Postcards from Stanland

by David H. Mould

  A nuclear power station was opened in 1973 to produce plutonium and supply power to the city and the desalination plants that were its only source of fresh water. Despite its remote location, it became a vacation spot for the Soviet elite, who enjoyed the sandy beaches and hotel nightlife. With independence, and Kazakhstan’s abandonment of its nuclear arsenal, the tourism and uranium industries went into decline. From the mid-1990s, the recovery began as oil exploration and development picked up.

  Mangystau province is bordered by western Uzbekistan and northern Turkmenistan where many ethnic Kazakhs live. With jobs scarce, they were attracted by the government’s open-door immigration policy and the prospects of work in the oil industry. According to government statistics, of the estimated 860,000 ethnic Kazakhs, the oralmans, who migrated in the twenty years since independence—not only from Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan but also from Russia, Mongolia, and Xinjiang—over 100,000 settled in Mangystau. The province’s population grew by over two-thirds in a decade—to over 440,000 in 2009—with half of that growth attributed to oralmans; Aktau’s grew by 32 percent in the same period.

  The migration created inflationary pressures. Housing is scarce and expensive because Soviet-era apartments are deteriorating and new construction has not kept up with demand. Many migrants, lacking education, have struggled to find work, and some end up hawking goods at the bazaar. The global economic crisis of 2008 halted oil field development and eliminated low-skilled jobs, especially in construction, making the housing shortage even worse. Oralmans competed with poor migrants from rural regions for jobs and government resources, leading to social tensions and rising crime. Nate Schenkkan, a journalist, wrote that “the fundamental catalyst for tension is economic—tens of thousands of un- and underemployed people, many of them recent migrants, . . . see vast resource wealth being extracted but live in crowded, dilapidated, yet expensive conditions.” Although the government has been aware of tensions for several years, “it has not fundamentally changed its approach. It is funding more and bigger development schemes, appointing new leaders answerable only to Astana to run the regions, and intensifying repression.”2

  The social tensions are largely invisible to the energy company engineers, accountants, and tax lawyers who frequent Aktau’s upscale hotels, restaurants, and bars. Like Atyrau, Aktau is a poster city for the oil industry, touted in government campaigns to attract foreign investors. The brochures and business reports portray a modern, dynamic, business-friendly city where energy revenues are contributing to better medical care, social services, and education. The oil workers and their families in the pictures look healthy and happy, and volunteer quotations on how their companies have given them good pay, housing, and a secure future. No doubt some enjoy such benefits. For those who do not, it’s dangerous to speak up or protest about pay and working conditions.

  Occupy Zhanaozen

  Zhanaozen, with a population of over 60,000, is the second largest city in Mangystau, but it’s a world away from Aktau. Unemployment, poverty, and crime rates are high. Oil workers from the Uzen field and their families live in broken-down apartment blocks and tenement houses along dusty, pot-holed roads. Schools and medical services are inadequate.

  The Uzen field, opened in 1961, was one of the first to be developed in Mangystau. It is owned and operated by KMG. In May 2011, workers went on strike for higher wages, unpaid danger money, and better working conditions. The strike was declared illegal by local courts, and KMG sacked more than two thousand employees. Some occupied the Zhanaozen town square, demanding union representation and recognition of workers’ rights. Strikers were periodically hauled into court and fined or given short jail terms. In August, Natalia Sokolova, a lawyer advising the strikers, received a six-year prison sentence for inciting social discord. By mid-December, some workers in the square began calling for the right to form independent political parties.

  On December 16, the twentieth anniversary of Kazakhstan’s independence, clashes broke out between protesters and police who were attempting to clear the square in preparation for Independence Day celebrations. Activists claimed police opened fire on unarmed demonstrators, but the authorities said the casualties were caused by ricocheting bullets when the police fired into the air. These assertions were undermined by a YouTube video that showed police shooting fleeing demonstrators and beating the fallen. Protesters set fire to the town hall, a hotel, supermarket and the local KMG office. The government claimed that fifteen people (workers and police officers) were killed, although opposition sources put the death toll much higher. More than one hundred were injured. Due to a shortage of hospital beds in Zhanaozen, many were taken to Aktau, almost a hundred miles away, to be treated.

