of forces among non-state actors of
the events is still urgent:
Opposition journalist Lukpan Akhmedyarov, on Ekho Moskvy radio station,
expressed confidence that the armed attack on the authorities in Almaty
was the work of Nazarbayevâs people. The arguments for this confidence
are not clear.
It is noteworthy that Akhmedyarov noticed in his native Uralsk on the
square next to the protesters a group of several dozen organized people
calling for an assault on the Akimat. A small group of âidentically
dressed instigatorsâ was also reported from Kostanai.
What is it? Some shadowy organized rebel force, criminal groups or
really provocateurs from state services? Or maybe a ânon-violentâ
narrative, seeking to immediately label supporters of direct action as
such? There are no answers.
One thing is clear: dividing protesters into âpeacefulâ and âterroristsâ
is a distortion of reality. Even before the events in Almaty, there were
clips from the same Uralsk, where the demonstrators were bravely
liberating the detainees from the police.
Letâs allow ourselves a truism: yes, a radical âviolentâ protest does
not guarantee success at all, nor is it immune to provocations. But a
purely ânon-violentâ protest in our authoritarian reality is simply
doomed in advance. âYou have been heard, weâll sort it out, and weâll
put the most violent of you in jailââthatâs always the answer from the
powers that be in Russia, Belarus, KazakhstanâŠ
The various rumors about internal conflicts within the power structure
in Kazakhstan and the speculations about geopolitical schemes at play in
the uprising could all be true. But to elevate these rumors and
speculations to the central position in the narrative about what is
happening in Kazakhstan is a political choice: it is a decision to deny
the agency of the countless ordinary people who participated in the
uprising for their own reasons. Like all conspiracy theories, this
assumes that the only people who have any agency in the situation are
shadowy global power players; it also serves to distract people from the
obvious things that everyone knows are happening, such as the political
elite of Kazakhstan profiting at the experience of everyone else.
Rumors and speculation serve to influence the events and the ways that
others understand and engage with them. True or not, each of these
interventions serves to focus attention on certain figures, to spread a
certain set of assumptions about how the world works. If these
conspiracy theories cast doubt on the participants in the uprising
enough to distract people from supporting the protesters who are
standing up for themselves against economic exploitation and political
domination, then they will have succeeded in their purpose to keep
everyone everywhere dependent on political elites.
Tokayev himself has not hesitated to propound the most outlandish
stories, claiming that the international terrorists who allegedly led
the revolt cannot be identified because their bodies have been stolen
from the morgues.
According to Anarchist Fighter,
âIt turns out that the terrorists canât be shown to the public even if
they are dead. Their comrades-in-arms kidnapped the dead right from
morgues!
And the main thing is that Kazakhstani authorities with no shame openly
state that radical demonstrators dressed up as the police and the
soldiers (!!!) Now any atrocity of the punishers can be attributed to
the revolutionaries themselves. Maybe the protesters were shot by those
âin disguiseâ? And if it now turns out that the children and journalists
were shot by men in uniform and with shoulder straps - then you already
know: of course it was the disguised âriotersâ and not the brutal
executioners of the Tokayev special forces.
Beyond the question of who participated in the uprising, it is important
to ask who benefits from its suppression. As one commentary put it:
âPutin is not a nationalist, but a guarantor. He guarantees the security
of the post-Soviet elite and the safety of their property. He used to
guarantee it only in the Russian Federation, but now it seems that he
guarantees it in Kazakhstan as well. After all, there is Russian capital
there too.
Look at Kazakhstanâs Forbes list. The real beneficiaries of the
peacekeeping operation are listed there. The list, by the way, is
interestingly international. The first two lines are occupied by the
Kazakhstani Koreans of Kim. The first one is the major shareholder of
KAZ Minerals, a âbritish copper companyâ, as Wikipedia describes it. In
2021, his fortune increased by $600 million. The second Kim, together
with Baring Vostok, owns one of the main Kazakh banks, Kaspi Bank, which
is also traded in London and has shown impressive growth, despite the
pandemic. In third place I was surprised to find a citizen of Georgia
Lomatdze, who is also a co-owner of Kaspi Bank and its manager.
