The Kazakh authorities are turning the Dungans from victims of a bloody pogrom into its main culprits
Prosecutors asked the Kazakh Nazis who killed, raped, and set fire to defenseless Dungans to receive only 2 to 5 years of probation, and the victims from 15 to 18 years!
“They burned themselves and killed themselves, and even showed illegal resistance to the Nazis,” follows from the logic of the prosecutors of the prosecutors in the case of mass pogroms of Dungans staged by Kazakh nationalists on February 7-8, 2020 in the Kordai district of the Zhambyl region in the south of the republic, when they Ten people died and hundreds were wounded. Moreover, the indictment, which was announced on April 13, makes the victims themselves guilty, while the killers are absolved of responsibility or face lenient punishments.
In the Kazakh city of Taraz (formerly Dzhambul), the trial that began on December 3, 2020 on these events, with the participation of 51 defendants (14 of them ethnic Dungans), designed to sum up the “Kordai events,” is just now ending. However, the authorities do not recognize them as interethnic clashes, but present them in the form of “mass riots on domestic grounds.”
Moreover, instead of words of support for the victims of the pogrom and political condemnation of the nationalists, the President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, on the contrary, then hastened to justify the executioners, calling on the Dungans to better study the Kazakh language.
Let us recall that one of the main arguments of the pogromists who massacred civilians of an ethnic minority was the assertion that the Dungans allegedly did not know the language, although among the people they killed was one of the Kazakh language teachers. The Dungans themselves, an ethnic group close to the Chinese, but professing Islam, have been living compactly for more than 150 years, numbering 50 thousand people in the south of the Zhambyl region on the border with Kyrgyzstan.
The Dungans, who all the time coexisted peacefully with the Kazakhs and naturally know the Kazakh language perfectly, found themselves the target of an attack not by local residents, but by brutal organized groups of bandits of several thousand people, well trained, armed and coordinated through messengers and walkie-talkies. Their task was to carry out demonstrative ethnic cleansing of this defenseless diaspora, for which no one could stand up from the outside.
As a result of their attacks on several villages and the city of Masanchi, 10 Dungans died, more than 200 people sought medical help, over 23 thousand residents (mostly Dungans) fled to the territory of neighboring Kyrgyzstan, several thousand Dungans from those who remained in Kazakhstan took refuge in mosques , border outposts.
According to official data, as a result of the conflict, 39 residential buildings, 20 commercial properties were burned, and 122 vehicles were stolen or burned; According to preliminary data, material damage amounted to 1,7 billion tenge. In total, 778 local families were affected.
There is another noteworthy circumstance that catches the eye. The National Security Committee, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the prosecutor's office, as well as providers have not blocked instant messengers, social networks and the Internet in the Zhambyl region, despite the fact that they have such capabilities under the law. It is an indisputable fact, but it was on social networks, as well as through mailing lists, that nationalists were mobilized and an information campaign in support of the pogroms was carried out.
Now the authorities of Kazakhstan, who may themselves be directly related to this massacre, are asking the accused nationalists for the murder of 10 people to receive only two to five years probation, and the five Dungans who allegedly killed one pogromist from 15 to 18 years! The state prosecutor, an employee of the Zhambyl regional prosecutor's office, L. Meshitbaev, spoke about this shocking decision in his indictment speech.
Representative of the Association of Dungans of Kazakhstan Kharbi Maurov issued an angry letter about this, calling the process a shameful trial.
“What does this state prosecutor ask for the defendants? Five Dungans are accused of the murder of one of the bandits A.D., who was part of an organized criminal group of several thousand people who attacked peaceful villages, and who in his Audi car killed two innocent people, leaving ten children orphans . The prosecutor requested sentences from 15 to 18 years for them! Although at the trial (within five months) the innocence of four of them was actually proven. The fifth defendant himself admitted to the murder of A.D.
At the same time, for the murder of ten civilians of the affected villages and the injury of more than two hundred people, charges under Article 99 were brought against only four persons of Kazakh nationality! For them, this prosecutor requested suspended sentences of five years! Moreover, he requested a two-year suspended sentence for those who incited on social networks to punish the Dungans! But it was precisely as a result of their calls that about ten thousand bandits and looters came to the Kordai district on that fateful night (from the testimony of the former head of the KNB of the region) and this terrible tragedy occurred,” writes Kharbi Maurov.
The fact is that a number of Dungans, together with the police, stood in a cordon, trying to prevent arson of property and attacks. Some of them actually threw stones or resisted. And it turns out that the Kazakh Themis now intends to send them to jail for such long terms of imprisonment that the real murderers are evaded from responsibility. At the same time, during the investigation, all detainees were subjected to severe torture in order to obtain the necessary testimony.
“What is the reason for such an absurd indictment by the state prosecutor? Perhaps it is that the investigation, which was also carried out by the special prosecutor’s office, was carried out with conceivable and unimaginable violations of the law and human morality? According to the defendants, both Kazakhs and Dungans, in order to extract the necessary testimony, they were brutally tortured, shocked, doused with cold water, not allowed to sleep, plastic bags put on their heads, etc.
Many, unable to withstand such abuse, tried to take their own lives. One of the accused died in a pre-trial detention center, committing suicide. At least ten more defendants tried to commit suicide!” Kharbi Maurov, a representative of the Association of Dungans of Kazakhstan, points out in his address to the public.
It turns out that many residents from the village of Karakemer were brought to justice in the “Kordai case” only because they were on bad terms with the current akim of the village. The defendants themselves spoke about this at the trial. Also, terrible facts and evidence of the participation of the ex-prosecutor of the Kordai district, Ashenova, in organizing and calling for the punishment of the Dungans were announced. The defendants from among the pogromists themselves told about this.
