The President of Kazakhstan on Friday, January 7, authorized the security forces to “shoot to kill” in order to quell any riot and, with the support of Moscow, ruled out negotiating with the demonstrators. In a televised address, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev spoke “specially thanked” his ally Vladimir Poutine for his help after the arrival on the spot of a contingent of Russian troops and other allied countries of Moscow to support the capacity.
Kazakhstan, the largest country in Central Asia with rich natural resources, is shaken by a dispute that erupted Sunday in the provinces after a rise in gas prices before spreading to large cities, including Almaty, the economic capital, where the demonstrations degenerated into riots against the regime in place, which left dozens of people dead.
The authorities claimed that 26 “armed criminals” had been killed and more than a thousand demonstrators injured, the police also reporting 18 killed and 748 injured in their ranks. More than 3,800 people have been arrested. These figures could not be independently verified.
After two days of violence, Almaty looked like a ghost town on Friday, with most banks, supermarkets and restaurants remaining closed, while police armored vehicles patrolled the streets, still littered with charred vehicle carcasses, journalists from AFP.
The unrest shaking this country of 19 million people is worrying Western countries. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and French President Emmanuel Macron called on Friday for the “end of violence” and at the “detention”. But Chinese President Xi Jinping praised the “strong measures” taken by the President of Kazakhstan, paying tribute to his “sense of duty”.
The head of American diplomacy Antony Blinken for his part questioned Friday the need to call on Russian troops, warning that he would be “very difficult” to obtain their withdrawal.