It is a hoax to refer to a "free press", and now the deception also includes "opposition parties". He perpetrates these hoaxes to lie and mislead ordinary citizens of Kazakhstan and the West.
Well, there is another scandal emerging now in Kazakhstan. Some leaders of the opposition are being accused by the authorities of contributing to a criminal felony. More specifically, a few years ago they sent an appeal to the government of Ukraine requesting it to grant political asylum to Yesentai Baisakov, an opposition activist and businessman. The most wanted personality is Tolen Tokhtasynov, who has been abroad for the last few months for medical reasons. With two years' experience as a political exile, what forecast would you envision in this case?
First I would like to correct you. My experience of political exile is not two years, actually. Might I remind you that my first clash with the corrupt regime happened in 1997. It was a big report by Arguments and Facts, a major newspaper of the Commonwealth of Independent States. It contained a detailed description of that conflict, which happened in Kazakhstan's embassy in Germany. When I took up my position as Minister in the embassy, I began to sort out documents and discovered that a significant amount of money was illegally appropriated and embezzled. There were threats and repression directed against me at the time. Secondly, after that conflict I was compelled to leave Kazakhstan for five years. I returned to Kazakhstan only after some mild warming that happened briefly in 2001.
Now, as to the case you have mentioned. I as a lawyer cannot comment on it as I am not aware of all the involved circumstances and facts. However, the style and motive, I assume, are pretty clear even for non-lawyers. The entire case appears to have been constructed to strangle the formation of an independent political force and personalities in Kazakhstan.
There is a need for the genuine opposition to unite in order to compel this inhumane regime to undertake systemic reform. This can be done only with the help of international democratic tools.
But we don't observe the unity of opposition within the opposition, both at home and abroad. Discontent among the leaders of opposition within Kazakhstan resembles discontent within the opposition abroad.
What exactly you mean? How does this discontent manifest itself?
I mean politicians who occupied various positions, but whose career paths never crossed. For example, Galymzhan Zhakiyanov and Rakhat Aliyev, who were in fact at the opposite sides of the political barricades. They are presently on one side. Or another example - Akezhan Kazhegeldin, a veteran of the Kazakh opposition. This year is the 10th anniversary of his political persecution. The number of opposition leaders in exile is growing, but they behave the same way they behaved in Kazakhstan.
First, all the individuals whom you mentioned are qualitatively different from one another by, so to speak, the reasons for their emigration from Kazakhstan. There were no formal political grounds for leaving Kazakhstan. This relates to Akezhan Kazhegeldin, Rakhat Aliyev and Galymzhan Zhakiyanov.
As to Rakhat Aliyev and Galymzhan Zhakiyanov, I think that both of them were part of the regime. One - Rakhat - was part of the repressive branch of the regime. Another - Galymzhan - was part of its political branch. Therefore they both have common ground on which they could find a common language. One can't present them as people who came out of different uniforms. They are all from the crib called "the Nazarbayev elite".
The same can be said about Akezhan Kazhegeldin. At the same time, every individual exiled opposition leader contributes in his unique way to dismantling the political regime that is presently in power in Kazakhstan
As to the unity of our positions, as you may recall last year there was a meeting in Strasbourg, which was attended by Akezhan Kazhegeldin, Serik Medetbekov - head of the foreign bureau of the Kazakh opposition - and myself. We discussed the current situation constructively and passed the Strasbourg Initiative. This was the starting point of complete reform, more specifically the radical reformation of Kazakhstan's constitution.
To sum up, then, in spite of the rumours that are spread by the presidential Administration, in this regard we have a common view. We have all worked on the draft of a new constitution. It is presently being examined in European and American universities. I believe that it will be the solid platform uniting our efforts.
Thank you.
Interviewed by Yerzhan Karabek
KHAN NURSULTAN [NAZARBAYEV] TEMPTS EUROPE
Gazeta Wyborcza (Poland)
26 June 2008
"In striving for the chairmanship in the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, our regime has deceived the democratic community". "For the West, Kazakhstan is just a raw-material colony. It is not embarrassed by a dictator...as long as he sells oil" - says an opposition leader from Kazakhstan, who is the Chairman of the Atameken Party, Yerzhan Dosmukhamedov.
Yerzhan Dosmukhamedov states that he was relieved after his retirement from a diplomatic post in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and refused further service to President Nursultan Nazarbayev. He has never been surprised at the President's generosity. By tempting young reformers through material wealth and titles, the old sovereign tames them for many years.
No more bribes!
Maybe he would also let himself be bought. After graduation in law from St. Petersburg State University and his return to the country, he was offered diplomatic work. He left for Germany to work in the Kazakh embassy. In Germany, there are many emigrants from Kazakhstan - the descendants of exiled Germans - thousands of whom headed to Germany after the collapse of the Communist empire.
"The embassy and Consulate in Germany had an almost unlimited budget for representative expenses", recalls Dr. Dosmukhamedov. "Diplomats used this money as their own bank accounts. When I noticed it I was told not to get embarrassed, and do what everybody else did".
Dr. Dosmukhamedov wrote to headquarters, and after the scandal he raised he was recalled to the country. Rejected from diplomatic work for the spurious reason of retirement, and after appealing to the courts, Dr. Dosmukhamedov quit his diplomatic post and went abroad to proceed with a legal career. At St. Petersburg, Oxford, Dallas and Yale he studied law and completed his Ph.D. Five years later he returned to Kazakhstan. Soon he became a legal advisor in the national company KazMunaiGaz, managed by the President's son-in-law, Timur Kulibayev. This position could have provided a very comfortable life. He also became one of the leaders of the National Union of employers and entrepreneurs of Kazakhstan - Atameken ("The land of the ancestors"). But meetings and talks with entrepreneurs and farmers suggested to him the necessity of creating a political party.
"Corruption and nepotism is a pathology, which in Kazakhstan has became a norm", Dr. Dosmukhamedov says. "Parasitical bureaucracy is gaining weight thanks to businessmen and farmers, who have to waste three-quarters of their salaries on presents and bribes for the bureaucratic army, which through millions of licenses, permits and certificates suffocate the entrepreneur. At a certain moment, we decided that it would be more useful to create our own party for the protection of middle-class interests than to waste money on avaricious officials".
Old guard stopped half way
While talking with Dr. Dosmukhamedov, I had a strong feeling that I knew him. Elegant, well bred, with refined manners, he spoke in an even voice about Kazakhstan, its sovereign, about the necessity of change and the reasons preventing its realization. In a moment I realized that we had never met before, but he reminded me of 30-40-year-old dissidents, reformers and revolutionaries whom I had met before in Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Pakistan, Uganda and Nigeria.