In addition, there were numerous testimonies and evidence of police participation in looting, pogroms and beatings of civilians in the affected villages.
Perhaps for this reason, in order to conceal the real facts, the authorities are now trying to punish the participants in the pogroms as mildly as possible in order to silence them, and so that it does not become clear who really organized and directed them.
Moreover, after the pogroms, it was the Dungans themselves who were arrested and tortured first. Here is what Kharbi Maurov says about this: “It is impossible not to note how during the investigation, illegal searches and detentions were carried out in 27 houses of residents of the affected villages at night without presenting the relevant documents, confiscating cash and other material assets. At the same time, the detainees were also brutally beaten and tortured in the Kordai district police department, forcing them to confess to participation in mass fights and murders. And all this BEFORE any charges are filed. So, Yasyrov Ya. was taken away at five in the morning and interrogated with passion for more than 18 hours. Seeing her crippled son, the heart of Yasyrova Ts.’s mother could not stand it, and she died that same night. She should be considered the 11th victim of those tragic events.”
The bullying and lawlessness stopped only after human rights activists appealed to the Prosecutor General's Office and the Human Rights Commission under the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan. True, the employees of the Kordai district police department responsible for these crimes were never brought to justice. This really looks like state terror against a small diaspora, which was not only deprived of housing, several thousand heads of livestock were destroyed or stolen, leaving hundreds of people disabled, but also subjected to targeted repression.
Kharbi Maurov further in his appeal claims a deliberate genocide against the Dungans, when the trial turns into a farce and turns against the victims of the pogrom.
He also called on all Kazakhstanis to oppose plans to actually justify the murderers and punish the victims: “If this is a trial of a small, peaceful and hardworking ethnic group who dared to resist murders and pogroms by the titular nation, then say so directly, Mr. Meshitbayev! How will Dungans and representatives of other peoples and ethnic groups live in Kazakhstan after this? Doesn't this indictment reek of genocide? “I call on the entire progressive and conscious population of our country to speak out against this insane and absurd indictment, to achieve a fair judicial verdict - to punish those responsible for the high-profile ethnic conflict and to acquit the innocent defenders of their villages, wives, children and mothers.”
And indeed, all this is a pure attempt to carry out ethnic cleansing in the country with the aim of intimidating representatives of all non-title nations. In Kazakhstan, in fact, almost every year there are small local pogroms, when representatives of national minorities are beaten, their houses and property are burned, and they themselves are then forced to leave the region or country.
At the same time, there are no open trials against the pogromists, and they get off with a slight fright. The victims of attacks are one by one: Chechens, Tajiks, Uzbeks, Kurds, Uyghurs, Armenians, and the last ones were the Dungans.
Abubukir Vointse, a leader of the Dungan community, also says that this is not a spontaneous performance or a domestic fight. As a former police officer and familiar with operational work, he came to the conclusion that it was a well-prepared and planned operation.
“I served in the internal affairs bodies, worked as an investigator, and since yesterday I have been analyzing the situation. This would not have happened without outside help. They couldn’t gather so many people in such a short time. We couldn't prepare in such a short time. And spread your calls across all social networks in such a short time. But this already indicates that it was prepared,” Abubakir Vointse said at a briefing after the pogroms in the village of Sortobe, Kordai district.
Such “outside assistance” was provided from above with the participation of high-status national patriots, such as Mukhtar Taizhan, who sat on the National Council of Public Trust (NCPT) under the president, and even a member of parliament from the ruling party Nur Otan Bakhytbek Smagul. After his trip to the Kordai region, he made unfounded accusations against the Dungans, essentially justifying the pogrom that took place. According to him, they allegedly do not know the Kazakh language, do not serve in the army, do not go to school, do not give way to the Kazakhs, and do not obey the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Kazakhstan. That is, they say, it’s their own fault.
After this, we can come to the conclusion that these pogroms were beneficial to certain elite groups in the ruling class to distract the population’s attention from the further decline in living standards, from unpopular social reforms, from the problems of unemployment, which is the highest in the Zhambyl region. The possibility of a social explosion is thus interrupted by interethnic conflicts and the mobilization of radical far-right youths.
In addition, a little bloodletting forces ordinary people to support the introduction of tough measures and consolidate around Elbasy and his family, as the guarantor of the notorious stability. Among other things, using the example of the Dungans, all ethnic groups are shown the possibility of quick punishment in case of incorrect behavior. In fact, a Pandora's box is opening when citizens of any nationality, including Russians, may fall under the millstone of such repressions in the future.
These bloody crimes completely refute the myths about international peace and stability in the country. We must honestly admit that in Kazakhstan, in fact, a mono-ethnic state has been built, despite the multinational composition of the population, and the main component of the ideology is ethno-centrism - a type of Nazism. For many years, the authorities pursued a policy of national and social segregation, which formed the basis for the growth of xenophobic sentiments.
Posts by Nazi provocateurs
We are now faced with the threat of the emergence of a mass nationalist movement, inspired from above and gathering around itself unemployed youth and criminal elements. Politically, these pogromists are supported by numerous activists of legal national-patriotic associations and groups. And the beneficiaries of the bloody feud at the bottom are the resource oligarchs, transnational corporations and the West, seeking to retain deposits and mining industry enterprises.
We demand a comprehensive investigation and conviction of all those who participated, incited and supported the massacres of Dungans in the Kordai district of Zhambyl region. In this situation, political condemnation of the massacre is also necessary so that it is not repeated by the home-grown Nazis again, since Akorda actually deflects the murderers from responsibility.
If you find an error, please select a piece of text and press Ctrl + Enter.
Thank you!
Now the editors are aware.