Michael ROTHBART
ALMATY, Dec 2
(AP)
The arrest in northeast Kazakhstan last month of 22 ethnic Russian separatists has triggered national debate about ethnic tensions in this diverse, Central Asian country which has not experienced serious racial violence since student riots in 1986.
Kazakhstan, a vast former Soviet country which shares 3,000 miles (5000 km) of border with Russia, has a mixed population of Russians, Germans, Kazakhs and Uzbeks, among others. Compared to ongoing conflicts in neighboring Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Chechnya, and repression of ethnic minorities across the border in China, the nation has seemed a bastion of stability. Some fear that this is beginning to change.
At midnight on Friday, November 19th, agents of the KNB, Kazakstan�s National Security Committee, apprehended members of the armed band Rus two hours before a planned assault on government buildings. The group, twelve of whom are Russian citizens, had planned to take over the akimat (city hall) and a hydroelectric station and set fire to regional KNB headquarters in Ust-Kamenogorsk, a mining town 35 miles from the Russian border.
The militant group, with ties to the extremist Congress of Conformists in Russia, had intended to declare a breakaway Russian territory within Kazakhstan. They also had a list of 28 blacklisted prominent locals who they had planned to �eliminate�, including the regional governor, a university president and the director of a television station. Their motivation: to reclaim land they felt �belonged to the Russian people.�
The KNB, successor of the KGB, had watched the group for over two months, but waited for the militants to act before arresting them. Since September, Rus leaders had openly recruited members in the predominantly Russian northern provinces, and met with representatives of more mainstream Russian cultural groups, all of whom turned them away, reported Irina Korcheva of the Ust-Kamenogorsk�s Vostok TV station.
The three Russian leaders of the group, Victor Kazimirchuk, Vladmir Matishev and Albert Uragaev, continue to be held in prison, charged with conspiring to terrorist acts and possession of contraband weapons. Other members have been released pending trials. The local KNB office had refused to comment on the events, Korcheva said.
Population Shifts Stir Ethnic Tensions
Government authorities have publicly downplayed the arrests. In a telephone interview, KNB press secretary Kenzhebulat Beknazarov called the incident �criminal, not political,� and denied the existence of ethnic problems in the region. Academics, however, see the rise of militant groups like Rus as emblematic of underlying racial pressures.
In the eight years since Kazakhstan became independent, an exodus of Russians have fled the country, coinciding with a rise in Kazakh nationalism. Both peaked in 1994, when 480 thousand Russians emigrated, according to official data. Unofficial estimates peg the figure at closer to one million in that year alone.
A new February 1999 census found a Kazakh majority for the first time in fifty years, with 30% Russians and 54% Kazakhs among 15 million citizens. Some demographers predict than in twenty to thirty years, Russians will make up just 10% of the population, while Kazakhs will swell to 70%.
Already, changing perceptions about who controls the country have affected everyday behaviors. �In Soviet times, Russians in Kazakhstan felt themselves as the main ethnic group,� commented Professor Rustem Kadyrzhanov, Chairman of the Department of Political Science at the Kazakh Academy of Science. �Russian was without a doubt the dominant language, and Russians were dominant in the government power structure.�
�Now, the mentality has changed; Russians don�t feel themselves to be so powerful,� he said. Instead, they try to survive, searching for niches in a new environment, fearing that there may not be a place in the society for their children.
Of key concern is the question of language. In August 1995, a revised Constitution instituted Kazakh as the state language, but in an effort to appease the Russian population, simultaneously named Russian as �a language of inter-ethnic communication,� with equal status. The practical result is an increasing pressure to be bilingual, especially for government employees. Although this is no trouble for those Kazakhs who grew up speaking one language at home and another in school, very few Russian citizens know Kazakh.
The combined impact of ethnic homogenization due to migration and real or perceived government favoritism towards an ethnic majority has proven explosive elsewhere in the former Soviet Union.
Ethnic tensions are particularly likely to explode in times of economic crisis, when different ethnic groups must compete for dwindling resources. Although a current recession following the April crash of the tenge makes Kazakhstan ripe for ethnic problems, analysts credit government economic policies which don�t favor any one ethnic group with keeping the peace. However, the potential for conflict exists, Kadyrzhanov surmised, �if Kazakhs and Russians start to see each other as rivals, or if there emerge political groups that try to provoke tension� � such as the Rus group in Ust-Kamenogorsk.
�Those who work don�t hold animosities. It�s those without work who start to blame others,� commented Valery Lazurin, director of the Taldy Korgan Business Center. �It�s always this way: Kazakhs will blame Russians, Russians will blame Chechens, just as Americans will blame Mexicans.�
Amy Forster and Rozlana Taukina contributed to this report.
