A journalist with the Kazakh language service of RFE/RL was arrested in Almaty on the 15th of December and appears to be being held in detention without charges. From a question answered by the Office of the Spokesmen of the US State Department:

Azamat Zhetpisbayev, a correspondent for the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Kazakhstan affiliate Radio Azzatyk, was arrested December 15 by Almaty financial police, who declined to specify the reason for the arrest. He is being held in a temporary detention facility. There is no indication that the arrest is connected with Zhetpisbayev’s employment at Radio Azzatyk. We will continue to follow this case closely.

Although he was arrested by the financial police, Zhetpisbayev is known for being an active youth opposition figure in Kazakhstan and Central Asia as a whole (more…)

Yesterday at a meeting of the party of Otan, the party that holds the majority in Parliament and the party of the President two major decisions were made:

1) Otan will change its name to NurOtan. While Nur means “sunlight” in Kazakh, and Otan means “fatherland”, no one can doubt that the name change refers to the President, Nursultan Nazarbayev. The President holds a great deal of official and unofficial power and perhaps the name change is just acknowledging the status quo. One does wonder though if the lesson of Turkmenbashi’s death holds no lessons for Kazakhstan, that man is mortal, that in 2012 (barring a new Constitution) a new President will be elected, and that therefore putting all your eggs in one leader is not wise.

2) The Civic Party and the Agrarian Party both merged within Otan, following Asar’s lead earlier this year. Yesterday’s announcement adds 262 000 new members to the already almost 500 000 strong party. According to the RFE/RL, the Civic Party was the second-largest party in Kazakhstan.

Bakhytzhan Zhumagulov, the acting deputy chairman of Otan, said a large political party is a necessity for a country with big plans, and he said the example of other countries proved this.

“World experience shows that when a country is faced with massive economic and social tasks only a very strong party can provide an effective strategy of development,” he said. “The examples of Japan, Switzerland, Singapore, and other countries are well known and have been often cited.”

And as Zhumagulov noted at the party congress, the addition of the two parties gives Otan a vast majority in parliament. “Our faction — which after today’s merger now holds 90 percent of the seats in parliament — has significantly improved its work in recent years, both in the quantity and the quality of its contributions to the legislative process,” he said.

Cynical Westerners might also site the example of the Soviet Union in which one party ruled and lines between the nation, the government and the party were blurry if they existed at all, leading to a culture of corruption, tyranny, and suppression of human rights to an ideology. (more…)

In answer to the PETA’s demonstration in Almaty to encourage Kazakhs to become vegetarians with lettuce ladies, Kazakhstani newspaper Megapolis staged its own protest with Lamb Ladies. Two models dressed in sheep skin bikinis held signs that read: “Let goats eat cabbage ” and “Our meat helps us study and live!”

The comments on the article are also worth checking out; one reads: “Horsemeat, not only delicious but also healthy. Poor horses.”

Kazakhstan 1: vegetarians 0

Three Kazakhs out of four allegedly held have been released from Guantanomo Bay:

The three Kazakhs arrived in their Central Asian homeland on Saturday and were met by relatives who took them home, said Foreign Ministry spokesman Ilyas Omarov.

Omarov said the three would not face investigation and charges “because their release means that they had been cleared of all suspicions of having terror links.'’

He gave no further details on the three men.

But, using legal records and Pentagon documents, The Miami Herald has identified the three men as:

• Ihlkham Battayev, 34, who had been incorrectly identified in Pentagon documents as an Uzbek citizen.

• Abdullah Tohtasinovich Magrupov, 23.

• Yakub Abahanov, age unknown.

Omarov said the Kazakh government was working on the release of the fourth and last Kazakh citizen being held at Guantánamo who was captured in Afghanistan during the U.S.-led invasion to topple the Taliban regime and al Qaeda.

Pentagon records identify him as Abdulrahim Kerimbakiev, 23.

According to lists maintained by the Washington Post here, the Kazakhs were not charged by military commissions.

In terms of what the Kazakhs were doing in Guantanomo, there are a few sources: (more…)

Nazarbayev, currently in China, sent a telegram to the acting President, reading in part:

Saparmurat Atayevich was an outstaning leader of the Turkmen people, a politican with foresight, constantly working hard for the good of his homeland. He played a key role in creating and strengthening the independent state of Turkmenistan, and developing the economic potential of the nation. translation mine

Dariga Nazarbayev was also asked her opinion and last night on Khabar said:

We don’t know the facts. We don’t know if there are people in Turkmenistan who were unhappy with his rule. It may be so, but we don’t have those facts. We do know that he was a strong (hard) ruler, and I think that was a good point. I mean that he was strict with government officials, not strict with the people. That I admire.” translation and errors due to bad memory mine

So at least the higher officials are endorsing his rule and his tactics without reservation. In contrast, the US statement, as linked to by Sean Roberts, is much more diplomatic, saying basically that the US is ready to work with the new leader and wishes all the best to the Turkmen people.

