Day: January 7, 2022

President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev has issued a stark warning to protesters in Kazakhstan that he has given security personnel a green light to “shoot to kill” even as the nation’s police forces, bolstered by a Russian-led troop contingent, appeared to be in control of most cities in Kazakhstan after dozens were killed in unprecedented anti-government demonstrations..

Though sporadic gunfire could still be heard in the main city of Almaty on January 7, the unrest over a fuel price hike that has ravaged many cities in recent days appeared muted, with RFE/RL correspondents in several cities saying law enforcement had taken control of the situation.

The Interior Ministry said Republican Square in Almaty, one of the main flash points of violence in clashes between police and protesters, had been cleared “of criminal groups.” RFE/RL journalists said they saw three bodies in different locations around the square as they surveyed it.

Dozens of people -- including 18 security officers -- were killed in the clashes as protesters torched and ransacked public buildings in several cities in the worst violence in the Central Asian state's 30 years of independence.

The number of people detained reached 3,811, the Interior Ministry said, according to state television channel Khabar 24.

Toqaev said early on January 7 that order had "basically" been restored in the country, but later followed up those comments in a televised state address by saying that “bandits” -- a word officials have used repeatedly to describe protesters who have threatened his authoritarian government’s survival -- would be dealt with severely.

"I have given the order to law enforcement agencies and the army to shoot to kill without warning," Toqaev said in the address while rejecting international calls for dialogue.

The protests erupted in the western region of Mangystau on January 2 over the doubling in the price of subsidized liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) before spreading and morphing into calls for political reform in the tightly controlled country.

Mobs have stormed government buildings, setting some of them on fire, looted businesses, and torched and overturned cars as they called for reforms after decades of stifling rule in the oil-rich former Soviet republic.

In response, Toqaev declared a nationwide state of emergency until January 19, with curfews, restrictions on movements, and bans on mass gatherings.

The spiraling violence also prompted him on January 5 to ask the Moscow-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a regional military alliance, to help "stabilize” the situation, which Toqaev has blamed on foreign-trained "terrorists."

The first Russian paratroopers quickly arrived, followed by troops from CSTO member Belarus on the evening of January 6. More Russian troops were expected to arrive on January 7 alongside units from Armenia and Tajikistan, which approved sending 200 troops to its neighbor. On January 7, Kyrgyzstan also approved sending 150 troops and military equipment to Kazakhstan.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington has questions about Kazakhstan’s request for assistance from the CSTO. The top U.S. diplomat said the Kazakh authorities “certainly have the capacity to deal appropriately with protests” in a way that respects the rights of protesters while maintaining law and order.

“So it's not clear why they feel the need for any outside assistance, so we're trying to learn more about it,” Blinken said on January 7. “I think one lesson in recent history is that once Russians are in your house, it's sometimes very difficult to get them to leave."

Blinken also said the U.S. hopes the government can quickly address the problems, which he said were "fundamentally economic and political in nature."

China, which also shares a long border with Kazakhstan, has backed Toqaev so far. State television on January 7 said President Xi Jinping spoke with Toqaev, noting that Beijing opposed any use of force to destabilize Kazakhstan and threaten its security.

The speed at which the CSTO arrived on the scene in Kazakhstan was seen by some analysts as another sign of the Kremlin's strategy to act quickly to safeguard its influence in the former Soviet Union.

Mukhtar Ablyazov, the fugitive former head of Kazakhstan's BTA Bank and an outspoken critic of the government, told the Reuters news agency on January 7 that claims by Toqaev and officials in Moscow that “foreign-trained terrorists” were behind the protests were an attempt to distract people from the fact that the unrest is a result of internal problems caused by the government.

He added that Kazakhstan is now the focus of a geopolitical play with Russian President Vladimir Putin looking to use the situation to "methodically impose his program: the re-creation of a structure like the Soviet Union."

Ablyazov, is the leader of the banned Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan (DVK) movement, which for months has openly called on Kazakhs to rally against the government. The authorities labeled the DVK "extremist" and banned it in March 2018.

Ablyazov managed BTA when it was the country's largest private bank, but he later had a falling out with government officials -- he accused former Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev, and many of Nazarbaev's family members of being involved in large-scale corruption and embezzlement -- and fled to London in 2009. The bank was subsequently nationalized by the Kazakh government.

The Interior Ministry said 26 "armed criminals" had been "liquidated" and more than 3,000 detained. Eighteen police and national guard troops had been killed since the start of the protests this week, it added.

The Health Ministry said on January 6 that more than 1,000 people had been injured and 400 hospitalized since three days of protests erupted into violence on January 5. Sixty-two people are in intensive care, it said.

