Voice of Democracy
Published by Kazakhstan 21st Century Foundation · Washington, D.C. ·December 5, 2002

CONVICTED BEFORE TRIAL ­ Nazarbayev is planning another one of his infamous show trials for political opponents and critics. He announced in Brussels that an investigative journalist jailed on suspicious rape charges is guilty and will remain in prison. Nazarbayev rebuffed international pleas to release Sergei Duvanov pending trial on charges that human rights and media groups and the political opposition suggest the charges were concocted to muzzle an investigative reporter who has exposed high level corruption and human rights abuses. It is part of a broader government crackdown on independent media. Nazarbayev, who controls the prosecutors and courts as well as the police, told a Brussels news conference with European Commission head Romano Prodi, that Duvanov's guilt "is proven." No trial date has been set, and Duvanov’s lawyers report having trouble even getting access to their pre-convicted client. http://dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/top_stories/

RETALIATION? -- Tengizchevroil, a group led by ChevronTexaco to develop oil and gas resources in Kazakhstan, was slapped with $71 million in environmental fines by a regional court only weeks after suspending a $3-billion expansion of the Tengez oil field, reportedly as a result of increasing demands by the Nazarbayev regime to rewrite the agreements. The Wall Street Journal has called the government demands symptomatic of the country's "increasingly hostile" environment for Western investors. http://www.nytimes.com/, http://public.wsj.com/home.html

DOWN IN THE DUMPS ­ There was once an intellectually-challenged U.S. senator who, speaking out against sending atomic waste to his western state, declared he did not want to see his state turned into a "nuclear suppository." Kazakh dictator Nursultan Nazarbayev may have surpassed that standard when he decided he really wanted to import nuclear waste into his country which, as the Guardian notes, is "already scarred by uranium mines and by having been the main Soviet nuclear testing ground." Mukhtar Dzhakishev, president of the national atomic company, Kazatomprom, said he hopes to begin imports within a year from Britain and other "crowded" EU countries. He estimates his country, which is plagued by high level corruption, could make $30 $45 billion over the next three decades. Until a new depository is built, he plans to store the waste in old uranium mines already extensively contaminated by radiation. The intermediate-level waste plutonium Kazatomprom plans to import takes only 200,000 years to decay, while the "medium-level" waste can be safely handled in a mere 1,000 years. Environmentalists fear that in a dictatorship rife with corruption and with an already-poor environmental record, money, not public health and safety, will be the top priority. Vadim Nee, a lawyer for the Eurasia Partnership, an environmental group said, "In our current situation there is no guarantee of public safety, no system for compensation, no confidence in the ability of customs to deal with these cargoes. Everyone has a human right to a safe environment - but apparently not here." http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/

'TARNISHED IMAGE' -- Kazakhstan's "attractiveness to foreign investors" has been "thrown into doubt" by the unexpected suspension of the largest construction project in the former Soviet Union, reports the Washington Times. It quotes bankers and oil men saying the decision last month by Tengizchevroil, a $3.5-billion joint venture of leading Western oil companies and the state-owned Kazmunaigaz, indicates a heavy-handed approach by a "corrupt and bureaucratic" government -- "which often is synonymous with the family of President Nursultan Nazarbayev" ­ wanting to increase it's share of income from the project. Commerce Secretary Donald L. Evans urged the Nazarbayev regime to "resolve the dispute quickly" and worried Kazakh officials rushed to do damage control. The Times reported there was "unanimity among oilmen that the suspension of the ChevronTexaco project tarnishes the country's image just as it prepares to offer, for the first time, about 100 offshore tracts for exploration." The suspension "will be seen as a clear sign that there's something wrong with the investment climate," it quoted one senior executive. http://www.washtimes.com/world/20021130-16105544.htm

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