When Kazakhstan no longer responds

For hours, making ink blood, Madina Omarova * and her mother tried to join their relatives in Almaty, the big city of Kazakhstan which has been shaken since Tuesday by demonstrations which turned into a riot. In vain.

The internet in the largest country in Central Asia has been cut off by the authorities. The cellular network too. “It was only restored during the few minutes that the president’s speech lasted on January 5. We were able to talk for two minutes with our relatives. And everything was cut again, ”says Madina, joined in the United States.

The young woman, born in neighboring Kyrgyzstan, is so afraid of the wrath of the Kazakh regime that she asked me to use a fictitious name. To protect his family members.

There is something to be afraid of. On Friday, the country’s president, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, gave the police and the army permission to “shoot to kill”. Without warning. To end the uprising at all costs.

He believes that those who are in the streets are “bandits” and “terrorists” manipulated by foreigners, accusations that many autocrats like to undermine any legitimacy to their opposition. Very practical when this opposition cannot answer.

Even before this more than worrying statement, the Interior Ministry of Kazakhstan claimed that “26 armed criminals” had been killed, at least 400 people injured and 3,800 others arrested. And no less than 18 members of the police are also said to have perished during the worst clashes with the demonstrators, who are not all angels.

And that is what the authorities want to tell us. The paralysis of the communications system plunges everyone into darkness and deprives protesters and civil society of a platform and a minimum of protection.

Not reassuring when we know that there are precedents for brutality in Kazakhstan. During a first wave of protests in 2011 among workers in the oil industry who demanded better wages, the police opened fire to bury any dissent. “The police killed 14 people and it gave rise to all kinds of unfair trials,” Hugh Williamson, director of the Europe and Central Asia division at Human Rights Watch, told me on Friday. Despite his contacts on the ground, he was also struggling to hear from him on Friday.

As in 2011, it was in Janaozen, in western Kazakhstan, that the discontent began on January 2. This time, it was the rise in the price of liquefied natural gas, used as motor fuel, that ignited the powders.

Soon, anger spread across the country of 19 million people and changed focus. The few demonstrators who were able to speak with journalists on the ground demand a change of regime and want to see the strong man of the country, Nursultan Nazarbayev, leave.

President of Kazakhstan for 30 years, the latter handed over the presidency to his dolphin, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, in March 2019, but he has since been called “leader of the nation”.

Shal, ket! the demonstrators tell him today. “Go away, old man!” ”

To appease the protesters, President Tokayev stripped Nazarbayev of his title of President of the Security Council of Kazakhstan, but that was not enough, the fire was already on. Many Kazakhs are fed up with the repressive regime which has been enriching itself at their expense for three decades.

Smelling the hot soup, President Tokayev decided to take out the heavy artillery. In addition to giving free rein to its police and military, it also called on the Collective Security Treaty Organization (OTSC) for support. This military alliance between Russia and five other countries of the former Soviet space is in a way a response to NATO. And this is the first time that the organization has come to the defense of one of its members.

Even though the Russian army seems quite busy on the border with Ukraine, the Kremlin did not wait a second and deployed paratroopers within hours of the Kazakh president’s request. Special forces from Belarus and Armenian, Tajik and Kyrgyz soldiers have also been mobilized to come and lend a hand to the Kazakh regime, which refuses any negotiation with the demonstrators.

All this behind closed doors. In a silence that kills.

* Fictitious name