Then comes a certain Bulat Utemuratov, who in the Nazarbayevâs
government of the 90âs specialized in foreign trade. He owns ForteBank,
whose net income for 2020 âamounted to 53.2 billion tengeâ ($121
million), as well as the major stakes in the major mobile operators, 65%
of the gold mining company RG Gold and a bunch of other assets,
including a Burger King franchise and âRitz-Carlton hotels in
Nur-Sultan, Vienna and MoscowââŠ
The fifth and sixth places are shared by Nazarbayevâs daughter and
son-in-law. His son-in-law, Timur Kulibayev, owns âthe controlling stake
in Singaporeâs Steppe Capital Pte Ltdâ, which owns the âDutchâ
KazStroyService Infrastructure BV and Asset Minerals Holdings (Caspi
Neft JSC, 50% of Kazazot JSC).
Dinara Kulibayeva, Nazarbayevâs daughter, together with her husband,
owns Halyk Bank of Kazakhstanâthe bankâs âmarket capitalization reached
ÂŁ3.1 billion ($4.3 billion).â In seventh place is a Russian financial
speculator and founder of the âAmerican investment companyâ Freedom
Holding Corp. Timur Turlov. âAccording to the companyâs financial
statements, its assets tripled in 2020 to $1.47 billion ($453.5 million
in 2019), equity almost doubled to $225.5 million ($131.3 million
respectively), net income jumped 10-fold to $42.3 million ($4 million
respectively).â
And so on.
And on the other side of the barricades are all those who either work
for all this beau monde for 300 bucks a month (this is approximately how
the median salary in Kazakhstan is estimated), extracting minerals for
âBritishâ and âSingaporeanâ corporations or serving fellow citizens in
the service sector, which also belongs to all the same from the list; or
those who have not found work at all in large and medium-sized business,
whose earnings could only be guessed (it is believed to be even lower).
Workers, concentrated around enterprises, demand social guarantees
(lower utility prices, free medical care, higher wages, etc.). Those who
arenât even workers are simply trying to get their own from retail
chains and banks through broken windows and looted shops.
Considering that workers are sure to be dumped as soon as the heat
subsides, the actions of the latter cannot be called irrational or
unjust.
Again, according to the avtonom.org podcast, âTrends of order and
chaos,â
âThe Kazakh authorities and President Tokayev did not trust their own
policing and governmental structures in the first place. The police and
the army had already begun to move to the side of the rebels, and it was
obvious that any of a variety of outcomes was possible. Under these
circumstances, Tokayev decided on the last extremeâto call in the
punitive forces from neighboring countries. This was political suicide:
in fact, he admitted that he was at war with his own people and even
with his own state apparatus.â
The sitution in Kazakhstan escalated very quicklyânot only the protests,
but also the brutality with which they were suppressed. The fighting in
the streets is a consequence of the ways that the patience of people in
Kazakhstan has been tried for decades now. Kazakh society has seen
fighting and shooting in the streets beforeâin 1986, when Mikhail
Gorbachevâs government suppressed an uprising in Almaty, carrying out a
massacre,[1] and in 2011, when police shot striking workers in
Zhanaozen, killing dozens.
When the first news of domestic military intervention came out, this did
not seem to cause a major setback for the uprising. The fighting did not
cease thenâon the contrary, it intensified. We saw videos of disarmed
soldiers in the crowd of people, welcomed for changing sides.
Then the internet was shut down. The official reason for the internet
blackout was âpreventing terrorists from various countries who are
fighting in Almaty from coordinating with their headquarters.â That
caused a crucial lack of information from the places where uprising was
taking place, making it easier to representâor misrepresentâthe events.
In a time when everything is filmed, photographed, uploaded, and shared,
cutting off a social uprising from means of communication serves to
erase it from reality, opening a space in which falsehoods can thrive.
Yet one of the most important events took place in plain sight: the
intervention of the CSTO. This raised many contradictions at once.
Formally designated as âpeacekeeping assistance from the Collective
Security Treaty Organization (CSTO),â it includes a contingent up to 200
hundred soldiers from Armenia and Tajikistan, 500 from Belarus from
dictator Lukashenko (who recently suppressed an uprising of his own), an
unspecified number of Kyrgyz soldiers, and 3000 soldiers from Russia. It
is significant that the Russian paratroopers who have been moved into
Kazakhstan are commanded by Anatoliy Serdyukov, who is experienced in
the Chechen wars, the annexation of Crimea, and the war in Syria. We can
see Russiaâs imperial activities on full display here.
In Kazakhstan, the regime is striving to remain in power by any means
necessary, resorting to inviting neighboring dictatorships to invade.
For people in Kazakhstan, this should mean the final loss of any
legitimacy Tokayev might have had in their eyes. Everyone in the region
can see that the CSTO represents the unity of its governments against
their peoples.
