Aidar AKHMETOV
ALMATY, Dec 13
(THE GLOBE)
On Thursday, December 9, the KNB arrested three members of RPPK in Almaty, an RPPK spokesman announced on December 13. The RPPK executive committee blamed the KNB administration for a new provocation against the opposition.
Pyotr Afanasenko, Satzhan Ibraev and Vladimir Ruchkin were arrested, as they were accused of illegal keeping of weapons and ammunition in one of the stores in Almaty. All of them are former officers of the KNB department, securing top officials of the country.
According to RPPK, the authorities try to connect the arrest with the recent events in Ust-Kamenogorsk and, hence, to blame former KNB officers for the revolt. In Ust-Kamenogorsk the KNB found cartridges, but no machine carbines, in Almaty they found rifles, but no cartridges.
RPPK representatives said that the arrested people were kept in the KNB isolation ward for four days, no accusations announced. That is a serious violation of the criminal code of Kazakhstan. They were pressed both psychologically and physically. Today only Vladimir Ruchkin was discharged, when he gave a written undertaking not to leave Almaty.
The RPPK executive committee demands from the KNB to discharge also Pyotr Afanasenko and Satzhan Ibraev. The party�s spokesmen said that foreign embassies and media had been notified of the incident. They are sure that �solidarity of Kazakhstani people and attention by the international community to the fate of Pyotr Afanasenko and Satzhan Ibraev will assist to restore the justness.�
THE GLOBE called a representative of the KNB press service in Almaty and Almaty oblast Azat Amergaliev, who said the following: �The KNB does not comment on the event.�
The Assembly of Kazakhstani people was supposed to pay attention to the call by the radical opposition for a dialogue on national consent and to create a new corresponding structure. Analysts� prognoses have not justified themselves.
In fact, there is no war in Kazakhstan. About what national consent can we talk? The President�s press secretary Asylbek Bisenbaev announced it is the opposition that first of all requires consent. �There are too much disconnection in the opposition. They have not reached consensus,� Bisenbaev said.
On that day President Nazarbaev changed the course of his instructions to preserve national consent. �The war fire came to our borders. Law-reinforcement organizations are to decisively end any extremism, but not to wait any instructions from higher ranks. We should enter the next century being released from mistakes of totalitarian system.� These were President�s main postulates. Nursultan Nazarbaev made it clear that he would do whatever is needful to avoid ethnic conflicts and terrorism in Kazakhstan.
Now the law-reinforcement organizations have new tasks and are entitled with new power. Won�t this cause some extremes? The time will show, and analysts will express their opinion. President Nazarbaev thinks that only history will objectively estimate modern period and present policy.
On December 10, when the Assembly worked, the world celebrated the Day of Human Rights. But Kazakhstani elite celebrated another event � the 2nd anniversary of the capital�s shift from Almaty to Akmola. What about human rights? A 24-years-old student Alexei Martynov arrested December 10. He is an anarchist, actively participated in social activity. Martynov�s relatives ascertain that the policy blames him for keeping drugs and stealing office equipment. The Kazakhstani Bureau on Human Rights director Yevgeny Zhovtis considers the accusation false. Legislation of authoritarian countries does not include articles on different trends of thoughts; hence, the general criminal code is usually applied to freethinkers. Ninel Fokina, a lawyer, announced that there is no liberty of conscience in Kazakhstan. On Friday, December 10, a round table devoted to liberty of conscience held in Almaty.
Thanks God, there is no war in Kazakhstan. But who is to be praised for this? If the present political system guarantees stability in Kazakhstan, won�t danger come out from outside? In the world outside Kazakhstan a new political situation is taking shape. In the previous week a treaty was signed between Russia and Byelorussia. New Russia�s forces are eager to involve Ukraine into the new union. They say about restoration of the USSR. Will this menace Kazakhstan�s independence? President Boris Yeltsin signing the treaty, missed cribs, read the same things twice, and almost fell due to his weakness. President Lukashenko, who sat nearby, supported him. The Russian TV channel NTV showed the review several times. Two days later Yeltsin who seemed wrecked arrived to Peking and warned Bill Clinton there. Boris Yeltsin and Jiang Zemin demonstrated to the world, that they are still able to content with the United States in the world sway. �When two camels rub against each other, a fly dies between them,� Kazakhs say in such cases. While we take care of internal security, won�t we lose our independence?
12.12.99
THE GLOBE based on materials of Radio Liberty
(Full text, translated from Kazakh by THE GLOBE)
Comments by THE GLOBE:
Few people expected a terrifying shadow of the Islamic extremism to appear before Kazakhstan. The Chechen precedent (i.e. the first Chechen war) mainly helped Islamic extremists to pay attention to the virgin land of the former Soviet countries. Many people from Central Asian republics after a long experience of forced atheists applied to religion. Their children study in Islamic schools abroad. According to numerous data, in some of these schools, basic Vakhabism is unofficially taught there.
Experts think that Talibs� military campaign in the territory of neighboring Kyrgyzstan will be recommenced in spring, as it usually happens in Afghanistan. The latter, as Kyrgyzstan, is a mountainous country: in winder passes are full of snow and it is difficult to fight under these circumstances. We have a chance to stop Islamic expansion, if we create a powerful covering force within the winter. Let�s hope that law-reinforcement organizations will not exaggerate ceasing extremism, according to a journalist of the Kazakh Service of Radio Liberty, and that they will avoid extremes that happen in Moscow, where representatives of force structures can arrest any suspicious person with �non- Russian appearance.�
New York, Dec 13 (KazAAG)
An American businessman Herald Bidermann is going to freeze all credit payments of Kazakhstani President Nursultan Nazarbaev who is to visit the USA in the next week. Thus the businessman from California wants to recover US$ 15 million from Kazakhstan.
Some years ago Bidermann paid US$ 8.8 million for an oil concession in Kazakhstan. Later the concession, however, was banned. In August the businessman managed a sentence by the Arbitrage that Nursultan Nazarbaev is to repay his financial losses along with interest.
Today, at the eve of the Kazakhstani President�s visit to the USA, Bidermann instructed his advocates to impede all Nazarbaev�s payments to any creditors, until he receives his money.
It is supposed that during the visit Nazarbaev will go to New York and Washington. He is to meet the US President Bill Clinton. However, according to New York Post, despite the visit is of a high level, Herald Bidermann�s lawyers consider it possible to create different everyday obstacles to the leader of Kazakhstan. That means, e.g. payment of such services rendered on a credit basis, as hotel charges and limousines. �I do not say how exactly I will do this, as I am not going to tell you my secretes, the businessman�s advocate Alan Foster said to the newspaper. But we want Bidermann to receive money before any owner of a hotel or restaurant receives it.�
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