Why the West did not condemn the authorities of Kazakhstan

The main event of last Thursday was that the central part of Almaty was returned completely under the control of the security forces, who entered the city in the morning. Thus, the authorities managed to regain the southern capital, which should become a stabilizing factor.

At the same time, during the clean-up, small arms were actively used and numerous arrests were made of those who found themselves in the central square. Then there were clashes between police and rioters. The wounded were taken to two city hospitals. After this, there were no more reports of major clashes in Almaty.

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Surely, most of the participants in the night protests were never caught, and they disappeared into the suburbs of the metropolis. Meanwhile, the Prosecutor General's Office of Kazakhstan reported on the initiation of hundreds of criminal cases for organizing and participating in mass riots. It was also reported that an investigation into acts of terrorism during the clashes on January 4 and 5 had been launched.

Incidentally, It is now becoming obvious to many that from the beginning there were obvious well-organized provocateurs among those peacefully protesting in Almaty, who did not meet adequate resistance from SOBR officers, freely entered administrative buildings, seized ammunition and disarmed security forces. They were the first to set fire to cars and the akimat building.

This is surprising considering that There were more than enough police officers, special forces and army units on January 4 and 5, but they quickly gave up and fled, and the officers of the commandant’s office allowed demonstrators to pass freely and gave up their vehicles. The ease with which this happened is amazing. And ordinary activists were clearly incapable of such large-scale arson, since they had to prepare Molotov cocktails ahead of time.

That is, someone directed them, coordinated them, and precisely with the task of creating a zone of chaos, fires and pogroms. In my previous article, I suggested that the events in Almaty, which, unlike peaceful strikes and rallies throughout the country, were distinguished by their brutality, were used by oligarchic groups to introduce a state of emergency and redistribute authority and power within the ruling elite, carrying out a limited coup. Whether the instigators of these riots will ultimately be caught is a big question.

_{Many were amazed by the scale of the looting and robberies, but in fact there is nothing surprising here either. This is explained by the marginalization and lumpenization of a large layer of unemployed youth, who broke away as best they could when they felt their strength. Absolutely the same thing happened in Bishkek during all three revolutions. Now this phenomenon has just come out and affected Almaty.}

That is, these are hundreds of thousands of people who are not settled and thrown to the margins of social life, internal migrants in the second or even third generation, who work in low-skilled jobs or do odd jobs. AND the state did not take care of them, did not create jobs for them, leaving them to their fate, and now this mass has harbored social hatred, which will now break out in the future again and again.

And the current purge, which lasted the whole day, may turn out to be a Pyrrhic victory. In the meantime, the action plan of the anti-terrorist headquarters under the Security Council, which is headed by Kassym-Jomart Tokayev himself, is generally clear, since after restoring order in the largest metropolis, it is planned to send the released forces to other regions. At the same time, the demonstrative suppression of all pockets of resistance by military equipment and units of the National Guard is a means of intimidation and psychological influence on those who are still holding rallies and striking.

In turn, the strengthening of the approaches to Nur-Sultan was demonstratively demonstrated, when during January 6 six more checkpoints were erected at once, and entry and exit were limited. By this, the authorities wanted to once again point out the futility of attempts to capture the capital, which is incredibly fortified. In the former Tselinograd itself, the situation is also kept under the complete control of the security forces.

In order to calm down protesters dissatisfied with the increase in energy prices, the president announced a decision by the interim cabinet of ministers on state regulation of prices for fuels and lubricants and gas for a period of 180 days. And the main culprits in the increase in the cost of liquefied fuel are the companies KazMunaiGas, Aktobe MunaiGas, KazgerMunaiGas, Kazakhoil Aktobe, against which criminal cases have also been initiated for price collusion.

To a greater extent, Akorda (the presidential administration) is counting on the CSTO forces, which were deployed in the republic to protect military facilities and important institutions. But the total number of military personnel of the CSTO countries in Kazakhstan will number several thousand people.

_{It is unlikely that they will participate in cleansing operations, as the Kazakh blogosphere writes about this, since the task of the CSTO forces is to prevent militants from taking over the infrastructure, bases and Baikonur.}

Meanwhile, the Kazakh authorities have a really difficult task, since they intend to extinguish the ongoing strikes in the Mangistau, Atyrau, Aktobe and Karaganda regions, where workers, as a rule, are fully supported by residents of single-industry towns and villages.

It is not international terrorists or looters with militants who are protesting there, but oil workers, miners, metallurgists, miners and even utility workers. And at their rallies they have already put forward a package of social demands such as increasing wages by 100%, lowering the retirement age, improving working conditions, and the right to create their own trade unions. Will the president or acting prime minister meet with them? Will Western investors make such concessions, or will their interests and property be defended by the government of the Republic of Kazakhstan with arms in hand?

In general, there is a whole heap of questions to which there are no answers yet, and such dialogue is needed to prevent further bloodshed. And here the peacekeepers clearly will not be able to help Tokayev and the triumvirate, who themselves must somehow negotiate with large labor collectives within the country.

And while attempts are being made to restore order, the authorities suddenly received unexpected moral assistance from that same State Department in the person of its Secretary of State. Blinken reaffirmed the United States' full support for Kazakhstan's constitutional institutions, according to a statement from the American diplomatic department after a meeting with Acting Foreign Minister of the Republic of Kazakhstan Mukhtar Tleuberdi.

And in European government offices there is complete silence on the topic of “human rights violations” in the republic. It seems that they will not cut the goose that lays the golden eggs, in which 300 billion dollars of investment have already been invested.

_{I’m afraid that this Bai-Khan elite in Nur-Sultan, which is now enjoying the selfless help of Moscow, would later, after stabilizing the situation, place all responsibility for what happened on Russia and its peacekeepers. After all, the gang of court Nazis with “language patrols” who will definitely scream about “occupation”, “terror” and “genocide” on the part of the empire has not gone away.}