According to avtonom.org:
âA president who calls the people of his own country âterrorist gangsâ
represents a nadir even by the standards of post-Soviet authoritarian
ârepublics.ââ
In fact, this is an invasion of another country by force on the side of
the authorities who have lost the trust of the people. It would mean the
endless reproduction of the âRussia is a prison of nationsâ scenario and
would be on a par with the suppression of the Hungarian revolutions in
1848 and 1956, with tanks in the streets of Prague in 1968, and with the
invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.
From Anarchist Fighter:
âThe current uprising in Kazakhstan began with the protests in
Zhanaozen. The same city where, in December 2011, the authorities shot
striking oil workers. The tragedy in Zhanaozen has left a mark on the
protest culture in Kazakhstan. The people have cherished the memory of
the dead. The duty of the living was to continue the work of the fallen.
And in January 2022, Zhanaozen rose again. The first city in the
country, an example for all the others. The formal reason for the
protests was the increase in gas prices and rising food prices. But, as
noted by Mikhail Bakunin, mere dissatisfaction with the material
situation is not enough for the revolution, a mobilizing idea is needed.
In Kazakhstan, one such idea was the loyalty to the fighters who died in
2011. The workers who died then under the bullets will never see the
world they dreamed of, but death for the sake of a dream became a
testament to the living to continue their cause. And so for the rebels
of Kazakhstan there is no way back now.
Kazakhstanâs rebellious culture has much to learn from. We, too, must
keep the memory of the martyrs of the liberation movement in Russia and
Belarus. About Michael Zhlobitsky, Andrey Zeltzer, Roman Bondarenko and
other heroes. They died to make us braver and stronger, and we are
indebted to them. We must tell how they lived and what they gave their
lives for. As events in Kazakhstan show, fallen martyrs are capable of
raising people to revolt.â
To get more perspective on the events in Kazakhstan, we reached out to
two anarcha-feminists who witnessed some of the scenes from the uprising
firsthand. They were not at the front of the clashes, but they are known
activists who have participated in feminist organizing in the city for
years,[2] so they have the closest thing to a âneutralâ standpoint on
the events that we could find.
Introduce yourselves and the situation you are speaking from.
We are two anarchists from Kazakhstan, both she/her. We have
participated in many left-anarcho-fem-eco, animal liberation, vegan
activities in Almaty over the last eleven years, but we are not so
active at the moment.
I canât name any anarchist movements in Kazakhstan in the 21st century.
There were some underground activities in the 1990s, but for the
present, nothing like that exists. I used to take part in a left-Marxist
group: meetings, a reading group, some public lectures. I donât know
what the ex-members who stayed here are doing now. I hear nothing about
any âleft-wingâ groups here.
I was one of the organizers of one of the first feminist movements
hereâKazfem. We organized many public activities and performances,
published a feminist magazine named Yudolâ, and organized demonstrations
for March 8
].
There is a youth liberal movement here called Oyan Kazakhstan (âWake up,
Kazakhstanâ) that is active now. They organize public meetings,
performances, marches, and are often harassed by police. It started
after the banner action that Beibarys Tolymbekov and Asya Tulesova
carried out at the city marathon in 2019.[3] They were jailed for 15
days and it started a big wave of attention, especially in social media,
which hadnât happened before. There is a conspiracy theory that all
these activists are pro-government, because nobody is in jail now, but I
donât think it is true. I know many of them personally. They also
support feminist and LGBTQ activities. On the opposing sideâmostly
haters on the internet and some government media outletsâpeople claim
that all of this is the work of âthe Westâ (Europe and the United
States).
Kazakhstan is an authoritarian country. We had the same president
[Nursultan Nazarbayev] for 28 years, and the new one [Kassym-Jomart
Tokayev] is just a puppet. But when the first president quit, people
started to think about change. The cult of personality around Nursultan
Nazarbayev didnât disappear after he quit. The capital, Astana, was
renamed âNursultan,â which caused many protests. Over the past few
years, the economic situation has been worsening, especially after the
pandemic, very high inflation, corruption, etc. Also, there has been a
lot of selling and renting our lands to China and other countries.
The situation has always been like thisâbut ten years ago, or even five
years ago, more people were loyal to the president and afraid of
âdestabilization.â At that time, there was a hope that we [Kazakhstan]
were âdeveloping,â that things would be better soon.
Even at the time of the events in Zhanaozen in 2011, when the protesting
workers were shot, there was very little support from Almaty. Many
people thought that what happened there was right.
