The Guardian Weekly 14 January 202216 Spotlight
independence in 1991 until 2019, to
his handpicked successor, Kassym-
Jomart Tokayev. A month later, and
the picture is very diff erent. Peaceful
protests turned into violent clashes,
Tokayev announced he had ordered
security forces to “shoot to kill, with-
out warning”, and troops from a
Russia-led alliance are on the ground
after being called for by Tokayev.
Last weekend authorities in
Kazakhstan said 164 people had been
killed in the unrest , including three
children. The health ministry said
103 of the deaths were in Almaty, the
country’s largest city. The number of
those detained by police continue d to
rise, with the offi ce of Kazakhstan’s
president giving a fi gure of 5,800.
However, the deputy defence
minister, Sultan Gamaletdinov, said
last Sunday that a “counterterrorist
operation” was still under way and
would continue “until the terrorists
are completely eliminated and the
constitutional order is restored in the
Republic of Kazakhstan”.
There was a suspicion this may be
more than a straightforward popular
uprising, and this was reinforced by
the announcement last Friday that
Karim Masimov, a powerful former
security chief and prime minister, had
been arrested on suspicion of treason.
The move increased speculation
that the initial protests could have
been used by groups in the country’s
political elite to fi ght their own battles.
A business source gave this credence ,
describing increasing tension between
fi gures close to Nazar bayev and hisgroups, who attacked government
buildings and briefl y seized the airport.
Tokayev, in his address, spoke
vaguely about “foreign-trained”
attackers, but did not specify who they
were supposedly working for.
Many questions remain about
the role of Nazarbayev in the week’s
apparent backstage quarrels. Tokayev
announced last Wednesday that
he was removing Nazarbayev from
head of the security council, without
stating whether that was with or with-
out the former president’s approval.
There were persistent rumours that
Nazarbayev and his family had fl ed the
country. Nazarbayev’s spokesperson
Aidos Ukibay denounced the rumours
as “knowingly false and speculative
information”.
When Nazarbayev stepped down
in 2019, the new capital city he had
ordered created in 1997 was renamed
Nur-Sultan, in his honour. But for all
the excesses of the cult of personality,
for a long time Nazarbayev’s Kazakh-
stan was a much savvier autocracy
than those of the other post-Soviet
Central Asian nations.
Many western diplomats had a
positive view of his leadership, despite
the democratic shortcomings, in part
because of the lucrative opportuni-
ties for western businesses the country
provided. “He was able to balance
Russia and China, and other exter-
nal infl uences, and he implemented
some genuine reforms,” said a western
diplomatic source.
Also at stake is the independent
foreign policy that was one of his
most prized achievements. When,
last Wednesday evening, Tokayev
called for support from the Collective
Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO),
a Russia-led military alliance, the
request was approved within hours. At
a time when all eyes were on the troops
massed close to Russia’s border with
Ukraine , there was a diff erent Russian
intervention to contend with.
Both the Kazakh and Russian sides
have insisted the contingent will be
limited in size, scope and duration,
and so far, claims of a Russian occupa-
tion seem overblown. But the balance
of power in the region is likely to have
been altered irrevocably.
“Nothing comes for free with Putin,
and there will be a quid pro quo,” said
Mallinson. Observer
SHAUN WALKER IS THE GUARDIAN AND
OBSERVER’S CENTRAL AND EASTERN
EUROPE CORRESPONDENT▼ Protesters at
a government
building in
Almaty
AFP/GETTY
Central Asia
successor, Tokayev. “It has been bub-
bling for some time ,” said the source.
One of the more surprising episodes
was Tokayev’s transformation from
placid placeholder to furious autocrat,
promising to crush the revolt brutally.
“We were dealing with armed and
well-prepared bandits, both local and
foreign. Bandits and terrorists, who
should be destroyed. This will happen
in the nearest time,” Tokayev told the
nation last Friday. He also posted a
message on Twitter: “In my basic view,
no talks with the terrorists: We must
kill them.” It was later deleted.
“Before, he came across as a mealy-
mouthed quiet diplomat, but the
rhetoric we saw was that of a general
leading an army,” said Kate Mallinson,
associate fellow at Chatham House.A
mnesty International
described Tokayev’s
promise to shoot without
warning as “a recipe for dis-
aster”, and there is now a question of
how much the government response
will differentiate between peace-
ful protesters and violent groups.
Tokayev put Kazakhstan’s already
beleaguered civil society on alert when
he said that free media played a role in
fanning the unrest.
“There is still very little independent
information and a lot of uncertainty.
However, one thing is clear: the
peaceful protest was genuine and
spontaneous,” said Diana T Kudai-
bergenova, a sociologist at Cambridge
University. “People went to the streets
to voice their grievances and we saw
some self-organisation, especially in
western Kazakhstan.”
The protest began in the west at the
start of the month, sparked by rising
fuel prices, and spread to other cities,
including Almaty. There, many of
those on the streets reported that the
demonstration was hijacked by violent‘ The
peaceful
protest was
genuine.
People
went to the
streets to
air their
grievances ’Diana T
Kudaibergenova
Sociologist President
Tokayev: a ‘recipe
for disaster’,
according to
Amnesty
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