An unknown number of people have reportedly also been killed in at least two smaller towns, RFE/RL's Kazakh Service reported.

Some journalists reported at least a partial restoration of Internet services that had been cut off in much of the country, but connection problems were still hampering communication.

A report from regional website kg.24 claimed that two airplanes that belong to the family of 81-year-old Nazarbaev, who ruled the country firmly for almost three decades, had landed at Manas Airport in neighboring Kyrgyzstan overnight, and at least one had then left Manas shortly after midnight local time.

But RFE/RL could not confirm that report, and there was no word on who might have been aboard the aircraft.

In an attempt to distance himself from the past, Toqaev on January 5 dismissed Nazarbaev from the powerful post of head of the country's Security Council and relieved a longtime Nazarbaev associate of his post as chairman of the National Security Committee (KNB).

Copyright (c) 2015. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036.

Today, the National and Representative Assemblies of the Supreme Assembly held a joint session.

The session focused on one issue.

Both Assemblies gave consent to the use of the Armed Forces outside the country to fulfill Tajikistan’s international obligations.

Source: National information agency of Tajikistan

ALMATY/NUR-SULTAN, Kazakhstan -- Aigerim Tuleuzhanova, an activist with Kazakhstan’s unregistered Democratic Party, was in a crowd of some 200 protesters at Almaty’s Republic Square on January 6 when a group of soldiers opened fire with live ammunition.

The large crowd was standing within view of the Almaty mayor’s office, which was still smoldering after being set ablaze by an angry mob the previous day, when the shooting began.

But the bloody incident has gone unreported because with access to the Internet severed across the country and mobile-phone services cut by the state-run KazakhTelecom, the voices of the protesters in Kazakhstan have effectively been silenced in international media reports.

That has left the government’s version of events as the dominant narrative -- despite the lack of any evidence supporting President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev’s claim that the protests have been driven by “international terrorist bands who had undergone special training abroad.”

To be sure, there was gunfire near Republic Square on January 6 amid reports of ongoing clashes between security troops and armed demonstrators.

The Interior Ministry says it “liquidated” more than 26 “armed criminals” and arrested more than 3,000 people in recent days. It said 18 police and national guard troops had been killed. Some reports claim dozens of demonstrators have died since the protests began.

Tuleuzhanova insisted in an interview with RFE/RL’s Kazakh Service that those who were fired upon at Almaty’s Republic Square shortly after sundown on January 6 were young, unarmed Kazakh activists.

Attempting to push back on Toqaev’s narrative, the group had unfurled banners declaring “We are not terrorists!” and “Toqaev: Don’t shoot us!”

From the "crisis center" -- the temporary place Tuleuzhanova’s group had set up on the square for protesters to gather -- the group had earlier announced its demands.

They called for the complete resignation of Toqaev’s government along with the creation of an interim administration headed by a representative of civil society.

To bolster security amid the chaos, they demanded the immediate deployment of foreign peacekeepers from the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) -- the Russian-led security group that also includes Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. Interestingly, Toqaev also requested and has since received CSTO troops.

The protesters also called for the formation of local militia units to protect people from what they described as “provocateurs.”

In fact, the demands of demonstrators have proliferated as the protests have spread across the country since a low-key January 2 demonstration was staged in western Kazakhstan against fuel price hikes.

One key demand by many people for democratic reforms would force regional officials to have to take part in elections instead of being appointed by the presidential administration in the capital, Nur-Sultan.

But critics note that Kazakhstan has never had an election deemed as “free and fair” by Western observers since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

In the January 2021 legislative elections, no opposition groups were voted into the Kazakh parliament. That’s because attempts to register for that vote by opposition groups like the Democratic Party and Nurzhan Altaev’s El Tiregi (National Reliance) party were all rejected.

The only officially registered political party that calls itself opposition, the All-National Social Democratic Party, boycotted the vote as a sham.

Rights activists say Toqaev’s administration has effectively removed all legal ways for citizens to participate in politics -- leaving Kazakhs without any political intermediaries to resolve the country’s economic problems.

Mukhtar Ablyazov, leader of the Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan (DVK) movement that was banned in 2018 as an “extremist” group, rejects Toqaev’s claims of “foreign-trained terrorists” being behind the protests.

Ablyazov, the fugitive former head of Kazakhstan's BTA Bank who has been accused of crimes in Kazakhstan and Britain, says Toqaev is trying to distract attention from the fact that Kazakhstan’s unrest is the result of internal problems created by the government.

