The AI has a nice, if tragic, article on a conflict that occured between Kazakh and Turkish workers in Atyrau, at the Chevron Tengiz oil field–a joint venture between Chevron, the Kazakhstany government and other foreign companies–leaving 140 wounded! Aytrau, in Western Kazakhstan, is the site of a large oil field where the petroleum business does well but that money doesn’t trickle down to the workers or out to the larger economy. In other words, a place where the haves and the have-nots are clearly defined and seperated. In this case, the tension seems to have expressed itself in ethnic conflict–but perhaps that is just the cover:

Official media, gazeta.kz, describes it this way:

The conflict has occured in company canteen between three turkish and one kazakh, who wanted to get his lunch out of turn and was criticized by his turkish colleagues. Kazakh employee left the canteen and returned with 400 of locals. About 140 of injured, 6 of them were transported to Kulsary Hospital, 1 underwent operation and transported to Atyrau Regional Hospital. Conflict has been localized by 21st October. All personnel is back to work, 30 employees were fired. Two cases are proceeded for investigation.
quoted from The AI Informer

An awful incident, perhaps a nationalist Kazakh overreacting!?

Or not, as The AI reports deeper:

This is not first time when Atyrau Region acts like the battlefield for Kazakh and Turkish personnel. Several reasons might cause conflict and most popular is difference in wages and labour conditions in turkish owned companies. National employees are paid 2-3 times less than personnel with Turkish citizenship.

See the original entry for more.

In a country with a huge construction boom, a lot of it carried out by Turkish companies, one would have hoped that regulations would be in place. On the heels of an article in Reuters, where a British architecture critic called the site of the Palace of Peace and Accord, “the scariest he had seen in terms of safety,” one wonders if Kazakhstan will get some bad press on something more important than a misspelled K.

Sean Roberts has put up some pictures here>, a few of which are disturbing. He also reports on the potential political fallout . In a country of “Evolution, not Revolution” where the colored revolutions can never happen according to the government, it becomes increasingly clear that the government takes short-term measures like strict crowd control during elections and carefully timed passing out of bonuses, free apartments, and other treats. The question becomes whether long-term measures to address the interests of working people will be taken, or whether that niche in the political market will be co-opted by rivals to Nazarbayev, or will the workers prove to be uncontrollable by higher-ups?