  On December 17, a state of emergency was declared, roads into Zhanaozen were blocked, and the local airport closed. Mobile phone coverage and Internet connections were cut off. However, reports of the violence had reached Almaty, where police arrested opposition activists protesting against the deaths. Workers at two other oil fields went on strike, and unrest was reported at other towns in Mangystau. In his first statement, President Nazarbayev hinted at outside agitators, urging people not to confuse the protest with “the actions of bandit elements which wanted to use the situation for their criminal designs.”

  The government worried about escalating violence and damage to its image and business confidence. On December 22, Nazarbayev flew to Aktau to try to calm the situation. Police officers charged with shooting at protesters were arrested. Nazarbayev fired several local government and KMG officials. The provincial governor resigned. Zhanaozen claimed its most high-profile official victim when Nazarbayev fired his son-in-law, Timur Kulibayev, as head of Kazakhstan’s sovereign-wealth fund, Samruk, which manages KMG. Nazarbayev’s actions were welcomed by many citizens and foreign observers, who noted that he had not tried to protect officials he had appointed, and had even taken action against a close relative, widely tipped to be his successor as president. It was not clear at this stage that the government would use the investigations into the Zhanaozen massacre to launch a far-reaching clampdown on the opposition and the press.

  A trial of thirty-seven protesters began in Aktau in late March 2012. Many complained that they had been physically abused, and some even tortured, while in police custody. Some witnesses also claimed they had been threatened by police into giving false testimony. In June, thirty-four were found guilty of criminal behavior. Thirteen were given jail terms ranging from three to seven years: sixteen were given suspended sentences; and five were amnestied. There was uproar in the courtroom when the verdicts were announced. The judge had to duck out as enraged relatives hurled shoes and plastic bottles at him. In another trial, five police officers received jail terms of between five and seven years for abuse of office, and the former head of the police detention center in Zhanaozen received five years for the death of a detainee who was beaten while in custody.

  The government widened its net. Several opposition figures, including politicians and journalists, were arrested, although none had been in Zhanaozen on December 16. The authorities did not accuse them of violence but instead used a vaguely defined article in the criminal code about “inciting social discord.” The most high-profile trial began in August in Almaty. Vladimir Kozlov, leader of the unregistered Alga opposition party, and Akzhanat Aminov, a former Zhanaozen oil worker, were accused of fomenting social unrest, calling for the overthrow of the state, and setting up a criminal group. The political activist Serik Sapargaly faced the first two counts. The prosecution’s case closely followed the official narrative that outside agitators were responsible for inciting the violence. Nazarbayev, while acknowledging the grievances of oil workers and police wrongdoing, maintained that “political opponents have tried to destabilize the country by taking advantage of existing grievances.” The chief villain was a former political ally and energy minister, the exiled oligarch and media baron Mukhtar Ablyazov. Accused by Kazakhstan’s BTA Bank of embezzlement, Ably
azov was on the run from British authorities after a London court handed him a twenty-two-month prison sentence for contempt of court. Prosecutors alleged that Ablyazov and a Kazakh associate in the UK used Kozlov, Sapargaly, and their political organizations to funnel money and print propaganda to the strikers, charges they both denied. In October, Kozlov was found guilty on all charges; he was sentenced to seven and a half years in jail, and his property was confiscated; Sapargaly and Aminov were given suspended sentences of four and three years, respectively. The verdict on Kozlov was roundly condemned by human rights groups. The United States, which, to this point, had simply called for a fair and open trial, denounced the “apparent use of the criminal system to silence opposition voices.”

  The US State Department’s 2013 human rights report criticized severe limits “on citizens’ rights to change their government” and “restrictions on freedom of speech, press, assembly, religion, and association,” dating the crackdown to the Zhanaozen massacre. The European Parliament passed a resolution expressing concern at the “dramatic worsening” of the human rights situation, and called on the government to revise the clause in the criminal code on inciting social, ethnic, or religious discord—the catchall charge used to prosecute Kozlov and others. Activists in Kazakhstan had heard it all before and said that the criticism had no teeth because no penalties or sanctions were attached. Kazakhstan was simply too important to the West as a source of oil and minerals for criticism to be followed by action.