Activist Marat Turumbetov told RFE/RL that is why he was protesting at Republic Square on January 6.

Shortly after sunset, Turumbetov says the troops that approached Republic Square in armored personnel carriers from Nazarbaev Avenue opened fire on the crowd using machine guns and live ammunition.

Bella Orynbetova, an activist living near the square, counted five police patrol cars, three armored personnel carriers, and military trucks with dozens of soldiers advancing along Satpaev Street to the square.

Other nearby residents said they could hear grenades exploding and bullets whizzing through the air.

RFE/RL correspondents report that one 20-year-old man was shot in the chest and died while others tried to transport him to a hospital.

Turumbetov says he also counted five other wounded demonstrators on the square who were waiting to be taken to a hospital. But he said there were no ambulances for them.

Within an hour, the troops cleared the demonstrators from Republic Square, along with the temporary headquarters they had set up.

But correspondents report that sporadic gunfire and explosions continued throughout the night in central Almaty.

In a statement condemning the incident, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet noted reports that said “intense shooting” had erupted on January 6 between “the military and armed individuals in front of Almaty’s city hall” near Republic Square.

Bachelet urged all involved -- “including security forces, protesters, and others” -- to “refrain from violence and to seek a peaceful resolution” to their grievances.

“International law is clear,” Bachelet said. “People have the right to peaceful protest and freedom of expression. At the same time, protesters, no matter how angry or aggrieved they may be, should not resort to violence against others.”

Bachelet also reminded the Kazakh authorities that lethal force, in particular live ammunition, should only be used as a last resort against specific individuals to address an imminent threat of death or serious injury.

But on January 7, authorities in Nur-Sultan doubled down on Toqaev’s claim that the protests across the country were the work of foreign-trained “terrorist gangs.”

Kazakhstan’s Interior Ministry’s statement on the Almaty shootings claimed early on January 7 that Republican Square had been cleared of “criminal groups.”

Meanwhile, Toqaev himself announced on January 7 that he had given an order to Kazakh police and the army to "shoot-to-kill without warning."

Toqaev also rejected the idea of talks with protesters, saying it was not possible to negotiate with criminals and murderers.

Copyright (c) 2015. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036.

On January 7, 2022 the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Tajikistan Farhod Salim received copies of credentials of the First Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Korea to the Republic of Tajikistan Kwon Dong Sok.

During the meeting the two sides exchanged views on the current state of bilateral relations, prospects for expansion of cooperation between the two countries and other issues of mutual interest.

The two sides expressed interest in expanding mutually beneficial cooperation in trade, economy, education and other areas.

The Deputy Foreign Minister congratulated the new Ambassador of the Republic of Korea on his appointment to this post and wished him success in his diplomatic activities in the Republic of Tajikistan.

Source: Ministry of foreign affairs of the Republic of Tajikistan

The speed with which Russia dispatched troops this week to help quell violent demonstrations in neighboring Kazakhstan is testimony to the Kremlin's recurring fear of "color revolutions," say Western diplomats and analysts. Moscow, they say, must have been horrified by how quickly the protests spread in Kazakhstan, long seen as one of the most stable of the former Soviet countries.

Sparked by a fuel price increase and cost-of-living grievances, the protests, which began in the oil-rich western part of the country, rapidly escalated this week into the worst violence the Central Asian nation has seen since turning independent 30 years ago.

And the grievances over fuel prices snowballed into a bigger threat against the government after Kazakh armed forces opened fire, killing dozens.

Demonstrators have been demanding regime change and the departure of both Kazakhstan's president, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, and the country's 81-year-old former leader, Nursultan Nazarbayev, who stepped down three years ago after almost three decades in power but retained the official title of "leader of the nation."

He is still believed to rule behind the scenes, and protesters reference him with chants of "Get out, old man." On Wednesday, demonstrators in Taldykorgan, a town in southern Kazakhstan, pulled down his statue from the main square.

Protesters stormed government buildings Wednesday in Almaty, the country's largest city, and briefly occupied the airport, with reports of "dozens" of protesters being killed in clashes along with at least 12 policemen. Thursday saw videos circulating on social media showing Kazakh military units exchanging gunfire with armed opponents in Almaty.

Russian officials and pro-Kremlin media have claimed the West is behind the agitation and is trying to foment another color revolution with the goal of disorienting Russia ahead of its major security talks next week with the United States and NATO amid fears the Kremlin may be considering invading Ukraine.

Russia has previously accused Western powers of backing popular uprisings in the former Soviet states of Belarus, Georgia and Ukraine.

