Overseas Filipino Workers
One of the side stories to the Tengiz riots, was the prescence of 625 Filipino workers at the site. During the riots themselves, they apparently all assembled and got out of the way and no one got hurt. Negotiations have been going back and forth between Kazakhstan and the Philipines about their welfare and a plan was in place to protect them. It didn’t appear that they were implicated or threatened in any way. Again, it seemed like a side story to the riots themselves, the stories of low wages, unfair treatment, violence, rape, racism and nationalism between Kazakhs and Turks.
But now, 11 Filipinos have returned from Tengiz and are saying that robbery and violence were common against Filipinos. When Kazakh and Turkish comments in forums and blogs claim rape and murder in the midst of nationalist sloganeering and insults to the other race, one has to keep a level of disbelief. But the Filipinos have nothing to gain from lying. The article doesn’t say whether it was Kazakhs or Turks (or both) who perpetuated these crimes, and it doesn’t really matter except from the PR point of view. This is beyond bad PR; this is a serious matter of workers rights and effective methods of enforcing the law. The PM has been very active in dealing with this situation, and one hopes there will be results.
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