Voice of Democracy
Published by Kazakhstan 21st Century Foundation · Washington, D.C. · May 2, 2002

MORE SOVIET THAN USSR -- ABC News' Nightline shined its spotlight on Kazakhstan last week and concluded American interest in the country's oil could prove costly for human rights for the country's citizens. The lust for oil blinds America and keeps it from standing up for human rights and democracy in his country, said Nurbulat Masanov, an opposition activist. "There are no democratic institutions in Kazakhstan. There are no procedures to defend people's rights," he said. Acacia Shields of Human Rights Watch said Kazakhstan and its neighbor, Kyrgyzstan, often are "more Soviet than the Soviet Union." Secretary of State Colin Powell said the Kazak political system is not "appropriate to the 21st century." Journalist Ahmed Rashid said the wealth flowing into Kazakhstan is not going to ordinary people. "People are suffering hugely," he said. Yermurat Bapi, editor of the opposition newspaper SolDat told of how he and his paper were persecuted for reprinting information from foreign media identifying President Nazarbayev as one of the world's richest men. The paper was eventually closed down and is now being published underground; Bapi was sentenced to one year in jail for the incredulous charge -- and oxymoron -- of insulting the honor and dignity of Nazarbayev. That is typical of reports about government corruption, Nightline indicated. Masanov said the US government "prefers to support the existing regime, not democratic institutions." http://abcnews.go.com/Sections/Nightline/

KEEPING OUT THE RIFF-RAFF -- One thing dictators don't like is competition, and Nursultan Nazarbayev is no exception. That's why he's backing legislation to require any group wishing to register as a political party must collect nearly 1.5 million signatures. In his annual address to the Kazakh parliament, Nazarbayev said he endorsed a proposal requiring 10% of the country's 14.8 million people to sign petitions for any new party, Interfax reported. http://www.interfax-news.com/

KAZAKH KLEPTOCRACY -- Kazakhstan is "undergoing a palace coup, yet few in Washington seem to know or care," according to a report inserted in the Congressional Record by Sen. Joseph Biden, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Kazakhstan is "of the world's poorest countries" while its president has become "the eighth richest man in the world" and enriched his family, according Marshall Miller, a law student at the University of Virginia. The Nazarbayev family "has sustained itself through gross corruption and the ruthless exploitation of would-be foreign investors," Central Asia should be a vital concern of American strategic thinking, yet it is "almost an afterthought," he said. "This is clearly not a regime that America should be too identified with," he said, adding that the Nazarbayev regime is an extension of the same communist party structure it was supposed to replace. Islamic extremism is not the threat some regional leaders make it out to be ­ often to deflect attention from themselves ­ but it could become a serious problem "if repressive regimes continue to kindle the flames of religious extremism by stifling virtually all other opportunities for political voice." He said the United States should avoid "marriages of convenience with repressive Central Asian regimes that will inevitably prove harmful to the nation's future." Afghanistan should have been a wake-up call to regional importance, and equally important is "the promise of the Caspian oil basin." But he warned "America is walking into a dangerous trap" by opening its arms to the "unstable and authoritarian regimes" which control the region because of the lure of lucrative energy markets. Turning such leaders into allies and friends would be "a disastrous betrayal" of American interests. http://thomas.loc.gov/r107/r107.html

A DETECTIVE STORY -- In light of President Nazarbayev's admission that he snuck $1 billion in oil revenues out of the country and put them in a secret Swiss bank account, opposition groups have called on the government to make public all earnings from foreign oil and gas projects to make sure the money is not going into the pockets of corrupt officials, the AP reported. A leading environmentalist Ibragim Kushenov, called for "liquidation of all the secret accounts of high-ranking bureaucrats in Astana." The AP added, "The opposition leaders claimed hundreds of millions of dollars in oil revenue go missing every year from Kazakhstan's federal budget." http://www.ap.org

PRESS BLACKOUT ­ 12 members of the People's Republican Party of Kazakhstan and other opposition groups were seized by Almaty police to prevent them from demonstrating against government human rights abuses in front of a hotel where a government-sponsored media. They were held seven hours before being charged with an unspecified offense and put on trial, according to Forumkz.org. http://www.forumkz.org/kazakhstan.htm

For the full stories, see the web citations above or contact us at News@Kazakhstan21.org. The Kazakhstan 21st Century Foundation promotes democracy and human rights in Kazakhstan through public affairs and educational programs in the United States and Europe. This material is distributed by Kazakhstan 21st Century Foundation. Additional information is available at the Department of Justice,  Washington, D.C.