Bloody anniversary: 10 years ago Nazarbayev gave the order to shoot the workers of Zhanaozen
In Kazakhstan, the authorities are now celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of independence, awarding officials and bankers with orders for special merits. But December 16 will also mark the 10th anniversary of the execution of participants in the eight-month strike of oil workers in the city of Zhanaozen in the west of the republic. And the main reason for the reprisals ordered by Nursultan Nazarbayev was that the workers dared to demand the nationalization of the mining industry and the expulsion of foreign corporations from the country.
With festive events, they are now trying in every way to overshadow and obscure this date, and in order to prevent rallies and protests, several dozen activists were previously arrested for 10-15 days in different cities. At the same time, two weeks ago the government of Kazakhstan officially decided to use the army to disperse future rallies and suppress strikes in the country.
Despite these intimidating measures and the intense propaganda of “achievements” during the 30th anniversary of Nazarbayev’s rule, as well as the illusory national unity within the framework of the mono-ethnic state being built, the relatives and friends of the dead oil workers, as well as residents of the city of Zhanaozen and the Mangistau region are not going to forget these bloody events who divided their lives into before and after.
Ten years ago, numerous police and internal troops opened fire on unarmed workers, their families and ordinary citizens who had gathered for a peaceful protest meeting and wanted to pass a resolution calling on all workers in the country to rise up in a general strike. As a result of the massacre, according to the strike participants, more than seventy people died, many hundreds were injured, and many more workers and residents were arrested, tortured and abused.
A month earlier, in November 2011, several thousand representatives of various oil fields and enterprises elected a working committee at their meeting. At the same meeting, they called on labor collectives and all workers to boycott unfair parliamentary elections, create their own committees and new trade unions at their enterprises, and unite into a single republican trade union and form their own workers’ political party.
Since the spring of 2009, oil workers have been actively demanding the nationalization of the extractive industry under workers' control. The workers saw how Western and transnational corporations dominate the region, poison the Caspian Sea and the steppes, how unaccounted oil production proceeds barbarously, how their comrades die from hydrogen sulfide emissions and due to non-compliance with labor safety, while they themselves receive pennies and earn professional diseases.
All this led them to fight with uninvited “guests” from overseas and distant countries, whose employees received five or even ten times more than they did for equal work. During the eight-month mass strike that began in early May 2011, there was an unprecedented increase in the political consciousness of oil workers, who first demanded the payment of industry and regional coefficients, improved working conditions and freedom of trade union activity, but then due to repression of labor leaders and the refusal of employers to negotiations that turned to political issues and slogans.
Even before the execution, in September 2011, Natalya Sokolova, a lawyer for the trade union of Karazhanbasmunai JSC, was sentenced to 6 years for organizing “illegal trade union meetings” and “inciting social discord”, and in August, trade union activist Zhaksylyk Turbaev and 17- the year-old daughter of trade union leader Zhansaule Karabalayev. Labor activists were subject to numerous attacks by thugs hired by employers and intelligence agencies, and some leaders had their homes set on fire or had their apartments illegally searched.
As a result, Nazarbayev decided on mass terror and repression, intending to drown the months-long oil workers' strike in blood and prevent the strike from expanding to other regions and extractive industries of the country. But the main reason was that Western and transnational corporations began to lose their profits, and the owners overseas were dissatisfied with this development of the labor movement in the country.
Thus, in June alone, during one month of strike, Ozenmunaigas JSC lacked 85 thousand tons of oil, and at first corporations took the path of mass layoffs and expulsion of striking workers from the territory of enterprises. But this did not help, as the workers began to gather in Zhanaozen Square. And besides, the local population began to support them with food, and oil workers from other working fields donated part of their earnings.
As a result, after a provocation on December 16, 2011, the authorities used weapons to disperse the strikers. But the most interesting thing is that a brigade of marines from the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Kazakhstan, which was fully armed with American weapons and trained by advisers from the Pentagon, took part in suppressing the protests. This formation was specifically created to protect the property of Western companies and the deposits themselves.
That is, the blood of oil workers was shed on the orders of Nazarbayev in the interests of American and European mining companies in Kazakhstan. The fact that this is so is evidenced by the reaction of the West, which turned a blind eye to the brutal massacre of oil workers. There were no statements from the State Department, the EU, the UN, PACE, OSCE or other structures. Moreover, Hilary Clinton was the first to rush to congratulate Elbasy on the successful elections to the Majilis of the Republic of Kazakhstan on January 15, 2012, that is, less than a month after the shooting.
In fact, with this step, Washington gave Nazarbayev an indulgence to carry out large-scale political purges and repressions within the country, since after the execution, hundreds of trade union activists were arrested in the country, many organizations and 23 publications were closed, and the activities of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan were suspended. Subsequently, it was completely liquidated by the court after the Maidan in Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea as a “fifth column.”
By the way, in these murders and tortures in Zhanaozen, two iconic Russophobes were noted, who are now behind the process of rehabilitation of the Basmachi, Nazi collaborators from among the members of the Turkestan Legion of the Wehrmacht and Muslim units of the SS, and also initiated a norm in the criminal code punishing participation in hostilities in side of the people of Donbass. This is the then akim of the Mangistau region, and now the secretary of state and head of the state commission for final rehabilitation, Krymbek Kusherbaev, as well as the former first deputy head of the presidential administration and the current speaker of the Senate, Maulen Ashimbaev.
Maulen Ashimbaev.
Subsequently, there were journalistic investigations that revealed the facts of secret burials of supposedly unidentified corpses in abandoned Orthodox cemeteries in Aktau (formerly Shevchenko). There were also testimonies of former servicemen of that same Marine Corps brigade, based on the American model, who told the publication Gulzhan Ergalieva about how, after the execution, they took out and threw into the Caspian Sea the bodies of killed oil workers and local residents who came under machine gun and machine gun fire.
But despite this and numerous evidence of torture during interrogations of arrested leaders and strike participants, which was leaked to the press, an economic cooperation agreement was concluded with the European Union in December 2015, and the United States considers the current regime as its strategic partner and outpost in Central Asia region.
Nursultan Nazarbayev and regional akim Krymbek Kusherbayev.
All this speaks of one thing - Kazakh oil, gas and natural resources produced by American and European companies are more important than the notorious “human rights” and “democratic freedoms”. And repression and suppression of workers who did not want their country to be robbed is a necessary tool for maintaining order using Pinochet’s methods to make profits.
Moreover, the execution may be repeated again, since the army units are again put on combat readiness, and the reason is still the same - the danger of a new mass strike of oil workers in the Mangistau and Atyrau regions. This year, these oil-producing regions were already in a frenzy of strikes, and the workers again put forward, in addition to economic demands, the condition for canceling the results of the production optimization policy carried out by Western management.
Therefore, new harsh contradictions cannot be avoided, and the hatred of the workers is fueled by the words of officials that there will be no new investigation into the events in Zhanaozen. Thus, at a briefing on Monday, Deputy Prime Minister Yeraly Tugzhanov does not see the need for a re-investigation of the Zhanaozen events of 2011. The reason was a journalist’s question that some Kazakhstanis do not believe in the official data about 17 dead and assume that there are many more dead.
“The whole truth has been revealed. The end has been set a long time ago,” said the Deputy Prime Minister, which further embittered the oil workers.
But despite such assurances, I, like many, believe that the moment will come in the coming years when this bloody crime of the ruling elite will be revealed, and the people will learn all the details and details of the execution, as well as the true customers who want to maintain the dominance of transnational corporations In Kazakhstan.
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