Voice of Democracy
Published by Kazakhstan 21st Century Foundation · Washington, D.C. ·Aug. 6, 2002

UNCLE SAM'S MIXED SIGNALS -- Nursultan Nazarbayev and his fellow Central Asian dictators are breeding extremism and instability behind a cloak of fighting terror, and the United States is encouraging their abuses by the absence of any meaningful action to back up its calls for democratization, charges the Financial Times. There has been a "shocking scale of human rights abuses" in Kazakhstan and its neighbors, which FT called "a disgrace that the world has largely ignored. The dictators are using the threat of Islamic extremism ­ which actually has considerably diminished thanks to American elimination of the Taliban ­ to intensify repression of regime opponents and critics. Washington isn't helping because it is sending the dictators mixed signals, reports FT. While Secretary of State Powell has been going around lecturing them on the importance of democratization and respect for human rights, FT reports, the Pentagon is sending different signals. "Local US diplomats privately express frustration that their military officers in the field are encouraging regional governments solely to concentrate on eliminating the Islamist threat." http://news.ft.com/

KAZHEGELDIN STRATEGY ENDORSED -- Former Prime Minister Akezhan Kazhegeldin's call for opposition parties to refuse to comply with the Kazakhstan's restrictive new election law designed to turn the country into a one-party state is gaining widespread support. Most opposition leaders have endorsed the move, according to Gulzhan Ergalieva, a leading member of the United Democratic Party (ODP) and the opposition movement Democratic Choice for Kazakhstan (DVK), reported RFE/RL. She backed Kazhegeldin's call for the opposition to close ranks and work together. Ergalieva urged Kazhegeldin, the leader of the nation's pro-democracy forces, to organize an international committee to press the government to end the persecution of political opponents and drop all criminal charges against political prisoners. http://www.rferl.org/bd/ka/

DISTURBING PATTERNS --The United States called on the Nazarbayev regime to "reverse this antidemocratic trend" and "respect" the rights of all Kazakhs to "political pluralism, freedom of speech, and freedom of the press." Douglas Davidson, deputy chief of the U.S. mission to the OSCE, told the body's Permanent Council that Washington is "increasingly concerned" by Nazarbayev's "pattern of politically motivated incidents that appear intended to intimidate opposition politicians and journalists." He urged the Kazakh government to "investigate fully and transparently" all attacks on the media, "end selective prosecution of opposition politicians" and clean up the restrictive law on political parties. http://www.state.gov/

'DUMP THE GANGSTER THUG' ­ Rep. Dana Rohrbacher, in a speech in the U.S. House of Representatives, said the United States should not be doing "business as usual" with a country like Kazakhstan, which is run by a "gangster thug," Nursultan Nazarbayev. The California Republican said he was upset to learn of the "close relationship" that is developing between the two countries. Lumping Kazakhstan together with "gangsters" and "thug regimes" like China, Burma and Cuba, Rohrbacker said, "We need to let the people of the world know that the United States is not the friend of totalitarian regimes, of gangsters who beat people up and slaughter them and refuse to allow the people of their country to control their destiny through the ballot box." America's foreign policy must not be driven by avaricious businessmen but by a desire to work "for freedom and liberty and justice." http://thomas.loc.gov/r107/r107.html

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