Before, if there was any protest, it was organized and supported by the
older generation, by workers and people from the regions, the auls
(villages), usually led by the shady opposite leader Mukhtar Oblyazov.
But over the last three years, young people from the urban middle class
have become political activists. It was mostly people from Almaty, but
there was support in other cities too.
By the way, I think that the ecological problems in Almatyâwhere we
experience extremely high levels of pollution and it becomes worse every
yearâare the big reason for youth protest here. Alongside the
development of social media, of course.
Tell us what you experienced in Almaty last week.
Soon after the New Year, news began to arrive about a workersâ uprising
in Zhanaozen. The protest was peaceful, but the demands were quite
radicalâranging from lower gas prices to the resignation of the
government. Protests also began in other cities. It became known that
there would be solidarity actions in Almaty on January 4, but I did not
have precise information.
On the way home that day, I learned of protests in different parts of
the city and the arrests of activists from [the aforementioned youth
liberal movement] Oyan Kazakhstan. I live a little outside the city, in
the mountains, and already at home it became clear that something
serious was happening. In the evening, all internet connections went
offline. I didnât know where to go and whether I could come back.
Regarding what happened in the city during that time, my comrade Daniyar
Moldabekov, a political journalist,
:
When the demonstrators approached the square, police began throwing stun
grenades and tear gas. Me and thousands of others choked, our eyes and
faces stung, we felt sick, we coughed ceaselessly. Itâs a miracle I
didnât pass out. They must have fired off more than a hundred stun
grenades between 11 pm and 4 am, which was when my colleagues had to get
me home. I could still hear the bangs from my apartment.
About an hour after the crowd reached Republic Square, they headed down
to Abai Street. There they faced down an armored personnel carrier
coming in their direction. A truck drove past carrying citizens waving
Kazakh flags. Some of them were holding shields they appeared to have
snatched off riot police.»
People heard explosions all night. I refused to believe it. In the
morning, the news was reported by phone. I called everyone for half a
day, heard about victims, the activists were released. It was only
possible to get online at the house of some friends. The Akimat building
(the town hall) was being occupied. Everyone was trying to persuade us
to stay home. Speculating that the protests might have a nationalist
character, some people started to be afraid (I am ethnically Russian in
Kazakhstan).
There was no information available about who was in the square or in the
city at that time. My friend and I decided to go to see for ourselves.
The city was half empty. Cars with Kazakhstani flags on them drove
through the streets, shouting something joyful. Everything was closed.
On the doors, there were signs reading âwe are with the people.â An
atmosphere of excitement. As we got closer to the square, there were
more groups of young men. I saw a police shoulder strap lying on the
road. There were people with sticks meeting. It became a little scary,
but no one was aggressive. At the monument to the events of 1986 (the
uprising against the Soviet regime), we met protesters with police
shields. There was not a single policeman or soldier to be seen.
Then we saw the Akimat burning. We couldnât believe our eyes. People
were tending bonfires. Everyone was calm. They smashed the doors to the
building opposite the Akimat. There were TV channels and other
government services. Men came up to us again: âWhy did you come?â (They
meantâwhy did you come, since you are ethnically Russian?).
âThis is my city and country as well as yours,â I answered. They greeted
us cheerfully. We did not feel any aggression from them.
We offered the protesters hot tea. The man told us that he was at the
protests from the very beginningâthat it all began peacefully, until the
authorities began to detonate flash-bang grenades and use violence.
âNow,â he said, âThey are shooting combatants.â The guards remained only
near the Akimat building itself.
He and other men there had seen people shot in the head. They called
taxi services and put injured people in the cars to get them to the
hospital. He told us that they planned to occupy the airport, so that
the Russian military would not be able to land there.
Many of the bourgeois high-level government and business people had
already left the country on private flights. There were rumors that N.
Nazarbaev had left the country, too.
None of the people we saw on the square looked like âmaraudersâ [sic].
They wanted the government to resign. They were not carrying out orders;
no one was pulling their strings. This was a nationwide labor uprising.
No one was scared to die, but we didnât see any anger. They showed us
injuries from rubber bullets and warned us that soon there would be
serious shooting, that it would be better for us to leave.
The sound of explosions and shooting became closer and more frequent. We
left. One man gave us a lift in his car. All those days, people showed
solidarity to each other.
My friends and I decided to stay together in my home. We all felt
excited. This was before any news appeared about destruction, looting,
and civilian casualties. At midnight, between January 5 and 6, all
internet connections were shut down. For four days, we were in
isolation; we could only make and receive calls, and those didnât work
well.