  Domestic opinion is a more serious matter. The government has been pouring money into the rebuilding of Zhanaozen. In February 2012, it pledged $29 million for redevelopment over the next three years. Two new oil production units were created, one in Zhanaozen and one in Aktau, to provide jobs for most of the two thousand workers who had been dismissed. And the workers received another bonus—improved TV service. While families throughout western Kazakhstan fiddle with rabbit ear antennas to pick up grainy images, Zhanaozen viewers were among the first to receive digital TV. Under the three-year switchover plan announced by Kazteleradio in 2012, digital TV was offered first in the urban areas of Almaty, Astana, Karaganda/Temirtau, Zhezkazgan—and Zhanaozen. The larger western cities of Aktau, Atyrau, and Uralsk would have to wait for digital TV. The decision clearly had more to do with politics than technology. According to Seytkazy Matayev of the Kazakhstan Union of Journalists, the isolated town had been off the broadcast map, not even reached by the national channels; local residents received their information from K-Plus, an opposition channel that showed how the protest in the square turned ugly. The new multichannel digital package is dominated by government and government-allied stations, and K-Plus is not included. The gift of digital TV to Zhanaozen came at a price: no opposition voices.3

  Although some government officials fired in the aftermath of Zhanaozen are in jail, for others it was a minor career hiccup. Kulibayev, sacked with much fanfare by his father-in-law as head of the Samruk sovereign wealth fund, remains a powerful political figure and is still the odds-on favorite to be named as the next president. In 2013, he returned to the ranks of the Forbes list of billionaires, with an estimated net worth of $1.3 billion, making him the fourth richest man in Kazakhstan. He owns the national Halyk Bank and holds several key positions in the energy sector.

  How do you make Zhanaozen go away? Well, one way is to simply remove it from the map. At independence, many towns and cities in Kazakhstan shed their Soviet names in favor of Kazakh ones, including Zhanaozen, which was formerly called Novi Uzen. In November 2012, the Council of Elders of Mangystau province proposed that Zhanaozen be renamed for Beket-Ata, an eighteenth-century Sufi philosopher and scholar from the region. The council insisted the proposal had nothing to do with the upcoming anniversary of the massacre but was intended to immortalize a prominent person from the area. Local opinion on social media was divided: some pointed to Beket-Ata’s historical significance, while others sensed a conspiracy to erase historical memory. “You can give a different name to a city, but the problems will stay the same,” wrote one Facebook user. “I am afraid our Beket-Ata would be turning in his grave now. May he rest in peace.”4

  Nazarbayev’s Legacy?

  Since independence, Kazakhstan has built a generally well-deserved reputation as the most peaceful and stable country in Central Asia. Its economy, fueled largely by the energy sector, has grown rapidly, and although the gap between the rich and poor has widened, many citizens feel they are better off today than they were in the 1990s or in Soviet times. The country’s record on human rights, press freedom, and religious tolerance is spotty, but opinion polls suggest that for many people these issues are less important than public safety, jobs, housing, education, and medical care. Nazarbayev has consistently argued that stability is needed to allow the economy to grow and for living standards to rise, and that too much freedom can undermine progress. He points to the example of the so-called Asian Tigers of South Korea and Taiwan that developed economically under authoritarian rule before making a transition to multiparty democracy. In an April 2013 speech, he suggested that Kazakhstan was following this model: “The democracy and freedom that exist in the West . . . are for us the final goal, and not the start of the path.” Lacking native tigers or lions, Nazarbayev had to find another large indigenous cat to serve as the economic growth metaphor. By 2030, he promised, “Kazakhstan will become the Central Asian snow leopard.”