Maria Zakharova, the Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson, said unrest was foreign-backed and aimed to "undermine the security and integrity of the state by force, using trained and organized armed formations." Konstantin Kosachev, a senator who chairs the foreign affairs committee of Russia's upper house of parliament, said the protesters included Islamic militants who had fought in Afghanistan.

"It's a tense moment in the former Soviet Union, with Russian troops and tanks surrounding Ukraine on three sides. The last thing Moscow wants or needs is legitimate protests in a country it considers to be in its sphere of interest," said Melinda Haring, deputy director of the Eurasia Center of the Atlantic Council, a U.S.-based research organization. "Moscow is looking for a hidden hand. The Kremlin doesn't accept the protests in Kazakhstan as genuine," she added.

Kazakhstan is an important regional power with vast energy resources.

President Tokayev, who ordered troops to "shoot to kill without warning" and said protesters who failed to surrender will be "destroyed," has also blamed outsiders for unprecedented agitation. He alleged in a broadcast to the nation Thursday that Almaty had been attacked by "20,000 bandits" who had a "clear plan of attack, coordination of actions and high combat readiness."

Tokayev expressed "special thanks" to Russian President Vladimir Putin for agreeing to his midweek request for assistance "in overcoming this terrorist threat."

The request was formally made to the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a Moscow-led regional security pact comprising Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan. Tokayev invoked article 4 of the CSTO pact, which commits members to help one another defend against "foreign interference." It is the first time any CSTO member has cited article 4 of the military alliance, which was formed in 1994.

US response

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters in Washington on Friday that the Biden administration is "very concerned about the ongoing state of emergency that exists in Kazakhstan."

"We've urged authorities to respond appropriately, proportionately, and in a way that upholds the rights of protesters," he said. "I spoke with the foreign minister just yesterday. I reiterated our full support for Kazakhstan's constitutional institutions, as well as the absolute importance of respecting human rights; media freedom, including the restoration of internet service; and to dealing with peaceful protests in a way that protects the protesters, upholds their rights, and is consistent with the rule of law."

On the deployment of CSTO troops, he added: "We have questions about the nature of the request, why it came about. We're seeking to learn more about it. It would seem to me that the Kazakh authorities and government certainly have the capacity to deal appropriately with protests, to do so in a way that respects the rights of protesters while maintaining law and order. So, it's not clear why they feel the need for any outside assistance."

"I think one lesson in recent history is that once Russians are in your house, it's sometimes very difficult to get them to leave," he added.

The Russian Defense Ministry says about 3,000 paratroopers and other servicemen are being flown to Kazakhstan "around the clock," and up to 75 huge transport planes are being used in the emergency airlift. Kazakhstan's Interior Ministry said in a statement Friday that 26 protesters had been killed during the unrest, 18 had been injured and more than 3,000 people had been arrested. It said 700 security personnel had suffered injuries and confirmed 18 had been killed.

Sporadic gunfire could still be heard in Almaty on Friday, despite Tokayev telling Kazakhs that "constitutional order has been mainly restored in all regions."

"Local authorities are monitoring the situation," he said. "But terrorists are still using weapons, causing damage to civilian property. Therefore [a] counterterrorist operation will continue until the total destruction of the militants."

Tokayev might have turned to Russia for assistance because he feared not all his security forces would remain loyal if the agitation escalated, a British diplomat told VOA. In some smaller towns, he added, the police appeared to have sat out the protests, and in Aktobe, near the country's border with Russia, the police are reported to have sided with the protesters.

Armenia Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, the CSTO chair, said the forces would be committed "for a limited period, in order to stabilize and normalize the situation." And Stanislav Zas, secretary-general of the CSTO, said the outside forces would "minimize and localize threats" to Kazakhstan's territorial integrity. He, too, said the mission would be temporary.

Some Russian analysts and Kazakhs have warned the Russian deployment risks triggering further trouble. "Whoever took this decision has absolutely no understanding of the Kazakh mentality," Polat Dzhamalov, a Kazakh living in Moscow, told the independent TV Rain, an internet channel. "Kazakhs have never tolerated occupation."

Some Russian analysts have also emphasized the risks of Russian troops maintaining a longer-term presence and of being dragged into the unrest. "For now, this is less an armed intervention than a police operation," said Andrei Kortunov, head of the Russian International Affairs Council, a Kremlin-linked policy organization. "But if it drags on, consequences for Russia could mount up," he told the English-language newspaper The Moscow Times.

The United States, Britain and other Western countries have urged all sides to show restraint. "We are concerned about the violent clashes and are following developments closely. We are urging against further escalation and want to see a peaceful resolution," a spokesman for British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said.

Source: Voice of America