That night, the whole city was abandoned by all services, including the
fire department and medical services. Fires were extinguished by
volunteers. Also, some protesters and volunteers tried to stop
ârobbers.â[4]
On January 7, some shops and ATMs far from the city center were still
working. In that part of the city, mostly everything was clear, except
the burned government buildings around the square. Some services were
working there. The previous day, it had been possible to get inside the
buildings; no one guarded them. This time, we took some photos and then
there was a gunshot in the air nearby and we left this area.
On the evening of January 9, it became possible to get an internet
connection with proxy services. A mobile connection was still
unavailable. On the morning of January 10, the connection worked
everywhere, but only until 1 pm and then from 5:30 to 7:30 pm.
There has been a lot of talk from outside Kazakhstan about who is
âbehindâ the protests. Do these accusations have any credibility? We
have also seen some news reports claiming that clashes between rival
factions inside the power structure are also contributing to the
situation. How much do you think that Islamic fundamentalism is involved
in these events?
President Tokaev still rules, in spite of rumors about his retirement.
Now government TV channels and media are spreading so much
disinformation and propaganda. Itâs very early to draw conclusions, but
some things are clear.
Everything started as a popular uprising. Yes, they burned Akimat, but
no one led them. They just wanted the old regime gone. They were not
âcriminalsâ [sic].
After it started, some other forces showed up. We donât know who they
were. But itâs true that they were organized. But by whom? Now there are
many rumors. Some official media says they are from [neighboring]
Kyrgystan, where there have been several revolutions since independence
[like Kazakhstan, Kyrgystan became independent when the Soviet Union
broke up in 1991]. Those outlets are also spreading reports about the
Taliban or jihadists. People I know personally said they saw people on
the streets who âlooked like themâ [sic].
Here in Kazakhstan, I havenât seen any talk about the CIA [the Central
Intelligence Agency of the United States government]. I think that is
Russian propaganda.
The former adviser of the president has been making claims about a
conspiracy inside governmental structures, claiming that for several
years there were âtraining campsâ in mountains and the National Safety
Committee was hiding this information. He claimed: âI have exclusive
information that, for example, 40 minutes before the attack on the
airport, an order was given to completely remove the cordon and guards.â
What can you say about the internal dynamics of the uprising?
Everyone outside of Kazakhstan is trying to analyze whatâs going on and
itâs very difficult to do that without context, and those inside the
country canât do it because of the lack of complete information. I think
that even weâthe residents of this countryâwonât understand what
happened for a long time yet. In addition to the fact that there is no
stable internet connection now, and that before that, there was not even
a cell phone connection, all the news channels are severely censored,
and it is only going to get worse.
I will not describe the theories that are circulating now, but they all
concern different power struggles between the Nazarbayev clan and others
seeking powerâfor example, there is one theory that Tokayev, with the
assistance of the Russian military, is securing his position in power.
The scary thing about all this is that tens of thousands of people were
involved in the game and their well-intentioned attempts to change the
social and political conditions in this country for the better, for
everyoneâs sake, are now being used by a few people to divide the
resources of this country among themselves in a new way. Yes, it all
started with the economic demands of workers in western Kazakhstan, who
were protesting the sharp hike in gas prices. Then the demands became
political: the resignation of the government and president, the election
of akims (mayors), and a parliamentary republic. Some of the demands
were met, but not at once, and when they were ignored, a wave of protest
and solidarity spread to all the cities of Kazakhstan, so that from
outside it looked like a big revolutionary outburst, which in our
country has not occurred throughout thirty years of authoritarian
regime.
We canât say anything for sure now, except one thingâthis protest had no
public leader, and the street riots and occupations of administrative
buildings had no voiced demands. But there were murders and a huge
number of victims among the population, who suffered first in battles
with the police, then with each other in the streets, from which the
police fled, and then the shooting of civilians in the streets by the
armed forces of Kazakhstan and the CSTO (although we are promised that
they only protect state facilities now).
The mass media that were permitted to continue functioning began to tell
us about radicals and Islamists, using the image of the enemy from
outside. Before that, during the first days of the protests, there was a
discourse calling to âengage in a peaceful dialogue with the
protestersââand a day later there was already an order to shoot to kill
(in President Tokayevâs speech). After the entry of CSTO troops and two
days of constant shooting in the streets, Tokayev equated protesters
with terrorists, as well as activists and human rights defenders, and
independent media in his words became a threat to stability. State
discourse is constantly changing in the process of this search for an
enemy: yesterday that enemy was supposedly bribed unemployed people from
Kyrgyzstan, today itâs already radicals from Afghanistan. We all hope
that tomorrow it wonât be the activists who have advocated for political
reforms in Kazakhstan for the last three years and came out to rallies.
