Workers of Kazakhstan rise up against Western corporations and demand nationalization
Turbulent processes continue in Kazakhstan, though now not on the streets, but in work collectives, public associations, the deputy corps and the state apparatus, where shifts and noticeable changes are taking place, and from below more and more new demands are being put forward and expectations from the actions of the authorities are growing. At the same time, a number of activists and organizations initiated a campaign to democratize the country.
It is noteworthy that deputies from Nazarbayev’s ruling Nur Otan party in parliament on Wednesday suddenly unanimously approved the decision to abolish the lifelong chairmanship of their former boss in the Security Council and the Assembly of Peoples of Kazakhstan. Despite the fact that Elbasy was removed on January 5 from the post of chairman of the super body represented by the Security Council, which has more powers than the president himself, he had, according to the Constitution, the opportunity to again occupy this post. That is why this vote was required.
This can be called a step to prevent Nazarbayev from returning to power under any pretext and is most likely part of the general agreement with Tokayev on the first redistribution, which was expressed in Nazarbayev’s appearance in public on January 18. In this regard, we should expect the repeal of the constitutional law “On the First President” and the provisions in the Criminal Code that protected Elbasy and his family members from any criminal prosecution.
Meanwhile, on January 19, the state of emergency was lifted in all regions and various social movements and organizations became more active, demanding the release of more than 600 activists, journalists and representatives of various associations who were detained after the end of the rallies on January 8. It is still not clear the exact number of those killed and missing, so the figure of 225 people killed so far satisfies few people. Meanwhile, many relatives complain that they are not allowed to release the bodies of their dead relatives on the grounds that they were allegedly terrorists.
Cases of activists being detained and then their corpses being found in morgues are also revealed. Thus, the news about the absurd death of the famous Almaty archaeologist Erlan Zhagiparov, who fought against the destruction of ancient mounds due to rapid construction near the metropolis, was heard throughout the country. He was arrested on January 6 and taken away by the military from the city center, allegedly because he filmed on his smartphone the moment of the murder of the son of the rector of KazNU Zhanseit Tuimebaev. After that, he disappeared and only a few days later his brother Nurlan wrote that he discovered the body of his brother “in handcuffs, brutally beaten, shot point-blank in the heart. He and many “unidentified” people were thrown out in the morgue corridor.”
The public was even more alarmed by reports of the disappearance of forty corpses of terrorists in Almaty morgues, which were allegedly stolen by their supporters, although not a single international terrorist organization claimed responsibility for the attacks of January 5-6 in Almaty. So far, not a single terrorist from among foreign citizens has been shown who, together with a detachment of 20 thousand people, crossed the border of Kazakhstan. All this will have to be somehow explained to officials inside the country and abroad.
And despite numerous reports of arrests and investigations, the activity of public associations and citizen groups does not subside, but only increases. Thus, the newly formed movement “New Kazakhstan”, from among the victims of unjust decisions, demanded that President Tokayev carry out immediate reforms of the judicial and law enforcement systems. At the same time, many people in different cities are collecting signatures under appeals to remove signs with the name of Elbasy in the names of central streets under the demand to return the former name of the capital
And in Zhanaozen, where protests against rising gas prices began, oil workers went on strike again. And this time, the drillers of the Burgylau LLP company, who recorded a collective appeal to Kassym-Jomart Tokayev demanding the nationalization of their enterprise, privatized by decree of Nursultan Nazarbayev in the interests of close oligarchs and Western corporations back in 2007. This speech is significant, since the same demand was made by workers at many other service companies during the strikes that took place throughout the past year.
Among other things, the strikers demanded an end to the persecution of trade union activists, who were also accused of extremism and terrorism, and called on the president to take the entire mining industry into the hands of the state, removing foreign investors.
Such a speech could become a signal for new strikes, especially since Zhanaozen has become a kind of political and ideological headquarters of the entire labor movement in Kazakhstan, and hatred of foreign companies is so great that it now outweighs all fears and accusations of subversion.
This once again shows that without a radical change in the economic raw materials model, tailored to the interests of American and European companies, all social problems will remain and will break out again in the form of mass protests and speeches. Therefore, now Tokayev has a difficult choice - either leave Nazarbayev’s economic and political system with a multi-vector policy intact, changing only a number of odious leaders, and thereby get new social explosions with an acute struggle in the splitting elite, or go for serious socio-economic and political changes in the country.
This is exactly what activists of the Socialist Movement of Kazakhstan are now offering, launched the initiative to democratize the system and propose the legalization of political parties, including the banned Communist Party, closed by court in 2015, as well as trade unions to legally defend the interests of workers. After all, all real trade unions have been liquidated in the country; the last Confederation of Independent Trade Unions was destroyed in 2017, with four leaders sentenced to different terms.
A new strike of Zhanaozen oil workers demanding nationalization.
Naturally, in this situation, there are simply no forces and leaders left in the republic who could formulate social and political demands and negotiate with the authorities and employers on their implementation. In such a situation, mass protests and the labor movement without their leadership become easy prey for various groups within the ruling elite itself with the aim of manipulating them to fight for the redistribution of property and power, as well as external forces.
Socialists believe that workers and social protest groups must form an independent agenda and their own organizations, independent of the oligarchs and national populists. And for this it is necessary to democratize political life, achieve the implementation of a number of basic democratic rights and freedoms that would allow this to be done and form healthy political forces in society advocating the revision and abolition of enslaving contracts for subsoil use and production sharing agreements concluded with American and European mining companies plundering the country.
Naturally, it is necessary to release political prisoners, including Ermek Taychibekov, who advocated the rapprochement of Russia and Kazakhstan and the development of integration processes within the EAEU, as well as to eliminate those articles of the Criminal Code that punish “social discord” and “illegal strikes.”
The need to limit the activities of the National Security Committee, which distinguished itself not by searching for real terrorists, but by persecuting dissidents and patronizing Kazakh nationalists who carried out pogroms of Dungans and Uyghurs, is also becoming important.
Such demands are already finding support in various social strata of Kazakh society, and the authorities of the Republic of Kazakhstan need to listen to them if they want not a top redistribution, but real civil peace and stability. At the same time, it is impossible to carry out reforms without increasing the living standards of the bulk of the population and returning into the hands of the state all strategic assets that ended up in the hands of Western corporations.
If you find an error, please select a piece of text and press Ctrl + Enter.
Thank you!
Now the editors are aware.