On December 16th (Kazakhstan’s Independence Day) more than 3,000 people met up for a demonstration at the main square of Zhanaozen, a town situated in the oil-rich Mangystau Province in the west of the country.

The people who took part in action were the ex-workers of local oil companies, fired after a bitter seven month strike. Their main demands were the payment of all outstanding salaries and improvement of work conditions.

As expected the oil workers and other town folk announced their intentions to hold a peaceful protest to the authorities of Kazakhstan. However, during the demo, a police Jeep was deliberately driven into the crowd of protesters and ‘peaceful’ went out of fashion from there on in. Angry people turned a police car upside down and set it on fire. A nearby police bus and a yurt (placed on the square “for the celebrations”) were

also torched. Following this, the people, armed with sticks, pipes and molotov cocktails occupied the office of the local gas company and burned rooms on the ground floor of its office building. The local council building and a hotel were also burned. The oil workers surrounded the building and would not let the firemen get to the building. As an encore, they looted the houses of the rich in the exclusive, private area of town.

The state’s answer was to send army divisions, armoured transport and more police. The town’s population defended the strikers and, as a result of the attempt to bring it to ‘order’ more than ninety people (civilians and security) are said to have been killed, with eight hundred injured (these numbers are constantly growing).

Unsurprisingly, official media channels tell of much lower numbers. Many workers across the region have stopped work in support of the demonstrators. First oil workers of Mangystau Province started a sympathy strike, then workers of non-oil industries in the region also stopped their work in solidarity. The protests have become a general strike.

In what will probably become a 21st century standard ‘state-under-threat’ response, mobile phones in affected areas cannot be accessed, landlines do not work, Internet social networks and media are being blocked.

Of course, no mention has been made of punishing any police officers for firing on unarmed and peaceful people.The vast majority of the profits from the sale of the country’s resources are not shared with the nation’s poor, and the Kazakh government has a terrible human rights record. Time and time again members of the security forces, torture, beat, and mistreat detainees. The government continues to use arbitrary arrest and detention, and selectively prosecutes political opponents, often detaining them for long periods.

One might say that the spirit of the Arab spring has been taken up by Central Asians, but with the current low media interest (apart from a few newspapers here and there), there isn’t the same pressure on president Nazarbayev that there has been on Middle-Eastern leaders this past year (and they weren’t exactly exactly keen to fold up that pressure in any event).

However, Kazakhs don’t need to look as far away as the Arab world for inspiration. Another ex-Soviet Central Asian country, Kyrgystan, chucked out their despotic president Bakiyev in April 2010, following riots and demonstrations that led to Bakiyev’s ousting and the formation of a transitional government, headed by former philosophy lecturer Roza Otunbayeva. And what country did Bakiyev flee to? Kazakhstan.

No doubt president Nazarbaev has double checked his private jets are full of fuel and that his Swiss bank cashcard is still valid. Just in case.

Read full article HERE http://www.schnews.org.uk/stories/BOLLOCKS-TO-BORAT/

Campaign Kazakhstan demonstrates in Berlin and Cologne
Campaign Kazakhstan activists, Germany

Berlin

Yesterday, around 50 people protested in the centre of Berlin, criticising torture, repression and murder in Kazakhstan. Trade unionists including, metalworkers, teachers and health workers were joined by activists from the international “CampaignKazakhstan”, as well as members of the German LINKE (LEFT) party, SAV (CWI in Germany) and other left organisations, informing passers-by and tourists at Brandenburg gate of the events since last friday around the oil workers’ strike in western Kazakhstan.

The protesters shouted, “stop the slaughter in Kazakhstan!”