  Even those who gripe about Nazarbayev’s autocratic style, rigged elections, suppression of opposition voices, and muzzling of the press, or about profligate spending to make Astana a world-class city, admit that he worked hard to take the country through the difficult times of the 1990s, trod a careful diplomatic path between the United States and Europe, Russia and China, and has kept a lid on ethnic and religious unrest. In another country—or in one with presidential term limits—it would be time for him to retire from public office, open a presidential library, start a foundation, and write books. But the man who has headed the country since independence shows no sign of leaving its top post.

  Nazarbayev has been reelected four times since 1991, and his current term runs until 2016. In 2007, the country’s two-term presidential limit was suspended to allow him to run again, so legally he could be president for the rest of his life. In 2010, he was declared Leader of the Nation, a title which grants immunity from prosecution and allows him to have a say in policymaking even after he steps down. That is reassuring to citizens who fear a power struggle among the political elite. They would prefer a smooth transition in which Nazarbayev groomed his successor. Some regard the post-Zhanaozen trials, the clampdown on opposition parties, and the closure of more than forty media outlets, including the well-known Vzglyad and Respublika newspapers, as a strategy to reduce debate and social tension ahead of a political transition. There are also signs that Nazarbayev is burnishing his historical legacy. In 2012, December 1 was declared as a new public holiday—President’s Day. Across the country, concerts, exhibitions, and competitions were held. In Astana, the climax was a show titled “One Country! One Destiny! One Leader!” featuring a mass singalong and the waving of banners depicting Nazarbayev. The president is the subject of flattering books, movies, and theater productions, and even appears in a children’s fairy tale. A movie trilogy called Way of the Leader, based on Nazarbayev’s memoirs, was completed in 2013. The Museum of the First President of the Republic of Kazakhstan in Astana depicts the humble home of his parents in Chemolgan, with a spinning wheel, soup bowls, and wooden spoons. It also includes Nazarbayev’s first typewriter, his first reception room with its six phones, and the graduation gowns he has worn when receiving honorary doctorates abroad. A street in Jordan’s capital, Amman, has been named for him, and a statue built in Turkey’s capital Ankara.

  Citizens like to compare Kazakhstan with other Central Asian republics. Kyrgyzstan is certainly more democratic, with the parliament balancing the power of the president, but it remains a poor country, heavily dependent on
foreign aid, and has experienced two revolutions and ethnic violence in the south. Tajikistan is as poor as Kyrgyzstan and is beset by ethnic and regional power struggles that led to a five-year civil war in the 1990s. In Uzbekistan, a Soviet police state has been replaced by a domestic one; the economy is stifled by bureaucracy, and the country’s human rights record is worse than Kazakhstan’s. There were hopes that Turkmenistan would open itself up after the death of the so-called Turkmenbashi, Sapamurat Niyazov, in 2006, but his successor as president, Gurnanguly Berdymukhammedov, has done little to change the most closed and policed society in Central Asia, replacing one personality cult with another. By comparison with its neighbors, Kazakhstan looks like a leader on almost all counts.

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  The Seven Lessons of Stanland

  The more I’ve learned about Central Asia, the less inclined I am to accept broad-brushstroke analyses by governments, international organizations, scholars, and journalists. How can we talk about Kyrgyzstan as a country without considering the north-south divide? In Kazakhstan, oil, gas, clan loyalties, ethnicity, language, the wealth gap, and the sheer size of the country make any conclusions tentative. It would be comforting to come up with key points—the “Things we all need to know about Central Asia” list—but it would not do justice to such a complex region. The best I can do is offer seven lessons learned.

  #1: Oil, Afghanistan and Democracy

  In 1999, I was hired by USAID to travel through the region to interview journalists, media owners, and human rights activists. My job was to find out why journalists were not working together in professional associations to raise standards and battle for press freedom. For an academic, it was a dream assignment. I was working for the Central Asia Office of Democratic Transition (ODT), whose modest mission was to jump-start democracy, political pluralism, and the free press. Yet just down the corridor at the US embassy, a larger and better-paid group of consultants was busy promoting economic development, helping US companies negotiate for oil, gas, and minerals leases, and pushing for legislation to protect foreign investors. For them, political stability and law and order were essential, even if they came at the expense of human rights and press freedoms. The court of USAID was divided into two factions. I always knew which was stronger.