What can you tell us about the repression?
Kyrgyz musiŃian Vicram Ruzakhunov was arrested and tortured by Kazakh
authorities as a âterroristâ and was made to record a video and
âconfess.â Now he is free.
Local independent journalist Lukpan Akhmediyarov has been arrested.
Another independent journalist, Makhambet Abjan, messaged that on
January 5, police came to his apartment; now he is missing. My friends
and many other people on social media report that their relatives and
friends are missing too.
Officials have already confirmed the deaths of hundreds of victims,
including two children. Activists from labor unions are
missingâincluding Kuspan Kosshigulov, Takhir Erdanov, and Amin Eleusinov
and his relatives.
In Almaty, journalists from Channel Dozhdâ (йДлДĐșĐ°ĐœĐ°Đ» ĐĐŸĐ¶ĐŽŃ), who tried
to take footage in the municipal morgue, were shot at (they were not
harmed).
On January 6, volunteers came to the square. Some activists displayed a
banner reading âWe are not terrorists.â Police shot at them, killing at
least one.
How do you think that Russian troops entering Kazakhstan will change the
situation, in the long term?
The entry of Russian troops is very worrying. In the situation of a war
with Ukraine, we could imagine all the worst scenarios. Everyone I know
agrees that this is inappropriate, and that we can call it an
occupation.
Personally, Iâm afraid that Russian troops entering this country will
cement the already strong influence of Russia on Kazakhstan politically,
and Kazakhstan will become like the Russia that we know now, with
tortured activists and trumped up cases. Our political opposition is
already completely silenced, and the population of the country
completely intimidated. Considering that this is the second shooting
during protests (2011 and 2022), and in the history of Kazakhstan there
was also a brutal suppression of an uprising under the USSR in 1986, and
the information on the number of people killed back then is still
classified⊠then there is no hope that in the near future we will know
what really happened and how many people were killed and wounded. The
count most likely goes to thousands people.
What do you think will happen next?
Now itâs very early to imagine the outcome, in a situation of
information wars, propaganda, and isolation. Iâm not a political expert.
For sure, repression will intensify now. The internet and all media will
be censored. Now the government tries to put on a âgood face,â like they
are the saviors who saved us from terrorists. I am not sure this will
work. But for the time being, I think it will be quiet. People are too
scared and shocked.
Is there anything that people outside Kazakhstan can do to support you
or others there?
To spread information, of course. Maybe soon, there will be more
repression, and some activists will require help to leave country.
The most important support is informational. In 2019, after the
presidential election, we were all arrested at the rallies and the only
ones that wrote about it were foreign media and independent Kazakhstani
media (which are very few and the sites are often blocked). Now it is
very important that the bloody January in Kazakhstan was not just a
beautiful revolutionary picture as many left-wing publications write,
but also that it is not remembered as a terrorist act from outside, as
all the official sources from different countries say.
The articles are taken from the CrimethInc. website:
Links to the articles:
https://crimethinc.com/2022/01/06/the-uprising-in-kazakhstan-an-interview-and-appraisal
[1] From December 17-19, 1986, there were protests in Almaty in response
to Mikhail Gorbachev, then-General Secretary of the Central Committee of
the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, dismissing the longstanding
First Secretary of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan and replacing him
with an official from Russia. (Gorbachev later claimed he was trying to
prevent Nursultan Nazarbayev from concentrating too much power in his
hands; Nazarbayev went on to rule Kazakhstan for 28 years.) In 1986, as
in 2022, the protests ended in a massacre at the hands of state forces.
In 1986, as in 2022, rumors spread that the protesters were bribed with
vodka or led astray via leaflets.
[2]
, arguably the first feminist movement in Kazakhstan since the collapse
of the Soviet Union, publishes the feminist magazine
and organizes
for March 8, International Womenâs Day.
[3] On April 21, Asya Tulesova and Beibarys Tolymbekov
, charged with violating Kazakhstanâs law regarding public assembly
after hanging a banner along the marathon route in Almaty, reading âYou
canât run from the truthââa comment on the presidential elections.
[4] This
explores this issue, albeit from a partisan position.