Gulbanu ABENOVA
ALMATY, Dec 1
(THE GLOBE)
All 36 senators of the new Kazakhstani Parliament unanimously elected Oralbai Abdykarimov as chairman of the Senate. Abdykarimov most recently headed the State Commission on Struggle against Corruption. Previously, from 1996 to 1997, he was head of the President�s Administration, and from 1991 to 1996 he worked as the head of the Organizational-Supervisory Territorial Development Department of the President�s Administration and the Cabinet of Ministers. In 1997 he was also appointed the chairman of the Supreme Discipline Council of Kazakhstan.
In the Mazhilis, four candidates were nominated to the post of the Mazhilis Speaker: Zharmakhan Tuyakbaev, the former General Prosecutor of Kazakhstan; the Communist leader Serikbolsyn Abdildin; Uzakbai Karamanov, and the scandalously known Serik Abdrakhmanov, chairman of Yelemai Fund. The latter two withdrew their candidacies themselves.
Zharmakhan Tuyakbaev and Serikbolsyn Abdildin then competed for the Mazhilis Speaker�s post that was occupied by Marat Ospanov for a long time. Zharmakhan Tuyakbaev, who is son-in-law of former Prime Minister Nurlan Balgimbaev headed the General Office of Public Prosecutor from December 1990 to October 1995. In 1995 he became chairman of the State Investigation Committee. He previously served as a parliamentarian from 1990 to 1993, elected from the Inder district 79 (Guryev region).
Although the two candidates were discussed for several hours, most analysts were doubtful that the opposition�s second leader (after Kazhegeldin), the communist Serikbolsyn Abdildin, could become the Speaker of the Lower House. Tuyakbaev, a member of the majority Otan party, received 56 votes, to his opponent Abdildin�s fifteen.
Marat Ospanov, former Mazhilis Speaker and also an Otan leader, was not nominated. The chairman of the Central Election Commission Zagipa Balieva read an extract from election law, which prohibits consideration of a candidate who is absent from Parliament. For the past three weeks Ospanov has been in hospital. His diagnosis has not been announced. Kazakhstani media have reported assorted rumors, including that Ospanov is in a coma. According to the latest unconfirmed information, he has been taken to Moscow for treatment.
For the first time in Parliament, Speakers of both Houses will have elected deputies. The deputy of the Senate Speaker is Omirbek Baigeldy, the former Senate Speaker. The deputy of the Mazhilis Speaker is Muhambet Kopei. Abdykarimov will be the Senate Speaker for 6 years, while Tuyakbaev will serve for 5 years.
Gulbanu ABENOVA
ALMATY, Nov 30
(THE GLOBE)
�The Parliamentary election was dishonest and unfair,� representatives from the Kazakhstani Informational Center announced at a press conference on November 30th in Almaty. Their assessment is based on reports of nearly 2,500 independent observers from across the country. The observers, representatives of different Kazakhstani non-governmental organizations watched the procedures of opening polling stations, voting, counting of votes and announcements of polling results.
�Unfortunately, the analysis of protocols by our observers gave a sad picture. Laws were violated by those people who should have observed them first of all�the local election commissions,� Dos Kushim, the director of the Center on Assistance to Democracy said. �While in other nations, observers are there to prevent people from voting twice, our observers have to watch the people who operate the election process.�
Natalya Chumakova, the director of the Center to Distribute Democracy refuted accusations that as the wife of candidate Pyotr Svoik, who was not elected, she had defended his interests instead of providing objective information. �I was a coordinator of this program. I did not visit any of the polling districts, except when I voted. Sitting in the headquarters, I analyzed reports of our observers. We do not follow which candidate in each district wins. That is not important to us. The main point is how he wins,� she said.
At the press conference, reports were presented in Russian, Kazakh and English by local independent observers who watched the elections for Mazhilis and Maslikhats on October 10th and 24th. Fifteen hundred copies of the reports were printed by the XXI Bek (21st Century) Foundation.
Friedrich Ebert Foundation spokesman Elvira Pak complained that the election report was not concrete enough, as it contained a lot of general phrases such as �dishonest, opaque�. The report does not contain any concrete examples of violations.
One western political scientist told THE GLOBE that he trusted the large number of observers who witnessed the elections and their conclusions. �I would like to have had more facts and examples, instead of general phrases. Maybe they tried to make the report brief.�
In his opinion, Kazakhstan needs an institute of independent observers to follow elections. These people play a key role as an observing organization. OSCE representatives spend little time here, but local observers could become a powerful monitoring institution. He said that while OSCE had sent 150 people to Kazakhstan to observe the election, local observers had managed to recruit a group of 2,500 volunteers and to hold training workshops for all of them. They covered more districts than OSCE mission could and their conclusions may be true, he believes.
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