Meanwhile, Khabar also quoted Turkmen residents of Kazakhstan as saying that Niyazov did everything for the good of the people. It was a bit frightening to hear one woman sit and just describe what she saw on Turkmen TV: “For half the day they played beautiful music, then they showed the flag in black border and his portrait.” That was the entirety of her commentary.

EDIT: Turkmenistan.neweurasia.net has some less complimentary words from a depuat of the Kazakhstan Parliament.

As Serik Abdrakhmanov, chairman of the committee on international affairs, defence and security in the Kazakh Majlis said: “This is perhaps the time to wish our brother nation of Turkmenistan peace and tranquillity, and let those that yesterday grovelled before the Rukhnama think more about the people and help them find the path to stable and peaceful path with the help of the countries natural wealth.”

The post also has some great background information on the acting president

Usually I keep my focus on Kazakhstan, but this is a big one. The President-for-life, Saparmurat Niyazov, died Wednesday night of heart failure at age 66. As is well-known, he was an authoritarian leader given to fulfilling whims and crushing dissent. Although there were rumors that his heart was weak, his health was considered top-secret. Thus it isn’t clear if there was a contigency plan or what now follows. Opposition parties are illegal and he goes through Ministers and high officials like flatbread–every failure is accompanied by the sacking of a government official who is then blacklisted. As had been noted, there is no one left to succeed him. Having stripped the educational system, and included study of his “great book” the Rukhnama, a history of the Turkmen people interespersed with sayings and poetry, as a major part of any curriculum, the problem of finding competent successors will last for generations.

There also issues such as what will happen to all the Turkmen gas, and contracts with foreign companies to extract that gas, or foriegn nations to issue that gas. The lessons of dictatorship are all too clear now. Once you give a man too much power, you give the post too much power for anyone to step into.
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I was asked to participate in a cross-blog survey with New Eurasia to predict what Central Asia will look like in 15 years. You can check out the other posts here. And my little dichotomious view is below. I couldn’t come to any solid and concrete conclusions so I ended up with perhaps more of a range of views of how to take Kazakhstan. I really look forward to comments.

The akim of Semey woke up on Independence Day in 2021 in his newly finished residence. The bedroom was gilt in gold, with rich wallpaper based on a 17th century bedroom he’d seen recreated in the British Museum when we studied at LSE. Through the transparent curtains he could see Abay tower, the second tallest tower in Kazakhstan with an observatory on top, and offices of the local Social-Business Corporation, the akimat, and the new Narodnii Bank offices—everything in Italian marble, wireless internet throughout the building, in short the latest technology and comfort!

It had taken a lot of doing to get it down in time for the 16th of December—but as they said no two beams in town were put together by his mat, and he had plenty to go around. He remembered back fifteen years ago when the central government held the budget strings so tightly and being akim was basically carrying out the orders of the President. Then, Astana was the only prestigious city in the country. (more…)

Sean Roberts has an article up about nation branding and (inevitably) Borat. Upon the occasion of yet another big paid article in the Washington Post, Who Needs Borat? Here’s the Kazakh President, highlighting the President’s new devil may care attitude to the comedian (which itself did not emerge until after Sascha Baron Cohen did an interview in Rolling Stone saying officially that the joke was not on Kazakhstan.

Roberts points out that the article was produced by a consulting company that specializes in nation-branding, East-West Communications. For more on nation branding, see Diplomatic Traffic but it is what it sounds like, treating a nation as brand name that must be promoted, preserved, manipulated. Lest you laugh, let me point out that “PR” and “imeidge” are slipping into the local Kazakhstani newspapers, bulletin boards, and mailing lists and as people discuss Borat, Nomad and the President’s trips here and there. There was a wonderful commercial on Khabar television showing a student giving his graduation speech (in English!) and everyone cheering as he flies into the air. Then the screen flashes up the message that Education is a key part of increasing the economic competitiveness of the nation. Even students are apparently supposed to put the ranking of the nation in the WEF report first!

Overall, the Kazakhstan public seems happy with the idea that Kazakhstan is a brand-name. Roberts discusses the idea of nation as corporation versus ideology (and Borat as marketing!). But it reminded me to post something I’ve been waiting to see in the newspapers: (more…)

Yesterday, President Nazarbayev announced that Kazakhs should learn to respect rich people, that there should be some kind of cultural program to inculcate this new attitude, and that businessmen should be more open about their wealth. The comments at Zonak.kz are well worth reading.

In short the questions that will need to be worked out are:
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Over the past month or so, there’s been a fair amount of good news regarding enviornmental projects in Kazakhstan. The government introduced an Ecological Code recently, to codify and integrate laws regarding environmental protection and bring them up to world standard. However, in Kazakhstan as in many other countries, there is pressure to ensure that environmental laws do not interfere with economic growth. One version of the Code reportedly included predicitons of 14% GDP growth rate! Not clear that that is possible or that GDP growth is the jurisditiction of the Ministry of the Environment, but they may just be doing what they think they need to do to survive without being seen as obstructionist or useless.
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